Thorp Air Command - T18.net

I’m making steady progress in phase 1. 6 hours done, 34 to go. I’ll have more availability after next week. Still planning on having the airplane at Kentucky dam.





The airplane flies well, now have most of the electronics talking and playing together.
It’s all you can hope when it flies straight, shows no bad habits and it fun to fly.

Details and numbers to follow

Terry

Beautiful photos Terry. Gotta be a good feeling for it to fly just the way you expected.

Terry
If I recall correctly, you had your oil cooler mounted just in front of the cowl exit. It seems to me that would be a great location for the cooler to really draw the air through the cooler on the way out of the cowl exit. I'm really curious to hear your oil temp numbers, as I may follow your lead on my project.

Terry,

That's a beautiful photo over Destin. Are you based at DTS? That's a solid one-leg flight to KY Dam.

Airplane lives at FL17. North side of destin. 3500 grass strip.
KY dam would be a one stopper in southern tenn. ky dam has no fuel. Not a good idea to show up empty.

I continue to make progress on phase 1. Now up to 11 hours. I’ve found that my idea to use a plenum for cooling is less than ideal. As I had now experience in designing one...I’m lacking enough air going into the plenum. My #3and 4 run warmish at mp above 21 inches. (430 and 418) which also makes the oil warm - 233. But phase one continues at ‘lower fuel burn’ settings. My other ‘issue’ is the angle that my piper blade pitot is mounted. Indicated airspeed at the lower end is off by 25 kts. On takeoff the tail is up and it’s just coming off the ground while indicating 48 knots. I’m in the process of rakeing the probe backwards so the it’s at a 90 degree angle with the bottom of the wing. If I had used static ports on the side of the fuselage I doubt this would be an issue. Indicated airspeed is pretty accurate on the upper end as proved by various speeds while in formation with a V35.
Another few hours should yield a bug free Thorp.

Finished the year with 21.4 hours on the airplane. Resigned that there’s not enough time to finish Phase 1 and get it painted by Sedona. So I’ve done some decorating in leiu of paint

Are the Thorp Air Command stickers still available? Mine are looking a little weathered.

Ira made those and he has vacated the premises. I think I still have mine if someone wants to use it to copy.
Cubes

Since I won’t be able to fly off the remaining phase 1 AND get the airplane painted before April- I’ve added additional graphics....

I like that.

Terry,
Do you have any photos of your aileron trim tab actuator installation that you could share? I'm going to reskin my ailerons and thinking about a trim tab installation at that time.

Thanks,

_________________
Bruce Finney
N18JF T-18C #262
Auburn, WA USA

I use a Ray Allen actuator buried in the aileron. The tab itself is about the size of a dollar bill , or in Rich's case, a one hundred dollar bill.

_________________
Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL

A hundred dollar bill doesn't buy what it use to so I glued together (2) $100.00 bills ! I could only find (1) pic of the install . I put the tab on the outboard side of the left aileron . I also cut out the bottom of the aileron and mounted the servo to a cover plate to make removal repair possible . Also the linkage is buried inside the aileron , nothing exposed outside the skin . Almost 10 years of trouble free flying with the servo .

RB

Very similar to my setup. The importance of the left verses the right is you can see it to set it from the driver's seat.

_________________
Bob Highley
N711SH
SN 835
KLAL