Completed Annual Inspectin

May 10, 2007, the inspection was completed. Did not have to replace the nose gear leg. It was sent to Harmond for magnaflux inspection. No cracks were found. replaced the original Van's fuel valve with an Andair fuel valve. Installed new eye balls for routing the engine cable controls, and replaced the battery and ground cables with new cables. Repaired the carburator heat door which was found to have a crack. I built a tow bar to be used with the John Deer riding lawn mower.

Annual Inspection

Clotilde is undergoing annual inspection. All is going well but it will take a few weeks before returning to flight status. I have taken this opportunity to send the nose gear leg for inspection to Van's. If all is the analysis shows that the leg is in good condition and no cracks are found the leg will not be replaced otherwise a new leg, fork and possibly nose wheel pant will be replaced.

New tow bar - March 2007

I built a tow bar to pull Clotilde from the hangar to the gas pump and back using our John Deer lawn mower. I actually copied the design from our friend Jon Allen. It is built using 2 x 2 and 1 x 1 square steel stock and welding together. I will publish pictures of this design. It works quite well. Thanks John.

Horton Door

The hangar door is a Horton Door. I am very satisfied with this door, I first came across this door at Cypress Creek Airpark in Houston. It impressed me how easy it was to open and close, the amount of light that gets through and the fact that it can be open as much as you need and only limited by the width of the panels. My door is 42 feet wide, has 12 panels, 38 inches per panel. Six panels open to the left and six to the right. The door rides on a channel that is installed flushed with the concrete. Although the installation of the channel seems to be difficult when you read the instructions it actually is very simple. Just follow the dimensions given in the installation instructions. The folks at Horton in Kansas are very customer oriented. I certainly recomend this door to other future builders. There are picture of this door that you can see in this blog. http://www.hortonstackdoor.com/

Hangar lights

I have installed lights in the Hangar. The hangar is 45 x 35 and have installed a total of six 8 ft assemblies. Each 8 foot lamp had four foot T8 lamps. The T8 lamps are the thinner size, not heavy at all and when the switch is turned on the light comes on inmediately. This installation was reccomended by my neighbor who has a similar system in his hangar.

View from inside hangar to 12 approach

History

N996US flew for the first time on May 29, 1999. The plane was built in 6 years by myself with the help of my wife, Peggy. I also had help from Ralph Howard, a good friend from Victoria, Tx.

After seven years in operation, the plane, named "Clotilde" after my mother's name, has flown over 700 hours. Clotilde has gone several updates since 1999. Avionics have been replaced and presently has a Garmin transponder, 327, a 430A, and audio panel. It also has a Bendix-King KX 125. A few years back it was outfitted with a Navaid autopilot which does a good job in combination witht the 430A. An Altrak altitude hold helps tremendously when flying IFR. Late last year the propeller was updated from a wooden propeller, Sterba, to a metal, Sensenich propeller. The original paint was replaced by a new paint scheme in 2003 following damaged done by Hurricane Claudette while in the Victoria airport main hangar. The paint job was done by GLO, Grady O'neal.

Early this year Clotilde has been moved from the Victoria airport to her new home at Kestrel airpark where her parents Peggy and Gus have decided to make their new home.