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Kolb Slingshot Repair Project

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Victor Bravo

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
13,443
Location
KWHP, Los Angeles CA, USA
I just acquired a damaged aircraft, to get some parts that I needed for my Kolb Firestar. Running this up the flagpole to see if anyone on HBA would be interested.

SOMEWHAT IRRELEVANT BACK STORY:
The Kolb Slingshot has taller landing gear legs than the rest of the Kolb family of airplanes. They wanted the Slingshot to go faster, so they reduced the aerodynamic incidence and decalage angles, which required them to have the nose higher on the ground to retain reasonably short takeoff and landing runs. I want taller landing gear for my Kolb Firestar, in order to get a better ground angle for "Monster Cub" type STOL performance. So I just bought a damaged Kolb Slingshot airframe, and removed the landing gear legs for my own admittedly nefarious purposes.

RELEVANT PORTION:
This leaves me with a damaged but 100% completely rebuildable Slingshot airframe, which my lovely wife has reminded me (with a 12 gauge) that I don't need.

There are two or three slightly bent tubes in the steel forward fuselage cage. Rubber mallet, wood blocks and a C clamp repair, no welding, no splicing, no major misalignments.

There is one tube that is kinked and this may need to be taken apart to repair only because it is the pivot tube for the rudder pedals. Not a major repair, but it may be more convenient to cut the tube out, slide the rudder pedals onto another tubne, and weld the ends bacl between the sides.

The outer 1/3 of each main wing panel has the leading edge ribs bent and broken. One of the wings has a bend in the trailing edge tube and the leading edge of the aileron. These are very easy repairs because the ribs are made of 5/16 aluminum tubes and pop riveted gussets. A couple of hours to drill out the rivets, and maybe a day's work to bend new rib sections and patch them back in. The airfoil is completely flat bottom, so you can "jig" the wing on a flat workbench. and a couple of straight sections of pipe.

The main spar tubes to not appear to be bent. This will be verified when I remove the fabric, but for this INITIALdiscussion let's assume they are not bent.

The good news is that the inboard 2/3 of each wing is still covered amd appears usable. So there is far far less fabric work on the wings than there might otherwise have been.

The tailboom, tail section, elevators, rudder, tail3wheel, etc. are undamaged and flyable as-is. They even have nice white and green paint on them.

The fuselage appears to have been powwder coated white, and the aircraft has been in the Mojave desert. Corrosion will not be an issue.

The fiberglass nose cone and instrument panel are missing. I presume the nose cone was trashed in the groundloop, and the guy took his instruments when he removed the engine. Nose cone is available from Kolb, but you can make a foam and glass one yourself and save a few hundred bucks. I removed the fabric from the fuselage in order to cleean out a lot of debris, some sort of an owl's nest, and a lot of desert dirt.

The landing gear legs are missing (I took them for another project) but you will get a usable set of Azusa Tri-Star wheels, brakes (cable operated), and decent tires. Replacement landing gear legs available from Kolb, or you can fabricate them at a reasonable cost.

The airframe has a mount plate for a 582 engine. There is no engine, propeller, exhaust, or any engine components with this project. Fuel tanks (2 x 5 gal) are included.

YES I KNOW THERE HAS TO BE PICTURES OF THIS !!! I lost my !(#*$% camera when I went out to get this aircraft. So I need to go out and take more pictures, which I will do as time permits. For now, let's just assume my description is accurate.

The Kolb Slingshot is the hot-rod of the Kolb family. 22 foot span clipped wings and a shorter tailboom give it really snappy handling. The reduced wing and tail incidence/decalage angles, plus the full canopy enclosure, gives it a cruise speed well over 100 MPH with the 582. The Slingshot has a small rear seat for a small/light passenger, and a full size front seat for a larger pilot. All Kolb models will fold to fit in a single car garage... next to the car!

Is anyone possibly interested in this 90 day repair project at $2500... $3500... $5000?

Once again, photos will be posted as soon as I can go out and shoot them again
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