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08-21-2012, 05:08 PM
Larry Brunzlick
The Brunzlick family is pleased to announce the first flight and completion of phase 1 testing for N896CB. It has been long awaited. I made my first deposit and had my first demonstration flight 18 years ago. I began building the first sub kit in January of 1995. Admittedly there were many years when I didn't work on it at all. Sometimes life gets in the way. This past week I had my first ride in a Seawind (my own) since that first demonstration ride 18 years ago. And it very much made up for the long wait.
The best thing I could have done was to take my project down to Planemakers in Sarasota four years ago to finish it up. I made many trips down there to work on the plane and usually got a lot more done in those weeks down there than I would have at home. But I also did work on many of the parts up here in Wisconsin and took them down when they were ready. Not only did they do great work on my plane but I also learned a lot from Chris and John and the whole crew.
Jack Ardoyno was invaluable this past couple of weeks for the initial flight testing, troubleshooting, tweaking, and training. Even though everything is assembled properly, things need to be inspected after flights, and controls need to be tweaked in ways that I would have never known about. Jack puts in a very long day and he is worth every penny. There are lots of two steps forward and one back in this business.
They always say that it's not a good idea to be the first one getting the newest latest and greatest for one's airplane. It is true. We went with the Advanced Flight Systems for our panel. The 4000 series of displays are tested and true. But they came out with a new 5600 model display and we have serial number 9 which we put on the pilot's side. Little did we know that the power source in the unit would cause so much interference with our radio reception. Lots of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth finally led to the discovery. But not until we had cut the antenna wire to one of my glassed in copper foil antennas and bought a new commercially made antenna which didn't work any better either. The problem was not the antenna it was the 5600 unit. AFS has a fix for it (no charge but lots of grief on our part) and we are sending it back today.
We ended up turning down the squelch sensitivity on the one radio that we were able to, but it still made communications with ATC very difficult. As a result we ended up flying in Formation with my Cherokee six in the lead and Jack flying on the wing. Reception with ground and tower were okay, but Tampa approach and departure controllers were all but impossible to hear and understand. We did this to get out of Sarasota airspace and down to Venice where we could do the testing and training outside of the controlled airspace. The problem was a blessing in disguise. It was a great experience and I even got experience flying wingman in the Seawind on the way home to Wisconsin. It gave us the opportunity to get great pictures both of the new Seawind and our Cherokee six. Sharon and I took turns flying the Cherokee Six home. I was riding in the Seawind when Jack demonstrated the aileron rolls.
Cadence our daughter, caught one of the rolls on video and I have posted it on the Seawind Photobucket site. There are additional pics also. I have pasted Mike's previous post on how to get to the Photobucket site which I had al but forgotten about. Go to All albums and the Sub-album N896CB
Hint: Mike is it possible to post the Photobucket link, username, and password somewhere at the top or bottom of the forum page so we don't have to hunt for it on page 4 of the general discussions?
P.S. Cadence just turned 16 in July and soloed in our Cherokee Six two weeks ago.
A new photobucket account has been set up for the Seawind Pilots Association.
http://www.photobucket.com/
To enter the account:
User - Seawindpilot
Password - 1seawindpilot1
Once in, click on upload to and select the area you wish to upload to........
Click on upload images and video, select image or video from your computer, upload
Larry Brunzlick
The Brunzlick family is pleased to announce the first flight and completion of phase 1 testing for N896CB. It has been long awaited. I made my first deposit and had my first demonstration flight 18 years ago. I began building the first sub kit in January of 1995. Admittedly there were many years when I didn't work on it at all. Sometimes life gets in the way. This past week I had my first ride in a Seawind (my own) since that first demonstration ride 18 years ago. And it very much made up for the long wait.
The best thing I could have done was to take my project down to Planemakers in Sarasota four years ago to finish it up. I made many trips down there to work on the plane and usually got a lot more done in those weeks down there than I would have at home. But I also did work on many of the parts up here in Wisconsin and took them down when they were ready. Not only did they do great work on my plane but I also learned a lot from Chris and John and the whole crew.
Jack Ardoyno was invaluable this past couple of weeks for the initial flight testing, troubleshooting, tweaking, and training. Even though everything is assembled properly, things need to be inspected after flights, and controls need to be tweaked in ways that I would have never known about. Jack puts in a very long day and he is worth every penny. There are lots of two steps forward and one back in this business.
They always say that it's not a good idea to be the first one getting the newest latest and greatest for one's airplane. It is true. We went with the Advanced Flight Systems for our panel. The 4000 series of displays are tested and true. But they came out with a new 5600 model display and we have serial number 9 which we put on the pilot's side. Little did we know that the power source in the unit would cause so much interference with our radio reception. Lots of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth finally led to the discovery. But not until we had cut the antenna wire to one of my glassed in copper foil antennas and bought a new commercially made antenna which didn't work any better either. The problem was not the antenna it was the 5600 unit. AFS has a fix for it (no charge but lots of grief on our part) and we are sending it back today.
We ended up turning down the squelch sensitivity on the one radio that we were able to, but it still made communications with ATC very difficult. As a result we ended up flying in Formation with my Cherokee six in the lead and Jack flying on the wing. Reception with ground and tower were okay, but Tampa approach and departure controllers were all but impossible to hear and understand. We did this to get out of Sarasota airspace and down to Venice where we could do the testing and training outside of the controlled airspace. The problem was a blessing in disguise. It was a great experience and I even got experience flying wingman in the Seawind on the way home to Wisconsin. It gave us the opportunity to get great pictures both of the new Seawind and our Cherokee six. Sharon and I took turns flying the Cherokee Six home. I was riding in the Seawind when Jack demonstrated the aileron rolls.
Cadence our daughter, caught one of the rolls on video and I have posted it on the Seawind Photobucket site. There are additional pics also. I have pasted Mike's previous post on how to get to the Photobucket site which I had al but forgotten about. Go to All albums and the Sub-album N896CB
Hint: Mike is it possible to post the Photobucket link, username, and password somewhere at the top or bottom of the forum page so we don't have to hunt for it on page 4 of the general discussions?
P.S. Cadence just turned 16 in July and soloed in our Cherokee Six two weeks ago.
A new photobucket account has been set up for the Seawind Pilots Association.
http://www.photobucket.com/
To enter the account:
User - Seawindpilot
Password - 1seawindpilot1
Once in, click on upload to and select the area you wish to upload to........
Click on upload images and video, select image or video from your computer, upload
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