Earthstar Forums

We had our (and I think it is the biggest in Canada) ultralight convention this weekend.
Greg Evans from Montreal (Odyssey) and me Fred Gayford of Cambridge Ontario ( JT2) represented the Earthstar line of aircraft. We did a lot of demonstration flights even when it was too windy for others.
We answered a million questions and promoted the excellent points of the design.
The producers of the aviation TV series "The Aviators" were there and a interview was done on my JT2.(The producer made sure the Earthstar name showed load and clear)
The director wanted me to take him up to get some shots with him in my JT2 during some flybys. (I didn't tell him I have a grand total of 56 hours under my belt)
The firsts flyby was at about 2 feet off the ground the length of the runway 2000 feet.
The second run was at 112 mph at about 3 feet and a nice pull up elevator ride in front of the camera. should look nice, the camera man said he nailed it.
The third pass was with full flaps and I floated just above the grass for about 600 feet and touched down like a feather.
Everyone I talked with was amazed at the fast speed of my plane and the capability of such slow speed with and without a passenger.

Greg and I did a 5 1/2 hour flight a few days before the convention. (2 gas stops) It was my first time going that far and getting gas on route. I learned a lot and have gained alot of confidence. Most of the time we were following the shore of lake Erie. We went right out to Point Peilly and then north. Then home again. These are some warm up skills to prepare going across Canada someday.
Fred the Aviator finally!

Fred! Excellent!
I'll make sure I DVR the show!
John

Good for you Fred. Sounds like a great experience, and a great sales job for
Earthstar. I hope they broadcast the Gull shots.

When you say you flew with full flaps, do you mean third notch flaps in our JT2
Gulls? Or do you mean Mark's special version of full flaps? I still haven't used
more than two notches and really prefer one notch for takeoff and for most
landings.

I returned from my motorhome trip to Oshkosh with an EIS 2000 to put in my
panel. I spent 3 1/2 days redesigning and rebuilding my panel and I'm within a
day of getting into the air again. But before I could finish, my
part-time employer, FEMA, called and told me to go to Nebraska to write press
releases on the disaster recovery from Missouri River flooding. So my Gull
awaits my return sometime this fall.

Before I started dismantling the panel, however, I did fly and ended up parked
on El Mirage lakebed all alone (really alone - not a plane, car, ATV or anything
at the lake that week day. Beautiful flying and landing, but couldn't get more
than 4,000 rpm when I tried to take off.

I called Bob Comperini of www.fly-ul.com, with whom I'd flown to Big Bear Lake
(elev about 6,500 ft.) earlier in the day in his EuroFox. He recalled a time in
his old Quicksilver on another hot day when he had a similar experience and
traced it to a too-rich mixture. He suggested letting the engine cool down, try
restarting and if I could take off, stay over the lakebed until I had confidence
I could make it safely the 15 miles back to the airport. It worked out and I got
off and back just fine. We pulled the plugs when I returned and they showed a
rich mixture, but not fouled.

A few days later I did a complete recalibration of my Rotax High Altitude
Compensator system, which I had adjusted last September, and discovered that I
had not done it properly before. The result of the error was an over-rich
mixture, as in sea-level HAC compensation at 6,000 ft. density altitude. The
"error" was not being agressive enough in loosening the sealed adjustment screw
for the compensator's diaphram.  This time I removed the screw and found out how
far the compensating pin actually could move. After that it was easy to create
full deflection of the pin with suction, replace the screw and then carefully
adjust it for that day's density altitude, which was about 6100 feet.  I think
the engine will perform much better when I get to fly again. And the EIS will
provide digital readings of the temperatures, rpm, and rate of climb with which
to monitor it.

I'm now also convinced that the precautionary landing I made on El Mirage in
late April and recorded on video, "Diagnose This", on YouTube, was at least
partly caused by an over-rich mixture. I was flying at a density altitude of at
least 8,000 feet when that episode happened.

(If any of you have the HAC system, Green SkyAdventures website has good
information about how it works and how to service it. But they don't indicate
how agressive you really need to be to adjust it.  Lockwood Aviation's
catalog lists the HAC system as a Rotax part, for nearly $1,000, which doesn't
include the cost of carburetors or air cleaner. Apparently it once was common
and inexpensive equipment on snowmobiles, but fuel injected engines on modern
snowmobiles have made it too costly to manufacture new compensators just for the
ultralight aircraft market that uses Rotax engines with Bing 54 carbs. I know
that the unit on my Gull was installed prior to 1999 when the plane was
purchased by its second owner, from which I bought the plane last year.)

I did discover last September that the carbs had standard sea level jets (158)
and the HAC was so far out of adjustment that it couldn't make any difference in
the mixture. Thus my plane had flown, apparently for years, with sea level
jetting and operated just fine from my 3,230-ft altitude airport, where
temperatures are often in the 95-100 range in spring, summer and fall. Maybe I
should never have touched the carbs. Instead I installed the 185 jets called for
with the HAC installed and accidentally assured that my mixture would be too
rich by failing to properly adjust the HAC compensator.

Dick O'Reilly

Hi Dick
Glad you made it home ok.
Yes I used full flaps. The bottom most hole. I need to get down in speed to 50 mph and switch hands on the stick for a moment and pull it down. Its starting to come more natural to do this wuth practice. As soon as I get it in I switch hands and put the nose down to get about 60 mph to the deck. If you haven't tried it yet you will find it comes in so soft on landing. I use the first hole for takeoff and landings if there is much head wind or cross wind.
I had the same low rpm happen to me on a hot day. and yes it was too rich.
I changed the main jet and it ran great.
If they broadcast the JT2 section (and I know they were excited about it) a zillion people will see it in action.
Mark may have to resurrect a new updated JT2 plus.
Fred

Dick
Sounds to me like you're really getting that 503 dialed in.
I had a HAC on the used Odyssey I bought with an HKS, which Mark is renovating. It added complexity that I didn't need and I asked him to remove it.
Have fun in Nebraska!
John