Building my Hornet STOL Aircraft

2009-03-16T08:00:00.006+09:00

Hi guys
check out our latest trip at
http://www.auf.asn.au/cagit_trophy/cagi.html#walgy

2007-03-07T06:36:00.000+09:00

Hello everybody

I have started a new Blog and this is the link http://flyingmyhornet.blogspot.com/ ENJOY

Hi all
Just in case you were all bored with the last lot of pictures here are a few more
note the long haul from hangar to the airfield
I have a total time on the clock of 32 hours and I have had no problems at all with my hornet
Fuel burn is 17 L/Hour

Cheers for now
Alan

2007-02-21T07:24:00.000+09:00

Hello again
I went to Narrogin on the weekend for the Narrogin Flying Clubs monthly get together. There were 15 aircraft and about 40 people some from Lake Grace, Kondinin, Beverley and Northam. The Narrogin Flying Club put on a BBQ and salads for lunch for $6 (cheap feed) and they meet every third sunday of the month. Anyway time for some more pictures.

The view from 6500 ft

And finally the shed (hangar) the Hornet calls home

Cheers and safe flying

2007-02-14T15:59:00.000+09:00

Hello to all

Well I have finally done my first cross country in my Hornet. We took of from home at 1020 hours and with an average ground speed of 62 knots we arrived in Wyalkatchem 1112 hours.

The pictures below are of the salt lakes the wild life and coming into Wylie.

The trip home was a little bit quicker averaging 65 knots ground speed. The day was rather warm it peaked out at 37 degrees Celsius and we left Wylie at 1302 hours, so I spent both flights trying to maintain altitude for those of you who have flown in the Central Wheatbelt of West Aus you all know what I mean. At one point on the trip home we were going up at 600 ft/min with plenty of nose down and the next minute you are going down at 500 ft/min nose up full throttle it is interesting flying keeps you on your toes. Any way here are a few more pics

The next lot are coming back into the home farm.

As you can all see we had a lot of fun. There is nothing quite like bush flying.

Anyway until next time

Cheers have fun, fly safe

Alan

2006-12-17T12:08:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone

I now have a licence to go out and learn by my self the finer art of flying a tail dragger I went flying early this morning it was already 23 degrees C at 0530 hours. My strip is 1000 feet AMSL

I thought you all might like to know some performance figures.

Climb @ 50 knots 1100 feet/min

Cruise @ 5000rpm 75 knots

Cruise @ 5200 rpm 85 knots

Engine 912S 100 HP Rotax

Fuel burn at cruise is 16L/Hour - 21L/Hour depending on load

Anyway that is just a few bits of info I will keep you all posted when I get the chance. But to be honest I am having to much fun flying my bird .

Anyway remember to have fun and fly safe.

Until next time Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2006-11-16T07:01:00.000+08:00

Well hello again .
I thought that it was time to fill you all in on a little bit of my background where aviation is concerned. I started my flight training in May 2005. When I was halfway through my training I started searching the net for an aircraft that would stand up to paddock and bush strips. My reasons for this are because we are on a 5000 acre farm running sheep and growing coarse grains.
I surprised a lot of people firstly because with only 20 hours of experience not only had I just bought a kit aircraft but it is a tail dragger as well. When I flew to Sydney with my wife to have a look and to fly in one all I could do was sit in the Hornet because the weather turned and it was not fit to fly.
Well as you can see we have finished the Hornet. I must thank Ole Hartman for his support and backup service.
Ole Flew over to Western Australia to put Hornet S006 through her paces. Which is exactly what he did. Last Sunday after a very early start Ole and my little bird jumped into the air for the second time in two days and with a continuous supply of fuel she was flown for 7 hours. She has now done 15 hours and we have not put a spanner near her.
Once again I must thank Australian Aircraft Kits and Ole for the outstanding backup service.For those of you wondering the Hornet is everything that Ole told me it would be and the main thing is that she is very gentle to a novice like me.

I also thought some of you might like to see how uncluttered and simple the cowl is. There is no cooling problems at all at 36 degrees C doing circuits oil and water temps stayed well in the green all the time

any way until next time

Cheers

2006-11-14T15:30:00.000+08:00

Hello again
Well we are a lot closer to finishing I am just going to let the picture tell the story. Although I must firstly cogratulate Australian Aircraft Kits on their plug and play firewall forward kit so simple no stuffing around every thing fitted as it was ment to.

First time outside and final inspection and registration on Friday the Tenth of November 2006

Ole the test pilot on Saturday morning. First flight on Saturday at 0749 hours and then we packed it in because the weather turned even nastier

Well as you can see we are well and truly airborne. The Hornet has lived up to all of my expectations and more considering that this was the first time I have flown it.
Our total build time was 550 hours not bad for a first aeroplane

2006-10-31T21:19:00.000+08:00

Hi all
Well I have nearly bought you all up to date so far we have spent a total of 375 hours on this little project. As you can see I have painted it this has taken 50 hours this includes dismantling and reassembling the aircraft. This is not the final colour just the undercoat as I am not yet sure on my colour scheme. Any ideas would be appreciated so long as it includes yellow.

As you can see the doors are finished and the windows are done except for the windscreen. We have the cowling to make and finish rigging the tail feathers and put the numbers on and then final inspection and hopefully all before harvest starts.
For those of you wishing to fly or drive in to have a look feel free to contact me
more to follow soon
Cheers

2006-10-30T18:13:00.000+08:00

Hello again
Well as you can see we have started rigging the aircraft the following pictures take us right through to the fitting of the slats and flaperons. This has taken 23 hours

Our next step is doors and windows but we decided to put some paint on it instead
so until next time cheers

2006-10-22T06:48:00.000+08:00

Well it has been awhile since the last update. There has been a lot happen since then,as you can see the legs are on and the cockpit is nearing completion this has taken 6 hours.

Our next thing to do was to skin the elevator stabiliser and elevator and make the rudder skeleton and skin the rudder this has taken 22 hours. The best part is that these were our last pieces to make. The total time to date is 352 hours.
From here it is on to the rigging stage .
Untill next time cheers.

2006-08-14T16:31:00.000+08:00

Hello again
Since the last time I updated,we have completed a number of things. The top centre section is completed this has taken 6 hours to do.

The next skin pieces to put on are the firewall side and top skins but we put the rudder pedals in first.

This has taken 23 hours and this includes making the seat frames and installing them. Temporally installing the dash and some double checking on seat and rudder pedal installation to make sure one is comfortable. To give you all some idea of just how much room is in the cockpit here are some pictures.

Peter is 6'8".
Our total build time to date is 324 hours. I have ordered the firewall forward kit from Australian Aircraft Kits http://www.aircraftkits.com.au/ . Thanks for all of your help Ole.
Anyway till next time. Cheers

2006-07-26T07:25:00.000+08:00

Hello to all
Well the tractors are back in the shed and the year 2006 is officially our driest start in farming history. We finished seeding on the 10 of July normally would of been end of may.
Anyway back to planes time to date is 272 hours. Since then we have closed the fuselage.

these pictures are of the centre side skin and the closing of the fuselage this took 17 hours to get to this point. The next section is the luggage compartment fit out.

The luggage compartment took 6 hours. As you can see it is big
Total time is 295 hours

2006-06-05T19:48:00.000+08:00

The next part to do is the rear side walls this took around 6 hours a side after that luggage compartment rear wall.

The rear wall took 3 hours to do. From here it is onto the centre side walls.

Here we have one sidewall clecoed on and the other is ready too be marked out and drilled. Total time to this point is 272 hours.
until next time cheers.

2006-06-04T19:25:00.000+08:00

Gday everybody well it still has not rained. So we have been building again and as you will see it is all starting to come together nicely

We have finished putting the bottom skins on and turned the airframe back over total time is 237 hours.

The next step was to make the bellcrank for the elevator pushrod and set the assembly up and run the rudder cables. This took 10 hours. So total time is 247 hours.

2006-05-17T21:15:00.000+08:00

Here we have completion of the floorpan and we will be ready to turn the fuselage over as soon as we have riveted the front floorpan in place. Total time has been 235 hours. So we are ticking along nicely how ever it will rain soon so we will be dragging out the tractors to put the crop in. One does have to pay for his toys. So until next time Blue skies and don't forget to apply NUMBER ONE RULE: Have Fun

2006-05-16T20:18:00.002+08:00

Hello everybody. In the last post we had just started to make the fuselage skeleton. Well the skeleton is now finished and with all the um and ar procastinating ect I was surprised that we had only just hit the 200 hour mark. As you can see we have now turned the fuselage over and we are getting ready to start skinning the bottom but before we can do this we have to get the skeleton straight and level again

We have put the bottom skin on followed by the lower sidewall skins and from then on the rest is pretty well self explanatory. Total time to this point 218 hours.

The undercarriage channel and centre floor are now in place and we have had a little bit of help from the youngest member of the team Henry.

2006-04-01T08:00:00.000+08:00

There have been numerous hands helping in this project and they belong to Shae, Phil, Glen,Mark, my wife Jo and the two kids Jess and Josh. With a project like this it is all ways good to have extra hands to call on when needed.

The next pieces to construct are the tailfeathers,the horizontal stabilizer and elevator skeletons are inverted however we are not skinning these until we have finished the fuselage.

Now that we are up to date on the building. This is where we are up to. We have started on the fuselage at last total time to this point is 166 hours.

That is it for now more soon.

2006-03-31T19:59:00.000+08:00

While we were building the wings we had numerous interruptions due to harvest and holidays.Since arriving home we have been building flat out while trying not to let the farm interrupt us to much.

I would like to point out that Ole's builder support program is exceptional (we are first time builders) and any problems that we have had have been sorted out over the telephone. Most of the time its been because I haven't read the manuals properly. Yes there are two comprehensive manuals that take it step by step.
The next pieces we built were the slats and they started out looking like this.

The slats finished up looking like this. We had four of these to build and our total time to date was 132 hours. Our next project is the flapperons again four to build and they started out like this.

The flaperons took us another 25 hours to build . So far total build time has been 157 hours.

2006-03-29T19:16:00.001+08:00

Hi everyone this is my blog on the building of our Hornet Stol aircraft designed by Ole Hartmann from Australian Aircraft Kits www.aircraftkits.com.au The pictures above are the veiw and the shed in which we are going to build our plane in. The kit arrived on the 17 October 2005 at around 11 am. We started unpacking immediately and we finished at 2 pm

All of the unpacking has been done and the kit is laid out on the floor

After spending a few hours going over the kit list and marking everything of we started to build the wings this was only possible because we had had the manuals for over a month before the kit arrived.

The following pictures are from the first hole being drilled to the first skins being put on

The wings took 102 hours to build. The whole kit is aluminum and is what I would consider a quick build kit. The next few pictures are the fitting of the leading and trailing edges.

While we were building the wings we had numerous interruptions due to harvest and holidays.Since arriving home we have been building flat out while trying not to let the farm interrupt us to much.