Ride along in Jack's Robin

Take a flight with Jack Vevers in his 1929 Curtiss Robin J-1 powered by a Wright J6-7 radial engine.

Hi Terry,

Merry Christmas and hope 2020 brings you health and happiness.

As you know, it’s summer down under in Australia and I pulled my Robin out for her second flight after her annual a couple of weeks ago. It was a nice summers morning with light winds and had the sky to myself and couldn’t resist the opportunity.

I went for a short fly over some farmland and then along the coast to take in the view of sailboats on Port Phillip Bay, about 25 miles South of Melbourne.

We have completed a some works on the brakes and improved the rudder deflection and have achieved symmetry with both left and right rudder. I was always lacking a bit of left rudder on landing and this has now improve things out of sight.

I’m build my hours and starting to wear her and feeling very relaxed. I have changed my take-off technique a little by keeping the tail on the ground longer which allow for better rudder authority when the tail lifts.

We have got the cold starts down to a fine art and she usually fires on the 1st blade, hot starts are still a problem and I need to work on this to find a way to get her to hot start more predictably… any advice welcome?

I hope to get her out for another early morning fly on New Years Day, which looks like another perfect day down here.

I always come back with a smile on my face after a my outings in the Robin.

Kind regards
Jack