I think that worked out good sleeving past the strut junction. There is a stress concentration there at the junction, but the stress falls off sharply past that point. This is off the top of my head and don't know your gross weight, but is important in my opinion to have it sleeved beyond the junction until your tubing yield strength is 1.5x under your maximum stress value at 4g. Nice craftsmanship, and I hope you have many happy years flying it!
@pwn3ddotus, Thanks for the compliments! The engines are where you find them, Saturn Surplus has some new in the crate kinda pricy and they have 1 govenment rebuilt for $1000. Join A084 experimenters Yahoo group and search/ask there are lots of these around, was a bunch in OKC a while back expect to spend $300 for a used one, in flying trim about 125lb with no charging system. The fuse was welded first and the main gussets are riveted with 1/4" BANG rivets at the bolt locations in the plans
Looks like excellent workmanship all around! I was wondering if you could help me with a couple things as I start pricing out parts and materials... Where'd you get the engine? What's it weigh? I see you riveted your fuselage, what size and spacing did you use?
I made the gear but have access to a fairly big press brake still a very iffy deal that HIGHLY relies on the brace cables! which are designed to fail first and then let the rest of the gear soften the rest of the CRASH The diference between having a decent gear under your plane will not weigh much but could save our life
Front spar is 2" .058 wall sleeved full length with 1 7/8" .058 Rear is 1 1/2" .058 full length sleeved with 1 3/8 .058 It was stupid to sleeve past the strut attach point but I had a big argument with ACS to get them to ship the tubes telescoped together I guess they had to try several tubes to find ones that fit even though they should easily' They didnt want to move easily so I left em full length and paid the prolly 3 lb weight penalty
The rear part of the fuse uses 3/4x1/8 square tube diagonals and all the gussets are different and custom made with 3/16 SS rivets with 1" spacing 14 guage if I remember right on the tail boom gussets. The whole fuse was re drawn using Deltacad and the firewall was moved back 2" and the front gussets re drawn to fit. If I had it to do over I would have moved it 4" but I'm only 5'10" also stretched the tailboom 3" and mounted the fin effectivly 1" further back than the plans for a 4" stretch.
Yes, back when you built your Aplane, it was too heavy to be Part 103, but the updated plans are capable of it. My question to you is How are the SS 3/16 Rivets Holding up? Any sign of loosening, and Corrosion?
Very cool plane, I have a question, I would like to build one of these but I would like to increase the wingspan to be that of a super goat homebuilt glider, the aircraft look similar, do you think it would be possible to increase the span to 36 feet from 27?
I am building a "one-off" lsa taildragger,very similar to the A-plane. Could you tell me what thickness,material,and width you used in your mlg?(landing gear width).Also, are you pretty much pleased with the landing results? Would you do anything different on this gear...and why?What is the TRACK of your gear? Thanks for any help you can give.bob
I like the landing gear did you make it or special order it as I bought affordaplane and the guy did crapy work so I am totally rebuilding the plane rather be safe than sorry. You plane is a great piece of work I really love it.
@regnidak, short answer no, long answer: its impossible to make 103 with this plane as drawn and I did a lot of beefing things up for the heavy engine and inexperienced pilot LOL. I was well along in the build before I found out that they dont make 103 weight. PS when you start modifying things you open a BIG can of worms!!!
awesome looking airplane! A friend put a plane built with the gussets like yours in a lake after an engine out. Not a bent tube in the whole thing. Now i'm sold on aluminum gussets. What size tube are your front and back spar?
well.. if you follow this plane much you will discover you cant build one under 254 at all period the end, sorry! Mine is heavily overbuilt in places with a heavy engine and landing gear and weighs over 460 lb.
I would like to build a trike ultra light first then go to a fixed wing like a legal eagle or a cobra gold wing ultra light I do like your plane I wish it was lighter to meet part 103
@@gentharris nice! You said that you used 1x2 instead of 2x2 0.125 aluminium square tubing for the main structure? I know that plans call for 2x2 0.125" thick aluminium square tubing, but do you reckon one could get away with 2x2 x 0.8 inches thick to save some weight? Also going with 1x2 0.125 seems interesting, didnt think of that.
Much lighter construction that requires a lot more skill and tools to produce and a LOT more time. The only thing the Aplane has going for it is ease of construction and somewhat cheaper materials. If I had known what I know now starting out I would have thrown the Affordaplane plans in the trash and built the Legal Eagle. PS if you have a part that you think you need on your plane and you throw it up in the air and it doesn't stay there try and figure out a way to leave it out LOL
gentharris, hi sir. Are you still flying this plane? I have partially built one and you are the only person I have found that actually built and flew one.
