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Comment by Christopher Jon Brown on September 21, 2016 at 10:17am

Unfortunately super busy lately so belly pod is still on the drawing board but it will be coming to take advantage of our increased gross weight.

Comment by charlie rosenzweig on September 20, 2016 at 11:05pm

Your posting this may help a ton of guys avoid this unfortunate event so thanks for sharing.

I would love to hear more about the belly pod....

Comment by Jerry Latimer on September 19, 2016 at 10:11am

Great video. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Comment by Christopher Jon Brown on September 18, 2016 at 3:19pm

Yes I did. I added the Sensenich 72 inch prop instead of the warp drive 70 inch and I think it performs better and is silky smooth and quiet. Added a homemade header tank I made from a 3 inch round piece of aluminum pipe which gives me about 2/3 gallon of fuel and put it right behind the pilot seat where the column is. Also went with the Grove gear because it can be rebent if you bend it, which mine did big time during the crash. Also added a Belite AOA indicator which I'm still learning to use. The 3Rd edition cabin frame and skylight. The new nose fork and strut along with the Viking steel bungee which made the rudders wonderfully smooth and easy to use now. It also gives me about 2 inches of travel on the nose strut where with the bungee I only got about an inch of travel I believe due to the low nose weight of the Rotax. Sold my engine and bought a brand new Rotax. Plan to build a belly pod since no medical required now so I can up my weight limit to 1440. Looks like it will start at the firewall around 25 inches wide then taper out to 44 wide near the gear and up to the big access panel. This gives me an area about 40 inches flat about 11-12 in height. I put 80 pounds of baggage in the other night with my wife and flew into the desert and camped out yes yes yes wonderful. All avionics and electrical worked perfect and kept it all the same. It's so nice to be flying again and have my 5 hour test flights done and another 5 hours already. At about $13 an hour in gas here in California it's the cheapest flying fun I can find and just love what these planes can do. Just don't takeoff before the the wing wants to fly and all is good. When I had the slats on before I could do a full power stall, get the buffet and slowly get the stick all the way back, hold it level with rudder and ailerons and still be going up 200-300 FPM amazing, and that was at at least a 7000 foot density altitude. I haven't flown anything that even comes close

Comment by John Austin on September 18, 2016 at 1:10pm

Congrats on "getting back on the horse that threw you!"

I think we all accumulate a "wish list" of things we wish we had done differently during the build! Since you had to do an extensive rebuild, did you make any significant changes or modifications from the original build? 

John

N750A

Comment by Don Koch on September 17, 2016 at 3:00pm

Heart break followed by inspiring rebuild - congratulations!  Thanks for sharing.