Thorp Air Command - T18.net

Okay, I'm impatient. Erin's pics are too good not to share so I am not waiting for her to delete the "blurry" ones. You can speed by those ones yourself. Check out her link below. (The dusty runway in the pics are due to a 100yr flood a month ago that brought in a bunch of caliche mud across the runway.) Thanks for capturing these, Erin!!


"So fun to be a part of the Thorp gathering this weekend. Thank you so much for being amazing hosts!

Here is the initial photo dump. I will get around to cleaning out the blurry ones by the end of the week. Please share.
https://goo.gl/photos/9QbP9rRxBnyhGTTBA

Blue skies & best wishes,
Erin"


Here's a short video of the Sunset 3-ship formation that closed a terrific day.

Apologies – I was too busy posting Erin’s link that I forgot to respond to Ira’s question regarding electronic ignitions.
I upgraded to the latest generation (4th) of ElectroAir’s Electronic Ignition System, the EIS-4 MTH for experimental (http://www.electroair.net/experimental_ ... _kits.html) . MANY years ago I bought an early system (generation 1) from the company founder, Jeff Rose. It worked great for many years but eventually had a failure. I sent it in for evaluation/repair and learned that it was BER (beyond economical repair). Basically, it was so old the current company doesn’t even have parts to support that original system any longer.

The system has a Mag Timing module that replaces the right mag. I put the Coil Pack and the MAP sensor on the firewall and the EIS Controller is mounted inside under the pax right knee. The Gen1 EIS didn’t have the requirement to mount the Controller inside so I had it on the firewall, as well. I thought I was going to have a difficult time finding space inside the cockpit to fit the EIS Controller. But it’s as if the Controller was sized to fit on the Main Beam between the upper and lower Spar Caps. Hidden and well protected. And No, I didn’t drill through the main beam – I epoxied on some ClickBond #10 studs and attached the EIS Controller to that.

It’s an induction-based system so you don’t have spark noise issues in your comm system. I watched Lyle Trusty chase spark noise for a LONG time after he installed a capacitance-based system (Light Speed) in his T-18. His solution was to install shielded wire practically everywhere.

Performance is great. When I start on Left Mag only and am idling at 700-ish, when I flip on the EIS it smooths out noticeably and idles about 75 RPM higher. The system advances timing as your altitude increases. At 12,500’ MSL it was indicating 45 degrees. I haven’t done that much cross country but it appears it’s saving me close to a gallon per hour at high cruise settings.

ElectroAir changed hands a bunch of years back and the new owner, Mike, is really growing the business and now has units for certified aircraft. I hope to have their 6-cylinder unit on my Cessna 180H someday. I just need to convince my wife to get a second job so I can put electronic ignition and many other great new upgrades to that plane!!

Merry Christmas!! -- Tony