Legal Eagle ORV in Monument Valley Utah
This blog is about flying adventures in a Milholland Legal Eagle XL named ORV, or off road vehicle forbthe long version. It is a Part 103 Ultralight Vehicle by FAA standards. That means less than 254 pounds, max of 5 gallons of fuel, max speed 63 mph with stall under 27 mph. Â Powers is a 1/2 VW of 45 hp.
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This is what I have been busy on for last few weeks. Setting up business, getting stock of materials and building up stock of for sale components. Now it is time to let the world know what is available. More parts and more good things to come.
For the Legal Eagle Builders or those thinking about building a Legal Eagle XL or UL some exciting news. More to come.
It has been a while since I have posted so getting things going again. I have finally been able to easily get in and out of ORV since getting Knee replaced in early December. Before Knee replacement the pain would get so bad i could hardly get ORV back in the hanger. Afterwards had to recoup and then get to where my knee movement was better and finally had to make some changes to ORV. A video will be forthcoming explaining and showing what has happened.
It was nice and calm as we lifted off or for clear blue skies. A beautiful December day with the fall colors here slightly past there prime but still very pretty. This Point of View is about as close to pilots view as is possible and provides a very clear vantage of what pilot is seeing while looking forward.
I placed the oil tank with minimum weight in mind, used a round tank attached to engine and close to engine. This maximized weight savings but has been a problem in that we are constantly blowing oil overboard and loose oil pressure at times. Finally determined the problem to being air oil from engine, the Verner 3V is a dry sump oil system, oil and air was not separating resulting in foaming in tank. This resulted in oil air being blown overboard and pumping foam in place of oil resulted in lose of oil pressure. We changed the tank to one like on Legal Eagle XL ORV and it seems to be working as desired now.
I have had a problem every since first flying SR 7-1/2 with the Verner 3V. The Verner is a dry sump type of system and I mounted to oil tank on engine close up to crankcase to save weight. This was not the way to do it. After considerable study we believe the oil/air combing back out of engine did not have enough time and distance to separate resulting in pressure in oil tank and loss of oil pressure at times. The new tank is similar to one on ORV and seems to be working great. No blow out of overflow and oil pressure did not fluctuate.
These changes are modeled after what Denny Sleen had on his Legal Eagle UL at Oshkosh 2018. I first installed this tail wheel on LEXL SR 7-1/2 and it worked very well. My first try on ORV did not work well, broke the weld from cross bar to tail wheel arm. I had intended to use .035 for the cross bar but used a piece of .028 and it was not thick enough. When it was rebuilt I used all .049 material. The tail post on ORV is 3/4″ x .035. for the Tail wheel vertical post used 5/8″ x .049 and reduced upper portion to 1/2″ x .049 with the retainer made of 5/8″ x .049. This fit into the tail post nicely and no bushing is used on the tail post. The tail wheel spring came from Mcmaster Carr 2.5″ long, 1.031 OD, 0.781 ID Part number 9620K31. Fastenal is another place I have purchased springs. The vertical posts for the tail wheel springs is 3/8z’ x .049 and the cross tube and tail wheel wheel tube are both 5/8″ x .049 with the tail wheel axle 3/4″ x .049. This is a very simple way to build a tail wheel installation, saves weight and works well. The wheel came from Aircraft Spruce and is for Sonex type aircraft. Drilled lighting holes and turned off excess metal to lighten it up.
These take offs are various times of the year. All take offs are at max gross weight.
Legal Eagle Flying Adventures 