[johncondor]

"Johncondor , Any New Year pressies to share ?"

Following MichaelP's helpful story of the failed elevator gap seal we decided to try fitting a temporary seal. As the gap between the elevator and tail plane is only about an eighth of an inch we did not really expect much effect. How wrong we were. It has transformed the trim handling beyond our wildest dreams and removed a long standing problem.

Next job- to do it properly and remove the fixed trim tab that someone fitted in the dim and distant past.

[pilotbarry]

MichaelP is not daft...(well a little bit) but he has a load of Condor experience.

[condor17]

Jc , Brilliant news .
Also great is the power of the 'pooter ..... and thanks to this forum . Tab may have been put on B4 this age of sharing information and ideas .

rgds condor .

[mikehallam]

This is one excellent exchange - which adult style occurs in spots between other nonsense subjects !

Off subject :- If MichaelP recalls the Redhill Strut and his fleet of a/c ca. 1970's perhaps he'd kindly contact me ?

mikehallam, Jackrell's Farm Airfield

[MichaelP]

Hello Mike,

PM sent

[Andrew b]

Hi all in using this thread to ask if anyone knows what happend to the remains of condor g ayfg which was damaged beyond repair in2011 I believe. I just wondered if there are any spares around still if anyone has any imfo can they let me know pls
Cheers Andrew

[condor17]

Andrew b , 'wot spares are you after ?

rgds condor ..

[Andrew b]

I'll try and send you a message cheers

[Genghis the Engineer]

By the way, any Condor owners.

When we had ours, some eejit whose name may well have begun with G managed to taxi over the fuel cap / gauge combo, wrecking it. As a result, I designed and had made a new one - I have a box with the bits and drawings to build at least one more, now of no use since I no longer have a Condor.

Any use to anybody?

G

[Andrew b]

If it's the cap rod and float type I would be intrested .mine still works but a spare to play around with would be good if it's going spare pls pm me
Cheers Andrew

[oldbiggincfi]

A silly idea keeps coming to me.

Rollason Condor - universally regarded as a thoroughly good little flying machine, popular with owners, reasonably and enjoyably challenging to fly, seems to have historically produced pretty good pilots when it was a common training aeroplane.

- Made of wood and fabric, which is rather less popular nowadays.



However - it would be a doddle to take moulds off one, and reverse engineer it in Carbon Fibre.

Designing the internal structure would be a bit more work, but straightforward enough - I can think of engineers in the UK who could do that in a couple of weeks. Actually I think I'd rather use the approach of the C42 and use a simple bolted tube internal structure with CFRP outer panels - even I could stress analyse that longhand.

No shortage of companies who could manufacture it.


Personally, I'd replace the Continental with a Rotax 912S - cheaper, more modern, more frugal, well understood.

And of course, some modern instruments.


Maybe take it through LAA as a kit, but do it properly to CS.VLA so that it would be reasonably straightforward to then set up a manufacturing concern and sell them as 2 seat training aeroplanes.

Maybe tweak the structure a bit so that it can be configured with the maingear a bit further back and a training wheel at the front if anybody wanted that.



Anybody got any thoughts on that as a project?

Anybody know who actually owns the design rights to the D62 now?

G

Can I remind you of this that was written some time ago .

Any thoughts taking into account potential 600 kgs changes .

[Sooty25]

only got to chisel off 70kg, which shouldn't be too hard!

[Genghis the Engineer]

I hadn't (frankly I've so little spare capacity in my life in these troubled times, it's as much as I can do to occasionally sneak out and fly my present American and German built steeds).

Yes, this offers some useful potential as at 600kg the Condor-M could be manufactured in the UK, and certified entirely through BMAA, who are by far the most user friendly of all the relevant agencies. Technically the task is near identical, in practice this would massively ease it.

Regarding weight, the one I used to fly was 995lb empty weight, or 451kg. Allowing for 60 litres of AVGAS (43kg), an MTOW of 600kg and 172kg, that's 66kg to get rid of as an absolute minimum. An 0-200 masses 77kg + accessories, a 912 about 60kg installed, so that takes it down to 49kg to get rid of. Clearly the more the better as that all becomes payload - but as said, not all that difficult to do.

G

[oldbiggincfi]

My thoughts vere towards a group project aircraft where members could buy a prefabicated aircraft in kit form just like puting together a Mercury -Allen or Keil Craft kit.
Something simple but functional , also robust enough to go on to be a useful trainer. Nothing wrong with wood as it's been about a long time. Sadly I'm at the wrong time of life to consider such an adventure although would love to contribute similar to the BGA model of instruction .

[djtaylor]

I think that you will need a Rotax engine, Oratex covering a modern EFIS and smaller wheels and you are nearly there.