Birds of a feather

Winter wind and snow is no match for the intrepid hangar flyer. Here is John, Chuck, Phil and Pat whipping it up in the warming room. Better flying days are on the horizon.

Adding spark

A personal goal of my project is to integrate new technology and practices where practical. While the Lycoming engine may stand still to the end of time, it's components have not. There are numerous vendors out there working to add value to the tried and trued. One of those is Lightspeed. Here I am incorporating dual electronic ignition in the form of their Plasma III system. One box controls cylinders 1 & 2 while the other controls 3 & 4. The control head is mounted where you would normally find the mag. A wire strand connects the two and forwards the signal to the control box which manages the spark returned to the coil packs on top of the engine. There are many advantages provided by this effort. The greatest is that of fuel economy adding 1-2 gal per hour of fuel saved over a typical mag system. Another is information. The values of RPM, Manifold Pressure and Timing advance are all sent back to the box and can be displayed real-time through a simple led interface. Great stuff.

Power place

In December Fedex delivered one especially fine gifts to the EAA 240 hangar. We now have a power source for this craft. There is little completed in the form of pluming here, but it's one step closer to making real noises. I'll be using the IO-375 M1 from Aerosport Power in Kamloops, B.C. They did a fantastic job of building, shipping and documenting my engine. Hats off to the folks in BC!