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Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y
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patrickjladd(at)hotmail.c
Guest

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 2:50 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Richard,

re your first item on the list.

I had a few flights, always solo in my new Xtra. One notch flap for take off 

solo and `knew` the trim position. First heavy passenger, first notch of 

flap, same automatic  set of trim position. Open throttle, tail up, speed 

build up a little slow, no problem, plenty of room. She didn`t lift off. Bit 

of back stick. Still firmly on the ground. Speed still building with me 

pulling harder and harder. Just crept into the air and squeaked over the 

hedge. The passenger never knew there was a problem. I adjusted the trim 

next time and everything was fine but I was astounded how immovable the 

stick was when I was fighting the out of position trim.

This was the first tip I passed on to the new owned when I finally sold her.

Pat



--

John Hauck

Joined: 09 Jan 2006
Posts: 4639
Location: Titus, Alabama (hauck's holler)

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:23 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

--

_________________
John Hauck
MKIII/912ULS
hauck's holler
Titus, Alabama

byoungplumbing(at)gmail.c
Guest

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:06 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Instability. Kolbs are unstable. You can add dihedral to a Firestar or Firestar II and they will become stable. The MKIII will not. Don't know about doing it to the Xtra, the Firefly or the Slingshot. Just so you know. 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

When I rebuilt my mkiii I doubled the dihedral. I went from negative to neutral roll stability...   I think if I had increased a bit more that I would have ended up with positive roll stability.   Mbg,,  my best guess.. 

Boyd

John Hauck

Joined: 09 Jan 2006
Posts: 4639
Location: Titus, Alabama (hauck's holler)

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:29 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Kolbers:

 

The only reason Homer put any dihedral in the Kolb wings was to prevent the wings from looking like they were drooping when the aircraft was sitting on the ground.  He would have used zero dihedral because he preferred getting more performance than stability.  

 

john h

mkIII

Jasper, Tennessee

 

 

 

 

From: owner-kolb-list-server(at)matronics.com [mailto:owner-kolb-list-server(at)matronics.com] On Behalf Of B Young

Sent: Friday, March 25, 2016 9:04 AM

To: kolb-list(at)matronics.com

Subject: Re: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y



 

Instability. Kolbs are unstable. You can add dihedral to a Firestar or Firestar II and they will become stable. The MKIII will not. Don't know about doing it to the Xtra, the Firefly or the Slingshot. Just so you know.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When I rebuilt my mkiii I doubled the dihedral. I went from negative to neutral roll stability...   I think if I had increased a bit more that I would have ended up with positive roll stability.   Mbg,,  my best guess..

Boyd

_________________
John Hauck
MKIII/912ULS
hauck's holler
Titus, Alabama

ceengland7(at)gmail.com
Guest

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:15 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

On 3/25/2016 12:22 AM, Larry Cottrell wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   I do hope that you are right. Personally I came to the conclusion that 

 if he looked in the mirror he would see the "bully" that he was 

 describing. I guess he reminds me a bit too much of Jet Pilot. :-/  I 

 guess I prefer do'ers rather than talkers. I probably spent too many 

 years as a cop, and my belief in my fellow man was most likely 

 stunted. 

 I shall wait with interest, and hope for the best.

 Larry

Who and what are you talking about? For those of use who get individual 
	


emails from the list, what you see above is all we see when you post a 

message like this. Are you talking about one of the people that 

responded to Bill Berle's questions? Because that could be any of a 

number of responders.



In the context of the elevator/stabilizer discussion:

As a somewhat disinterested observer (mostly lurking here because I 

would like to own a Kolb in the future), I'd have to say that most of 

the responses to Bill Berle's questions have been, well, more like 

watching the current presidential debates than reasoned, 

scientific/engineering based answers. Most have, at least in spirit, 

accused Bill of being a communist fascist atheist muslim terrorist for 

even suggesting that anything Homer designed might be less than perfect. 

All he really asked for is an explanation of why a particular mechanism 

was designed the way it was. It should have been easy enough to simply 

say something like, 'Every design is a compromise, and it was done that 

way because it's strong enough to be safe, and allows a simple 

implementation of another feature (like folding the tail).' Instead, 

because no one seems to know the answer, the questioner was attacked for 

asking  a legitimate question about a design point that is apparently 

outside common engineering practice.



I'd like to commend Bill for maintaining a thick skin and sticking 

around after all the attacks. Most would have given up and gone 

elsewhere for answers. Which, Bill, you'll probably need to do, since 

all that's available here is a religious devotion to Homer and his 

preaching. 



Charlie

w0odi

Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 20
Location: Ozarks Hills

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Kolb List..... I am a lurker that is in a holding pattern over a possible future purchase of a Kolb Firestar II.... I have heard nothing but good and here I go.....



I am going to open up another can of worms....the tail seems fine to me but it is those little u-joint attachments of the wings that make me nervous..the wing attachment is as Bill called the tail a little "wonky"  but far be it from me as I am a current quicksilver sport 2s owner and know only what little i have read and seen with my own eyes...never gave the tail much thought but the folding wings I have had more than a passing thought about.... Now all of you guys can give me hell and rightly so because I truly know very little about the machine other than it has REALLY intrigued me ever since I saw my first KOLB at Oshkosh in 1991 and I was in awe of its performance.....never saw anything that took off like the kolb short of a helicopter.... Please guys know I am not bad mouthing the design or the aircraft or Mr. Kolb... I just don't know enough about the design of the wing folding mechanism/attachment and the unknown can sometimes lead to fear for no reason... 



Thanks 

Larry



 	  victorbravo(at)sbcglobal. wrote: 	
		  Understood, but in this case the person in question is sharp as a tack. It's MY cognitive acuity that is suspect !



Bill Berle

www.ezflaphandle.com  - safety & performance upgrade for light aircraft

www.grantstar.net           - winning proposals for non-profit and for-profit entities



--------------------------------------------

On Mon, 3/21/16, Eugene Zimmerman <etzimm> wrote:



 Subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

 To: "Kolb list" <kolb>

 Date: Monday, March 21, 2016, 3:13 PM

 

 

 On Mar 21,

 2016, at 1:55 PM, Bill Berle <victorbravo>

 wrote:

 So I called a friend of mine who is a

 retired aerospace structural engineer, with 50+ years of

 experience.

 LOL 

 The cognitive acuity of anyone with

 50+ years of experience should probably be

 suspect.Trust me, I have

 50+ years of experience.

victorbravo(at)sbcglobal.
Guest

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 2:04 pm Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Let me be the first... the wing rear hinge looks to be pretty well designed to me. The majority of the flight loads are taken by the massive main spar, in this case including most of the torsional loads.. The drag / anti-drag loads, and fixing the wing angle of incidence (wing mounting angle) are the only significant loads on the rear attach. Built per the plans it looks perfectly good for an aircraft witth his weight/speed/load

Make no mistake, the people here who lit a fire under me (for asking a question they didn't like) were 100% correct in saying that the fleet safety history of the Kolb is high. My poking back at them was limited to the hinge and elevator pivot, which once again has a very low if any failure rate.

The fact that I might want to ask a few pointed questions does not mean that the airplane is unsafe. The problem over my questions was a technical, even academic one. I sand by the question, but the reason things got out of hand is because nobody was able to answer the specific "design practice" aspect of the hinge.... not that the hinge was or was not shown to be unsafe.

 	  Quote: 	
		  From all the research I've done, I decided to go look for a Kolb FireStar and get one.  For whatever it is worth I will highly recommend the FireStar, even before I have flown one.

Bill Berle

www.ezflaphandle.com  - safety & performance upgrade for light aircraft

www.grantstar.net           - winning proposals for non-profit and for-profit entities

--------------------------------------------

On Fri, 3/25/16, w0odi <woodyz1957(at)gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

 To: kolb-list(at)matronics.com

 Date: Friday, March 25, 2016, 2:36 PM

 "w0odi" <woodyz1957(at)gmail.com>

 Kolb List..... I am a lurker that is in a holding pattern

 over a possible future purchase of a Kolb Firestar II.... I

 have heard nothing but good and here I go.....

 I am going to open up another can of worms....the tail seems

 fine to me but it is those little u-joint attachments of the

 wings that make me nervous..the wing attachment is as Bill

 called the tail a little "wonky"  but far be it from me

 as I am a current quicksilver sport 2s owner and know only

 what little i have read and seen with my own eyes...never

 gave the tail much thought but the folding wings I have had

 more than a passing thought about.... Now all of you guys

 can give me hell and rightly so because I truly know very

 little about the machine other than it has REALLY intrigued

 me ever since I saw my first KOLB at Oshkosh in 1991 and I

 was in awe of its performance.....never saw anything that

 took off like the kolb short of a helicopter.... Please guys

 know I am not bad mouthing the design or the aircraft or Mr.

 Kolb... I just don't know enough about the design of the

 wing folding mechanism/attachment and the unknown can

 sometimes lead to fear for no reason... 

 Thanks 

 Larry

 victorbravo(at)sbcglobal. wrote:

 > Understood, but in this case the person in question is

 sharp as a tack. It's MY cognitive acuity that is suspect !

 > 

 > Bill Berle

 > www.ezflaphandle.comÂ  - safety & performance

 upgrade for light aircraft

 > www.grantstar.net Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  - winning

 proposals for non-profit and for-profit entities

 > 

 > --------------------------------------------

 > On Mon, 3/21/16, Eugene Zimmerman  wrote:

 > 

 >  Subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

 >  To: "Kolb list" 

 >  Date: Monday, March 21, 2016, 3:13 PM

 >  

 >  

 >  On Mar 21,

 >  2016, at 1:55 PM, Bill Berle 

 >  wrote:

 >  So I called a friend of mine who is a

 >  retired aerospace structural engineer, with 50+

 years of

 >  experience.

 >  LOLÂ 

 >  The cognitive acuity of anyone with

 >  50+ years of experience should probably be

 >  suspect.Trust me, I have

 >  50+ years of experience. Â 

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R. Hankins

Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 185
Location: Grants Pass, Oregon

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Larry,

Legitimate question, not a can of worms at all.  Here is my experience with the wing fold mechanism. 



 I remade my left wing fold attach fitting a few years back  to change the angle of incidence in the left wing.  This allowed me to trim out a slight roll tendency at high power settings without an ugly trim tab.  Knowing the consequences of  a poorly made part here, I cut out five sets of parts.  I welded one up and then destroyed it.  Changed my welding technique a bit, made another and smashed and pried until it failed.  The fourth one is on my airplane.  You would be amazed how difficult it was to break even the first one with shallow welds.  It took no end of prying, bending the ears in a vise and smashing with a 4 lb hammer to get it to break.  



I beveled the edges on the rest of the parts to get better penetration on the welds.  The second took a good half hour of work to destroy, but I finally got one of the weld joints to start to split.  I made one more adjustment and built the third.  I mangled it badly but could not get the welds to fail.  I wish I had taken a picture of how badly I smashed, bent and chewed on that fitting.  It was seeing the fitting take that kind of abuse that gave me the confidence to put the fourth one on my airplane.



That is a long way of saying, don't worry about the folding mechanism.  It is a strong and elegant design.

_________________
Roger in Oregon
1992 KXP 503 - N1782C

w0odi

Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 20
Location: Ozarks Hills

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 5:45 pm Post subject: Re: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Thanks Mr Hankins for the info and I also wished you had taken pics also that would valuable in showing everyone how strong the attachment really is...   Thanks again



Larry



 	  R. Hankins wrote: 	
		  Larry,

Legitimate question, not a can of worms at all.  Here is my experience with the wing fold mechanism. 



 I remade my left wing fold attach fitting a few years back  to change the angle of incidence in the left wing.  This allowed me to trim out a slight roll tendency at high power settings without an ugly trim tab.  Knowing the consequences of  a poorly made part here, I cut out five sets of parts.  I welded one up and then destroyed it.  Changed my welding technique a bit, made another and smashed and pried until it failed.  The fourth one is on my airplane.  You would be amazed how difficult it was to break even the first one with shallow welds.  It took no end of prying, bending the ears in a vise and smashing with a 4 lb hammer to get it to break.  



I beveled the edges on the rest of the parts to get better penetration on the welds.  The second took a good half hour of work to destroy, but I finally got one of the weld joints to start to split.  I made one more adjustment and built the third.  I mangled it badly but could not get the welds to fail.  I wish I had taken a picture of how badly I smashed, bent and chewed on that fitting.  It was seeing the fitting take that kind of abuse that gave me the confidence to put the fourth one on my airplane.



That is a long way of saying, don't worry about the folding mechanism.  It is a strong and elegant design.

Dennis Kirby

Joined: 05 Dec 2013
Posts: 35
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 6:28 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

Kolb Friends -



This has been a lively discussion ... precisely what this forum is intended to bring out.



I ask, however, if we could please follow Matt's guidelines to crop all the previous discussion thread that is not pertinent to the poster's direct point.



We're seeing MILES of previous post material following someone's short reply.  I'm getting carpel-tunnel in my right index finger trying to scroll down to the next message ... and it's all unnecessary text to the context of the actual post.



Not tryin' to be the List policeman here.  Just asking that we try to be a bit more brief in our responses.



Thanks, everyone ...



Dennis Kirby

Do not archive

rickofudall

Joined: 19 Sep 2009
Posts: 1392
Location: Udall, KS, USA

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2016 11:17 am Post subject: Elevator/Stabilizer hinge ass'y

I think this may be the record for discussions on the Kolb forum. Wow, and I was there to see it. I'll tell my grandkids someday when they're big enough.



Rick Girard

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 9:28 AM, KIRBY, DENNIS T GS-13 USAF AFMC AFNWC/EZS <dennis.kirby.3(at)us.af.mil (dennis.kirby.3(at)us.af.mil)> wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  --> Kolb-List message posted by: "KIRBY, DENNIS T GS-13 USAF AFMC AFNWC/EZS" <dennis.kirby.3(at)us.af.mil (dennis.kirby.3(at)us.af.mil)>

 

 Kolb Friends -

 

 This has been a lively discussion ... precisely what this forum is intended to bring out.

 

 I ask, however, if we could please follow Matt's guidelines to crop all the previous discussion thread that is not pertinent to the poster's direct point.

 

 We're seeing MILES of previous post material following someone's short reply.  I'm getting carpel-tunnel in my right index finger trying to scroll down to the next message ... and it's all unnecessary text to the context of the actual post.

 

 Not tryin' to be the List policeman here.  Just asking that we try to be a bit more brief in our responses.

 

 Thanks, everyone ...

 

 Dennis Kirby

 Do not archive

 

 

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