Hangar 9 Taylor Craft re-engined

[Ron Gray]

TSime time back I bought the TC off a fellow club member, it hadn’t been flown much due to a loss of interest as he had complaints about the noise from its Zenoah 20. Even going to the lengths of a purpose made silencer still didn’t get the noise down to acceptable levels. Anyway, having bought it I flew it with the Zenoah and found that not only was it a bit noisy, it also lacked power meaning that it was a full throttle flight for most of the time. So I decided to replace the Zenoah with a CRRC 26. Whilst not my favourite gas engine I thought that it would be ok, power wise it was but boy was it a dirty engine and like the Zenoah was on the loud side. So having recently bought a couple of Laser engines I decided that would be the next option for the TC and purchased a 155 to do the honours.

The engine fitting itself wasn’t too much of an issue although with 2 previous engines having been fitted, the bulkhead was now peppered with different mounting holes do I had to add some ply reinforcement to beef it up. The main issue with the Laser installation was the tank position, in particular its height as the tank platform was too high. Cutting it out was domewhat awkward as I haven’t got small hands but do have short fingers! A few hours later and all was done and the whole area was fuel proofed.

The gas installations necessitated the addition of lead to the bulkhead but with more room now available I’ve been able to mount a 3000mAh LiFe battery on the bulkhead which means that the lead can be ditched. Plus I’m now using just the one battery rather than 2 that I used before.

The fuel tank has been replumbed and all fuel lines replaced.

This is what the installation looks like.

[Ron Gray]

The next problem was getting the pilot to go back in as he was somewhat reluctant to sit with the fuel tank a bit too close to the Crown Jewels.

However with a bribe of a Digestive and with the knowledge that he would now be piloting a Laser powered  ‘plane things started to improve

Possibly a tad too relaxed now if you ask me

Edited By Ron Gray on 18/01/2018 11:44:53

[Jon H]

Ha! he will have trouble in a crosswind with his feet up there. That said he appears to be missing the control column as well so im not surprised he was reluctant to climb aboard

[Ron Gray]

I told him it was now fly by wire (less) but he wasn’t impressed. So I’ve got to try and find the original column which is somewhere in the workshop.

[John McManus]

Hi Ron I know this an old post but I've got a new H9 TC and I've got a new OS GF30 which I rather fancy for it but I'm concerned that it may be too pokey for the strength of the bulkhead. I note that you said you had strengthened the bulkhead in yours and I wonder how you'd done it. Access seems very restricted. Did you resort to major surgery to get at it? 

[Ron Gray]

Hi John, mine has a Laser 155 in it and that provides more than enough power so I would say that the OS GF30 would be overkill! I haven’t got any photos of the bulkhead strengthening that I carried out but I did a similar modification on my Great Planes Sportster when I fitted the Laser 200 in-line twin. Basically I drilled some diagonal holes through the firewall and through the fuselage sides so that I could glue some dowel braces in place. 
 

Photos of the Sportster mods