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Old 23 March 2009, 06:40 AM   #170 (permalink)
RFC Pilot
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 186
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Brooks View Post
I read a story about a guy in Long Island who built a Fokker DVII and he let a friend who is an experienced pilot do the inital flights. On landing, the plane swerved off to the right as weight was applied to the wheels. It turns out that the bungee cords were tighter on one side than the other. That pilot had the opportunity to talk to an old timer who explained that on preflight, they used to sit on the wing and measure how far the wing drooped. Then they repeated the check on the other side, trying to determine if both wings dipped down to the same level. Now that is in my preflight.

Not sure if someone mentioned this already (too many pages to look through), but that is actually something we do at the Museum when we redo the bungies. We rock it by the wings a few times, to settle them, then check a couple of things.

1) Are the cords laying right.

2) Are the wings level.

3) Is the gear on each side compressed the same with it is sitting on the ground.

and

4) by pushing down on the wing tip, does the suspension give the same amount one each side.
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