KiloCharlie, Inc.
structural and
misc. steel detailing services
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KiloCharlie, Inc. structural and
misc. steel detailing services
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Here are some shots of a previous project, a Kolb Mark 3. It was sold to John Cooley and is being completed by him... (The text is from an earlier web site and has not been editted...)
This is a shot of the float mounts
that I had welded into my cage. They are spaced to hit out on the centerlines
of the stiffener tubes for a Full Lotus Mono Float 2000. These mounts under the
gear leg sockets will only be used with a straight float installation as a
amphibious installation would have float mounts integrated with the gear mounts
(VERY hard to explain and no CAD drawings as of yet...)
This is a upclose shot of the
float mount that shows that it is a 5/8" 4130 tube welded to a gusset plate with
a 3/8 4130 tube as a stiffener .
This is a shot of the front float
mounts welded into the forward most tube of the cage in front of the pedals.
And yes the tube will stick out the bottom of the nose cone about a 1/2" . This
Mark 3 will have whiskers when it doesn't have its swim trunks on! (Will be a
little plastic plug or something to keep out the draft...) If your wondering , YES these mounts are where you hang the bombs when you want to do some landscaping and the machine gun mounts when the enemy gets too close. Seriously they will have a bolt drop down (or come up...wouldn't matter) that will go through the float stiffener tubes with all necessary washers and locknuts and such... Well I was about to attach the control surfaces together and wanted to get the hinges aligned REALLY good. The builders manual showed a little spacer that you could out of a piece of scrap aluminum. Well my grade school teachers always said I was terrible with scissors (wouldn't let me have the sharp ones!) and WISS snips aren't any better so what do you do??? Run to your machinist buddy who has every expensive piece of equipment that a good redneck needs!!! In about an hour I (with some help..) whipped out a beefier version of the tip in the builders manual. It is accurate to about 10 /1000 " and works fine. I made 4 of them and you compensate for the locations that have different size tubes (i.e. 1" and a 7/8" on the other side ) with a 1/16" shim. It works great and keeps everything aligned when you drill those all important hinge holes. P.S. When I get mine through I will gladly loan these around as long as they remember where their home is and done stay gone too long...just an offer!
There has been discussions in the past about different ideas for mounting your Lazy Boy recliner in your Kolb and they have all sounded interesting but I had to reinvent the wheel and design my own. This wasn't just a desire for another toy in the plane but more out of necessity. My father who will be flying a great deal with me had heart bypass surgery a few years back and left him with a aching breast bone that is like a tooth ache. The 2 rides in Mark 3s that he had both left him hurting after no more than 15 minutes due to the very reclined position and the sort of tucked position it makes you sit in. Well the seat that I have come up with is adjustable fore and aft and in the angle of recline. The back can be moved forward to allow stowage behind it as can the seat be raised to allow stowage there as well. The seat rails are mounted with cap screws and are removeable whenever you feel inclined to. What does the Lazy Boy cost in weight??? About 6-7 pounds over stock. I weighed the new seat and rails as well as the web sling seats and there supporting bar and that was the difference. I think I can shave about 2-3 pounds off of the weight of the rails with a little creative mill work as they account for most of the weight. The seats were ordered from RANS and are the units that go in there S-6ES model. When you consider the weight of the stock setup was a little better than 3 pounds this didn't include the cushions that most people end up putting in anyway so if I can get 2 pounds off the seat rails and you added a pound or 2 for a seat cushion in the stock setup the new seats would weigh next to nothing. P.S. They are COMFY!!!!
Well I like alot of other folks wanted to have more range than the 10 gallon setup would allow so I decided that it was time to put the bigger tank in. This has already been done in several ways and I didn't break new ground with this one. The following picture is of the cardboard model I built to make sure that I could get the tank in the cage through the opening I was going to make. One prerequisite was that I didn't want to have to cut anymore tubes than I had to and I wanted to be able to get it out if I ever had to (Heaven forbid...). Well the pictures speak for themselves... P.S. The tunnel through the middle bottom is to clear the aileron torque tube and it ended up about 4 inches too tall , so the actual tank will not be notched that high. In case your wondering your looking at a approx. 24 gallon tank there. (I say approx. cause the math involved in calculating the volume of a trapezoidal shape has vacated the recesses of my mind a long time ago. I was shall we say "winging it" to come up with a figure. I should be pretty accurate with that number though. We'll know when we put gas in it too break in the 912.)
This shot shows the extra tube that was welded in to allow fabric covering over of the rear area of the cage (ala John Hauck , older Firestars). This (with sound insulation) should make for a substantially quieter cabin and my neck don't work like an owl's anyway so the "lost visibility" isn't a big deal. I really wanted a "poop deck" above the tank to pack stuff like sleeping bags and camping gear anyway.
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