Since I built two airplanes it’s kind of hard not to tinker on the Cruise Carbon Trike.  Ever since I had one pin fall out (on the ground) I’ve wanted to secure the pins holding the motor mount to the trike.  Because they are under shear compression I don’t think they’d fall out in flight but I don’t want to take that chance.  So I safety-wired all the pins in place.  The two front pins are covered in a previous blog posting.  The rear pin was a little more problematic to secure via safety wire.  If I attached the safety wire in the same way I did to the front two pins, the wire would rub on the fiberglass body of the trike.  To make sure the wire doesn’t scratch or otherwise damage the body I ran the wire through a plastic wire crimp butt connector and then put heat shrink tubing over that.  I plan to examine the fiber glass closely after the next flight to see if there is any rubbing that could damage the fiberglass.  If so I’m going to cut the safety wire off and try to find a new method to safety the pin in place.

The other thing I’ve done is to add a small tachometer/hour meter to the trike.  It was a simple install that took me 15 minutes total and most of that was figuring out how I wanted to run the wire.  I fished the wire down through the engine’s clamshell and then secured it to the spark plug wire via nylon tie wraps.  I then wrapped the remainder of wire around the throttle cable and then used the supplied adhesive backing to attach it to the throttle.  I only have to turn my hand over and I can see my RPMs.  It will display highest RPM per flight and total hours.

I haven’t gotten to fly it since added the tach.  It will be interesting to see what RPMs I’m hitting.

Well, I tried to get out to the airport before the breezes started up but I didn’t quite make it.  I took off and got up to about 100 feet off the ground before I felt the wind start getting shifty.  It didn’t feel like it was getting any better so I turned back to take a look at my wind sock and it was definitely standing up more than it was when I left the ground.  That was fast.  I circled around and landed.   Meh, it was a short flight but at least it was a flight.

After I got down I practiced kiting until the wind got too much for that.  At least for me.  I really need to practice that more.

Today I woke up early.  The promise of light winds and mild temperatures was just too much.  I loaded up my trike and wanted to get a quick flight in.  I also wanted to try out my new GoPro camera.  I got out to New Jerusalem and weather was perfect!  I unloaded my gear and set everything up.  I got my camera adjusted and got myself strapped in and took to the skies.  But… Something didn’t feel right.  There was no wind but the wing kept pulling to one side.  I steered the trike in that direction and the wing came up overhead just like normal so I went full throttle.  As soon as the trike left the ground it didn’t feel right.  It pulled to the right and set right back down.  I pulled on the brakes a little more and got airborne but then the turn to the right got even more pronounced and the climb rate was too steep and too slow.  I decided to set it down fast before something really bad happened and well… here is the video.

After a sock-soaking walk through the dew covered weeds three times… once to walk my wing out and a trip back to walk my trike back out… I spread the wing out on the ground to sort out the problem.  As I was coming in to land I looked up at the wing and noticed that back side of the wing on the right side looked like it was bunched up a little.  Something I couldn’t see on the ground or when I kited the wing.

I laid out all the lines and followed them back to the wing and then I saw it.  Two of the adjacent brake lines had tangled and formed a well-disguised slip not that was holding tension on the inboard right brake lines.  I untied the knot and freed up the lines.  Sadly I was out of time and was soaking wet anyway so was not able to test fly the wing to verify I got all the kinks worked out.  That will have to wait a couple of days.

I’ve added a few things to my trike.  First, I wasn’t really happy with just clipping my radio on to a strap with just the belt clip on the radio.  It wasn’t that secure.  So I ordered a radio case from 5.11 Tactical.  I have to pull the radio out to change frequencies but I don’t anticipate having to do this very often.  In fact, I usually use the frequency lock function of my Icom radio to make sure I don’t inadvertently change the frequency.  I mounted the case on the left side of the harness.

I also ordered a GoPro Hero4 Silver and a handlebar / tube mount.  I also put a mount on top of my helmet.  I tried mounting the tube mount in various locations but none seemed to work out that well.  The engine would vibrate the heck out of the camera affecting video quality.  I finally settled for mounting on the foot peg of the nose wheel.  We’ll see how this works out.

I can either point the camera forward for flying video or point it upwards for shots of myself and the wing.  Next time out I’ll take a couple of flights with the GoPro facing forward, upward, and mounted to my helmet.  Just to see how the three points of view compare.

 

One of the subjects that inevitably comes up with people who fly powered paragliders is, “how do you transport it?”  People come up with all kinds of ingenious ways to get their machines to the LZ (landing zone).  My initial idea was to just transport the Cruise Carbon Trike disassembled in the back of my minivan.  This got old pretty quickly.  So I bought a small walk-on trailer from Tractor Supply.   The trailer makes it easy to just roll my trike out of the garage and right up onto the trailer.

 

 

Once my trike is loaded I use ratcheting tie-down straps to hold it in place.  The little tan minivan is the tow vehicle and is part of what I call “airport in a box.”  I load up my wing, my windsock and the base I made for it into the back of the van.  The portable windsock is pretty important because it’s more sensitive than the bigger windsocks at the airports and sometimes I don’t fly from an airport.  I need some sort of wind indicator.  So I bought a telescoping flag pole from Amazon and made a base for it out of PVC pipe.

I used two 10-foot lengths of 1-1/2 inch schedule 40 PVC pipe.  5- Tee fittigs.  6 – Elbow fittings, and 1 cross fitting.  I also needed to use 2 couplers since I could make the final two sections of pipe long enough with the couplers.  It ended up being a perfect fit.  Everything is glued together except where the two uprights fit into the base.  This lets me remove the top and store it flat if need be.  If the wind is strong enough to knock it over, then it’s too windy to fly!

One last item isn’t related to transporting the PPG.  It’s my instrument panel.  A glass display of sorts.  This state of the art avionics device also allows me to make phone calls, surf the internet, and listen to music as well as keeping track of my location, fuel consumption, altitude, speed, ground track, wind speed and direction, and several other handy functions!

Yes, it’s an app that runs on my Android smart phone called PPGps.  Got lots of great functions.  I keep my phone in a case that has velcro on the back.  I then stick it to the velcro on the top of my reserve ‘chute.  This puts it at a perfect angle to see and use.  My next addition to my “panel” is going to be a tachometer and hour meter which I will either attach to the throttle cable or else just velcro it next to my phone.  Haven’t decided yet.  It’s made by a company called TrailTek.

 

 

Didn’t get to go flying today.  Seems like I did what I normally do – take my PPG for a ride into the countryside on it’s trailer and then bring it home again. 🙂  It was too foggy to fly today.  However, I was able to take it to my EAA meeting today.  Our scheduled presenter was not able to show up due to the fog so I was asked to give an impromptu presentation on my PPG.  I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction I got from the club.  I wasn’t able to fly due to the fog, really wet fog, so I just went through a preflight and started the motor for them.  The were surprised by the power and how easy it started.  They made numerous positive comments on the build quality.  Present in the crowd was one of the airport commissioners.  He was also impressed.  This is good because I will be making a pitch to the airport commission to improve a portion of our field for use by powered paragliders.  So all in all it was a productive morning!

Well it’s finally happened.  I’ve had to make my first repair on my Nirvana Cruise Carbon Trike.  After flying on Monday I loaded up my trike into my trusty walk-on garden trailer and carted everything home.  I rolled my trike into the garage and buttoned everything up.  Thought all was well.  The next day I was walking past my trailer when I noticed a small silver object wedged between the floor boards.  When I looked closer it was one of the locking pins that fasten the motor frame on body of the trike!

When I picked the pin up and examined it I found that the ball bearings that allow the pin to lock in place had fallen out.  I’m currently looking for a replacement pin but in the mean time I don’t want to be grounded!  Since the ball bearings only serve to secure the pin in place and don’t bear any loads, the pin does that, I just needed to find a way to secure the pin once it has been inserted.   I still have some safety wire left over from my airplane build projects so I used that to hold the pin in place.  I can fly until I locate a replacement pin.  Pins, actually.  I’m going to order a new set to keep on hand.

I was able to sneak off to New Jerusalem after we got back from Sacramento.  It was a little windy and thermally so I had to wait about an hour for the wind to calm down.  But once it was calm I strapped in and was rewarded with… a blown launch.  Really got my lines tangled up this time but was able to figure it out without to much hassle.  The second launch went MUCH better!  I came back around and did some touch and goes.  While on the ground I tried to kite my wing as far down the runway as I could.  Then as the sun was setting it was time to just fly around and relax a bit.

Well after all the business of today I was able to sneak off to New Jerusalem just before sunset and get in a couple of flights in the PPG.  The wind was a little switchy so I had to wait a bit.  Then just as I was getting ready to go a Chinook helicopter comes barreling into the pattern.  I had to get away from there quick.  There is tons of downwash from the Chinook’s twin rotors.  He messed up the pattern for about 15 minutes than went on his way.  After he left I practiced some touch and goes with some kiting thrown in.  I’m just now starting to get a feel for flying the wing while driving along on the ground.  I need to practice that more.

I also used an app on my phone called PPGps.  It’s a great little app that shows your position on a map, your ground speed, vertical speed, fuel timer, etc.  It’s got a lot of grate little features like starting your fuel timer once you’ve reached a certain speed.  You pretty much set it up before you take off and then leave it alone.  It takes care of itself after that.  Really like this app!  PPGps is available from Google Play.

So all in all today I flew two flights and did 4 touch-and-goes.  Only burned about 1.8 liters of fuel.  I’ll start venturing farther away but for now, I’m still learning to handle this thing.  I’m really enjoying the process!