However you builders do it - sling, fiberglass, wood, aluminum, combination of these, whatever - do a good job making it in such a way that there will never be any possibility of something tearing loose or breaking. There's been several instances of seats breaking during high-G pull-outs - showing off in front of a crowd at a fly-in or just doing one down the runway on a Saturday afternoon. Taking a passenger for a ride and giving them a little thrill with the speed and unusual sensation of feeling gravity tugging at you as the pilot pulls some G's on climb-out after the pass. If the seat is not strong enough to withstand the G's it can break or tear loose from it's attachment point and the weight comes down on the control wires.
Sparky witnessed this happening at one of the early fly-in's. I want to say "Pope Valley" as the location but Sparky would know for sure. Somebody (Sparky remembers their names and was there and has a better memory than me in any case) . . . somebody was giving somebody else a thrill ride and they both ended up dead, right in front of everyone. I've heard of KR seat failure causing this type of accident on several other occasions. It's only thanks to the good luck I've always had with flying that it didn't happen to me when retrieving my new plane from Omaha. I have an aluminum seat that was originally attached to the front spar with eight screws. After getting the plane back to SEE from MLE, I was horrified to discover the seat bottom was hanging by two remaining screws with very elongated holes. Over the years preceeding this flight, the seat had pulled loose from the other six screws and was barely hanging with the remaining two. Had I encountered just one good solid thump when flying over those mountains of Wyoming and Utah I wouldn't be writing this now. I used up a trememdous amount of luck on that trip. However you design your seats, it's extremely important that it be built so strongly that what has happened to others and almost happened to me, can never happen. It might take many years down the road for it to surprise someone but if the seat is built with this possibility in mind it should never happen. I not only have re-attached my aluminum seat bottom as Ken Cottle originally built it, but have also put spacers between the floor of the fuselage and the bottom of the seat. These spacers make it impossible for the seat to ever drop onto the cables. This I did very early on after getting the plane home. Also re-built the seat back which was mangled beyond recognition. I've also put spacers below my baggage insert behind the seat. Ken built an aluminum channel into the insert that protects the cables from contact but I've put spacers between the bottom of the insert and the floor of the fuselage just to help support the insert and whatever I happen to have in it. I do load that thing up when travelling and it's so odd - it hardly has any effect at all on CG, even with the header tank almost empty. I still don't understand how that could be but the weight in the back is hardly noticible. Takes a little longer to get the tail up when taking off, and makes it easier to get the tail down when landing, otherwise there's very little difference. I vividly recall what a bear my first KR was with two people in it. Extremely aft CG with dramatic consequences in stick sensitivity - but that has not been the case with N335KC. Of course, I never have two people in this single place airplane but the extra weight I do put in it goes to the rear instead of next to me so you'd think it would result in similar unpleasant flight characteristics. But nope, it flies pretty much like normal no matter how much stuff I stick back there. Don't know why. It's just a nice flying plane. I recently replaced one of the baggage insert spacers with a spare tire and tube - something I should have done a long time ago. Tear up a tire when on the road and finding a tire the right size can take some days. As I'm writing this I'm realizing I ought to put another tire and tube on the other side - put something useful there instead of an otherwise useless spacer. That tire is not doing any good sitting in the hangar so might as well use it as a spacer. Actually I can put both - tires and spacers - to help support the baggage insert so that's now on my to-do list. Speaking of my to-do list, the subject of re-torqueing head studs came up some months back and even though a local VW shop fundi told me head studs don't need to be re-torqued once the VW is put back together, when the subject came up on this forum quite a while back I thought to myself why not check my stud bolts? I eventually did. The old VW fundi was correct. I had two studs about half a click loose - in other words, instead of 18 ft. lbs. they were probably at 17. This was after about 100 hours of operation since I'd put the heads back on. You have to take the rocker arm shafts off to get to all the studs so it's a bit of a hassle since, when you put them back on, you have to let them settle after running the engine an hour or two and then re-check valve clearances. So my conclusion with the Type 1 VW is that head studs aren't going to loosen up anytime soon after initially being torqued. I'd guess they'll go at least 200 hours without any attention but at some point down the road ought to be checked. They're not a critical issue as they are with some engines. I mention all this stuff just because many builders are in various stages of their projects and I'm thinking something I might mention might be of use. Just like everyone else on the forum I learn something new all the time. What a great resource this forum is and how extremely well-done the archives are designed and maintained - especially the unusually precise search functions. Thanks Mark. Please let us know when it's time for some maintenance money. Mike KSEE ____________________________________________________________ Meet the Graviteers: Ezekiel Victor My name is Zeke! I find it hard to pick favorites because I get sick of too much of one thing. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/56132f5e578802f5e2eddst02vuc
