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Bought Patrol plans a couple years ago and went to community college to learn to Tig weld. In mean time I found a pre war Chief that I have been working on. I keep coming back to the patrol because of experimental aspect. I wish the patrol kits were more like the RVs
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"I wish the patrol kits were more like the RVs". In what way? What do you mean? Mark -
How long until you have your prewar Chief flying? I have a prewar Chief too. The Chief is an excellent prep airplane before flying the Patrol or Bearhawk. If you feel comfortable flying a Chief you'll feel comfortable in a Patrol or Bearhawk.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by your comment that you wish the patrol kits were more like the RVs? I’m not one of the thousands that have prior experience with an RV but the scratch build or kit build Patrol or Bearhawk doesn’t seem that complicated. I’ve never found there to be a lack of assistance when I had a question. If you’re restoring a Chief then you will already be familiar with what it takes to build a Patrol or Bearhawk. I reference my Chief all the time during my build.
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Mark,
I ripped this from the RV site,
~~But the biggest improvement – some might call it revolutionary – in Standard Kits is the introduction of "matched-hole" components. Made possible by advances in tools and techniques, components are now supplied with all the fastener holes punched …and punched so accurately that the need for assembly jigs is eliminated. When the holes line up, the component must be straight!
This is the RV kit attribute that I was referring to. It is between scratch build and quick build . Could the rib and spar kit be predrilled with matching skins ? The labor is shifted to me but the quality of the build is maintained .
Wayne,
My Chief is quite a ways from completion. I have been following Rafael's restoration and have been collecting parts. I found a parts plane on Barnstormers which should help me considerably as it was ratty but assembled. When I bought the Chief, I was thinking it was basically a quick build - frame complete, wing frame put together, landing gear . I wasn't prepared for the complexity and detail of a project of this scope but I have learned a lot. I grew up on an Iowa farm but have made a living building embedded controls for turbomachinery. I need to lose some of the anal properties of an engineer and return to the farmer I was before.
I bought a Luscombe 8A/E a couple of years ago and learned tailwheel in it. I traded it for a Cessna 180 this summer and have transitioned to it. We are losing our grass strip airport to the gravel company so I am trying to consolidate airplanes and sell my Mooney M20J.
Paul Reinke
'77 M20J (for sale !)
'65 C180H
'38 Aeronca Chief - project
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Hi Paul. That matched hole technology is very nice. Our QB wings are the same even though it is done by humans and not a $400,000 machine. We can not pre drill skins and then be sure they will work out. Too many variables including the leading edge bend. All our parts are match drilled while building just like the early RV8 kit (slow build) that I put together. MarkComment
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