Hi Terry,
I wish I had the talent to write. I don't.
Never have. Maybe something I should look into.
Peter Bowen

I thought you might like to read Chris Heintz's book on airplane design. It has some advantageous over Bingellis' book in:

1.It was actually written by an aeronautical engineer

2. The author has some familiarity with the 601xl

3. The author hasn't been dead for ten years.

Hi Terry,
Well, I'm flattered that you think I'm moving quickly on the 601. I think I'm slow as a snail because some people who had flying airplanes got their upgrade kit after I did and are already finished and flying. I've got about 420 hours into this and barely finishing up with both wings. I did do the extra "real building" type work while I was at it so it's not quite a fair comparison.

I am in on the AS 5 rivets. Where I really need them though is on one wing that has too large holes drilled except for where I drilled the extra holes (doubled up rivets) in the added extrusion angle. Some of the other holes where it is just skin over the ribs are too large too. The rivets for the extrusion would have to be long enough for thickness of 0.125 + 0.025 + 0.025 so total of 0.175" thick. The minimum thickness would be 0.050 where it is just skin and ribs. As I understand the rivet length you are getting won't work for thickness greater than 0.125". Is that right? I could probably get by with regular aluminum Zenith supplied A5 rivets where the rivet spacing has been doubled and the grip length is 0.175". Then use the AS5 rivets on the outer section where the grip length would be about 0.085". Guess the bottom line is that I could use both AS5 rivet lengths, but I'll take what I can get.

I'm with you on the work to take care of 10 acres. We have 10 acres too. It is all pine and oak trees, but a big clean up in the spring to pick up fallen limbs and a few fallen trees. Then there is a few beetle killed trees to fall, trim out, burn limbs and cut the trees into firewood. I've not even started yet and it's near to getting too dry to burn. Then, in the summer is spray to kill poison oak and other weeds like thistle. It's nice though and the wildflowers and animals are worth the work.

I was going to comment on the frustration of not having a ready access to aircraft hardware, but ran out of the allowed space.

Back out to the 601 factory for aileron work.

Hi Terry,
How are you doing? I am almost finished with the 2nd wing. I'm doing the aileron balance weight mod now. It is easier the 2nd time through. I didn't skin the first wing yet so I can check on that one to see how I did it. Fuselage next.

Terry, how's it going with the Upgrade?

Terry, every time I see your picture, you're drilling the same hole ;-) I added a Google Search for Zenith.Aero, bookmark the following link.

Zenith.Aero Google Search

Hi Terry
I emailed ComLet about the same gear upgrade but they never replied to me. Thanks for posting the prices. I would be very interested in following your progress. Because I live in Australia, freighting the Comlet gear would be quite expensive so I may go down the path of making my own FG gear in the future. I priced the FG gear from the Jabiru factory and the wanted $900 Aud per leg. Because I know the guys at Jabiru, they told me what glass and how many layers make up their gear legs. Very handy info.

The structural mods to support two FG legs as used in Europe are at the moment a mystery and would be very interested in seeing some drawings of the setup.

Regards
Phill Barnes

Hey Terry, I was wondering where Corvallis was, it sounded familiar. We were in that neck of the woods a few years ago exploring Salmon. Very nice country, from my point of view ....

Thanks for adding me to your list. You do know I am a bit of a nut, right?

Hi Terry,

There seems to be some problem with users outside the USA accessing Yahoo ZBAG.
If it's not too much trouble, could you cut and paste your comments and send it to my email address.
Kind regards,
Rick.