Matronics Email Lists

Congratulations on a successful conversion, Larry. I really like my HKS Firestar. The HKS TBO was recently raised to 1,000 hours. When you consider that, plus the lower fuel consumption, the HKS is ...

I'm looking for a company that will fabricate a simple steel hanger for my glider and Firestar. It needs to be 6.5 feet high at the walls and about 30 x 60 feet with a slightly pitched roof, and swin ...

The important thing about your camcorder movies is to end up with a product that you or anyone else can play and enjoy without special equipment. For most, that means getting your movies into DVD for ...

With the Landshorter VG's installed on my Firestar as recommended by Landshorter, the stall is more abrubt than without the VG's. Without the VG's there is no classic stall with a break, but more of ...

Had some questions lately about how I did my HKS installation. Here's a link to a zip file full of photos:

http://rapidshare.com/files/169644321/HKSFirestar.zip

The HKS is running great with ze ...

I saw this Kolb being built, and have had involvement with it periodically since. Haven't seen it in a couple of years, but know it is well built and was taken good care of.

Rob,

Congratulations on the completion of your HKS project. I'm coming up on a year's flying with my HKS powered Firestar II, and have had zero problems. It just works - smooth reliable power on ...

Ted,

This is probably a longshot, but I had some noise issues somewhat like yours with my Firestar. I thought it was related to the Rotax 503, but when I changed to the HKS engine, I still had the ...

Tygothane C210 ESTER is formulated for all type of fuel
Superthane ESTER is supposed to be a near equivalent.

Jack, do you have a source for these two types of fuel line?

Thanks.

I have an HKS engine on a Firestar II. The HKS manual says to use an electric pump if the fuel level is below engine level. The fuel level is about 2.5 feet lower than the engine on the FS II. I d ...

I see identical performance in my Firestar at 645 lb gross with Landshorter VG's installed as recommended. Wish I had done before and after videos, but didn't.

Besides the drop of 6-8 mph in stall ...

Jim's notes on spin recovery of high performance fighters brings back many memories. One of the famous Air Force aircraft of its time was the F-101. In a very high angle of attack situation, the T t ...

The 25% to 35% range for CG is pretty standard for conventional aircraft with tailfeathers rather than a flying wing or canard. If your CG falls within that range and you have a pitch trim problem, t ...

Generally, for ultralights, I use 1.5 times the stall speed for approach. That would be 45 mph approach for 30 mph stall. In the case of a 45 mph stall speed, that works out to about 67.

Slow hig ...

Thanks for the feedback, John.

Do you change the filter each time when doing the 25-50 hour cycle, or wait until the recommended interval?

HKS recently put out a factory bulletin regarding fuel and engine oil. In a nutshell, they say not to use fuel with more than 5% ethanol, and lower than 91 octane. Aviation gas is OK.

They say to ...

At the risk of beating this tired subject to death:

1. With the "Landshorter" VG's on my Firestar, stall was reduced from somewhere in 35-40 mph range to 30 mph. That is with a calibrat ...

You gonna have'ta tighten up a bit. Every shot through the windshield
indicated you were way out of trim.

Looks like you caught me standing on rudder to get pointed right for the pictures, John. ...

Here is a link to some photos I took on two recent cross country flights to Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii in my HKS powered Firestar II.

The flights were from my grass strip at the 4, ...

My grass strip is short and has a 20 foot elevation difference from one end to the other. I take off downhill and land uphill due to obstructions near the uphill end. I mow the strip about 20 feet wid ...