Legal Eagle Flying Adventures

Long Ago this was the first flight of Legal Eagle XL P-81. I built the engine myself, it is a 1/2 VW, 94 mm bore and 86 mm stroke, and bicycle wheels and brakes. This flying machine is not in Rio Vista and still flying regularly. I had a fiberglass seat. I rebuilt it after I got ORV flying. Wanted to correct a few things, one of which was i glued the fabric to the ribs before heat shrinking, make nice curved rib lines. You may notice the take off run was long and climb was not very rapid. There is a reason for that, weight of pilot, way north of 300 lbs, the reason I built the Legal Eagle, started as a UL but the plans for the XL wings got released accidently one day on the eaglersnest, just before I ordered the wood, so i made my wings XL. My plan was to use the Legal Eagle as motivation to get on with life and loose weight. I eventually got down to 218 pounds and in lots better health. Of course over the years i have gained weight and am again loosing weight. Legal Eagle XL ORV climbs at 500 fpm easily with a 260 lb pilot on board, a friend of mine, weights 160 lbs, in ORV climbs at 1,000 fpm. What a great motivator to loose weight, build light and stay light.