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In October, I'll be installing the freshly overhauled 165 Franklin in my airplane to replace the aging, but incredibly reliable 150 that's in it now. The redline RPM is different between the 150 & 165, so I now have a good excuse to replace my somewhat twerky tach and noisy tach cable. Does...

We had some rain here not long ago and the earth has turned a fertile green for a while before the July heat sets in. A perfect evening to take the old gal out and let her stretch her legs.

Has anyone ever calculated the difference in weight between a set of 14-13 wings skinned in the correct skin thickness versus what they would weigh if they were skinned in the slightly thicker 14-19 skins? My airplane is on a diet - over the next year, it will get an alternator instead of a...

Has anyone installed an LED landing light bulb in a Grimes retractable unit? If so, did you have to produce a bracket to hold the LED bulb in place? I borrowed a friend's PAR 46 LED bulb to see if it would fit in my Grimes housing and found it to be about 1" smaller in diameter than the...

Does anyone have a 337 for an oil filter installation on a 165 (or 150) Franklin on a 14-13? If so, please let me know if I can borrow or buy a copy of it. The 165 Jamie Treat is building up for me is moving right along - standard crank, no repairs required to the case, new pistons / rings /...

I bought a really low time 165 Franklin for my airplane and - interestingly - it came with the rather limited remains of a wrecked 14-13-2. There are no wings and the fuselage is cut in two behind the cabin. But there was a moving van full of small parts AND paperwork - Bill of Sale...

I'm in the process of building up a fresh (standard crank and bearings) 165 Franklin for my 14-13. After contemplating the problems I've had with the setup and support of my F-200 Aeromatic prop - and contemplating the reduced performance of a Sensenich - I've decided to look for a viable...

Audrey enjoying the grass.....

Now that my airplane is home, it's making the rounds of the local fly-in's and air shows. This weekend was spent at the South Plains Airshow in Slaton, TX as the guests of my good friend Kyle Franklin. Here is Kyle's Golden Retriever 'Rambo' sampling the front seat of the Bellanca and a nice...

NC86916 is nearly home. We got to El Paso today and had to call it quits because the turbulence monster was beating us up pretty bad. Will be wheels up at dawn tomorrow for the last two legs to Fort Worth. Once again, a special thanks to Dan Cullman, Don Torre, George Sparks, Jamie Treat, and...

NC86916 getting ready for her trip home to Texas.

I agree with the part about everywhere you put the iPad, you end up blocking something you'd rather not block. Frustrating...... Have you done an alternator conversion on your airplane? Once mine gets home, I'm going to enjoy it for the summer and fall - but when winter comes to North Texas...

Do any of the Cruisair owners have an iPad mount that works well in your airplane? I use a RAM suction cup mount in the Fairchild, but it doesn't work very well in the Cruisair - the weight of the mount and iPad tend to pull the pilot's window down in flight. I'm also not a huge fan of yoke...

Has anyone here ever put a non-WAAS Garmin 430 in a Cruisair? NC86916 has a beautiful, unbutchered panel that contains a Terra Comm & Nav and a II Morrow Loran. Stop laughing. I'd like to replace these boat anchors with a single Garmin 430 and replace the Terra "Tri Nav" indicator with a Garmin...

Do any of you with Franklin powered Cruisair time have experience with running a tank dry in cruise? I've logged many many hours of time flying long distances in a Super Cub with 18 gallon wing tanks and the standard drill on a long flight was to burn 45 minutes out of one wing tank, switch to...

All: I recently acquired NC86916, a very pretty 1946 14-13 that was part of the Richard Hulme collection in Santa Maria, CA for many years. Mr. Hulme passed last year and the collection is being sold off. The Bellanca had been inactive for many years, but Mr. Hulme was a stickler for detail...