BD-12d ??

[crispy critter]

Re: BD-12d ??

Here in Ky we say taters. Welcome back Norm....where the hell have ya been???

[stormman]

Re: BD-12d ??

Lost and out of my mind. Should find it soon though!
At least im not in OHIO

[Forrest Barber]

Re: BD-12d ??

Oh sure, rub it in! Although Ohio kind of missed out on the Hurricaines, wildfires, rain for one month straight , 6 ft of snow..

[peerlesscowboy]

Re: BD-12d ??

Sorry 'bout hopping on this thread 4 days late? I just registered.
Anyway----it's been MY understanding that the "D" at the end of BC-12D stands for "Deluxe", is that not correct?
John C. Saubak

[Dick Huish]

Re: BD-12d ??

The (D) means that the tail is from the model D (L-2) which is two hinge surfaces and taller fin and rudder. Dick

[VictorBravo]

Re: BD-12d ??

Dick, Gary Anctil asked me to send along his sincere best wishes to you, and the rest of the Taylorcraft community. I was mistaken in saying his L-2 was a model D... it was an original military L-2. He has another L-2 project he is collecting parts for, and kindly watches over some of my "owner maintenance" to make sure I'm not going overboard.

We have about 5 T-crafts at our airport, one of which has an original set of Taylorcraft "spark plug cups" allowing the smooth cowling and shielded plugs. That really rattles my cage every time I see the fiberglass bumps on mine and the big Howitzer holes in my sheet metal.

[mulwyk]

Re: BD-12d ??

Bill:

What do the original T-craft "spark plug cups" look like? Is it something that could be an owner produced part? Or maybe they're available for purchase somewhere?

Bob Gustafson

[VictorBravo]

Re: BD-12d ??

Bill:

What do the original T-craft "spark plug cups" look like? Is it something that could be an owner produced part? Or maybe they're available for purchase somewhere?

Bob Gustafson

Bob they are available from Fresno Airparts for about $24-28 each I think. They are on my list of things to do. I am finally lucky to have a really good working radio/battery setup now, so I can really make use of those little aluminum cups. Fresno Airparts calls them "Ercoupe Spark Plug Cups".

I got to fly yesterday and today. We had good weather in Los Angeles for the first time in a while. Yesterday I got to fly low across farm fields and a meandering river bed for half an hour at 300 feet on the way to Santa Paula and then come back at about 50-75 feet. This ain't much for some of you, but living in the middle of a big city it's not often you get to fly like that without getting your butt in trouble.

Today I flew formation with a rare homebuilt called a Salvay Skyhopper, which is the very first in the line of airplanes that wound up being the Shinn/Varga. It's a single seat wood low wing cutie pie from the early 1960's. We went in to Agua Dulce airport, and some guy in a J-3 was entering the pattern at the same time. He asked if I needed him to make a 360 for spacing and I said on the radio... "I'm in a Taylorcraft... the 360 is built right in to your Cub..."

There were no further radio calls from him. He landed about the time I was shutting down after taxiing in.

I taped some pieces of foam on my external (pre-war) trim tabs as an experiment, trying to get them to be more effective and stay where you put them. First version was too big, and it "over-centered" the trim tabs. When you put the lever in the neutral position it wanted to flop all the way nose down or nose up, not stay where you put it. A minute of field engineering with my pocket knife at Santa Paula and the extensions were smaller, which removed about 2/3 of the problem. Today I went after it with the knife again a little, which solved the overcenter problem but the trim is still not powerful enough to trim it over the entire "green arc" range.

I am making up some stealth experimental replacement tabs that are larger and more effective, using a flying wing airfoil (for no pitching moment) and hopefully aerodynamically balanced. Hot wired foam cores and 1/64" plywood in the finest R/C tradition. If they work, I'll think about reporting it to the group and the FAA for a field approval. If they don't work, they'll go in the round file.