September 15, 2012

Text in Red is new this printing …

Dear Legal Eagle builders:

Many Legal Eagle builders have taken liberties with the design and finished
projects have almost universally differed from the Milholland plan…

You can see some of the obvious changes in the photos section of this site and on
Steve Kiblinger’s BuildersGallery…

Paul Loghry also maintains a list of common changes in his web pages thru this
link…

1) There is one mandatory change to be found thru this link to Leonard’s web
site… http://betterhalfvw.com/corrections.htm

2) Leonard strongly suggests that the total loss battery be replaced every 12 months
(1 year) using the date of purchase as the starting point…

3) The seat attach loops at top and bottom should be secured with a small bolt and
washers or (2) rivets - neither method is shown on the plans…

4) Mike in Wisconsin is documenting building the fuselage in a VID series that is

well worth looking at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LeagleEagleAirplane?feature=mhee

Mike has forwarded some plans questions that result in LE plan pages 8 & 9 being
revised with copies included below and to be placed in all plan sets… Changes
include revised dimension of the front wing attach post - location of the bottom
seat tube and a new tube going forward from the seat bottom to a mid point on the
station 2 side tubes…

Observations: almost all changes add weigh and that ain’t good (500 lbs gross on
this airplane)… Quality wood and metal work on this basic design is important –
the cost of materials for a second or third version of a part you like better is a
comfort in the air… Smooth/round the edges and paint all 2024-T3 alum parts…
EAA reports that 75% of new homebuilts have a power reduction/loss incident in
the first 10 hours of flight – ground run those first10 engine hours on the 1/2
VW…You will find that it takes about 60 hours before the engine puts out full
power (sooner if the engine was broke-in on non detergent oil)… Try to get 3200
rpm static for the threshold of good climb performance… If using motor oil
consider: http://www.zddplus.com or use Valvoline VR oil that is reported to
have adequate zddp…

It flies great!
Steve