Sure it meets the need for twilight flying but 99% of my flying will be on sunny days. In my opinion the Skysports strobe is not bright enough. It has dual xenon flash tubes using 8 joules, weighs “under 5oz” and is 2.75″ wide and 4″ tall. The cheapest pre-made strobe I found is the Skysports Bright Star Strobe avaliable from Aircraft Spruce. The Microavionics MM030 strobe is about $150 and has a xenon flash strobe powered with 20 joules and weighs about 9.5oz. Others just say buy one so I looked into that. Some people have used fire alarm strobes, I considered this. In the quest for an affordable strobe I found many suggestions. Posted on NovemUpdated on October 21, 2017 With the fin mounted the wires were connected and the strobe tested. Terminal ends were added to the wire and connected to the strobe. A hole was drilled in the bottom of the strobe and the strobe base mounted into the fin. Once the hole was drilled the wires were routed through the nose of the fin. To assist with this I made a small guide block, similar to the guide block used to drill the axle hole in the landing gear. The hard part was getting the angle just right to drill right down the center of the nose ribs. Then I used a dremel with a cut off wheel and made two groves 180° apart. I got a 1/4 steel rod and sharpened the end to a point on the sander. Looks like I need to make a 3 foot drill bit. Getting the wiring up through the fin will be difficult since I’ve already covered the fin. The best place for the strobe is on top of the fin. Posted on DecemUpdated on November 18, 2017 Hirth should not have these components mounted on the engine or at the very least suggest alternate mounting methods in the manuals. I’m disappointed that the factory provided mounting method is so poor. On the Hirth Engine Fanatics Facebook group I’ve read that some people have moved the coils and pulse pump to the fuselage to prevent failure of these components. This resulted in one of the primary wires on a coil to chafe on it’s connector and break. When the bracket broke it allowed the ignition coils to move around. Cracked coil bracket Broken and cracked coil bracket Broken coil bracket That bracket has multiple cracks and in one spot completely broke. The ignition coils were mounted on an aluminum bracket on the back side of the engine. So I don’t think its possible to avoid the lower RPMs to keep vibration down. I suspect it may be too high for approach too. But 3000 RPM is about 10 horsepower and is too high for idle, without brakes the airplane will roll along, even in grass. At 3000 RPM the vibration is acceptable, above 4000 RPM it is fairly smooth and only gets better as you go higher. It vibrates so bad that it is uncomfortable, my compass will just spin in circles and trying to read the gauges is difficult. Above 3000 RPM she runs pretty smooth but below that the vibrations get progressively worse and quite bad. I’ve run the engine about five hours and it has already managed to break parts from vibration. Posted on OctoUpdated on October 10, 2019
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