I recently bought a pair of Federal A 1500 skis to use on my '58 Champion 7EC Champ. They allegedly were used on a Champ previously. The bungees were in good repair, but the bungees and the front safety cables were rigged to a single tab on the toe of the ski. Also the bushings were the wrong size for my axles.
I have since been scouring the archives on anything related to ski-flying a Champ. I must admit I am now worried about using skis with the No Bounce oleo gear. My gear is in good repair...am I crazy for going forward with rigging my Champ with skis? I will be re-doing the rigging with separate tabs on the toes of the skis for bungees with crust cutters and new safety cables. If all goes well, I will put plastic on the bottoms for next season. For now I may try the duct tape idea!
Should I abandon this folly? I will not replace my gear just to indulge in a few days of ski flying each year. (Unless I bend my gear by not heeding the advice of the sages on this forum...) Any comments from the ski flyers would be appreciated!
We spent 10 years in Rhinebeck, NY. During winter, ski's were on for 3-4 months straight. It's worth it.
So I'd go ahead and do it, but pick your days and pick the snow conditions. Hard crusty snow will pound you hard, while a little bit of powder or smooth ice will be a little easier on you and the airplane.
DRP,
Try this site: treetopflyers.org Seems to be good information on there.
I have a set of 1850's and a tail ski for my Champ but I haven't used them for a couple of years. (1) I have Good Year brakes and it's a pain to remove the brakes and wheels with those expensive ($$$) clips especially in cold weather. (2) Getting the plane in and out is almost a two man job. I built a wheel setup to help move it around on skis but it's still tough once you're out in the deep snow. (3) Ski flying is fun with lots of 'emergency' landing spots but it always seems like you spend two hours getting ready for a hour of flying.
But depending on how 'bored' I get, I might put them on again this winter .
You might be worrying about the no-bounce gear based on something I posted, so I'll qualify it. My Champ has been bent twice, presumably due to the the no-bounce gear. This in something on the order of a thousand hours on skis, supporting a hobby where one can't pick the conditions and days as one might wish. Both incidents happened under apparently benign conditions, and both on packed, used "strips" - something you might feel good about landing on. (And I wasn't driving either time!)
When I'm trapping, I land an average of maybe 20 times per day, and have to deal with overflow, drifts, flat light, no light, ice fog, glare ice, frozen tussocks, moose tracks, and all the other crap that sometimes makes me wonder why I don't learn golf. I try to take care of her, but sometimes the airplane just flat gets abused. If I got to pick a gear setup for what I do, no-bounce would be WAY down at the bottom of the pile. I didn't have as many choices as I might have liked, but I've caught a lot of fur and landed in a lot of cool places anyway.
If you're buying or building an airplane for ski flying, use something else. If you happen to have a champ and a set of skis, stick them on and go fly. Use a little common sense, drag everything before you land, understand how snow can change, pay attention to all the other jazz that you need to know to fly any skiplane, and you'll be fine. You'd have bent something else on a different airplane anyway. (And it's not the gear you need to worry about - it's the vertical tube above the front gear leg, and the truss between those tubes.)
Bungees are scary. Atlee springs are the way to go.
I wouldn't worry too much about what's at the toe of your ski - the gear bolt is what'll break.
What the hell is the duct tape idea? If it's what I think it is, don't go there. The last thing you want is a bigassed ball of duck tape piled up in the middle of one ski. You can have UHMW on your skis for less than $200 and a day's work. What's a spar going for nowadays?
Ski flying is some of the most fun Ive had in my Champ. Opens up VAST areas of country for landing up here that is unusable to wheels or floats in the summertime. Yes, be careful when landing as the gear/tubing wont take a lot of pounding like a bungee-type arrangement would, but it will still take a pretty good hit or two without folding up on you. Tussocks and big holes are the priorities for avoidance, but sometimes you just get unlucky.
Hows the snow up North Dusty? We just got our first 2" of snow on Sunday down here in Anchorage. Hood just froze over the weekend, and someone already tracked it up... That's pushing it if you ask me! I'm going to try and get out for more ice-fishing this winter, and am definitely looking forward to chasing the Iditarod again. We're thinking about following up to McGrath this year, but have yet to work out any details.
My gear is in good repair...am I crazy for going forward with rigging my Champ with skis? I will be re-doing the rigging with separate tabs on the toes of the skis for bungees with crust cutters and new safety cables. If all goes well, I will put plastic on the bottoms for next season. For now I may try the duct tape idea!
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