WINTER FUN... ?

So, is skiflying so fun that it sounds... It's next on endless list of  possibilities to fly.

During this winter 2005...2006 I made these skis for Koala. They are made of small snowboards and hard aluminum that I TIG-welded and bolted together to take a shape of skis. Add some shock cord, cable and fittings and you are ready to explore frosen lakes... Well, actually these took more time to make than I tought before I started. My goal were to get weight of these to match wheels weight and I managed to make these even 200 grams lighter each than my wheels. so CG is not affected and total weight is about half an kilo lighter in ski configuration.

I even made portable wheels to move plane in and out of hangar. But those are not needed because it is really simple to throw some snow on hangar and slide in and out. After that I just clean snow out and that's it.

I put those skis under plane last weekend (18.2.06) and managed to make first taxi test. Those went well and I got feeling that these might work OK. I must anyhow mention that runway were cleaned from show and there were only 5 cm of snow on that. So I don't know how these manage in deep snow, but I think that with my planes power it is unnessesary to test it really. We will see when I get more experince with this configuration. For now I need to wait to get loose... I need to get sign off from my technical caunselor before I am allowed to actually fly. I get back to testflights, hopefully soon... BTW I am having feever as I write this, I am not sure if I got that from cold hangar last weekend... That from this fun winter activity at this time ;)

Finally 17.3.06 all was OK to fly with new skis first time.  Weather was nice and runway were cleaned. First flight showed that these skis works well. I made touch and go and after that I took co-pilot on board. Two on board we made one touch and go on frosen lake that had some 10cm of light snow on top of ice. I continued these ski tests on 20.3 after we had some more snowing and then it was also 10cm of snow on runway. Skis seems to work better than I tought before and I start to like this activity. But spring is coming soon.