Cermark Pitts - slight firewall problem
 

I have the above plane, obviously. I first had a YS120AC mounted in the nose, and have flown it a couple of weekends. I love the plane, it's beautiful, stable, quite responsive, take offs and lands easy, although I may have a tendancy to land it a bit slow, since it makes a couple of bounces on the main gear. I notices my spinner was vibrating a bit when running the engine, but when checking for looseness with engine off, it seemed like I was just wigeling the whole fuse. Yesterday after flying, I wanted to change engine to try another YS120 I have, and with the cowl off, I could see that the firewall had come loose. I cut the covering in a square behind/under the engine and epoxied som tristock to the corners, and CA'd, thin and thick, all the outside joints of the firewall and behind, so I am hoping that now it is much stronger/strong enough. The plane RTF came in at 11 lbs, and I have just switched to a 24 oz tank from the 16 oz that only gave me about 8 min flight time. I have always been against trying to alleviiate control coupling through mixing programs in the Tx, but with this one I am going to try and use that feature.
DKjens

Re: Cermark Pitts - slight firewall problem
 

Sounds like you got it licked, but don't hesitate to pin, or small dowl the firewall from the outside also.

To negate bounce, bring it in low over the edge of the runway, let the speed bleed off while increasing the angle of attack, and try to 3 point it. Mine does this very nicely. If you allow the main gear to touch first, it's gonna bounce.

Jim

Cermark Pitts - slight firewall problem
 

I epoxy/glass all my firewall corners religiously and without question. I am now assembling the Cermark. With wooden engine mounts already in their. Again I will glass the whole inside because it will need it.

cermark pitts firewall
 

hey DKjens,
i have the same pitts with the YS120FZ on the front. at the end of the flying season last year, i experienced the same problem
with mine in flight after doing a "BLENDER" at half throttle
(not a good thing to do with this pitts) and continuing to fly another 3 to 5 minutes. i was noticing that it was flying a little
wierd, so i decided to land at that point. Damage was found
throughout the plane, especially the firewall area. all the joints
was coming apart or the wood in that area was spit to pieces.
not a bad repair, just time consuming. i added alot of tri-stock
in the nose area and laminated the firewall with a piece of hardwood and pinned all repaired areas with small dowel rods.
i have had my pitts going on its 3rd season and plan on keeping
for a long time. good luck with yours
pittsman








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