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mark_trickel
Joined: 13 Dec 2011
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Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
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 Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:20 am Post subject: KIS kit suppliers - who supplied what |
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There is not much about the suppliers that is not already known but I'll give it a shot. Rich tooled up 14 airplanes at High Tech Composites so traffic in and out of the shop was pretty heavy. It was easy to network with the other kitplane guys and share information on suppliers for the different components. Many of the parts used on the KIS are closely related to the Lancair, after all Lance was a partner in High Tech Composites and Rich tooled ALL of those designs and supplied more than 400 complete sets of composite parts and then supplied parts as needed after Lance moved the operation overseas (where it still is).
Hardware - Rich had OEM pricing from Aircraft Spruce, and this is where the bulk of these items came from. The California warehouse was only about 100 miles away and you can bet the Tri-R crew made a few trips there when they built the TR-4 Cruiser in 73 days from dinner napkin sketches to flying in 1994. During regular production if they ran short of composite supplies or anything else they could quickly get the things they needed to move kits out the door. Rich also had and OEM deal with Gruden for the door gas struts, those numbers are floating around the forum somewhere and struts are readily available. There were other suppliers for some of the odds and ends. If Rich could find a better deal somewhere else he would take advantage of the source, but I can't recall any specifics. I will be checking in with Rich's early employees Chuck H. and Steve R. (they will be in shock to learn I have the McCormick TR-1C, they both knew Ken McCormick) and see if they can recall any information on the vendors.
Metal parts - formed and welded - OC is spot on, Ken Brock was the main supplier of these parts, and yes, Rich had problems with the quality that came out of Ken's shop. I stressed this in a past post and I am going to stress this again - if you are flying the factory rudder pedals I urge you to inspect them as part of your preflight. For those who missed post about them, a couple of builders had brought rudder pedal sets back to us at Oshkosh, bent with cracks or breaks at the welds. Just last spring Jason Hill experienced a broken rudder pedal on landing and now the airplane has been totaled out. Rich and Ken did try to work out the issues that came up but at this point there is no way of knowing who got what parts. Most problems were with the earlier TR-1 kits but I would not rule out any of the welded metal parts. As a pilot you depend on these parts doing their job and only close monitoring can ensure that. Sadly Ken died in 1999, and his shop was sold off but I do not think the new owner continued to supply the aviation industry. OC was correct again, as time pasted during production Rich replaced many of the welded parts with machined metal parts from Lyle Hendrick. Lyle also provided some welded parts near the end of production including nose landing gears. Any CNC parts Lyle supplied are still available. He maintains the files used to make these parts and they can be replicated easily.
Vance and parts - You may know Vance was a real rocket scientist, he worked for Rocketdyne and he specifically worked on the Apollo Lunar Modular propulsion systems. For a kid like me that used to get sick on splashdown days so I could stay home and watch, talking to Vance about the space stuff...it just couldn't get any better. They probably designed that stuff on dinner napkins too! Vance has 6 patents in his name, most about forming rocket engine nozzles. Vance was the consummate tinkerer, and he had a really cool shop at his house with lots of neat things and a bunch of machine tools. Rich's name is on the front of KIS but we all know Vance was the real moving force behind KIS (Nate Rambo, Chuck Harrison, Steve Ruege, and Mark Kettering put a lot of work into KIS too). Vance did provide a few other small parts for the KIS project beside the nose gears. Exactly what parts they were I am uncertain but I need a few things for my KIS and if Lyle doesn't have files for what I need I'll know Vance made them. I will have to keep you posted on that information.
Landing Gear -
Main Gear - The aluminum main landing gear for the TR-1 had 4 different suppliers. Some of them came from Aircraft Spruce, some came from other suppliers, but the last supplier was Lyle. I do not know who the other suppliers were, probably some local machine shop or possibly somebody that supplied one of the other kitplane sellers Rich was associated with. I would guess any kits sold after late 1993 were supplied by Lyle. All the TR-4 main gears came from Lyle.
Nose Gear - Early TR-1 nose gears came from Ken Brock. This gear was sold with kits probably until 1996 or 1997. So many builders had problems with the nose gear getting bent, PIO, and all that bad stuff. For the record Rich welded his own nose gear, its still on the airplane rusting away in that funky third world country, and neither he or any of the few pilots he let fly the airplane never banged it! Rich was above all else an incredible pilot. I think there was 3 version of the early nose gear before Vance and Lyle came up with the current version with sock and springs that could take some abuse (like we all used to do to those trusty 150s, 152s, and Cherokees). The early TR-4 steerable nose was mostly made by Vance, this is where he pioneered the shock and spring set up. Lyle provided a few machined parts for it but Vance did the final assembly. More about this gear in the wheel pants paragraph. The free castoring nose gear, the final version sold with the TR-4 kits featured the same shock and spring set up as the early steerable TR-4 nose gear and the later TR-1 nose gear. Again Vance did the final assembly so unfortunately the exact spring combination is unknown. That secret went with Vance when he passed away. All the Landing gears are still available from Lyle except for the shock and springs. We all know the shock was from the '68 Falcon. I did a pretty extensive search while trying to help Dennis and the Falcon shock is the only shock that has the stud end on both ends except for one other shock that is entirley to big to fit into the nose gear strut. The only remaining mystery is the spring sets used on the two airplanes and Galin has just provided us with some important clues. The set up works great for the TR-1 but may not be the most idea set up for the TR-4, it may be a bit light for the loads it takes (my arm chair engineering opinion).
Wheel Pants - You probably would have never guessed this one...the wheel pants for the TR-1 came from RANS (check out their website). Rich had a good relationship with Randy Slitter. I do not recall how this worked out, Rich may have supplied Randy at one time but I do know Rich would get wheel pants sets from Randy from time to time. The TR-4 needed bigger wheel pants. I believe the crew tooled their own larger size very similar to the style used on the TR-1, I'll have Chuck and Steve confirm this. There was a problem when they put wheel pants on the TR-4 prototype. While flying the nose gear turned with the rudder, and when the nose gear wheel pant turned into the wind it really affected the yaw of the airplane in a bad way. That was the reason the nose gear wheel pant was in the luggage bay when the airplane first appeared at Oshkosh in 1994. Vance went to work and came up with the idea of a detente. When the TR-4 would leave the ground the nose gear would drop into a notch and sort of disconnect from the rudder pedals and stay pointed straight ahead and the nose gear and its big wheel pant would not turn into the wind. Problem solved, but it proved to be to difficult and expensive to produce this type of landing gear to be included in the kits. And so the free castering nose gear was born.
Wheels and Brakes - No big secret here. Matco was the supplier. Many builders cursed these wheels especially on the TR-1. Maybe rightly so, the wheel is a bit undersized for the the job it has to do. When the TR-1 started out its gross weight was 1300 lbs. but is was increased to 1550 lbs., and that is a huge difference. The worse thing about the brake set up as most of you know, was the pedal is too short and it is difficult to generate enough leverage to take advantage of what the Matcos have to offer in stopping power. Adding length to the brake pedal helped improve the stopping power. Many builders changed them out for other brands. I have a TR-1 builder near me who changed to the Matco double puck system and he loves it. He operates off a grass runway with good results. I may consider this change for my TR-1C should I actually get up enough nerve to roll it down a real runway. The Matco set up for the TR-4 was a much better match but still had the same rudder/brake pedal set up Rich used on the TR-1. The gross weight increased from 2400 lbs. to 2500 lbs. on the TR-4 but the change did not effect the braking performance. The Matcos had such a bad reputation with builders that a couple of new kit buyers didn't even want them included in their kit but the Matcos will do the job. Rich used Grove wheels and brakes on the Volato 400 project.
Engine Mounts - Most of you no these came from, Snowline Welding in Oregon. Quality was spotty from this supplier. Many of these mounts were delivered warped. Although not a major problem it was not the most ideal situation. If you know anything about welding, putting together a complicated mount required time to allow the welds to cool as the assembly progressed. If the welding was rushed and not allowed to cool along the way when the welds do cool it shrinks and causes the part to warp. In a recent phone conversation TR-4 builder Dennis Frisone he told me Snowline no longer had the jigs used to make the KIS motor mounts.
Windows - Aircraft Windshield Company supplied all windows for KIS. I think every airplane Rich tooled up for other kitplane sellers had windows provided by this company. They have an excellent reputation. Builders may feel the cost is high but their product is first class. A lot of time is put into the resurfacing of these windows after they are molded to ensure excellent optics. All KIS windows are available on an as need bases.
Composite Suppliers - Hexel was the main supplier of this stuff but Rich also did get things from Aircraft Spruce. Later on there were other composite vendors that provided the High Temp materials but I can't recall who these people were. Maybe Mark K. might know.
This is about as much as I know about Richard's vendors, if I learn anymore I will update this post.
Mark T.
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sstearns2(at)yahoo.com
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| Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:49 pm Post subject: KIS kit suppliers - who supplied what |
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Great post, thanks. Grove will make new main gear too.
Scott
On Apr 21, 2013, at 1:20 PM, "mark_trickel" <marktrickel(at)gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
There is not much about the suppliers that is not already known but I'll give it a shot. Rich tooled up 14 airplanes at High Tech Composites so traffic in and out of the shop was pretty heavy. It was easy to network with the other kitplane guys and share information on suppliers for the different components. Many of the parts used on the KIS are closely related to the Lancair, after all Lance was a partner in High Tech Composites and Rich tooled ALL of those designs and supplied more than 400 complete sets of composite parts and then supplied parts as needed after Lance moved the operation overseas (where it still is).
Hardware - Rich had OEM pricing from Aircraft Spruce, and this is where the bulk of these items came from. The California warehouse was only about 100 miles away and you can bet the Tri-R crew made a few trips there when they built the TR-4 Cruiser in 73 days from dinner napkin sketches to flying in 1994. During regular production if they ran short of composite supplies or anything else they could quickly get the things they needed to move kits out the door. Rich also had and OEM deal with Gruden for the door gas struts, those numbers are floating around the forum somewhere and struts are readily available. There were other suppliers for some of the odds and ends. If Rich could find a better deal somewhere else he would take advantage of the source, but I can't recall any specifics. I will be checking in with Rich's early employees Chuck H. and Steve R. (they will be in shock to learn I have the McCormick TR-1C, they both knew Ken McCormick) and see if they can recall any in!
formation on the vendors.
Metal parts - formed and welded - OC is spot on, Ken Brock was the main supplier of these parts, and yes, Rich had problems with the quality that came out of Ken's shop. I stressed this in a past post and I am going to stress this again - if you are flying the factory rudder pedals I urge you to inspect them as part of your preflight. For those who missed post about them, a couple of builders had brought rudder pedal sets back to us at Oshkosh, bent with cracks or breaks at the welds. Just last spring Jason Hill experienced a broken rudder pedal on landing and now the airplane has been totaled out. Rich and Ken did try to work out the issues that came up but at this point there is no way of knowing who got what parts. Most problems were with the earlier TR-1 kits but I would not rule out any of the welded metal parts. As a pilot you depend on these parts doing their job and only close monitoring can ensure that. Sadly Ken died in 1999, and his shop was sold off but I do not !
think the new owner continued to supply the aviation industry. OC was correct again, as time pasted during production Rich replaced many of the welded parts with machined metal parts from Lyle Hendrick. Lyle also provided some welded parts near the end of production including nose landing gears. Any CNC parts Lyle supplied are still available. He maintains the files used to make these parts and they can be replicated easily.
Vance and parts - You may know Vance was a real rocket scientist, he worked for Rocketdyne and he specifically worked on the Apollo Lunar Modular propulsion systems. For a kid like me that used to get sick on splashdown days so I could stay home and watch, talking to Vance about the space stuff...it just couldn't get any better. They probably designed that stuff on dinner napkins too! Vance has 6 patents in his name, most about forming rocket engine nozzles. Vance was the consummate tinkerer, and he had a really cool shop at his house with lots of neat things and a bunch of machine tools. Rich's name is on the front of KIS but we all know Vance was the real moving force behind KIS (Nate Rambo, Chuck Harrison, Steve Ruege, and Mark Kettering put a lot of work into KIS too). Vance did provide a few other small parts for the KIS project beside the nose gears. Exactly what parts they were I am uncertain but I need a few things for my KIS and if Lyle doesn't have files for what I!
need I'll know Vance made them. I will have to keep you posted on that information.
Landing Gear -
Main Gear - The aluminum main landing gear for the TR-1 had 4 different suppliers. Some of them came from Aircraft Spruce, some came from other suppliers, but the last supplier was Lyle. I do not know who the other suppliers were, probably some local machine shop or possibly somebody that supplied one of the other kitplane sellers Rich was associated with. I would guess any kits sold after late 1993 were supplied by Lyle. All the TR-4 main gears came from Lyle.
Nose Gear - Early TR-1 nose gears came from Ken Brock. This gear was sold with kits probably until 1996 or 1997. So many builders had problems with the nose gear getting bent, PIO, and all that bad stuff. For the record Rich welded his own nose gear, its still on the airplane rusting away in that funky third world country, and neither he or any of the few pilots he let fly the airplane never banged it! Rich was above all else an incredible pilot. I think there was 3 version of the early nose gear before Vance and Lyle came up with the current version with sock and springs that could take some abuse (like we all used to do to those trusty 150s, 152s, and Cherokees). The early TR-4 steerable nose was mostly made by Vance, this is where he pioneered the shock and spring set up. Lyle provided a few machined parts for it but Vance did the final assembly. More about this gear in the wheel pants paragraph. The free castoring nose gear, the final version sold with the TR-4 kits feat!
ured the same shock and spring set up as the early steerable TR-4 nose gear and the later TR-1 nose gear. Again Vance did the final assembly so unfortunately the exact spring combination is unknown. That secret went with Vance when he passed away. All the Landing gears are still available from Lyle except for the shock and springs. We all know the shock was from the '68 Falcon. I did a pretty extensive search while trying to help Dennis and the Falcon shock is the only shock that has the stud end on both ends except for one other shock that is entirley to big to fit into the nose gear strut. The only remaining mystery is the spring sets used on the two airplanes and Galin has just provided us with some important clues. The set up works great for the TR-1 but may not be the most idea set up for the TR-4, it may be a bit light for the loads it takes (my arm chair engineering opinion).
Wheel Pants - You probably would have never guessed this one...the wheel pants for the TR-1 came from RANS (check out their website). Rich had a good relationship with Randy Slitter. I do not recall how this worked out, Rich may have supplied Randy at one time but I do know Rich would get wheel pants sets from Randy from time to time. The TR-4 needed bigger wheel pants. I believe the crew tooled their own larger size very similar to the style used on the TR-1, I'll have Chuck and Steve confirm this. There was a problem when they put wheel pants on the TR-4 prototype. While flying the nose gear turned with the rudder, and when the nose gear wheel pant turned into the wind it really affected the yaw of the airplane in a bad way. That was the reason the nose gear wheel pant was in the luggage bay when the airplane first appeared at Oshkosh in 1994. Vance went to work and came up with the idea of a detente. When the TR-4 would leave the ground the nose gear would drop into a not!
ch and sort of disconnect from the rudder pedals and stay pointed straight ahead and the nose gear and its big wheel pant would not turn into the wind. Problem solved, but it proved to be to difficult and expensive to produce this type of landing gear to be included in the kits. And so the free castering nose gear was born.
Wheels and Brakes - No big secret here. Matco was the supplier. Many builders cursed these wheels especially on the TR-1. Maybe rightly so, the wheel is a bit undersized for the the job it has to do. When the TR-1 started out its gross weight was 1300 lbs. but is was increased to 1550 lbs., and that is a huge difference. The worse thing about the brake set up as most of you know, was the pedal is too short and it is difficult to generate enough leverage to take advantage of what the Matcos have to offer in stopping power. Adding length to the brake pedal helped improve the stopping power. Many builders changed them out for other brands. I have a TR-1 builder near me who changed to the Matco double puck system and he loves it. He operates off a grass runway with good results. I may consider this change for my TR-1C should I actually get up enough nerve to roll it down a real runway. The Matco set up for the TR-4 was a much better match but still had the same rudder/brake peda!
l set up Rich used on the TR-1. The gross weight increased from 2400 lbs. to 2500 lbs. on the TR-4 but the change did not effect the braking performance. The Matcos had such a bad reputation with builders that a couple of new kit buyers didn't even want them included in their kit but the Matcos will do the job. Rich used Grove wheels and brakes on the Volato 400 project.
Engine Mounts - Most of you no these came from, Snowline Welding in Oregon. Quality was spotty from this supplier. Many of these mounts were delivered warped. Although not a major problem it was not the most ideal situation. If you know anything about welding, putting together a complicated mount required time to allow the welds to cool as the assembly progressed. If the welding was rushed and not allowed to cool along the way when the welds do cool it shrinks and causes the part to warp. In a recent phone conversation TR-4 builder Dennis Frisone he told me Snowline no longer had the jigs used to make the KIS motor mounts.
Windows - Aircraft Windshield Company supplied all windows for KIS. I think every airplane Rich tooled up for other kitplane sellers had windows provided by this company. They have an excellent reputation. Builders may feel the cost is high but their product is first class. A lot of time is put into the resurfacing of these windows after they are molded to ensure excellent optics. All KIS windows are available on an as need bases.
Composite Suppliers - Hexel was the main supplier of this stuff but Rich also did get things from Aircraft Spruce. Later on there were other composite vendors that provided the High Temp materials but I can't recall who these people were. Maybe Mark K. might know.
This is about as much as I know about Richard's vendors, if I learn anymore I will update this post.
Mark T.
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=399056#399056
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http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?KIS-List |
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Robert Reed
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
Posts: 331
Location: Dallas/Ft.Worth
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| Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:20 am Post subject: KIS kit suppliers - who supplied what |
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Mark,
Thank you so much for all of your support. This will be helpful to everyone.
Thanks,
Bob Reed
From: mark_trickel <marktrickel(at)gmail.com>
To: kis-list(at)matronics.com
Sent: Sun, April 21, 2013 1:21:05 PM
Subject: KIS kit suppliers - who supplied what
--> KIS-List message posted by: "mark_trickel" <marktrickel(at)gmail.com (marktrickel(at)gmail.com)>
There is not much about the suppliers that is not already known but I'll give it a shot. Rich tooled up 14 airplanes at High Tech Composites so traffic in and out of the shop was pretty heavy. It was easy to network with the other kitplane guys and share information on suppliers for the different components. Many of the parts used on the KIS are closely related to the Lancair, after all Lance was a partner in High Tech Composites and Rich tooled ALL of those designs and supplied more than 400 complete sets of composite parts and then supplied parts as needed after Lance moved the operation overseas (where it still is).
Hardware - Rich had OEM pricing from Aircraft Spruce, and this is where the bulk of these items came from. The California warehouse was only about 100 miles away and you can bet the Tri-R crew made a few trips there when they built the TR-4 Cruiser in 73 days from dinner napkin sketches to flying in 1994. During regular production if they ran short of composite supplies or anything else they could quickly get the things they needed to move kits out the door. Rich also had and OEM deal with Gruden for the door gas struts, those numbers are floating around the forum somewhere and struts are readily available. There were other suppliers for some of the odds and ends. If Rich could find a better deal somewhere else he would take advantage of the source, but I can't recall any specifics. I will be checking in with Rich's early employees Chuck H. and Steve R. (they will be in shock to learn I have the McCormick TR-1C, they both knew Ken McCormick) and see if they can recall any in!
formation on the vendors.
Metal parts - formed and welded - OC is spot on, Ken Brock was the main supplier of these parts, and yes, Rich had problems with the quality that came out of Ken's shop. I stressed this in a past post and I am going to stress this again - if you are flying the factory rudder pedals I urge you to inspect them as part of your preflight. For those who missed post about them, a couple of builders had brought rudder pedal sets back to us at Oshkosh, bent with cracks or breaks at the welds. Just last spring Jason Hill experienced a broken rudder pedal on landing and now the airplane has been totaled out. Rich and Ken did try to work out the issues that came up but at this point there is no way of knowing who got what parts. Most problems were with the earlier TR-1 kits but I would not rule out any of the welded metal parts. As a pilot you depend on these parts doing their job and only close monitoring can ensure that. Sadly Ken died in 1999, and his shop was sold off but I do not !
think the new owner continued to supply the aviation industry. OC was correct again, as time pasted during production Rich replaced many of the welded parts with machined metal parts from Lyle Hendrick. Lyle also provided some welded parts near the end of production including nose landing gears. Any CNC parts Lyle supplied are still available. He maintains the files used to make these parts and they can be replicated easily.
Vance and parts - You may know Vance was a real rocket scientist, he worked for Rocketdyne and he specifically worked on the Apollo Lunar Modular propulsion systems. For a kid like me that used to get sick on splashdown days so I could stay home and watch, talking to Vance about the space stuff...it just couldn't get any better. They probably designed that stuff on dinner napkins too! Vance has 6 patents in his name, most about forming rocket engine nozzles. Vance was the consummate tinkerer, and he had a really cool shop at his house with lots of neat things and a bunch of machine tools. Rich's name is on the front of KIS but we all know Vance was the real moving force behind KIS (Nate Rambo, Chuck Harrison, Steve Ruege, and Mark Kettering put a lot of work into KIS too). Vance did provide a few other small parts for the KIS project beside the nose gears. Exactly what parts they were I am uncertain but I need a few things for my KIS and if Lyle doesn't have files for what I!
need I'll know Vance made them. I will have to keep you posted on that information.
Landing Gear -
Main Gear - The aluminum main landing gear for the TR-1 had 4 different suppliers. Some of them came from Aircraft Spruce, some came from other suppliers, but the last supplier was Lyle. I do not know who the other suppliers were, probably some local machine shop or possibly somebody that supplied one of the other kitplane sellers Rich was associated with. I would guess any kits sold after late 1993 were supplied by Lyle. All the TR-4 main gears came from Lyle.
Nose Gear - Early TR-1 nose gears came from Ken Brock. This gear was sold with kits probably until 1996 or 1997. So many builders had problems with the nose gear getting bent, PIO, and all that bad stuff. For the record Rich welded his own nose gear, its still on the airplane rusting away in that funky third world country, and neither he or any of the few pilots he let fly the airplane never banged it! Rich was above all else an incredible pilot. I think there was 3 version of the early nose gear before Vance and Lyle came up with the current version with sock and springs that could take some abuse (like we all used to do to those trusty 150s, 152s, and Cherokees). The early TR-4 steerable nose was mostly made by Vance, this is where he pioneered the shock and spring set up. Lyle provided a few machined parts for it but Vance did the final assembly. More about this gear in the wheel pants paragraph. The free castoring nose gear, the final version sold with the TR-4 kits feat!
ured the same shock and spring set up as the early steerable TR-4 nose gear and the later TR-1 nose gear. Again Vance did the final assembly so unfortunately the exact spring combination is unknown. That secret went with Vance when he passed away. All the Landing gears are still available from Lyle except for the shock and springs. We all know the shock was from the '68 Falcon. I did a pretty extensive search while trying to help Dennis and the Falcon shock is the only shock that has the stud end on both ends except for one other shock that is entirley to big to fit into the nose gear strut. The only remaining mystery is the spring sets used on the two airplanes and Galin has just provided us with some important clues. The set up works great for the TR-1 but may not be the most idea set up for the TR-4, it may be a bit light for the loads it takes (my arm chair engineering opinion).
Wheel Pants - You probably would have never guessed this one...the wheel pants for the TR-1 came from RANS (check out their website). Rich had a good relationship with Randy Slitter. I do not recall how this worked out, Rich may have supplied Randy at one time but I do know Rich would get wheel pants sets from Randy from time to time. The TR-4 needed bigger wheel pants. I believe the crew tooled their own larger size very similar to the style used on the TR-1, I'll have Chuck and Steve confirm this. There was a problem when they put wheel pants on the TR-4 prototype. While flying the nose gear turned with the rudder, and when the nose gear wheel pant turned into the wind it really affected the yaw of the airplane in a bad way. That was the reason the nose gear wheel pant was in the luggage bay when the airplane first appeared at Oshkosh in 1994. Vance went to work and came up with the idea of a detente. When the TR-4 would leave the ground the nose gear would drop into a not!
ch and sort of disconnect from the rudder pedals and stay pointed straight ahead and the nose gear and its big wheel pant would not turn into the wind. Problem solved, but it proved to be to difficult and expensive to produce this type of landing gear to be included in the kits. And so the free castering nose gear was born.
Wheels and Brakes - No big secret here. Matco was the supplier. Many builders cursed these wheels especially on the TR-1. Maybe rightly so, the wheel is a bit undersized for the the job it has to do. When the TR-1 started out its gross weight was 1300 lbs. but is was increased to 1550 lbs., and that is a huge difference. The worse thing about the brake set up as most of you know, was the pedal is too short and it is difficult to generate enough leverage to take advantage of what the Matcos have to offer in stopping power. Adding length to the brake pedal helped improve the stopping power. Many builders changed them out for other brands. I have a TR-1 builder near me who changed to the Matco double puck system and he loves it. He operates off a grass runway with good results. I may consider this change for my TR-1C should I actually get up enough nerve to roll it down a real runway. The Matco set up for the TR-4 was a much better match but still had the same rudder/brake peda!
l set up Rich used on the TR-1. The gross weight increased from 2400 lbs. to 2500 lbs. on the TR-4 but the change did not effect the braking performance. The Matcos had such a bad reputation with builders that a couple of new kit buyers didn't even want them included in their kit but the Matcos will do the job. Rich used Grove wheels and brakes on the Volato 400 project.
Engine Mounts - Most of you no these came from, Snowline Welding in Oregon. Quality was spotty from this supplier. Many of these mounts were delivered warped. Although not a major problem it was not the most ideal situation. If you know anything about welding, putting together a complicated mount required time to allow the welds to cool as the assembly progressed. If the welding was rushed and not allowed to cool along the way when the welds do cool it shrinks and causes the part to warp. In a recent phone conversation TR-4 builder Dennis Frisone he told me Snowline no longer had the jigs used to make the KIS motor mounts.
Windows - Aircraft Windshield Company supplied all windows for KIS. I think every airplane Rich tooled up for other kitplane sellers had windows provided by this company. They have an excellent reputation. Builders may feel the cost is high but their product is first class. A lot of time is put into the resurfacing of these windows after they are molded to ensure excellent optics. All KIS windows are available on an as need bases.
Composite Suppliers - Hexel was the main supplier of this stuff but Rich also did get things from Aircraft Spruce. Later on there were other composite vendors that provided the High Temp materials but I can't recall who these people were. Maybe Mark K. might know.
This is about as much as I know about Richard's vendors, if I learn anymore I will update this post.
Mark T.
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=399056#39905IS-List" target=_blank>http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?KIS-List
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