Mark and Renee Smith July Kitfox of the Month

[DanB]

Mark and Renee,
Congratulations...you have a great looking plane! It looks very nice on those floats and I'd bet it's a kick to fly on and off the water. Good to hear about the first flight being a good one with all going well & as expected. These planes are awesome and I'm looking forward to getting mine in the air.


PS...You will need to keep an eye on Kellander at any fly-ins...I know he is chomping at the bit to fly a Kitfox floatplane.

[lbushrod]

What a great looking plane. Good job! She looks especially nice on floats. Wonder why you needed a dual axle trailer to haul it?

Really, it is a wonderful looking plane, let's see more of it.

Pete

[Mark]

Thanks, guys. I've been very happy with it, too. It just needs more air time. If I wasn't so busy working on everybody else's Kitfoxs, and John wasn't always using it as a test bed for whims and new trial parts, I might get to fly it more.

Ibushrod - about the trailer - when you have to beg, borrow, or steal, you use what you get...

[Dorsal]

Mark,
What a beautiful plane, very inspiring. I really like the idea of the separate plate for the throttle, how did you handle the "choke" ring (I can't tell from the photos)?

[Mark]

Thanks, Dorsal
I found the throttle plate on line somewhere and it was expensive,
but I wanted to have a clean panel. I'd just make one next time.

Originally, I had tried to use a push/pull cable in the throttle panel but it didn't work out. I installed the ring cable behind the throttle panel and it works out because it hides the ring and I use the panel for a bit of leverage when using the choke.

[Dorsal]

Mark,
Thanks, just about to start cutting my panel, having some analysis paralysis.

[Mark]

Here's a couple of updates to our aircraft. I recently replaced my XCOM radio with an ICOM A210 - what an improvement. Also got my wheel pants installed, much faster now. The best news is that we won the EAA 2009 Workmanship Award for Custom Built Kit Airplanes!