Just Bought Murphy Rebel

[Brad Sablosky]

My name is Brad and I've been listening in on things for awhile. I had
a few questions about my new plane that I thought you guys might be
able to help me with.

It was completed in 2001 by John Fickler in Florida, has an 0-320 and
seems to be well built. I have about 15 hours in it with the former
owner and with an instructor and am slowly getting the hang of tail
dragger flying.

My questions:

The former owner disconnected the Flaperon control so that when you
lower the flaps there is no deflection of the ailerons. The plane
obviously has a higher stall speed and to me seems hard to really get
it set on a nice approach speed. We are flying final at 70mph and then
65 over the threshold. My instructor is all for leaving things the way
it is while I am learning the plane, but I can't help but think the
plane may behave way better with them connected. What do you guys
think?

Also, the flaps seem to have alot of play in them. Some seems to come
from how the linkage is bolted to the sheet metal above the doors. With
the flaps down as you move the flaps up and down with your hand there
is probably 3 inches of travel and no hard end point. Also the sheet
metal above the door flexes as does the vertical support. Is there
something missing there? It just doesn't seem right.

Thanks for your help,
Brad




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[Wayne G. O'Shea]

U probably don't want to hear what I have to say...LOL....

Take your inboard flaps off...de-rivet the shorter "horned" end plate and
rivet on new full size horn plates to match what is on your ailerons. Swap
the inboard units side for side and join them to the existing ailerons (at
the rod end bolt) to make full wing flaperons.

Remove the push pull tubes in the wing root fairings (that ran the flaps)
and modify the mixer cable attach horn on the flap shaft so that it gives
you full travel at the mixer arm....so that you get about 18 to 21 degrees
down and at least 7 degrees negative flaperon (14 is preferable if you can
achieve) and I think you'll be much happier with the slow flight/short field
results. If my memory is working today, which sometimes it's not lately,
full travel is about 1 & 13/16" for the mixer arm just in front of the
retainer plates.

Cheers,
Wayne

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad Sablosky" <bradslob@frontier.net>
To:
<rebel-builders@dcsol.comrebel-builders@dcsol.comrebel-builders@dcsol.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 11:00 AM
Subject: Just Bought Murphy Rebel

My name is Brad and I've been listening in on things for awhile. I had
a few questions about my new plane that I thought you guys might be
able to help me with.

It was completed in 2001 by John Fickler in Florida, has an 0-320 and
seems to be well built. I have about 15 hours in it with the former
owner and with an instructor and am slowly getting the hang of tail
dragger flying.

My questions:

The former owner disconnected the Flaperon control so that when you
lower the flaps there is no deflection of the ailerons. The plane
obviously has a higher stall speed and to me seems hard to really get
it set on a nice approach speed. We are flying final at 70mph and then
65 over the threshold. My instructor is all for leaving things the way
it is while I am learning the plane, but I can't help but think the
plane may behave way better with them connected. What do you guys
think?

Also, the flaps seem to have alot of play in them. Some seems to come
from how the linkage is bolted to the sheet metal above the doors. With
the flaps down as you move the flaps up and down with your hand there
is probably 3 inches of travel and no hard end point. Also the sheet
metal above the door flexes as does the vertical support. Is there
something missing there? It just doesn't seem right.

Thanks for your help,
Brad




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[Bob Patterson]

Hi Brad !

I really think you'll be a lot happier with full flapperons,
and the original flap handle (with a 45 degree dogleg) ! Pulling
them down is a 2 finger operation, and they work very well.

There will still be a certain about of 'flex' in the
flapperons, but your fuselage side should not be flexing !!
You may well be correct - this certainly doesn't sound like
a proper setup. Can you tell us where your empty C of G is ??

To paraphrase Obi Wan - "Use the power of the ARCHIVES" !
If you SEARCH on content, you will find TONS of information
on Rebel flapperons, and approach techniques. It may take a bit
of experimenting with different "keywords", but the information
Mike stores here is priceless !! :-)

.......bobp

-------------------------------orig.-------------------------
On Sunday 27 November 2005 11:00 am, Brad Sablosky wrote:

My name is Brad and I've been listening in on things for awhile. I had
a few questions about my new plane that I thought you guys might be
able to help me with.

It was completed in 2001 by John Fickler in Florida, has an 0-320 and
seems to be well built. I have about 15 hours in it with the former
owner and with an instructor and am slowly getting the hang of tail
dragger flying.

My questions:

The former owner disconnected the Flaperon control so that when you
lower the flaps there is no deflection of the ailerons. The plane
obviously has a higher stall speed and to me seems hard to really get
it set on a nice approach speed. We are flying final at 70mph and then
65 over the threshold. My instructor is all for leaving things the way
it is while I am learning the plane, but I can't help but think the
plane may behave way better with them connected. What do you guys
think?

Also, the flaps seem to have alot of play in them. Some seems to come
from how the linkage is bolted to the sheet metal above the doors. With
the flaps down as you move the flaps up and down with your hand there
is probably 3 inches of travel and no hard end point. Also the sheet
metal above the door flexes as does the vertical support. Is there
something missing there? It just doesn't seem right.

Thanks for your help,
Brad




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