| This
story may be funny as you are reading it, but you should be taking the
point of it very seriously. The details might not be the same, but this
sort of senario can come about very easily if you fall victim to a simple
error in judgment. That judgment starts with installing the
most fail-safe
gear retraction circuitry you can perceive. Not the fanciest, not the easiest
to use, not the most expensive, not the most complicated, not the one that
works on planes that cost 10 times what yours does, not the one that you
want
to be better, but the one that is
PROVEN to be the most fail
safe.
There is nothing more reliable
than a simple switch. There are no fewer elements possible than the two
contained in the simple circuit I have described and that I recommend.
If there is a problem with this simple circuit, you can "get by" and get
home if you just have a screwdriver, and that would mean that a switch
had failed which is highly unlikely.
Then there is always the
fact that things can be changed. If you start with the simple 2 switch
system, and you just don’t think you can abide that huge, tremendous, overwhelming
workload that switching that one extra switch places on you as a pilot
after you have the plane flying, then go ahead, install the fancy system.
The |
hydraulic
lines are easily accessible and it really won’t be that big a trick or
take that much time to put the pressure switches and the relays in. You
could even install them in a temporary way just to prove to yourself you
still want them after you get some experience with them. You will already
have the experience with the simple system to compare with, and you will
be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I did this the most
logical, and intelligent, and open minded way possible, and nobody can
question my judgment". You will certainly have my respect.
If after reading this, you
still want to convince me that you should put a pressure switch circuit
in your Glass Goose, or you want to try to explain all the reasons why
it should have a pressure switch system, TALK TO SOMEONE ELSE.
All my answers are contained
and explained within these pages and I have too much to do to spend any
more time trying to explain something that I either don’t have the ability
to explain, or that some people just don’t want to accept, or that I am
just wrong about. The bottom line is that I do not recommend or agree with
the pressure switch system on a Glass Goose and I’m not going to. So if
you just MUST have one, go to it, but you are on your own and I reserve
the right to say
"I TOLD YOU SO!"
|
| Building
an experimental airplane is a pretty good task for anyone. Complicating
that job by deviating from the designer’s instructions and recommendations
is just asking for trouble and heartache. It is a big enough job just to
try to get everything you are instructed to do done right without trying
to reinvent the wheel. Besides that, there are a number of areas where
there is a lot left to the builder’s discretion and those areas are where
you should try to be "better than the next guy". Leave the proven stuff
alone. What |
typically
happens is that a builder gets twisted off on redesigning the landing gear
or some such nonsense and by the time he gets to the end of the project,
he is so burned out from doing things he didn’t have to do and spending
time on unnecessary R&D that he does a lousy job of the finish work
and the appearance aspects of the project suffer. As a result, everyone
that sees his plane is automatically turned off and thinks he is a lousy
builder no matter what kind of fancy systems he claims to have installed
in his plane. |
