Congratulations!
A Pitts is a hell of a lot of fun over the airport, but it must be one
of the worst cross-country aircraft I have ever flown. Some Pitts
pilots prefer to take the aircraft apart and truck it cross-country
and get pretty proficient at disassembly and re-assembly. Jim Leroy,
Clarence Speal come to mind. Carole Pilon does that with her
450 Stearman.
Great photos! I'm so glad you took them. Many years ago, I realized
that I liked looking at the world, framed by biplane wings.
of my 9 landings I went around on at least 3
That is superb decision making, and is why some people crash
taildraggers, and some don't. Pay attention, kids. Don't push
a bad approach into a bad landing. Know your skill limits - you
will increase them over time - but carefully fly within them, and
if I could teach pilots
ONE THING about tailwheel landings, is
would be:
If you ask yourself, "Should I go around or not"?
If you have any doubt
about your approach and landing, your left arm goes all the way forward.
Get full power on, get the alpha down, get some airspeed, get some energy
and get the hell out of there. Climb back up to downwind, calm down,
and learning from your mistakes, make a better approach. If your name
is Bob Hoover, you can push a bad approach into a good landing. But it
probably isn't. The only time you force a light aircraft onto the ground
is when it's on fire, or the prop has stopped.
re: funky oil pressure/temp indications ....
It's hard to tell sometime, what's real and what isn't. I would
start with the basics:
I strongly prefer straight-grade. I run it year-round. W100 is
good, W120 is better. 5 to 10% Camguard is essential. Try not
to run multi-grade. If it's that cold, get out the sled instead.
With the slobber pot of the Christen 801 inverted oil system,
I run the oil level full. Really. When it gets down far enough
that I can add one full quart - in my case 11 - I bump it up to
full - in my case 12 - but not one sixteenth of an inch over. It
does not like to be overfull. But it likes to be full. Yes, I pay
a little bit in horsepower for crankcase windage but with a wet
sump - a really strange design for acro - I like that the windage
keeps everything wet. Run it full, esp the four cylinders.
The next thing is to consider replacing your oil relief spring. I
find they last about 10 years, then the K factor starts to weaken
and the oil pressure drops. They are cheap and it's an easy job.
You can shim them with washers for 70-90 psi straight and level.
I think Kenny re-plumbed your inverted system to read the same
pressure inverted as upright, which is pretty cool. Most read 10
psi less inverted.
The next thing to look at is your vernatherm in the oil pressure
screen housing. If memory serves, it should actuate and close
around 170F to force oil through the oil cooler, to try to maintain
180F oil temp. You can actually pull the vernatherm and put it
in a pot of cool water and boil it, and watch it to see if it's working
correctly. They are horribly expensive, so only replace it if you
think it's busted. It's analogous to your thermostat in your car.
The next thing to look at is the upright/inverted check valve on
the firewall. Sometimes you need to reseat the balls and change
the springs. Similar to the oil relief valve in the crankcase.
Again, congratulations! A Pitts is a wonderfully weird aircraft
that is a joy to fly, but will continually test you, and make you a
much better pilot. The S1 is a very pure form. Note that your
aircraft is quite happy revving to 3300 RPM. It will not hurt the
engine, but your neighbours will not be happy. At least, that was
with the prop that I flew it, which would redline the RPM during
takeoff at the end of the runway, which was it's way of telling me
to pull to the vertical :^)
It sounds like you have taught yourself to land it. Fantastic. Do
lots of that. I got better after my first 10,000. You can take more
crosswind than you would believe possible, with that short fuselage,
tiny vertical fin and big rudder.
Please promise me that if it goes to shit during aerobatics, you will
do the following:
1) power off
2) let go of the stick
3) look at the
gas cap, and full rudder opposite the yaw that you see
The above Beggs-Mueller sounds simple, but is very difficult for pilots
to actually do, in practice. That is how you recover from a spin in a
Pitts with minimum loss of altitude.
Pitts pilots generally come to grief:
a) during landing (you got that)
b) during an unrecovered spin (see above)
c) during low-altitude acro (top gate)
If you master those three, you will happily live and learn. In the meantime,
drain the oil and fill it with straight W100 and 10% Camguard. Replace the
battery with Earth-X Lithium whenever it is convenient. Put a Battery Tender Jr
on it at the end of the day - install a pigtail to the battery to make this easy.
