Czmelak building

[kjkavaney]

It FLEW today for the first time...no photos as I was too busy flying the beast.
Numerous issues at the field but helped to resolve with several friends help...needed a bit of down trimming ...maybe decalage not perfect ?? anyway...a totally different animal than the Pegasus..
After first flight spent a bunch of time fine tuning things and then did a dozen or so take offs and landings...this is one super stable bird....very nice bird to fly...
Thanks Pete, Len, and Jim for their input and support on my project..
kevin

[lenb]

congratulations Kevin..... Whew...... All right.

Now just get out and burn gallons of fuel doing take off and landings.

[ARUP]

+1 Congratulations Kevin!

[ljsoarinson]

Kevin, kudos on the first flights! It looked great in the air, slow and stable.

We'll have to get some good pictures of it at work this weekend!

- Larry

[LRFitch]

Kevin,
Congratulations on your maidens. Fly the dickens out of it.

Larry Fitch

[Pgoldsmith]

Congrats Kev, wonderful achievement...

[JimD]

You got it across the finish line...congratulations!!!

[jfrickie]

Helped Kevin tune the motor today and then he put her to work....it flew great....great job of building and flying buddy...

[kjkavaney]

Very few pictures available during our 4 day Sled Works aero tow event here in Minnesota. We had 30 pilots, some from as far away as Texas. Here is the completed Cmelak and I am blown away with how well this suits my flying skills, or lack of. I have now watched Pete, Len, and Jim fly theirs and hoped I could benefit from this plane. It flies very differently than the Pegasus, which is no surprise really, but I love how it can float around a click or two above idle while waiting for the landing zone to clear out of a sailplane or two and how it can land at nearly walking speed....Love it...Sorry for all my whining while building it but in the end all worth it... thanks for all the support and help during this project.

[DanR]

Great job Kevin!

Thanks for the tows at the Sledworks event this week.

Dan

[MarnochS]

Superlative

[Mosquito]

Nice job KJK. Sorry I missed it but I'm sure I will see it fly soon!

[ARUP]

All right, Kevin! It's great to hear the good report!

[kjkavaney]

Post maiden fixin….decided that the McMaster Carr longer springs are really not much stronger than the shorter original PAWNEE springs....the Original Pawnee spring is on the far left.. next is the McMaster Carr replacement spring...the smallest springs are the ones i am adding to INSIDE the McMaster Carr springs....additively...hopefully the right amount of resistance on landing.... and see if I can get about 20-30 % more buffering on my landings with OUT being too stiff....I turned the spacer part on the steel insert down in the Lathe so as to accommodate the skinner springs than stock ...the small ones fit inside the McMaster Carr replacements...I had gone to multiple spring web sties only to be totally over whelmed with various specs and could not figure it out...so went back to McMaster carr and got the next strongest spring but it is clearly TOO strong....lots of experiements I suspect before this gets determined.
I know very few people chose to use the Pawnee Gear on their Cmelaks...perhaps a hand full...but maybe this will be a helpful post to them if you are not happy..I love this bird !!!!

kevin