gkainz
Final Approach
Welcome to POA and thanks for all the info and update. I hope you hang around here, get acquainted and continue to share your progress.
Greg
Greg
N801BH Gone West... (Ben Haas)
- Thread starter Ted
- Start date
Great to have you aboard! Please keep us posted with any updates on this, I’d be curious to follow along!
So glad to hear it’s going to keep flying!
ktup-flyer
En-Route
Awesome! You’ll have to bring her to the POA Gastons fly-in or something to show her off once she’s finishedI don't know if any of you are around - but I just saw these comments. I'm the "gentleman" (don't get called that a lot) that has this airplane. and.....Haven't flown it yet! I get to put in a grueling 5-6 hrs a week on it. The V-8 was removed (ooops) - but totally overhauled, and re-installed. (took a while to understand everything he had done to it...thank God for the video he posted). Sure doesn't sound like the other airplanes out there!!!Looks like Ben had some hard landings, so little damage repaired on the firewall, new stainless headers, new wig-wag lights on the wings, wiring removed, the 40 round guages have been removed, his radios, GPS, Transponder, removed, new faux-"glass panel" (it's the Flightbox Pro and Engine Monitoring from Falken Avionics) installed. Same paint scheme. I'm going to keep his tail number on it. It's been hangered ever since I loaded it on a trailer and hauled it back to KDWH. It's in the final stages of testing and configuring, so hopefully it's just a couple of months away from doing what it was built to do!
Ted
The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2007
- Messages
- 30,006
- Display Name
Display name:
iFlyNothing
I don't know if any of you are around - but I just saw these comments. I'm the "gentleman" (don't get called that a lot) that has this airplane. and.....Haven't flown it yet! I get to put in a grueling 5-6 hrs a week on it. The V-8 was removed (ooops) - but totally overhauled, and re-installed. (took a while to understand everything he had done to it...thank God for the video he posted). Sure doesn't sound like the other airplanes out there!!!
Steve, welcome to PoA and I'm very happy to hear this update on Ben's airplane. You'll find that Ben was very well-liked around here, and we miss him.
If you don't mind sharing, I'd be really curious to hear what all you found with Ben's plane as you have been going through getting it airworthy again. Ben having hard landings with it doesn't surprise me. Knowing how he flew it (he enjoyed using its short field capabilities) it wouldn't surprise me if those steep power-off approaches sometimes didn't end in greasers. I also always figured that the total engine weight (and CG) was fairly high relative to the other engine options that plane normally had, which would undoubtedly make such damage more likely.
Likewise with the engine, did you rebuild it for any particular reason or more than anything to see what was going on inside it? Although I don't think he ever published it on here, he told me that he did once have a cracked piston. He ran it very hot (as I think he talked about in the video he made) but after that he ran it a lot cooler, at least that's what he told me.
I can't claim to be an expert about that plane by any stretch, but he and I spent many hours talking about it. I always admired what he did and took notes as I'd hoped to do a similar sort of project someday. If there are any things you haven't figured out I'd be glad to go through the memory banks and see if I remember him telling me something about it.
Funny that you've got it at DWH. I've flown in there a few times over the past several years, so it wasn't far away. I'd certainly love to see pictures if you have any to share!