Float Hatch and Rigging
Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:48 pm
Sent again, with a proper subject, so it can be searched!
Wayne
----- Original Message ----- From: Wayne G. O'Shea (oifa@irishfield.on.ca)
To: murphy-rebel@dcsol.com (murphy-rebel@dcsol.com)
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: Cowling
Curt, I will send you a couple shots of Howard's "hatch" to the "step area" compartment and his aluminum lids (will upload to the list later). He made a hatch that fit between the bulkhead and false bulkhead former. He also replaced all those damn black plastic spin on lids with .040 aluminum ones. You don't need in there when using pump out cups, except to dry them out really good in the fall for winter storage (or repairs), so why put up with the plastic ones breaking etc and making the nice shinny floats looks shitty!
I don't see any reason that you can't cut out the top area of a false former to give you a big enough hatch to get a small fuel can etc, into the float compartment. The step area compartment is the best one, as you could put a couple cedar planks across the half bulkheads to make a nice dry platform for anything you want to put in there. If you do cut the false former though, I would suggest "boxing" underneath the holes edges with 3/4 x 3/4 x.125 angle to replace the strength and to make a good strong hatch mounting so it can be stepped on etc.
Just told a guy last week that you can just squeeze through a 10 foot opening on Amphibs. Blocks underneath will raise her a little bit more! The tail or a cabin roof mounted whip antenna dictates the clearance required! (Keep that in mind if you are just building and installing antenna's and have a short hanger! If short put the antenna on the cone)
When installing the floats, just make sure you get everything parallel/square,etc. to each other. Retract the gear and block the floats at the flat step area. Try to get the float decks at 0.0 degrees lengthwise and side to side. This will make it much easier to make sure your aircraft is mounted at the correct angle to the floats and not sitting "cock eyed". FWIW we mounted Howard's floats with his aircraft 2 degrees nose up in relation to the leveled float deck. Like everything else on the Rebel, this 2 degrees nose up was measured with a digital level on the outside bottom of the cabin floor. This "angle of attack" of the wing, in relation to the floats, seems to work good for him. Get the front struts pegged in place first and then play with the rear ones. I think there are a couple good pictures of this on my services page, under float installations.
See ya Sunday!?
Wayne G. O'Shea
www.irishfield.on.ca
Wayne
----- Original Message ----- From: Wayne G. O'Shea (oifa@irishfield.on.ca)
To: murphy-rebel@dcsol.com (murphy-rebel@dcsol.com)
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: Cowling
Curt, I will send you a couple shots of Howard's "hatch" to the "step area" compartment and his aluminum lids (will upload to the list later). He made a hatch that fit between the bulkhead and false bulkhead former. He also replaced all those damn black plastic spin on lids with .040 aluminum ones. You don't need in there when using pump out cups, except to dry them out really good in the fall for winter storage (or repairs), so why put up with the plastic ones breaking etc and making the nice shinny floats looks shitty!
I don't see any reason that you can't cut out the top area of a false former to give you a big enough hatch to get a small fuel can etc, into the float compartment. The step area compartment is the best one, as you could put a couple cedar planks across the half bulkheads to make a nice dry platform for anything you want to put in there. If you do cut the false former though, I would suggest "boxing" underneath the holes edges with 3/4 x 3/4 x.125 angle to replace the strength and to make a good strong hatch mounting so it can be stepped on etc.
Just told a guy last week that you can just squeeze through a 10 foot opening on Amphibs. Blocks underneath will raise her a little bit more! The tail or a cabin roof mounted whip antenna dictates the clearance required! (Keep that in mind if you are just building and installing antenna's and have a short hanger! If short put the antenna on the cone)
When installing the floats, just make sure you get everything parallel/square,etc. to each other. Retract the gear and block the floats at the flat step area. Try to get the float decks at 0.0 degrees lengthwise and side to side. This will make it much easier to make sure your aircraft is mounted at the correct angle to the floats and not sitting "cock eyed". FWIW we mounted Howard's floats with his aircraft 2 degrees nose up in relation to the leveled float deck. Like everything else on the Rebel, this 2 degrees nose up was measured with a digital level on the outside bottom of the cabin floor. This "angle of attack" of the wing, in relation to the floats, seems to work good for him. Get the front struts pegged in place first and then play with the rear ones. I think there are a couple good pictures of this on my services page, under float installations.
See ya Sunday!?
Wayne G. O'Shea
www.irishfield.on.ca
----- Original Message -----
From: Rebflyer@aol.com (Rebflyer@aol.com)
To: murphy-rebel@dcsol.com (murphy-rebel@dcsol.com)
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: Cowling
Hi Wayne,
I'm nearing the end of the float project, and one question keeps coming
to mind as
I look at the top deck and ponder the type of access covers I'm going to
install. Why can't the former just forward of the rear spreader attach point
( g/h bulkhead) be removed if the proper strength is added? Have you
approached that? I'm no engineer and the possibility that I may overlook a
compression factor or a load spreading reason has stopped me from doing that.
Any idea's? I've got a couple of automotive engineers I can bug, but I
trust your judgement a little more. I think you had commented that you were
going to look at somthing like that on Howards floats. It seems you could add
chine rail material and make a nice rectangular access hole around a foot
long, tabbing the former to the chine material. Thanks in advance for your
imput. Also, any things to beware of in the float to airplane rigging? I'm
going to raise the aircraft on wing jacks desigined to raise cessnas for
retract tests. That should give me the ability to raise or lower each side
very carefully. That reminds me of another Question. I think the tail is
about 10' 6" on the float's, but how high to the top of the wings at the
tips? I might have a clearance problem in the workshop hanger. The tail will
clear ok, I'm just not sure about the wingtips
Thanks again for the time you spent giving your imput. They sure
are fun to fly, and keeping that safe is great for all of us. Curt N97MR