Thee Spirit of Av Th Aviation ia ti ia ti on on | www.eaa.org
Vol.62 No.6 | June 2013
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From Russia With Love A P-40 survives a long wartime journey
Stabilized Approach Safety What we can learn from heavy airplane ops
60 Years Years of o f Tailwi Tailwinds nds The first passenger-carrying homebuilt
Tw T wice as good
A second night air show Wednesday at Oshkosh
JACK J. PELTON PELTON COMMENTARY / TOWER
FREQUENCY
Coffee and Doughnuts With Your Directors we host The World’s World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration. Our AirVenture Oshkosh has grown beyond the wildest dream any EAAer could have had 60 years ago. But our big aviation festival is still the annual convention for EAA, and a key element of the convention is the annual meeting of the membership. However, Howev er, I’m willing to wager that you have never been to the annual meeting of t he EAA membership, because very few have. The meeting has been, well, pretty dry and boring. It has been held on Saturday morning the past many years and has been perfunctory perfunctory.. There were brie reports on the association’s fnancial status, the names of directors elected were announced, and changes or adjustments to the bylaws were approved. Routine is a word that comes to mind to describe what happened at the membership meeting. Last year was a little different. A few hundred people, instead of a few dozen, attended, and several members addressed the leadership with comments and complaints. Chalet tents that were new to the ightline generated the most comments, and they were uniormly negative. And your directors listened. The chalets are gone. Though none of us on the board of directors relishes listening to unhappy members, last year’s meeting was an eye-opener eye-opener.. The comments from those who spoke at the meeting made it clear we have not done a good enough job communicating with members. So this year the annual meeting of the membership will be held on Wednesday morning at 8:30 at the Theater in the Woods. We We directors believe holding the meeting midweek will provide the greatest opportunity for members to attend, because by Saturday many of you who came early for the start of Oshkosh, or even before the opening weekend, are heading home. We on the board also learned last year that the annual meeting can and must be a two-way exchange of information and ideas. Of course, we still need to handle the procedural matters of electing directors, accepting minutes of the last meeting, presenting the fnancial report, and so on. But the other directors and I will make less formal presentations to bring you up to date on what your association is doing, what our goals are, and frankly, frankly, what really big challenges we face. EAA is progressing through a time of transition. Our founder Paul Poberezny Poberezn y and his son Tom served EAA tirelessly for decades, and we all thank them for their vision and hard work. EAA and AirVenture AirV enture reect the thumbprint o their legacy legacy.. The other important transition is building an association that is responsive to members’ needs and addressing the critical issues that personal aviation faces today. It is imperative that EAAers and all who love the freedom and challenge that can only be found in personal aviation work to fnd ways to protect our reedom o ight EVERY SUMMER AT OSHKOSH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON TONEY
along with igniting the enthusiasm we all have for all things aviation with the next generation. These and other topics are what my fellow directors and EAA leaders and I want to talk to you about at the annual membership meeting. There won’t be time to hear from everyone, but there will be a dialogue between members and the leadership. And, just like last year’s complaints about the flightline chalets, your board will listen. We will also have the annual financial report in the August issue of Sport Aviatio n (available on the AirVentur e grounds) groun ds) so you will wil l have a ch ance to to review the numbers before the meeting. So please come by the Theater in the Woods on Wednesday, July 31, at 8:30 a.m. I’ll make sure we have the coffeepot on, and if you get there early enough, there will probably be a doughnut left. See you in Oshkosh soon, and don’t miss the annual meeting. I promise it will be worth your time. EAA
The annual meeting can and must be a two-way exchange of information and ideas.
www.eaa.org
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A PUBLICATION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION
Contents Vol .62 No .6 | June 2013
FEATURES
50 Wittman’s Legacy
DEPARTMENTS COMMENTARY
01
Tower Frequency— Jack J. Pelton
BETTER PILOT
80
Stick & Rudder—Collision Course
84
What Went Wrong—Bird Problems for an RV-6A
88
I’ll Never Do That Again— Accidental First Flight
60th anniversary of the Tailwind
Letters to the Editor
By Jim Stanton
06
56
16
Left Seat— J. Mac McClellan
HANDS ON
22
Flying Lessons— Lane Wallace
92
What Our Members Are Building/Restoring
26
Savvy Aviator— Mike Busch
96
Innovation on the Fly— Technology Meets
32
Light Flight— Dave Matheny
36
Dream Build Fly—Brady Lane
40
Plane Talk— Lauran Paine Jr.
46
Contrails— Jeff Skiles
Tomahawk Treasure The travels and tribulations of Rod Lewis’ P-40B/C
Real World
By Jim Busha
64
100
Hints for Homebuilders— Homebuilt LED Dimmer,
Hand Sanding Tips
Second Shift Two night air shows
104
English (Wheel)
illuminate AirVenture
By Mark Phelps
Shop Talk— Learning to Speak
MEMBER CENTRAL
74 Stabilized Approaches Can Improve Safety
NEWS & INFO
10
111
Member Central
Advocacy & Safety—
112
Pilot Caves
Governmental Issues
114
News From HQ
130
118
Board of Directors
132
FlyMart
Nominees
134
Classified Ads
136
EAA’s Logbook
Learning to avoid loss of control in the airport environment
14
Flightline— Industry News
By J. Mac McClellan
123
Gone West
124
Members and Chapters in Action Partner Insider
ON THE COVER: Andrew Zaback photographed the spectacular fireworks that are the brilliant and thunderous exclamation point to the
For more on many of the topics in this issue, visit www.SportAviation.org . To view
night air show at AirVenture Oshkosh. This year the after-dark extravaganza takes place both Wednesday and Saturday during the show.
and submit aviation events, visit www.EAA.org/calendar .
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GAVIN CONROY
www.eaa.org
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Vol.62 No.6 | June 2013
PUBLICATIONS STAFF
Founder: Paul H. Poberezny Publisher: Jack J. Pelton, EAA Chairman of the Board Vice President of Marketing: Rick Larsen Editor-in-Chief: J. Mac McClellan Managing Editor: Kelly Nelson Assistant Editor: Meghan Plummer Senior Art Director: Phil Norton Art Director: Olivia Trabbold Graphic Designer: Chris Livieri News Editor: Ric Reynolds Copy Editor: Colleen Walsh Multimedia Journalist: Brady Lane Visual Properties Administrator: Jason Toney Interns: Sienna Kossman, Andrew Schaick Print/Mail Manager: Randy Halberg Contributing Writers: Mike Busch, Jim Busha, Budd Davisson, Chad Jensen, Dave Matheny, Lauran Paine Jr., Mark Phelps, Robert Rossier, Jeff Skiles, Jim Stanton, Lane Wallace
European Correspondent: Marino Boric
ADVERTISING
Katrina Bradshaw /
[email protected] Jeff Kaufman /
[email protected] Sue Anderson /
[email protected]
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 Phone: 920-426-4800 • Fax: 920-426-4828 E-mail:
[email protected] • Website: www.EAA.org Booth # B 2057-2060
Need to change your address or have other membership questions, call 800-564-6322 (800-JOIN EAA).
EAA® and SPORT AVIATION®, the EAA Logo® and AERONAUTICA™ are registered trademarks, trademarks, and service marks of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. The use of these trademarks and service marks without t he permission of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. is strictly prohibited.
4 Sport Aviation
June 2013
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
BD�� NOSTALGIA those able “to do it ”—y the BD-5J. It was a un, very easy ying machine. As one o the Bud Light Air Force pilots, which included Leo Loudenslager, Bob Bishop, and Debbie Gary, I ew hundreds o air shows and helped, along with Big B Beardsley and Butch Stahl, assemble and dismantle the airplane. Its simplicity and ruggedness were a testament to its s hrewd design. Such a small plane able to accommodate pilots ranging rom 135 to 250 pounds is a real testament to Jim Bede. I even did several orward somersaults with no adverse eects. (A maneuver I dubbed the “Cross Toss” ater Elliot Cross, who frst perormed it.) I also made many dead-stick landings or various reasons; it was a great glider! I never met Jim, but he was obviously a great designer. One o the thrills o my aviation career was ying the jet at Oshkosh several times. I WAS ONE OF
Bill “Burner” Beardsley , EAA 881074; Marietta, Georgia
about Jim Bede and the picture on Page 75, lower right, in the April 2013 issue o Sport Aviation. I do not harbor any ill eelings toward Mr. Bede. Quite the contrary! It was Mr. Bede who inspired me to join EAA. I thought EAA was or the “big dogs” like Bob Hoover, Chuck Yeager, and the like. Mr. Bede is a masterul salesman. The picture depicts February 8, 1972, at Hammond/ Chicago airport, in Lansing, Illinois. Cold as the dickens! The reason you can’t see my mug is I was ar back on the port side o the vehicle. I hesitate to call it an airplane. It had not own, and likely never did. I saw a picture somewhere that looked as i the wheels were somewhat o the ground. Did they have Photoshop back then? The crowd was pressing close to get a good look. Note the position o the nose wheel, and now bring your attention to the whirling prop. Only by the grace o God did no one lose body parts. It was rightul! The vehicle was waddling in the icy ruts. O course the airplane that appeared later was a completely dierent animal. Who o us wouldn’t like to y a BD-5J? For mysel it was an epiphany observing the oratory skills o Mr. Bede. I only bought the ino pack, not the sizzle. I’D LIKE TO COMMENT
Tommy Werner, EAA 78253; Port Huron, Michigan
SUBMISSIONS
Letters intended for publication should be addressed to EAA/Letter to the Editor, P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI, 54903, or e-mailed to
[email protected] . Please include your EAA number, city, and state. All letters are subject to editing. Unpublished letters will not be returned.
6 Sport Aviation June 2013
BD-5
Honoring the A-36 Apache article on the A-36 Apache dive bomber (“Rare Breed,” April 2013). Among the things I in herited from my uncle, 2nd Lt. Robert J. Schulte with the 12th Air Force 27th Fighter Bomber Group, who perished in World War II, was his Air Medal Citation. He was awarded it “for meritorious achievement while participating in aerial fight as pilot of an A-36 type aircraft.” To summarize, his plane was heavily damaged while on an attack upon a vital road junction near Anzio, Italy, on February 18, 1944. He maintained formation and released his bombs with devastating effect upon the target, but while returning to base, his aircrat burst into fames. He was able to parachute safely over friendly territory. For the longest time I wondered what an A-36 was and never found any good information. It wasn’t until 2003 while copiloting a plane fying the Wyoming fag to EAA’s “50 Flags to Kitty Hawk” when we had an unscheduled three-day weather delay in Dayton and had a chance to explore the Air Force Museum where an A-36 was on display. The display presented some information, but your article really brought the history together. I am going to frame the article and hang it next to his Air Medal.
THANK YOU FOR THE
Mike Schulte, EAA 713319; Cheyenne, Wyoming
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF
EAA ARCHIVES
www.eaa.org
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Airport Car is seeing a second life as the airport car at West Point, Mississippi (M83). Lights and siren are disconnected, but one pilot reported that he was stopped by an ofcer, who asked him, “Who are you?” He told him he was just a pilot using the airport courtesy car. ANOTHER RETIRED POLICE CRUISER
Gerald McKibben, EAA 251558; Starkville, Mississippi
R
ecently, an EAA Forums user named Brian247028 saw an e-mail from us about taking a flight in ou r Ford Tri-Motor. Brian felt pretty strongly that it wasn’t a good deal, as he believed the price is too high, and the duration of the flight is too short. He felt strongly enough, in fact, to start a discussion online, and as it turns out, not everyone agreed with him. Here are some highlights from this discussion.
EAA sent me an e-mail about their Ford Tri Motor flight. $70 a person. WHAT? They want $140 (wife and I) for 15 to 20 minute flight. No thanks, EAA. That price is unrealistic and a complete rip-off. – Brian247028
Two rides so far, first a solo then with my two older children. I’d do it again in a heartbeat with all five of us. Thanks to all the EAA volunteers that keep the old birds flying! – Jim Hann
My wife and I went up a couple of years ago. It was wonderful! I was in the cockpit and even got a few minutes yoke time. Well worth every penny. – Chick
I’m sure there is a piece of the market being missed by the high price for short flight method. Please also don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the volunteers/EAA do this and put this together to keep the plane flying. – Brian247028
There is no doubt that it would be cool but not for the price they want compared to the time in the air. What do they show for an in-flight movie, a commercial? – Brian247028 Not saying anyone is wrong to question the price, but I think there is more to the event than how much time you spent aloft. – RickFE I’ve never taken a ride. To me, it was too expensive. But, you’ll never hear me complain about it. I know there’s people in there looking out at the crowd saying, “They don’t know what they’re missing.” – malexander Having flown, restored, and maintained antique airplanes and warbirds, $70 for the Tri-Motor is a very reasonable price. – JimRice85
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June 2013
Been there, flew that. I’d do [it] again and again. Flying in a piece of history is worth paying for. – SmittysRV Change the flight to 30 minutes. Charge $100 per person. You doubled the flight time for only a $30 increase in ticket price. It’s the 15 minutes that to me is the rip-off. – Brian247028 It costs me $12 just for gas to run my Corvairpowered Junior Ace that long. I’d say $70 is very reasonable. – pacerpilot
ADVOCACY AND SAFETY GOVERNMENTAL ISSUES
Tower-Go-Round Continues CONGRESS WORKED WITH uncommon
speed in late April to approve funding for air traffic control operati ons through t he remainder of the FAA’s fiscal year, in great part due to delays inflicted on the airline-flying public. Outgoing Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood stated the funding would also apply to contract towers that are scheduled to close June 15, including the tower at Oshkosh’s Wittman Regional Airport. While the FAA’s ability to transfer funds from other programs to cover air traffic operations is a good thing for the flying public, there are several unknown results that concern the EAA advocacy staff: • The funding was only confirmed through September 30, the end of the FAA’s fiscal year. This means without an overall agreement on the budget sequester, the same dilemma could face ATC this fall; • Much of the funding is proposed to come from the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) budget, which could have negative consequences for projects at large and small airports throughout the nation; and • Other important FAA safety and research programs could be hindered by the focus on air traffi c operation s. There are also continuing congressional actions regarding control tower funding and closures. EAA will continue to press for the FAA to have the authority to use its resources in the wisest manner in regard to safety, effectiveness, and benefits to aviation. As the ATC situation demonstrated, cuts without regard to those factors create an unpleasant scenario where no segment of aviation wins.
EAA SLAMS FCC ON ���.� ELT RULEMAKING IN STRONGLY WORDED comments
submitted in April, EAA criticized the FCC for its latest attempt to curtail future use of 121.5 MHz ELTs, frankly telling the commission that it is infringing on aviation safety policy that rightly belongs to the FAA. EAA further commented that the FAA has already analyzed the proposal extensively and found that it was unjustified in terms of both safety and cost. Further, curtailing use of 121.5 ELTs through a mandated change to 406 MHz would do
10 Sport Aviation
June 2013
nothing to prevent aviation accidents. Such a lack of safety ben efits makes the proposal even less practical, as the change would cost general aviation aircraft owners hundreds of millions of dollars. The FAA has already stopped certification of new 121.5 MHz ELT units, meaning the GA fleet will eventually move to new technology, whether that is 406 MHz or within the proposed NextGen system such as ADS-B. Other aviation groups, including AOPA and NBAA, also heavily criticized the FCC for the proposal.
ANDREW ZABACK PHOTOGRAPHY BY
FAA ANNOUNCES CHANGES IN SPECIAL ISSUANCE MEDICAL CERTIFICATION THE FEDERAL AIR surgeon
recently announced significant changes to the medical certification process. Under a new policy termed “Certificates an AME Can Issue” (CACI) applicants with arthritis, asthma, glaucoma, chronic hepatitis C, hypertension, hypothyroidism, migraine and chronic headache, prediabetes, and renal cancer can receive their medical certificates directly from their AME provided they meet the certification criteria. Further conditions are expected to be added to this list in the coming months. The AME will require certain documentation, but it does not have to be forwarded to the FAA as in the case of a special issuance. The resulting medical certificate is good for the normal duration, depending on the age of the applicant and/or the class of medical. In addition to CACI, the FAA also revised its standards on some cardiac
special issuances. Of particular note, these include a reduction in the wait for follow-up testing after stent implantation from six to three months and a reduced need for nuclear stress testing in many cases. These add up to a simpler, and in many cases cheaper, path to certification for pilots living with many common cardiac conditions. Members of the EAA Aeromedical Advisory Council were heavily involved in promoting these changes. “We are incredibly fortunate to have the Aeromedical Advisory Council at EAA,” said Sean Elliott, EAA vice president of advocacy and safety. “These six AMEs are among the most experienced and most respected doctors in the aeromedical business, and this announcement represents the culmination of several years of hard work t hey have done on behalf of our membership on these issues.”
Aeromedical Advisory Council member and Senior AME Greg Pinnell recently hosted a webinar on a wide range of aeromedical issues, including the new CACI and cardiac policies. For a link to the webin ar titled “How Your Next Medical Might Be a Whole Lot Easier,” visit www.SportAviation.org .
‘EXCEEDS RECOMMENDED ACTION’ BY SEAN ELLIOTT, EAA VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVOCACY AND SAFETY AS MANY OF YOU are
aware, the NTSB performed a safety study of E-AB aircraft last year. As a result of that study, safety recommendations were issued to both the FAA and EAA. This was a new precedent as previously the NTSB had only issued safety recommendations to other government agencies. EAA responded to the FAA and the NTSB with a position on each safety recommendation, current programs that address the issues, and pending actions the organization will take to meet the intent of the safety recommendation. Our goal is to enhance safety without the necessity of any n ew regulation or policy. EAA has always accomplished more with its membership through education and culture rather than the FAA coming up with new regulations. Our legacy is filled with examples of how EAA leads by action with its members playing a key part!
As part of the NTSB process, the board reviews and tracks follow-up to all safety recommendations. There are 14 classifications that the NTSB can assign to progress on a given recommendation. Out of the four recommendations (A-12-40, A-1241, A-12-42, A-12-43) that were given to EAA, we received three “Open—Acceptable Response” classifications and one “Closed— Exceeds Recommended Action” for A-12-42, which is about the letter of deviation authority (LODA) process and transition training for both Phase 1 and second owners. The classification “Closed—Exceeds Recommended Action” is very rare from the NTSB! It is the highest response the NTSB can give in following up to a safety recommendation, and is only given to an agency or organization that proactively asserts even better-than-recommended solutions to address a safety recommendation. NTSB Chairman Hersman discussed these ratings recently in her blog and praised EAA for its actions toward aviation safe ty. We are pleased with this recognition and look forward to taking further steps in our never-ending quest to reduce accidents in aviation.
www.eaa.org
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ADVOCACY AND SAFETY KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Judgment Call High-speed taxi and runway flights—good idea? BY CHARLIE PRECOURT, EAA BOARD OF DIRECTORS, SAFET Y COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
WE ARE CONFRONTED with
many choices when planning and executing an aircraft flight-test program. Experience also tells us there is often not a single best way to perform flight tests. Enter the judgment call. One such choice is whether or not to include high-speed taxi and runway flights prior to the first up-and-away flight. When I first flew my VariEze, I elected to complete high-speed taxi and runway flights, and Hoot Gibson described the same for his modified-wing Cassutt in the April issue. But many will say these maneuvers are high risk and recommend against them, and in many situations they, too, have good rationale. How will you choose the best course for your situation? As you plan your test program, you should consider the benefits and risks of either choice and seek the lowest exposure to risk—on balance. There’s a lot to consider. A high-speed taxi and runway flight is not a maneuver we are trained to do in normal flying. Stabilizing at speeds at or near flying speed requires reducing power so as to not fly away. The maneuver uses significant runway, and we are deliberately extending the time spent in a regime that has limited margin for error if directional control issues arise. Stopping from these maneuvers can also potentially overheat the wheels and brakes.
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June 2013
On the other hand, if we can adequately mitigate these risks, the high-speed taxi and runway flight can help you discover handling qualities issues while still able to stop straight ahead. If you have unexpected, significant out-of-trim conditions, or unexpected flight-control responsiveness, having planned ahead of time to stay on or just above the runway may result in less total risk than fighting the aircraft around the pattern and trying to land with it. Also, if done in an incremental build-up fashion, high-speed taxi and runway flights can give you better feel for the aircraft before the first full approach and landing. Additionally, if you are flying a common design, you will be able to cross-check your takeoff and stopping distance performance against the published data and potentially
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CHARLIE PRECOURT
discover discrepancies that point to aircraft problems before you fly away for real. If you’re taking a lot more distance to rotate, is it a power issue, an elevator authority or rigging issue, or something else? Find it and fix it before you make that first full up-and-away flight. A simple exercise that is a must for your planning is to calculate expected takeoff and landing distances and derive a minimum acceptable runway length for your tests. Using available performance charts (or engineering predictions if yours is a new design), calculate both the distance to take off and the distance for a normal landing roll. You must also account for the time/distance you will spend at the target airspeed (at or near the takeoff speed) if you perform highspeed taxi and runway flights.
If you’re taking a lot more distance to rotate, is it a power issue, an elevator authority or rigging issue, or something else? Calculate the distance used at the target condition by converting the speed to feet per second (1 knot = 1.69 feet per second). If your target speed for a test run is 60 knots, the aircraft will be using up just more than 100 feet for every second you hold the target speed. You should plan on 5-10 seconds once you get to the target speed, as you’ll be surprised how quickly the seconds go by. Adding up takeoff roll, distance at the target speed, and the expected stopping distance, you can see how much runway you will be using for the various target speeds you plan to fly. Add to this number a significant margin for safety. This will quickly show you if the airport you plan to fly from is adequate for early flight tests. The test plan published for the VariEze called for a minimum runway of 4,500 feet to do these tests, with 6,000 feet preferred. You can think of the high-speed taxi or runway flight as a four-part maneuver: the initial acceleration to target speed, a power reduction to hold the target speed,
assessing aircraft response, and finally the abort. If you don’t take at least a few seconds at the target speed, you will not be able to observe the aircraft’s performance and responsiveness—which was the whole purpose for the test point to begin with. If you elect to accept the risk of this maneuver, you need to gain the data that justifies it. On any early test flight, make sure you have calm winds, smooth air, minimum practical weight, and adequate runway. If you choose to perform the high-speed aborts and runway flights, gain some experience with the maneuver in another aircraft you are already very comfortable in. Even better, do them in more than one type you have experience in so you see variances. For the high-speed abort and runway flight-test technique, you should choose target speeds that build up gradually to flying speed, say in 5-knot increments. At each target speed, make small control inputs in each axis and observe the response. Allow adequate time for the wheels and brakes to cool before another test—and take off the wheelpants. If you can perform your tests at a runway with distance-remaining markers, you can also get distance performance data as you perform the test points. Complete the sequence with a brief liftoff to a few feet off the runway to check trim and control response prior to that first up-and-away flight. The type of aircraft is a final consideration. If you are flying a very common design and can get time in another like it prior to your own first flight, you may have less to benefit from the high-speed taxi and runway flights than someone who has a unique or modified design. Whatever path you choose, plan thoroughly, practice your test sequence in another aircraft, and build up slowly in testing to your new aircraft’s full envelope capability. A special note this month: The NTSB has recognized EAA’s efforts at improving the amateur-built fatality rate by classifying one of our initiatives as “exceeds recommended action” since the EAA went beyond the NTSB’s recommendation. We have lots more work to do, but we’re on the right track! Fly safely!
www.eaa.org
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FLIGHTLINE INDUSTRY AND COMMUNITY NEWS
LYCOMING APPROVES MORE ENGINES FOR UNLEADED AVGAS LYCOMING’S SERVICE Instruction
SI-1070S adds 31 engines to the list of models approved for use with ASTM D7547 UL 91 unleaded avgas, a list previously approved by the company in April 2012. The total number of approved engines is now 63. The European Aviation Safety Agency’s Safety Information Bulletin 2011-01 provided aircraft-level approval on the basis of engine approval. With the Lycoming engine model approvals, the EASA SIB immediately allows ASTM D 7547 Grade UL 91 use on European Union based aircraft. UL 91 will require an additional approval in the United States by airframe manufacturers, as there are no known distributors of UL 91 in the United States at this time.
SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight goes supersonic on April 29, ushering in the final phase of vehicle testing prior to beginning commercial service.
SpaceShipTwo Makes First Powered Flight
PIPER RECEIVES FAA APPROVAL FOR G���� IN ARCHER MODELS PIPER AIRCRAFT received
Enterprise goes supersonic
VIRGIN GALACTIC ’S SpaceShipTwo completed its first successful
powered flight April 29 above the Mojave Air and Space Port. Paired with mother ship WhiteKnightTwo, SS2 took off just after 7 a.m. PDT, was lifted to an altitude of 47,000 feet MSL, and was then released. After verifying stable control, pilot Mark Stucky and copilot Mike Alsbury ignited the rocket engine and the craft shot to a maximum altitude of 55,000 feet, achieving a speed of Mach 1.2. The rocket engine was ignited for 16 seconds as planned, and the entire rocket-powered flight test lasted more than 10 minutes before the pilots made a smooth landing at about 8 a.m. “For the first time, we were able to prove the key components of the system, fully integrated and in flight,” said Virgin Galactic Founder Sir Richard Branson. “Today’s supersonic success opens the way for a rapid expansion of the spaceship’s powered flight envelope, with a very realistic goal of full space flight by the year’s end.” The test flight ushers in Virgin Galactic’s final phase of vehicle testing prior to beginning commercial service from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
FAA type certificate approval to incorporate the Garmin G1000 avionics suite into its new single-engine Archer aircraft models. Garmin’s G1000 will replace the G500 suite that is standard on Archer aircraft. The G1000 is an all-glass avionics panel designed to bring new levels of situational awareness, simplicity, and safety to the cockpit. The G1000 flight deck presents flight instrumentation, navigation, weather, terrain, traffic, and engine data on large-format, highresolution displays.
For more information and direct links to all Flightline stories, visit www.SportAviation.org .
14 Sport Aviation June 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF MARSSCIENTIFIC.COM/CLAY CENTER OBSERVATORY AND GARMIN
TERRAFUGIA DEVELOPING HYBRID FLYING CAR DESIGN TERRAFUG IA, THE DEVELO PER of
the Transition street-legal airplane, has developed a concept for a four-seat, VTOL, plugin, hybrid-electric flying car, called the TF-X. “This is the right time for us to begin thinking about the future of the company beyond Transition development,” Terrafugia CEO/CTO Carl Dietric h said. “We are passi onate about continuing to lead the creation of a flying car industry and are dedicating resources to lay the foundation for our vision of personal transportation.” Terrafugia is using the Transition as a proof of p rocess for TF-X development and commercialization in regard to the technical, regulatory, and usage challenges i t has overcome. The company is now having preliminary conversations with the FAA regarding TF-X development.
CESSNA PRODUCES FIRST NEW CITATION X CESSNA ROLLED OUT the
first production unit of the new Citation X at its Wichita, Kansas, manufacturing facility on April 15. The midsize, high-speed business jet was launched in 2010 as an extensive upgrade of the Citation X. New features include upgraded Rolls-Royce AE3007C2 turbofan engines with new fans, elliptical winglets, and the Garmin G5000 integrated avionics suite. With seating for up to 12 people, the $23 million aircraft is projected to have a maximum altitude of 51,000 feet with a 214-pound increase in maximum payload. A top speed of Mach 0.935 makes the new Citation X the fastest civilian aircraft in the world, according to Cessna. Two test aircraft have logged more than 675 hours so far. Citation X certification is scheduled for later this year, with customer deliveries to follow.
// JEPPESEN INTRODUCED a trial version
// EMBRAER EXECUTIVE Jets’ Prodigy Touch
of Mobile FliteDeck VFR, a new navigation and planning solution designed specifically to serve the needs of VFR general aviation pilots. The full application is available through Apple’s App Store in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France, and is expected to be introduced for the European and U.S. markets later this year.
Avionics Suite by Garmin is now certified by the Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CESSNA AIRCRAFT AND TERRAFUGIA
the specifications of the Cospas- Sarsat international satellite alert system to issue alerts and guide search and rescue missions.
and the FAA, making it the first touch-screen-
controlled glass flight deck specifically designed for light turbine aircraft. // THE BREITLING EMERGENCY II is the world’s
first wristwatch with a dual frequency locator beacon. The watch is equipped with a dual frequency transmitter compliant with
// REDBIRD FLIGHT SIMULATORS are now fully
certified FNPT-II devices in Belgium, Germany, and Poland. Certification is pending in the U.K., Denmark, and Greece. This development brings features such as motion to the certified simulation market at a fraction of the previous cost.
www.eaa.org
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J. MAC MCCLELLAN COMMENTARY / LEFT SEAT
Get in the Game nice day for March. The air was smooth, nothing more than scattered clouds here and there, and the wind was light. It is a little more than 700 nm from our home airport at Muskegon in western Michigan to Savannah, Georgia, and the y ing conditions just couldn’t have been b etter. What at frst seemed odd is that almost every controller was busy. Our IFR ight progressed through approach control areas including Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Fort Wayne, and on down through Cincinnati, and a string of others. We were occasionally in Indianapolis and Atlanta center airspace. And every frequency was alive with pilot and controller chatter. What I eventually realized is that hardly any of the pilots on the requency were going anyplace. The huge majority o the ying activity was practice. Pilots were practicing approaches all over the place. I heard more requests or holding pattern ying than I ever heard on the worst weather day in the New York area. Some o the ying was clearly instructional because I would occasionally hear another voice chime in when a pilot stumbled over a clearance read-back. But most of the pilots I heard were clearly not students, or pilots working toward an IFR rating. They were ying all types o airplanes—including military jets—and were ying all sorts o procedures in the sparklingly clear weather. IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY
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June 2013
Three weeks later Stancie and I retraced essentially the same route on our return from the Sun ’n Fun event in Lakeland. But this time the weather was marginal VFR to IFR over most of the distance. There was also a broken line of thunderstorms to deal with in Georgia. And the frequency was almost silent. For long periods I wondered if our radios had failed, because nobody was talking. Crossing through a few control sectors the only communications were me checking in, and then later being handed off to the next controller. Except for that broken line of storms, the weather was pretty benign. We were on top at 8,000 feet for most of the trip, but had to climb to 10,000 to stay in the clear over Ohio. Conditions below were never close to IFR minimums and were mostly marginal VFR with visibilities of 3 miles or more. In other words, it was as good a day or IFR ying in any type of airplane that you could hope for.
ILLUSTRATION BY GARY COX
J. MAC MCCLELLAN
So, where did all of those pilots practicing on a beautiful day go as soon as the weather conditions they were supposedly practicing for occurred? Clearly they stayed on the ground. Practice is important to learn and stay sharp in any activity. The best basketball players are gym rats who put up hundreds of shots a day. Good golfers spend hours on the practice tee and putting green. And major leaguers take dozens of cuts in t he batting cage every day. But all of that practice is designed to prepare for the game. And no matter how much you practice you won’t be a good player if you never play the game. No matter how much you try, practice just isn’t the same as the real thing. Years ago Flying magazine sponsored the IFR flying event at the National Intercollegiate Flying Association national meet that is called SAFECON. Teams of pilots from colleges and universities across
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June 2013
They were shocked when the controller gave them a clearance with a different route or altitude than they had filed. Once in the clouds some had difficulty with basic aircraft control. the country compete in s pot landings, navigation events, preight inspection tests, and so on. The events do test ying skills, but they are also intentionally tricky, and pilots who are best at paying attention to the smallest details do well. We constructed the IFR ying event at SAFECON along the same lines with lots of unusual and what we thought would be very difcult procedures to y. I remember one year we assigned the young pilots to hold on a localizer back-course using a bearing from a nearby NDB station as the fx. How weird is that? The kids aced it, just like they did the DME arcs and the parallel holding entries. They really knew their stuff, as they should
because many had already earned their CFI-I to teach instrument ying. One year the weather came up marginal VFR. The other ying events were grounded, but Richard Collins, who was editor of Flying at the time, decided we would y the IFR event for real on actual ATC clearances. Conditions were well above all approach minimums, there was no convection around or forecast to develop, and icing was not possible. In other words, it was a day perfectly suited or any qualifed IFR pilot in any kind o airplane equipped to y instruments. Because we would be ying on a real IFR clearance in the system we couldn’t ask the pilots to y any o our oddball procedures.
The contest would be to just fle a ight plan to a nearby airport, y there as cleared by ATC, make an approach, and return. Each pilot had a couple hours or more to study the weather, route, and available approaches. We would grade the contestants on how closely they adhered to every parameter o the ight. The results were near chaos. The same pilots who could track a perect NDB approach with the plastic cloud—oten called a hood—on their heads crumbled. They were shocked when the controller gave them a clearance with a dierent route or altitude than they had fled. Once in the clouds some had difculty with basic air crat control. And when cleared or an approach dierent rom what they expected, many were simply beuddled and didn’t know how to react. On several ights we judges in the right seat had to take control to give them time to collect themselves. Here were young pilots who had practiced to near perection. All had earned the
IFR rating, and most the CFI-I. They knew the rules, knew the procedures, and could y holding patterns with more precision then I can ever hope to. But they had never own anywhere IFR, or very oten VFR or that matter. They had never been in the game. People like me who are part o the avia tion industry share some o the blame or this situation. General aviation experts o all stripes, including the regulators at the FAA, have hammered away that training and cur rency—practice, in other words—are the keys to saety. And to a point, that’s true. But we haven’t been good at getting pilots out o the batting cage and up to the plate. The game in ying is to go places, to y cross-country. Intuitively we know that ying a trip is dierent than ying around the airport because we log the time in a di erent category. The FAA understands the importance o going to dierent places because it requ ires minimum cross -country time or various ratings.
The reason ying somewhere is dierent than practice is that you can’t be certain what will happen on a trip. No matter how thoroughly we plan a ight and study the weather beore takeo, the unexpected oten happens. Just like those pilots in the collegiate ying contest, something as simple as a change in runways, wind, or trafc density can surprise us. But that’s how we learn. Another handicap saety experts have put on pilots is the insistence that all conditions be good or the entire route o a ight beore taking o. That’s an ideal world but robs a pilot o the chance to learn. The only eective way to travel in an airplane is to make deci sions as they become necessary. I’m not suggesting you take o into a squall line and hope it disappears beore you get there. But when a orecast contains the chance o poor weather ahead, but your departure and frst part o the trip is okay, you need to y up to where the chance o bad weather is orecast and see what happens.
www.eaa.org
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J. MAC MCCLELLAN
A pilot who departs only when the forecasts are good has a very good chance of encountering bad weather. . . . What is he supposed to do then, crash?
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I know that sounds like safety heresy, but forecasts can be wrong. A pilot who departs only when the forecasts are good has a very good chance of encountering bad weather that was not forecast. What is he supposed to do then, crash? A pilot who isn’t disciplined enough to divert when a forecast for good weather goes sour is more dangerous than a pilot who diverts when the weather turns bad no matter what the forecast says. When you’re on the practice tee and yank the ball off into the weeds, you just tee up another and try to fx your swing. When you’re in the game you have to go fnd the ball and play it as it lies. And that’s how you become a better player. And that’s also how you become a better pilot by putting what you practice for to work. OUT OF CONTROL POWER
My standard procedure for cold start is to turn the boost pumps on, advance the throttles to full, and watch for the fuel ow to peak. I it’s cold outside, I may leave the throttles full for a second or two ater ow peaks. The system works, and the Continentals start quickly every time. The other day I turned the boost pumps on and moved the throttles toward full open, and the left throttle lever stopped moving about halfway up. It was stuck hard. The lever wouldn’t move orward or at. I fddled with the riction setting, and moved the propeller and mixture controls around to see if that would change anything. It didn’t. The lever was jammed in place. I assumed that one end or the other of the cable had come loose. If the housing of the push-pull cable is not frmly attached, the whole cable can move without changing the actual position of the throttle. But
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June 2013
this was just a jam somewhere in the push-pull cable as it snakes its way from the middle of the instrument panel, down through the cabin oor, out through the wing root, through the frewall, and to t he actuating arm on t he throttle buttery. The only shred o good news is that I was home, in front of my own hangar. We had just returned from our annual trip to the Bahamas, and then to Sun ’n Fun. It would have been a real hassle if the cable had failed during the trip. What I couldn’t stop thinking about is what I would have done if the cable had jammed in ight. The throttle was about half-open, so I would have had some power to continue, but too much power to land. I would have had to shut down the let engine somewhere on fnal approach in order to get down to the runway. If this had happened in a single instead of a twin, I would also have needed to shut down the engine to land. It would have been a more demanding procedure to dead-stick to the runway. If I killed the engine too soon, I think it would probably have restarted very quickly with the propeller windmilling, but I’m glad I didn’t have to fnd out. Of the possible mechanical failures that concern me I have to say a stuck throttle didn’t make the list. It is rare for a cable to jam totally without warning, but now I know it can happen. The only similar experience I’ve had in all these years o ying is in a V35B Bonanza I owned in the 1980s. On startup one day the engine roared to full power even though the throttle was at idle. The splines on the throttle buttery shat had worn, and a spring Continental installs pulled the throttle plate wide open even though the control arm was at idle. It’s better to have all power than no power, but like the stuck throttle cable, I would have had to shut down the engine to get to the runway. Just one more thing to add to the list of what can go wrong. EAA J. Mac McClellan,
EAA 747337, has been a pilot for
more than 40 years, holds an ATP certificate, and owns a Beechcraft Baron. To contact Mac, e-mail
[email protected].
LANE WALLACE COMMENTARY / FLYING LESSONS
Before and after (clockwise, from left): Dee Birchmore in her Traveler before her treetop landing, and the Traveler being li fted down from the trees after her emergency landing in downtown Toronto .
Stall It in the Trees It’s a great-sounding concept. But is it really a viable option?
McKibben, the forests of New England are an astounding piece of restoration magic: proof positive that nature can repair itself, given enough space and time. Back in the 1600s and 1700s, the pioneer and colonial farmers all but clear-cut th e land in the int erests of lumber and ag ricultural production. But as farming moved to the Midwest and wood was replaced by newer building materials and heating technology in the late 19th and 20th centuries, the trees started to grow back. With a vengeance. In 1850, forests covered less than 20 percent of the New England landscape. Today, McKibben estimates, forests cover two-thirds of Massachusetts, and 80 to 90 percent of the land in New Hampshire and Vermont. ACCORDING TO ENVIRONMENTALIST BILL
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Flying around north of Boston, the num bers are easy to believe. Boston has a densely populated metro area, but even in the suburbs, the trees are impressive. Unlike many parts of the Midwest, the land here isn’t a patchwork o open felds dotted with clumps of trees. It’s more like a swath of trees with a few open places where houses or golf courses have carved out stubborn patches of open sky. Kentucky and Indiana, where I learned to y, were much more agricultural. So was the area southwest of Minneapolis where I
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DEE BIRCHMORE
lived and ew or a ew years. And Caliornia—well, let’s just say I was aware, even at the time, o just how spoiled I was there. The “golden hills” didn’t support much beyond grassland, and the great San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys stretched almost the ull length o the state, flled with very little but open felds. Not that grasslands and open felds are the most stunning o landscapes to y over. But in terms o “Plan B,” saety net, back door options or landing sites in case o mechan ical difculty…I was spoiled. New England is a very dierent land scape. All those beautiul trees are the reason so many tourists ock to the region every autumn, but they do give one pause, ying over them. For all the time my pri mary ight instructor spent explaining the process o stalling the plane into the top o the trees, in case o en gine ailure over a orested area, it always seemed something o a sketchy proposition, at best. A number o yea rs ago, when I lew rom Mackinac Island, in Michigan, to Sudbury, Ontario, I’d planned to ly direct once I got to Sault Sainte Marie. But a ew miles into that leg, I glanced down through a sea o impossibly tall and thin pine trees—my only landing option i my engine decided to quit—that towered over shimmering relections o water, bog, and open rock aces, an d chickened out. I lew 20 miles south and ollowed the highway, instead. Upon reaching my destination, I discovered that the intimi dating section I’d been lying over was the legendary “Canadian Shield”—a stretch o wilderness so desolate and hostile that the local Canadian pilots said nobody with any sense attempted it unless they had a rile, mosquito netting, and a hundred-oot rope on board. (The rile to shoot the bears, the mosquito netting because the insects swarm so thick there that the bites can become liethreatening, and the hundred-oot rope to climb down rom your airplane, ater you’ve stalled it in to the trees.) Nobody I talked to there had ever actually done that stalling into the trees bit, o course. In p oint o act, I’d never
encountered anyone who’d actually survived that particular maneuver, which is partly why I was skeptical about its validity as a survivable option i you had to do it or real. Never, that is, until I met Dee. Dee Birchmore is a remarkable and noteworthy woman, or more reasons than a single emergency landing. I met her through a riend who’s an active member o the Toronto, Ontario, chapter o the Ninety-Nines. The Toronto chapter o the Ninety-Nines, I have to say, is itsel dis tinctive, flled with an unusual number o charismatic, accomplished, and adventurous women pilots who spend very little time sitting around and a whole lot o time ying around and having an inordinately good time. Some o them could give Jimmy Buett a run or his money, which is saying something. Dee grew up in the western provinces o Canada and wanted to y rom the time she was 17. But her parents nixed the idea, saying, “No daughter o ours is going to y. You’re going to be a nurse.” It was, shall we say, a dierent time. Dee dutiully went through the motions o becoming a nurse, and then signed on as a ight attendant as soon as she got her nursing degree (back then, in Canada, you had to be a nurse to be a ight attendant). But the dream o becoming a pilot got deerred until her two kids were in high school and college. She’d gone back to school, gotten a master’s in psychology, and was a dissertation away rom a Ph.D. when the treatment acility where she worked starting laying o psychologists. So she decided to take the money she’d saved to support hersel while writing the dissertation and use it or ying lessons, instead. “It was the best thing I could have done,” she says. “It let me meet all these wonderul women!” The women she was reerring to were the above-mentioned adventurous-minded Ninety-Nines. Two o them were looking or a partner in a Grumman Traveler, and Dee enthusiasti cally signed up. She’d accumulated 1,000 hours, a oatplane rating, and instrument and commercial ratings beore that ateul June day in 1999 when all that t heoretical
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LANE WALLACE
stuff about stalling in the trees became acutely relevant and real. Dee had gone up that morning for some IFR recurrency training with an instructor out of Buttonville Airport, north of Toronto, and was headed back to her base at Toronto City Airport, on the edge of Lake Ontario, right smack downtown. Because of airspace restrictions, she was ying at 2,000 eet MSL, which was about 1,500 eet AGL, at the intersection of two busy highways, when one of the exhaust valves in her fourcylinder Lycoming O-320-E2G engine stuck in the open position. Now, I know something about O -320E2G engines, because that’s the same engine I’ve got in my Cheetah. I also know something about stuck valves in those engines, because I’ve had it happen to me. Fortunately, mine never stayed stuck long enough to orce me down. But it’s an experience you never forget. Aside from the alarming plummet of rpm, the engine starts
banging “like a can in a dryer,” as Dee put it, and the airplane itsel starts shaking as i it’s trying to tear itself apart. “The plane was porpoising, and every time the nose came up, the stall horn went off. It was very hard t o control,” she says “And it was going down fast.” Over downtown Toronto. Fiteen hundred eet doesn’t give you much time to think, or many landing options. Not that there were many to choose from in that area anyway. “Out of a corner of my left eye, I saw a small patch of green. I thought it was a park, so I headed for it and put the plane in a steep forward slip, as it was coming up fast.” When Dee descended closer to the feld, however, she realized it was a very short playing feld next to a school, with goalposts at both ends. What’s more, there were people and a truck standing in the middle of it. The feld was not a survivable option. “There aren’t a lot o trees in that part o
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June 2013
Toronto,” she notes, “but fortunately, there was a long, thick grove of trees right n ext to the school. So I came out of the slip and headed for the tops of the trees.” So how does that stalling into the trees thing work, really? “You only want to do it if there is t ruly no other option,” Dee says. “I kept trying to stall the plane, but it wouldn’t stall. I think I went through half a mile of branches, all of them tearing at the plane, until the plane fnally slowed down and got caught by this wonderful old oak tree that had sturdy branches in a big ‘V’ shape, near the top.” The nose went through the V, and the wings got caught by other branches. The windscreen blew out, and all four seats came loose. The plane ended up nose down, about 60 eet o the ground, with Dee hanging partway out of the plane from her safety belt. Dee broke her wrist and the bones beneath her eyes i n the crash. But sh e had to stay very still in the plane, afraid of
dislodging it, for an hour and a half until frefghters got an aerial crane in there to get her down. “I still had my wits about me,” she says, “and I saw these frefghters coming in there with chainsaws. And, my goodness, the wings were both damaged and uel was owing out o them! So I yelled down, ‘No! Don’t! You can’t do that! There’s uel!!’ ‘Oh, right,’ they said, and went and got some hand saws.” Dee spent the weekend in the hospital, and her wrist took the better part o a year to heal, so I guess it couldn’t quite be said that she simply walked away rom the land ing. Nevertheless, she did survive it, which proves that at least it can be done. I spent some time with Dee during a recent trip to Toronto, and, while looking over the scrapbook she put together o pho tos, news clippings, and the Transportation Saety Board report on the accident, asked her i she had any hindsight advice on this
whole “stalling it into the trees” strategy. She thought about it or a minute, and then shook her head. “I’m glad my instructor talked to me about stalling it into the trees, because at least I had an idea in my mind, then, that it was an option, and what to do,” she said. “But I also realize I was lucky. I I’d stalled it into a stand o poplars, instead o some nice, sturdy oak trees, the ending could have been very dierent. And really, it all happened so ast, I didn’t have time to think about it much. It’s just that the only other option would have been to crash into a building. So anything was better than that.” She paused or a moment, then added, “But I stopped lying at night ater that. Because I never would have survived that landing at night.” The Transportation Saety Board con cluded that the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve in Dee’s Traveler had stuck in the open position, causing the power loss. Her
engine had 349 hours on it. That alone is a lesson or me, because I’ve had to have the valve guides cleane d out twice on my Cheetah—each time about 350-400 hours since the last cleaning. So it seems to me, at least where Cheetahs and Travelers are concerned, that a good approach to avoid ing that tree landing thing would be to make cleaning those valves a regular 300hour event. But perhaps the real lesson o Dee and her oak tree landing is that, whether over the orests o New England or the skyscrapers o downtown Toronto, there are more surviv able emergency options than we might imagine, as long as we keep our eyes open, our wits about us, all the way down. EAA
Lane Wallace, EAA 650945, has been an
aviation col-
umnist, editor, and author for more than 20 years. More of her writing can be found at www.LaneWallace.com and at www.TheAtlantic.com/Lane-Wallace .
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MIKE BUSCH COMMENTARY / SAVVY AVIATOR
It’s never a good sign when my first contact with an aircraft owner comes from his attorney.
The Blame Game When ‘stuff’ happens to your aircraft, it’s not always someone else’s fault
REGULAR READERS OF THIS COLUMN know
that I grumble a lot about “stupid mechanic tricks” made by career A&Ps who should know better. Some have accused me of mechanic-bashing. That’s a bit harsh, but I’ll readily admit to being a hard marker when it comes to genuinely dumb mistakes made by folks who work on airplanes for a living and hold themselves out as being maintenance professionals. Last week, for example, one of my clients had a hole punched clean through the wing of his airplane during a routine tire change when a mechanic discovered he didn’t have the proper jack points and tried jacking t he airplane by its tie-down rings— something explicitly forbidden by the maintenance manual. Last month, at one of the best-known service centers in the United States, a young mechanic (“nugget”) installed a new battery in a high-performance single-engine airplane belonging to another of my clients, and managed to reverse the polarity and destroy $13,000 worth of electrical components and avionics. The month prior, it was an alternator drive hub that came loose because the installing mechanic neglected to torque it properly and install the cotter pin, resulting in so much damage to the mating crankshaft face gear that my client’s engine had to be torn down. Ugh! But this month’s column isn’t about stupid mechanic tricks. It’s about stupid aircraft owner tricks. I see plenty of those, of course, since my company now manages maintenance for n early 500 aircraft owners. Most of my clients are bright, and their mistakes are usually small and readily resolved. But occasionally, I encounter a real doozy—one worth memorializing and sharing.
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SAY AGAIN, COUNSELOR?
One such doozy began when my phone rang on a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week. The caller identified himself as an attorney representing a businessman who is the owner of “a small airplane” and who asked the lawyer to contact me for advice. My first question was, What make and model airplane is this? “All I know is t hat it’s a littl e airplane with six seats. I think it has two propellers. Does that help?” “May I assume, then, that you’re not an aviation attorney?” The lawyer confirmed that he was the owner’s business lawyer and knew nothing about airplanes. He proceeded to relate a rather confusing story involving a Florida-based aircraft owner whose airplane was being “held hostage” by a Midwest maintenance shop I’d never heard of. Apparently the aircraft owner and the shop owner were having some sort of protracted dispute. After nearly a year, the shop had filed a lawsuit against the owner for nonpayment. The shop’s complaint asked for a mechanic’s lien against the airplane and a court order
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY MIKE BUSCH
allowing the shop to sell the airplane to satisfy the owner’s unpaid obligations. The aircraft owner’s lawyer explained that “time is of the essence” because he needed to act soon to prevent the court from granting the plaintiff a summary judgme nt agai nst his client. He’d called me at his client’s suggestion because of my reputation for helping aircraft owners deal with difficult maintenance predicaments. I asked the attorney to e-mail me the lawsuit pleadings, any discovery documents, the maintenance shop’s invoice, and any associated work orders, discrepancy lists, or repair estimates prepared by the shop. I promised to review this material over the weekend and scheduled a follow-up conference call with the attorney and his businessman-client on Monday afternoon. He did, and I did. By the time the lawyer and his client phoned me on Monday,
I had a bunch of questions for the aircraft owner. As he answered them, a picture of the situation began to emerge. It wasn’t pretty. HOW NOT TO BUY AN AIRPLANE
I learned that in early 2010 our hero decided he’d outgrown his single-engine airplane. He wanted to step up to a pressurized cabin-class twin and wound up buying a Cessna 421B. This “little airplane with two propellers” is an astonishingly sophisticated and capable flying machine, but unless maintained meticulously it can also be a real money pit. Even under the best of circumstances, the cost of maintaining and operating such an aircraft is formidable—particularly in this era of $7 avgas and breathtakingly expensive repair parts. Spend a few minutes browsing Trade-A-Plane or Aircraft Shopper Online and you’ll see that the resale
market for cabin-class pressurized piston twins is seriously in the tank. There is a good reason. Our hero wound up buying his nearly 40-year-old 421B for a little more th an $200,000. That’s definitely a whole lot of airplane for very little dough. On the other hand, a knowledgeable twin owner would realize that $200,000 represents a relatively small down payment on the total cost of owning an airplane of this caliber and age. To make matters worse, our hero bought the airplane without doing a prebuy examination. Instead, the seller delivered the airplane with the proverbial “fresh annual” (performed by the seller’s mechanic, of course). The buyer and his mechanic—the one who’d maintained his single-engine airplane—took the big twin up for a quick test flight, his mechanic took a quick pass over the logbooks, the
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buyer wrote a check, and the deal was done. Bada bing. The new owner wasted no time putting his new pride and joy to work in his business. He quickly fell in love with t he all-weather capability, performance, and creature comforts of the 421B. Who could blame him? It’s an amazing airplane. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for about a year, at which point it came time for the first annual inspection on the new owner’s watch. That’s invariably a come-to-Jesus moment for any n ew aircraft owner—especially with an airplane of t his age, complexity, and sophistication—but apparently our hero never saw it coming. HOW NOT TO MANAGE AN ANNUAL
Instead of having the 421B annual inspection performed by the mechanic who had been maintaining his single-engine airplane, or by the shop that performed the pre-sale annual inspection, the owner hired a shop in the Midwest that he’d never used before, that had never seen the airplane before, and that I’d never heard of. Apparently the shop came highl y recommended by someone the owner trusted. The shop quoted a shop rate of $70/hour and a flat-rate fee of $2,975 to perform the
annual inspection. (In my experience, both of these figures are unusually low.) The owner approved, and the shop proceeded with the inspection. In due course, the shop completed its inspection and presented our hero with a discrepancy list and repair estimate. The handwritten discrepancy list was 16 pages long and identified 308 separate discrepancies—234 on the airframe, 29 on the left engine, and 45 on the right engine. Roughly half of them were flagged wit h asterisks as being airworthiness items. There was also a five-page spreadsheet that listed replacement parts required. The shop’s repair estimate came to 642 hours of repair labor at $70/hour, a bit more than $57,000 in parts, and $2,975 for the flat-rate inspection. The estimated grand total was $105,000 and change. The shop provided no detailed breakdown of this estimate, so there is no way of determining what portion of this $105,000 was for airworthiness items and what portion was for items that the owner could defer or decline. Our hero was not amused. He phoned the shop’s director of maintenance to complain. He came away from that phone call with the distinct impression that the DOM felt the airplane fell somewhere
The Cessna 421B is a magnificently capable airplane. It can also be a money pit if you’re not careful.
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between a disaster and a deathtrap. The owner instructed the DOM to stop work immediately and leave the airplane opened up while the owner tried to sort things out. Our hero’s immediate reaction was that he’d been shafted by the prior owner. He had his attorney write the seller a “lawyer letter” explaining that the airplane was found to have hundreds of discrepancies that would cost $105,000 to fix—more than half of what he’d paid for the plane—and demanding that the seller either pay for the repairs or agree to take the airplane back and refund the purchase price. The seller turned the matter over to his own attorney, who replied that the buyer had purchased the airplane without any warranty or representation of fitness from the s eller other than clear title and an annual inspection signoff in the logbooks. After about eight months of back and forth between t he lawyers, it became clear to our hero that he was not going to get any consideration from the seller. In the meantime, the DOM was not amused either. He had a 421B in pieces tying up nearly 2,000 square feet of precious real estate in his maintenance hangar. After several months of hosting this “dead airplane” that the shop could not work on and could not move, the DOM started sending the owner storage invoices for $450/month. Our hero—who was already upset at the DOM—became even more upset when the storage invoices started arriving. He took the position that he hadn’t agreed to the storage charges and wasn’t about to pay them. Our hero also refused to pay the shop for the inspection. He felt that there was no way that an airplane that received an airworthy signoff at its 2010 annual inspection could possibly have more than 150 airworthiness discrepancies a year later, and believed the shop had concocted most of the discrepancies out of thin air, presumably motivated by greed. (In my experience, shops almost never inflate a discrepancy list in order to pad their pockets, but that doesn’t stop
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY MIKE BUSCH
some aircraft owners from believing they do.) Things proceeded downhill rapidly from there. The DOM turned the matter over to his lawyer—that’s lawyer No. 3 if you’re counting—who filed a lawsuit against the aircraft owner, demanding payment for the inspection and storage fees, and asking the court for a mechanic’s lien and for permission to sell the airplane if necessary to satisfy the owner’s debt. And then my telephone rang. SO NOW WHAT?
Once I was able to fully understand what had transpired, I was pretty blunt in my advice to the owner and his attorney. To begin with, I told them that in my professional opinion, I felt the owner had no recourse against the seller. It was, after all, the buyer’s decision to purchase the
airplane without conducting a meaningful pre-buy examination. Nor did I feel that t here was any recourse against the shop that performed the prior annual inspection. I explained that “airworthiness” is largely a subjective standard based on th e inspecting IA’s determination of what discrepancies prevent the aircraft from being “in condition for safe operation.” The fact that one IA felt that the airplane was airworthy and another IA felt it was a deathtrap is something I run into every day. (Usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle.) It doesn’t mean that one IA was wrong and the other was right, only that airworthiness is an inherently subjective standard and reasonable people may reasonably have different opinions. The fact is that IA No. 1 made a determination that th e aircraft was airworthy, and then—lo and behold—the aircraft flew
The handwritten discrepancy list was 16 pages long and identified 308 separate discrepancies—234 on the airframe, 29 on the left engine, and 45 on the right engine. for the next 12 months without falling out of the sky. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the aircraft could fly another 12 months without falling out of the sky. Airworthiness is a moving target. That’s why we’re required to have the aircraft inspected every year. I also said that I could not see any reasonable basis for the owner refusing to pay the Midwest shop that had performed the most recent annual inspection. The
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shop had inspected the airplane (as it was hired to do) and documented its inspection findings in extensive detail. The shop’s flat-rate charge was exceedingly reasonable in my opinion. I also considered the shop’s storage charges to be quite reasonable, given that t he airplane had been tying up a significant portion of the shop’s maintenance hangar for nearly a year while the owner tried to figure out what he wanted to do. My strong recommendation to the owner was that he immediately pay the Midwest shop for all charges due, both for the inspection and for storage, and perhaps even offer to pay the shop’s attorney’s fees to date—whatever it takes to settle the lawsuit and get the airplane out of jail. I said that if the owner was willing to do this, then I’d be glad to try to help him obtain a ferry permit and get the airplane flown to a location where the 308 listed discrepancies could be triaged and resolved.
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I felt the owner had no recourse against the seller. It was, after all, the buyer’s decision to purchase the airplane without conducting a meaningful pre-buy examination. I explained that had the owner approached me when he first received the discrepancy list, I’d have been glad to work with the Midwest shop’s DOM to negotiate some compromise plan to get the airplane back i n the air. However, at this late date, the relationship between the owner and the DOM had been poisoned to the point that I believed any attempt to work together constructively was futile. Therefore, I felt the owner’s best course of action was to get the airplane into the
hands of another mechanic who could be trusted to deal with the issues reasonably without a lot of emotion. Sadly, this was apparently not what the owner and his attorney wanted to hear. They got audibly upset at me and then summarily hung up. I never heard from either of them again. I have no idea what happened with the lawsuit, nor whether the Cessna 421B is still in jail. Please accept my sincere apology, faithful reader, for ending this column without a punch line. I just hate when that happens. Mike Busch, EAA 740170, was the 2008 National
Aviation Maintenance Technician of the Year, and has been a pilot for 44 years, logging more than 7,000 hours. He’s a CFI and A&P/IA. E-mail him at
[email protected] . Mike also hosts free monthly online presentations as part of EAA’s webinar series on the first Wednesday of each month. For a schedule visit www.EAA.org/webinars .
Passenger Basics Some guidelines for the care and treatment of those we take aloft
HAVING HAULED A FAIR number
of passengers around the sky over the years, I’ve learned a few things. With at least half of all pilots, give us a slug of truth serum in our coffee and we’ll get this dreamy smile on our faces and admit that half the reason we got into flying was to give people rides. The urge to share the fun is as strong as the urge to fly under a bridge, but vastly more responsible, and way more likely to spread warm, fuzzy feelings about what we do. Most of the people I’ve taken aloft have been friends and acquaintances, although for a while my flying was largely commercial. I was a two-seat ultralight instructor—while such a thing was still legally possible—and it was nice at the end of any busy weekend to get home, start emptying my pockets, and find they were absolutely stuffed with fives, tens, and twenties. The money was definitely happiness-inducing—not as much as flying itself, but it did have an undeniable charm. THE GRE AT OBLIGAT ION
The single most important thing about transporting human beings around in the air is your responsibility for their safety and wellbeing. The word “awesome” has been horribly abused in the past
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decade and more—can a hamburger really strike awe into someone’s heart?—but the responsibility we face is genuinely one of those awesome or awe-inspiring things. If there’s anything not completely okay about you or your aircraft, or the place you’re planning to fly, don’t leave the ground. There are few things in life that scare me more than the thought of being responsible for somebody else’s safety and well-being. Well, well-being: What does that even mean? I just threw that in because it always comes right after “safety” and sounds natural, even if it ’s hard to define. I once gave an in-law a ride, and about 10 minutes into it he leaned way over—away from me, fortunately—and threw up his hamburger over the side of my Quicksilver MX Sprint II. His safety was never in any danger, but maybe his well-being was.
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVE MATHENY
Who Can Give Rides? Possibly he would have been better served if I had provided an airsickness bag. And maybe, out of sensitivity for his feelings, I should not have embarrassed him by leaning across him, when he was done, to see what he had hit. Miraculously, he had missed every inch of the tubing over there. Awesome. After we landed he claimed he was having as much fun as he’d ever had in his life, and I think maybe he was. He did go on to buy a single-seat ultralight and fly it all over central Minnesota. On a more serious note, I once lost the engine when giving a young woman a ride. She had been one of my best passengers, absolutely delighting in the view and the whole experience, looking around in wonder, clearly enchanted. Twenty minutes into the flight, the Rotax 503 paused, gave a terrified shriek, and went silent. As the whistle of wind through tubes and wires replaced the bellow of the engine, she looked at me
questioningly. I said something like, “Piece of cake. We’ll just land in this field right here,” pointing at a cornfield that was mostly stubble just ahead. The landing was uneventful. When we rolled to a stop, she looked at me expectantly, and I realized she thought I would now make the engine go again so we could continue the ride. I had to explain that the ride was over, and now we had to wait for some people to come and help us roll the airplane back to the home field. (The engine had seized. That particular engine went on to seize twice more. I wound up convinced that it was possessed by a demon, and took a strong dislike to it. It wound up haunting a snowmobile in Forest Lake, Minnesota.) No passengers were harmed in this incident. But it does show the need to keep a good landing place always within easy reach. While you can’t guarantee that any given engine will keep running (especially a two-cycle), you can always keep a
When it comes to light aircraft, any private (or better) pilot can carry a passenger, as can any sport or recreational pilot in the various categories and classes of aircraft in which they are certificated to fly themselves. Ultralight pilots are still limited to single-seat air vehicles, and have never legally been able to take anyone but themselves into the air. That has not changed. A pilot holding a sport pilot certificate can carry a passenger—just one—in a light-sport aircraft, provided he or she is otherwise current. Recreational pilots can also carry just one passenger (even though the aircraft can have four seats). Private (or better) pilots who are current in the type of aircraft to be flown can take more than one passenger. All three categories of pilots have a recency-of-landings requirement: They must have made at least three takeoffs and landings during the past 90 days in the same category and class of aircraft as the one in which they’ll be giving a ride. If the airplane is a taildragger, full-stop landings are required.
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forced-landing area handy. And if you can’t, seriously consider not risking anybody’s safety and well-being but your own. A CAUTIONARY TALE
But now we move up the scale from minor to deadly. While researching a recent story about nap-of-the-earth flying, I came across the tale of a guy who had given a woman a ride in his Stearman biplane. He flew low up a scenic river and hooked his landing gear on some unseen wires, winding up with the airplane on its back in the river. His passenger drowned. The misery and grief for those who loved her will go on, as it will for the pilot. But to his misery will always be added the fact of his having been the cause. And, predictably, he is engaged in endless legal entanglements. When carrying passengers, always be sure of the place you are flying as well as the aircraft and you.
passengers to do that. Most passengers don’t know much about aircraft and are very tentative on the controls. Most will just hold the stick without moving it, halfexpecting (to judge from their expressions) that the airplane will do something wild and crazy if they exert the slightest pressure. They soon get over it. I have never had a passenger do something wild and crazy, but aviation is full of surprises. WHAT NOT TO DO
Scaring people is as amateurish and unprofessional as it gets. There was an occasion when an instructor of mine was in the right seat of a Cessna 172, with me in the left, and my wife, Jean, in the back. He took the controls and without warning pulled back suddenly on the yoke, then just as sudd enly pushed forward a moment later, leveling off at an altitude maybe 200 feet higher than we were when we started.
WHAT TO CHARGE
Easy. You can’t charge anything if you are not at least a commercial pilot. (The days of twoseat ultralight instructing have ended.) Sport, recreational, and private pilots may not charge for any reason, although you are allowed to share equally in the costs. You and a passenger might, for example, split the cost of a fill-up of gasoline or the cost of a rental. WHAT TO DO
For most passengers, just being up in the sky is amazing. Once you’re aloft, you can assess how much they’re enjoying the experience. You can either get out of the way and lapse into silence so they can enjoy the experience, or use the occasion to point out some sights. I’m not very good at getting out of the way and shutting up, as you might infer from the fact that I write articles about flying, but I try. From my usual home base you can see the skylines of both Minneapolis and St. Paul, which is pretty impressive here in the western plains, given how gently rolling the land is (some would even say flat). The cockpit of an aircraft is the only place I know of where you can see such a sight. Rivers, lakes, ponds, farms, woods—once their sightseeing is done, most passengers, in my experience, will eventually turn their attention back inside the cockpit. If, in your opinion, they would be safe in handling the controls, let them. I have always allowed
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Scaring people is as amateurish and unprofessional as it gets. He chuckled when he did it to indicate it was all just a joke, and fortunately Jean took it well. Clearly he had done it just to scare her. It was a learning experience for me. I learned he was a jerk. I also learned never to do that to anybody. This is going to sound like a platitude, and I’m trying to find a way to avoid saying, “We are all ambassadors for aviation.” But we are. When we give somebody a ride, we are in the position of recruiting people for aviation, even if they’re not going to learn to fly. And they may someday be in a voting booth deciding whether to keep the local airport open. We want them on our side. WHO NOT TO TAKE UP
Well, apart from a crazed anarchist holding a smoking bomb, the only obvious category of people who should not be passengers would be those who are seriously overweight. Changes in the center of gravity will normally not happen in any aircraft with side-by-side seating simply because almost all aircraft are designed so
that pilots of various weights can be accommodated; adding or subtracting weight does not move the CG fore or aft. Usually all that happens is that the aircraft will simply get heavier, not move out of its safe CG range. When I was flying a two-seat Quicksilver MX Sprint, I knew in advance that 250 pounds was the limit for anyone seated next to me—and that was for an 80-degree day with a freshly mown runway. It’s true that by carrying less fuel I could have allowed a few more pounds of passenger weight, but let’s not split hairs. Operating at or next to your maximum takeoff weight is always chancy, and should be reserved for emergencies. One other category is kids whose parents have not given permission. One ride I have always regretted not being able to give would have been to a boy I saw hanging around a grass-strip airport one summer a lot of years ago. I used to fly in there with friends. He was a skinny kid, shy, and had those aviation stars in his eyes that you sometimes see in kids. It was abundantly clear that he wanted to go for a ride, and it was legal for me to do that, as an ultralight two-seat instructor at the time. No law said I had to charge him any money. But every time I asked him if he could get permission from his parents, he clammed up in a way that told me they were not ever going to give the kid permission. “Do you live nearby? You could just go home and ask them,” I said, but the kid just shook his head. Because I fly a single-seater these days, I continually have to turn down friends and acquaintances who ask for rides. Maybe there’s a two-seater in my future. If so, I’d like to go back to that same grassstrip airport and see if the kid is still there. He’d be over 30 by now, and maybe he even went into aviation and became an airline pilot or flies fighters, but it would still set things right for me to give him that ride. He deserves it. Dave Matheny , EAA 184186, is a private pilot and
an FAA ground instructor. He has been flying light aircraft, including ultralights, for 30 years. He accepts commissions for his art and can be reached at
[email protected] .
BRADY LANE COMMENTARY / DREAM BUILD FLY
Putting Hand and Mind Together The heart of EAA
292’s hangar felt strangely familiar. I had never been to Independence, Oregon, nor had I ever met the men huddled around the waterboxer engine in the corner, but something felt surprisingly common about this uncommon s cene. This group was on a mission, and as EAA Founder Paul Poberezny often says, they were “putting hand and mind together” to design, create, and build. They didn’t let my presence disturb their progress. The room was packed tight wi th World War I-era fuselages in various stages of completion, which required care to navigate my way over to the action. WALKING INTO EAA CHAPTER
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These chapter members were building fve DH .2 replicas—at t he same time—and were assembled together this Saturday morning to troubleshoot a fuel issue with the frst o fve engines. Bruce Rose, EAA Lifetime 663928, president of a neighboring chapter and one o the fve builders, broke rom the engine analysis to give me a tour of the group’s progress.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRADY LANE
BRADY LANE
Their woodwork was artistry—evidence that these men were not rookie builders. On a nearby tool cabinet hung photos of their previous projects: 14 Nieuports, also built simultaneously a few years back. They knew how to work together. The lingering question in my mind: Why build fve o these aircrat at the same time? “The appeal of a group project is learning from others,” Bruce told me. “There’s quite a bit of learning that comes from interacting with other builders. If I were by myself it wouldn’t go near as fast, and I probably would have gone down more dead-end roads and may not have taken as good of paths. There’s no way I could do this on my own.” A few days later, I visited Jim Moss’ hangar on the outskirts of Seattle for a peek at his nearly fnished Gee Bee Q.E.D. replica. His hangar was also abuzz with activity, and the déjà vu returned. This time, its source was clear. This is EAA—the same community I’ve seen and experienced in hangars, basements, and garages across the country. Regardless of what the actual project is, there is one commonality they all share—community. The EAA spirit is what made these exotic projects feel exactly the same as the relatively common projects on my workbench back home. The same virtue that birthed EAA and gathered 36 people in Paul and Audrey’s basement 60 years ago is vibrantly alive today in basements, workshops, and hangars across the country. In Jim Moss’ hangar, two men crouched at the Q.E.D.’s right tire and talked about the landing gear. Another two stood on ladders and peered inside the cockpit. A husband and wife walked around the aircraft, examining the rivets they ’d bucked together during a previous work session, while another half-dozen men stood at the tail and discussed the aircrat’s upcoming frst ight. Each o these workers afrmed that Jim Moss, EAA 477508, was the mastermind behind this beautiful replica, but Jim’s the frst to tell you he didn’t build it alone. A community of friends built the monstrous Gee Bee Q.E.D., each bringing a dierent perspective and skill set.
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Homebuilding projects are as much a social undertaking as they are individual endeavors. This community, sharing of knowledge, putting hand and mind together, is what makes us EAA. Addison Pemberton, EAA 154948, is a shining example. His beautiful Boeing 40 was built with the help of 62 volunteers contributing more than 18,000 hours. He is now restoring a Grumman Goose in similar ashion. I am not building a giant vintage air racer like Jim Moss, a WWI biplane like Bruce Rose, or a one-of-a-kind vintage airliner, but my build sessions back in Oshkosh look similar to what I saw in their hangars, and I’m guessing your build sessions are similar, too. This is not what I thought homebuilding was like on the outset. I thought building was a solitary struggle, which is why I never thought I could successfully build an aircraft. I didn’t trust myself or my skills. I have since discovered most projects, even individual projects, are rarely built in isolation. The best builders have learned to maximize the social and community contri butions of homebuilding.
Homebuilding projects are as much a social undertaking as they are individual endeavors. SOLO COMMUNITY: A REWARDING DICHOTOMY
This satisfaction from building in community doesn’t threaten the joy that comes from individual responsibility and accomplishment. Like ying, the ultimate responsibility always rests on a single person. I remember looking over to the empty right seat during my frst solo and eeling the weight o responsibility and joy simultaneously. “I’m the only one who can get this thing down now,” I thought. That sense of individual responsibility is sobering and rewarding. It’s a rush! While ying alone is un, there’s a reason most aircraft have more than one seat. No joy is complete until it’s shared.
This is why we have pancake breakfasts, EAA chapters, ormation clinics, y-ins; it’s why Chapter 292 is building its DH.2s together, why Jim Moss has invited his friends to lend a hand, why Addison Pemberton welcomes people into his hangar to help an airplane come back to lie, why EAA sta members get together on weekends to build an aircraft together, and why Paul and Audrey frst invited their friends to a basement meeting 60 years ago. We are all better when we join together. There’s a time to y alone, to build alone; it can be therapeutic after a stressful day at work. But in the end, both pilots and builders beneft rom being part o a community. THE HEART OF EAA
When I go to EAA’s Kermit Weeks Hangar on Saturday mornings to work on the staff Zenith project, I rarely carry my own weight. I talk and laugh with friends more than I deburr or squeeze rivets. My talk-towork ratio is, well, off-center. While I contribute some to the aircraft’s progress, I don’t go to the hangar on my day off to participate in a production line. If it were, none of us would go. The biggest reward of this project is not the airplane we’re working on, it’s that I’ve gotten to know Kyle rom the AirVenture Museum gift shop, Jennifer from the print and mail center, Amy from marketing, Jerry from maintenance, and Matt from IT. These are not just my co-workers anymore; they’re friends. The heart o EAA is not about ying, building, or airplanes; it’s about people. I’ve heard Paul say this a thousand times, but didn’t realize until recently that it applies to more than just y-ins and airplanes; it also applies to the workshop. Chapter 292’s hangar elt amiliar because it was. It was EAA—the same EAA that exists in workshops around the world when EAA members get together with friends to put hand and mind together. EAA Brady Lane, EAA 808095, a multimedia journalist for EAA
and a private pilot, is scratchbuilding a Bearhawk with his friend Caleb Ihrig. Visit www.DreamBuildFly.com where you can watch them work on the plane live every Tuesday evening. Contact Brady at
[email protected].
LAURAN PAINE JR. COMMENTARY / PLANE TALK
The panel—Gil Hutchison, Scott McDaniels, Mike Seager, and Van—preparing to speak as a chapter member makes an annoucement.
Work Harder, Work Smarter Experimental amateur-built safety BY LAURAN PAINE JR.
MY BUDDY NEL CALLED and
said, “You gotta attend this conference. It’s about experimental amateur-built (E-AB) safety. Some ‘big guns’ are gonna be there. You’d better be there or else.” I ain’t afraid of Nel, but I do know that what he lacks in tact he makes up for in perseverance. I asked, “When, where, and who?” “Next Saturday at Willamett e Aviation, Aurora Airport,” Nel said. “Van, Mike Seager, Scott McDaniels, an EZ guy, and an FAA guy are gonna be there.” I thought to myself, Let’s see , Van with 8, 000 RVs fl ying, Mike with 13,000 hours of RV instruction given, and Scott, who works in Van’s prototype shop and knows everything about RVs—yeah, that’s the mother lode of RV experience.
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“I’m in.” The day dawned foggy, but it broke up in time for some people to fly to the conference. Roughly 30 pilots showed up. It should’ve been 30,000 for the straightforward, honest, and genuine info that was put forth. Willamette Aviation, located at Oregon’s Aurora State Airport (UAO), hosted the event. Picture the quintessential FBO, just like us old-timers remember them—that’s Willamette Aviation. Small building, lots of old airplane pictures on
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF LAURAN PAINE JR.
the walls, pictures of recent solo students, new private pilots, and such. A desk with a nice lady sitting behind it, a small room with charts, aviation books, and headsets for sale, and a couch and chairs for lounging airport bums. That kind of FBO. The meeting itself was held in a hangar behind the FBO, nicely set up with chairs, screens. Dave Waggoner of Willamette Aviation welcomed us. Nice fella, and passionate about aviation. In addition to Van, Mike, and Scott, there was Gil Hutchison, a high school buddy of Burt Rutan and representing the EZ fliers. Jim Hultgrien from the Portland-Hillsboro Airport flight standards district office rounded out the group and opened with some remarks. Nel was the moderator. (I had brought some overripe tomatoes to toss his way, but it turned out t hat I didn’t need them.) Van talked about E-AB accidents. It’s never a pleasant subject, but Van doesn’t just use a bunch of graphs with numbers; he speaks from the gut (read: heart) after years of experience. That tends to give credence to the subject, to penetrate your aviation soul. Graphs and charts don’t do that; Van’s words do. First, Van mentioned that E-ABs have always had a higher accident rate than factory-built airplanes, what he calls “a bad starting point.” It’s rather the nature of the experimental beast, right? There are unknowns. The Wright brothers had unknowns. World War II flight testing had unknowns (and a horrific accident rate). Space exploration has unknowns. Obviously, we should always be trying to mitigate as many of the unknowns as we can. That’s the simple statement. The reality is that it takes extra effort on our part to reduce mistakes. We must have a safety culture, each of us. So, right off the bat, we in the experimental community need to work a little smarter and a little harder to lower our accident rate. No charts, no graphs, just those words: work harder, work smarter. And think of it this way: Every experimental accident reflects upon all of us. Don’t be the guy/gal who adds to the accident statistics that jeopardize our freedom to build airplanes. The reward for working harder and smarter is greater satisfaction, not to mention safety. Let’s briefly talk about some of the more common types of accidents so we can zero in a
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little on how to prevent them. With E -ABs, loss of control and system failures are more prevalent than in commercially built airplanes. Loss of control includes low airspeed accidents (too common); system failures include fuel system failures (too common). Both are correctable. Commercially built aircraft have more weather-related accidents. Here’s something we can throw at the E-AB problem right now: Make a habit of involving other brains in the building and flying process. And not just any brains, but brains that know. EAA flight advisors come to mind. I know of one situation in which a flight advisor asked a pilot just before his first flight, “Do you have enough fuel?” (The advisor had noticed the guy doing several taxi tests and engine run-ups just prior to the first flight attempt.) The guy said, “Yeah, yeah. Just filled it up.” Then he took off, ran out of fuel early in the climb, and crashed. One accident statistic is very clear: Purchasers of E -AB aircraft have more accidents than builders of E-AB aircraft. Builders take some of the initial risks, but they know their aircraft. Thus, it behooves the purchaser to learn about his new aircraft before flying it. However, since I don’t want to belabor accidents—there are lots of them on file in black and white, if you want to read more—I want to switch to flying the darn things. It’s just my humble opinion, but that’s the heart of the matter. When Mike Seager, who probably has more RV time than any person on the planet, talks, I listen. (Not to mention that he dislikes public speaking, so hearing him is rare. He prefers to do his talking in the airplane.) Transition training is mandatory in my book. Here are some problem areas that he often sees during transition training: lack of currency, being low-time in only one type of airplane, being high-time but having little time in small airplanes, no tailwheel time. And more: weak basic flying skills with regard to the fundamentals of flight—what he calls “climbs, glides, turns, and straight-and-level.” Read that again: basic flying skills. Weak slow flight, weak airspeed and altitude control, overcontrolling, imprecise pattern work, glass panel distraction (information overload while you’re trying to fly). He will pull power at 3,000 feet AGL over the airport and ask you to land, using precise airspeed control, on the first third of the runway. Many can do it, some cannot. Can you? “Sure, I can,” you say. When was the last time you practiced it? I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feeling here. These items are not speculation; they are observations from a professional. I take ’em to heart. To prepare for transition training, get current, and preferably in an airplane close to the E-AB type you are building, i.e., a taildragger for a taildragger. Get a flight review, whether you are due or not, to get your head in the game. Also, fly solo. Put yourself in the position of having to make all the decisions and honestly evaluate your performance. Here’s where your flying needs to be: There must never be a doubt about the outcome of a maneuver. Smoothly control
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altitude and airspeed. Be stable on approach, and consistently perform good takeoff and landings, tracking the centerline. Be able to do a wellplanned and smooth go-around. Be able to slip to a landing. When you fly, put demands on yourself, and make your flying count. Do slow flight, stalls, and spot landings often. If all you want out of your flying is to take off, fly around a bit, and land on big runways, fine. But do not hop into your E -AB with that background and expect to do well. Involve another brain.
Every experimental accident reflects upon all of us. Don’t be the guy/gal who adds to the accident statistics that jeopardize our freedom to build airplanes. During the test phase of your E -AB flying, have a plan. Do not just bore holes. The test phase is when the airplane teaches the pilot. Actually do the items that you sign off at the end of the test-flying phase. Fly the maneuvers, fly the various weight ranges, and fly the various CGs. Experience that stuff during the test phase, not during a cross-country. You may n ot b e abl e to experience the hot-and-high airport within your assigned test area, but you should write down your performance data and then apply the Koch Chart percentages when you get to t he hot-and-high area. That guy off the end of the runway at that little airport in Colorado? Maybe he didn’t think performance data was important that day. Not comfortable with that? Then employ a professional test pilot to do at least the initial flight for you. That’s not shame, that’s smart. I recently renewed my CFI certificate. One of the study units was about the
LAURAN PAINE JR.
shifting training focus of the FAA. They made the statement, “GA accident data from the last two decades shows that about 80 percent of the accidents are the result of human factors.” Makes sense—100 percent of GA airplanes are flown by humans. The FAA went on to say that it “believes that students should be trained to operate in the real-world environment rather than merely to accomplish maneuvers on command.” So the feds established Flight Industry Training Standards (FITS) using scenario-based training. And they came up with a risk assessment matrix, complete with lots of b oxes, pretty colors, and fancy words. Then they use the three p’s ( perceive, process, perform). You perceive with PAVE (Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External pressures). You process with CARE (Consequences, Alternatives, Reality, External pressures). And you perform using TEAM (Transfer risk, Eliminate risk, Accept risk, Mitigate risk). Are your eyes crossed yet? Okay, just me talkin’ here, beat me up if you must. Bring me 20 pilots. Ten will sit in class four hours a day for a week learning the three p’s in scenario-based training using PAVE, CARE, and TEAM until it gives them FITS. The other 10 will fly maneuvers and traffic patterns for four hours a day for a week. At the end of the week, which 10 are going to be the better pilots? Here’s the deal as I see it: The better you fly, the better you know your skills and the capabilities of your airplane, and the better the flying decisions you’ll make. The guy who ran off the end of a short runway probably didn’t know he couldn’t do that because he hadn’t really practiced it. The stall/spin accident? That guy probably hadn’t done an accelerated stall in a long, long time, so he lost his ability to recognize the onset. Sure, anyone can have a bad day and have an accident, but generally it’s the unknowns that get you. The more you prep and fly, the fewer unknowns you will have. Sure, I’m poking some fun at the FAA. (It’s a proclivity I have, learned it at an early age. Most feds I know just poke it back at me.) All aviation learning is important, but the most important things to know—I’m sticking to my guns here—are your flying limits, and you learn that by flying. Remember, you establish your limits. I flew professionally, military and airline, for roughly 35 years. I flew the fancy airplanes into the crowded airports in the demanding weather and all that stuff. And I loved it, loved the challenges. We often went to the limits, but t hat’s because we knew exactly what the limits were. When you fly 70 hours a month, year after year after year, you learn something else: Stuff happens. Even when you’re trying to do everything right, stuff happens. The challenge is to recognize the situation as far out as you can, and deal with it methodically and safely. If you can’t, then get out of the situation. And I can guarantee that if you make a habit of cutting corners, sometime, somewhere, it’s going to bite you in the b utt. Today I’m “Joe VFR” in my nonautopilot, nonglass, VFR airplane, and all by design. In retirement I wanted to go back to where
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I first started flying, to return to the joy of wandering and looki ng outside. And I’m very happy with all that. I’ve set new limits from the professional days. In fact, I’m probably more cautious than the new 350-hour private pilot. Fly into reduced visibility? Not a chance. I know what’s in reduced visibility: worse visibility.
I can guarantee that if you make a habit of cutting corners, sometime, somewhere, it’s going to bite you in the butt. Let me give the E-AB pilot one more thing to think about: One-third of all E-AB accidents are due to the malfunction of an inspectable item. Hmm. It’s up to us to do something about that, isn’t it? We do the inspections. Use a checklist. Be methodical and critical. Don’t get lazy, and have the attitude that you will find something. Have a good flashlight and more than one type of inspection mirror. When in doubt, ask, and remember that inspecting is a learned skill—don’t let anything slide. Listen more than you talk. Help is always available from the aviation brotherhood. Flying is a very personal thing. I do my thing and you do yours. Most pilots I know are very professional and conscientious. They read and listen just to know what useful tidbits of information might be out there for them. So, when Van, Mike, and Scott speak and say we need to improve some things, then I figure we need to improve some things. All of us. After all, we are a brotherhood. Lauran Paine Jr., EAA 582274, is a retired military pilot
and retired airline pilot. He built and flies an RV-8 and has owned a Stearman and a Champ. Learn more about Lauran at his website, www.ThunderBumper.com.
JEFF SKILES COMMENTARY / CONTRAILS
Goose Bay to Iqaluit Flying the Ju 52 back to Europe, Part 3
curtains of my room and gaze out at t he deserted sand- and gravel-covered streets of downtown Goose Bay. We stayed the night at the Hotel North Two, creatively named to distinguish it from the Hotel North One just down the street. This Americanized outpost in far-northern Canada boasts both an A&W restaurant and a Subway, making me feel like I n ever left home. We had dinner last night at what is considered to be the fnest establishment in Goose Bay, Jungle Jim’s. Jungle Jim’s boasts a motif as un-Goose Bay-like as possible, kind of a cross between a Rainforest Cafe and a Hamburger in Paradise. It has a gigantic sign out front screaming “Two Toucan Dine for $15.99” and is decorated mostly in bamboo with an abundance of plastic palm trees illuminated by what must be 500,000 watts of those really big Christmas tree lights. I munched on one of Jim’s Gourmet Bongo Burgers while gazing at an advertisement proclaiming this venue as the premier site for farnorthern wedding receptions, every Labrador girl’s dream. As we arrive at the airport, the morning lig ht has that odd qual ity of the northern latitudes where dawn seems to stretch on for hours and the world is always bright and new. The sky is a I THROW OPEN THE
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cloudless absolute blue stretching to infnity in all directions. The round engines and corrugated skin of the Junkers look out of place parked among the several corporate jets that have arrived overnight. They came all the way from Europe in a day. It will easily be a week before we see Switzerland. Our preparations or ight begin immedi ately. We all have settled into a routine and become accustomed to our duties. Hans Rahmann is the baggage packer; he arranges all of our mountainous luggage just so in the aft storage compartment. Tobias has endless duties removing the tarp covering the cockpit and checking over the aircraft. I make myself busy pulling the engines through—nine complete revolutions of the propeller per engine accomplished by the use of a long pole with a
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF JEFF SKILES
loop on the end to grab the propeller tip. All of us must perform our work while explaining to the pilots of the shiny corporate jets about this anachronistic aircraft. Aloft once again, Hans Moser, our captain, points the nose of the Junkers north by northwest. Hans is a retired Swiss air captain and has spent a lietime ying intercontinental airliners to ar-ung destinations. He has also has spent more than 20 years volunteering as a pilot for Ju-Air, keeping these Junkers in the air where they belong. Ju-Air was created when the Swiss air force removed its three Junkers from active service. The Ju’s had gained great acclaim with the people of Switzerland. During the Year o the Avalanche, the continuous ights of these three aircraft kept high Alpine villages supplied when they were cut off from the rest of the world. With the air force’s decision to move to newer aircraft, the future of the Ju was in jeopardy. A Swiss newspaper took up the challenge and raised more than $1 million in a day to keep the Ju’s in the air, this from a small country of only 4 million people. With that funding, Ju-Air was created and exists to this day, ying these aircrat on tourist ights through the Swiss Alps. Kai Zimmer, another volunteer captain for Ju-Air, joins Hans as our co-captain on this trip across the ocean. Kai ies a Boeing 747 or Air Berlin at his day job. He has an eervescent
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personality and seems constantly amazed at the glorious landscape passing beneath our wings. Kai’s camera is constantly capturing the beauty of the passing vistas. We are headed north by northwest for a reason. Suitable airfelds are ar apart in the subarctic. When you fnd one, it rarely has more than one runway. Even with the extra cabin-mounted fuel barrels boosting our endurance to 12 hours, we can cover only 1,200 miles to dry tanks. To reach our destination and have fuel to continue on to an alternate requires careful planning. While the weather may be good at our destination an accident can close a runway, leaving the unprepared in a bind.
While we hope to reach Iqaluit on Bafn Island or our destination, our ight plan is fled or Kuujjuaq on the southern tip o Ungava Bay. Should the winds prove avor able we will change our destination en route and stretch our ight to Iqaluit. The Labrador terrain outside is absolutely beautiful, very mountainous with too many lakes to count. The shorelines are tinged with the red sand and rocks. Iron ore country. If Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, this must be a country of a million or more. Hans and Kai y low to the ground, hug ging the land closely, but staying well above the reach o the stunted trees. We y over lakes where the wingtips are seemingly below
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JEFF SKILES
the level of the hills on the shore, as the Junkers slowly climbs with the terrain. Eventually, we will pass back into Quebec at the Quebec/Labrador version of the Continental Divide. From the border, all water on the Labrador side ows to the Atlantic Ocean; on the Quebec side, it all ows to Ungava Bay. As we climb to higher elevations and y north, the terrain changes to that o a Scottish moor—trees become sparse and rock is more evident. Hans fnds a gravel strip on the map, probably a scientifc base or mining exploration camp. He stays close to the hills and comes in low down the runway. The camp consists of maybe 25 large tents. As we roar overhead we can see the startled men running out of their tents to see a rare visitor to their world. As we get closer to Ungava Bay, Hans climbs to 2,000 feet to try to catch some tailwinds that are fnally supposed to be working in our favor. Ungava Bay is a part of the Hudson Strait that separates Quebec rom Bafn Island to the north. Down below we can see a ew icebergs oating in the bay. The winds have been fair enough to commit to a nonstop ight to Iqaluit. Our uel stop o Kuujjuaq is behind us as we set out over open water. I the one runway at Iqaluit is closed for any reason, we will have to head back south to land at Quaqtaq or Kangiqsujuaq, both gravel strips with no services. I we were to be forced to land at either location, we would have to wait and have gas shipped in before we could depart again. On this long ight, Tobias pumps one barrel after another dry from our cabinmounted fuel reserves. Kai tells me that on the trip over from Europe in June they didn’t have all the kinks knocked out of the system, and air bubbles in the fuel caused the engines to sputter. Once, all three engines quit simultaneously. Thoroughly warned, I watch with oreboding as the air bubbles ow through the clear plastic tubing while the barrels empty, but it was to no end; the engines continue to sing strong and true. Somehow I drited o to sleep, and I am awakened by Tobias as we approach Akpatok Island. Completely isolated here in the Hudson Strait, Akpatok is an island with tall, sheer cliffs where seemingly no vegetation
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All of us must perform our work while explaining to the pilots of the shiny corporate jets about this anachronistic aircraft. grows at all. The island is a plateau of gravel that simply drops into the sea. Hans has been slowly descending as we approach. He dips below the level o the clis and ies alongside them, hugging them as close as he dares. The sense o speed ying so close to the cli is evident even in this old, slow aircraft. The clis appear to be only sandstone, so I don’t know why they have not simply eroded away over the millennia. Ater 10 minutes o banking to ollow the clis, I hear the propellers growl as Hans adds power, climbing once again and setting course or Iqaluit. As we approach the coast o Bafn Island, the small icebergs become more numerous. I don’t know where they come from since the shore is completely free of snow and ice. They must be merely passing by, making their way from even farther north out to sea through the Hudson Strait. Bafn Island appears to be nothing more than a rock. No beautiful landscape or Scottish moors. The island seems to be principally made up of reddish gravel with potholes of water and occasional green lichens. Iqaluit itsel sits on the north shore o Frobisher Bay. It is the provincial capital or
the province of Nunavut and operates as a semi-autonomous Inuit (the local Indian population) reservation. The airport is large and bustling with a fne-looking runway. The entire city is built on permafrost, a frozen mix o dirt and ice. Most o the buildings are constructed on pilings to keep from melting the ground beneath, to enter you must climb up stairs to the second oor. On the short drive to the hotel, I ask the driver what indus try brings people to this thriving hamlet. He responds, “Mining and bureaucracy.” “That’s it?” I ask. “Yep.” In the ar north o Canada, the only uel generally available is Jet A, so Ju-Air has arranged to have a supply of avgas shipped to Iqaluit or our use. A orklit brings the barrels of gas over on a pallet, and an electric drill powering a small rudimentary pump is provided to transfer the fuel int o the tanks. Ater our eight hours it will still be a long, tiring process for Kai and Tobias to pump the gas into the plane. Tomorrow we must leave early. Our frst leg is across the Davis Strait to Nuuk, the capital o Greenland. Ater a uel stop at Nuuk, we will continue down the coast to Narsarsuaq, known as Bluie West One to World War II Military Airlit Command pilots bringing war materiel to the European theater and wounded soldiers back home. EAA Jeff Skiles, EAA 336120, is EAA vice president of
communities and member programs.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF
SKILES
BY JIM STANTON
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June 2013
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Typical State-of-the-Art Tailwind W-10
JANUARY ���� MARKED the 60th anniversary
of two historic aviation events. On January 26, 1953, EAA held its first meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A few days before that, in Oshkosh, Steve Wittman made the initial test flight of a little red airplane. Originally called the Flying Carpet, it was later renamed the Tailwind.
Tailwind Construction Fuselage: Welded 4130 tubing frame. Combined engine mount/landing gear mount welded-tube structure bolts to firewall fittings. Aluminum skin on doors and forward fuselage. Aft fuselage has aluminum stringers and is fabric-covered. The main horizontal stabilizer spar is welded to the fuselage. The horizontal stabilizers slide over this tube and are held in place by a single bolt on each leading edge fitting. Vertical fin is integral with fuselage. Wings: Solid spruce or fir spars. Built-up spruce and plywood ribs with 3/32-inch mahogany plywood skin. Earlier wings were covered with aircraft fabric over plywood. Most builders now use 1.4ounce fiberglass cloth with epoxy resin over plywood. Flaps and ailerons bolt to the wing trailing edge. There are four steel fittings in each wing and no control system parts. Flaps/ailerons: Originally welded steel structure, fabric-covered. Most builders now use all aluminum structure with aluminum skins (aileron torque tube is steel). Flaps and ailerons are torque-tube actuated with aileron torque tube inside the flap tube. There are no external controls. The entire flap/ aileron control system is inside the fuselage and is all pushrod-actuated. Empennage: All welded/brazed steel structure, fabric-covered. Rudder is cableactuated, elevator is pushrod-actuated. Dual controls: Normally installed with the right stick removable. Right-side rudder pedals usually fold down flat against floor with toe brakes on left side only. Landing gear: Round spring steel, originally designed and patented by Wittman. Wheels and brakes are normally Grove or Cleveland 500-by-5. Tail wheel is normally custommade and direct steering. Many have spring cartridges in the steering link to dampen forces on rough surfaces and make the steering less sensitive.
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In December 1953, final flight testing of the Tailwind was completed with a CAA (FAA) inspector observing. The Tailwind was loaded to maximum gross weight with sandbags representing passenger and baggage, then flight-tested to 110 percent of V NE and pulled up to 4 g . With the successful conclusion of this test, the Tailwind became the first experimental amateur-built aircraft (E-AB) certified to carry a passenger. The next four Tailwinds were tested in the same manner, with one inadvertently sustaining more than 300 mph and 8.3 g when a sandbag slipped forward against the control stick. The Tailwind played a very significant part in the early success and growth of EAA. Tailwind plans became available in March 1954, and by 1955, at least two plansbuilt examples were flying. By the mid ’60s, the Tailwind was the dominant E-AB aircraft type in the United States. To understand the evolution of the Tailwind, one must go back to Wittman’s 1931 racer, Chief Oshkosh. Steve designed and built the Chief in just five months and first raced at Cleveland in August 1931. It was arguably the most successful of the small-engine race planes of the ’30s. The aircraft was badly damaged in 1938 after an engine failure in a race at Oakland, California, and was stored in the
160-hp Lycoming O-320 engine Wood/composite fixed-pitch prop Clement/Madden two-piece fiberglass cowl with matching spinner Landing gear small diameter increased from 3/4 inch to 7/8 inch Fiberglass landing gear fairings Pressure recovery wheelpants Aft edge of windshield moved back 16 inches Aft cabin windows Clement door post and cross-member mods 1.4-ounce fiberglass cloth with epoxy resin over plywood wing skin All-wood wingtips All-aluminum flaps and ailerons Maule fabric-covering method eliminates rib stitching on tail Instrument panel moved aft and increased in height Option: Move firewall forward 2 inches to accommodate very tall pilots
Wittman hangar until the end of World War II. In 1946, Steve and his employee, Bill Brennand, rebuilt the Chief into a sport airplane. In 1946-47, it was rebuilt again into a Goodyear midget racer (now Formula One), so named because of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s three-year sponsorship of $25,000 per year in prize money for the class at the Cleveland National Air Races.
Mike Logback’s W-10 features some of Jim Clement’s modifications including aluminum flaps and ailerons, a spring-loaded tail-wheel steering arm, the rear spar carry-through (which provides more headroom in the cabin), and a larger door opening. PHOTOGRAPHY BY WALT DORLAC
Celebrating the Tailwind at AirVenture
Steve named the new racer Buster. Bill was chosen as pilot because his weight of 100 pounds was a significant advantage in takeoff acceleration. In the first Goodyear race in 1947, Bill won both his heat races and the final. He repeated his win in 1949, thus winning two of the three Goodyear races. Working from 1947 Steve Wittman’s Tailwind W-8, N5747N, is now on display at EAA’s Pioneer Airport. into 1948, Steve built a near twin to Buster, named Bonzo. Buster his use only, but his early involvement with and Bonzo were the most successful of the EAA changed that. He flew his Tailwind to midget racers from 1947 to 1952. By the early Milwaukee for 12 consecutive EAA meet’50s, they were achieving top speeds of 230 ings, where it attracted lots of attention mph with the 85-hp Continental engine. from members who wanted a Tailwind of With so much success as an air racer, their own. Steve wanted a fast two-place airplane for Wittman’s third personal Tailwind, N374, travel. He reasoned that he could build a built in 1958, had tricycle landing gear and a Continental 85-powered, two-place midget 160-hp Lycoming O-320 engine with a racer and only give up 50 mph from the top Hartzell constant-speed prop. The wingspan speed of the single-seat racers. He chose a was shortened to 20 feet. Due to the short high-wing design because he wanted to “see span, the airplane did not perform well at the country.” Other than seating and the higher altitudes. wing placement, the Tailwind is a direct In 1962, Wittman designed and built descendant of the 1931 Chief and the two new wings for t he Tailwind. The airfoil midget racers Buster and Bonzo. was a NACA 0006 on the bottom, retaining Steve originally intended for the the NACA 4309 airfoil on top. The span Tailwind to be a one-of-a-kind airplane for was increased to 22-1/2 feet with originalstyle wingtips. The new wing improved performance in all parameters. This wing became the s tandard for the Tailwind W-8, Aircraft Data Box and the same wing with triangle tips is used on the W-10. Aircraft Make and Model: Wittman Steve converted N374 to a tailwheel Tailwind W-10 configuration and replaced the Lycoming Certification: Experimental amateur-built with a six-cylinder Continental 300. He liked the Continental for its smoothness, Length: 19 feet 6 inches but the overall performance was substanWingspan: 24 feet tially less than with the Lycoming. This is Wing Area: 92 square feet the only Tailwind that Steve built that is Height: 5 feet 6 inches still privately owned; it is based in North Carolina and still active. Maximum Gross Weight: 1,425 pounds Empty Weight: 875 pounds THE TAIL WIND W��� Fuel Capacity: 35 gallons The first Tailwind, the W-8 model, was Seats: 2 designed for the four-cylinder Continental engines and the 100/115-hp Lycoming O-235. Powerplant Make & Model: Lycoming O-320 Later changes allowed the use of the Horsepower: 160 Cruise Speed: 190-plus mph Lycoming O-290 with 125-140 hp. A few early modified W-8s were built with Wing Loading: 15.8 pounds per square foot Lycoming O-320 engines with 150-160 hp, For more information: www.AircraftSpruce.com. but Steve never approved of that engine for
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEO J. KOHN
This year marks the 60th birthday of EAA, but 2013 is also the 60th birthday of the airplane you’re reading about, the Tailwind. It’s amazing to think of how far this airplane has come, and its popularity continues to grow to this day. From a 90-hp “speedster” (in its day) to the nearly 200-hp models around today, it’s a versatile airplane in every way. This year in Oshkosh, we plan to celebrate the airplane and the people who have built them. There is usually a pretty good turnout of the W-10 model, and perhaps a W-8 or two, but this year we hope to see a swell of Tailwinds to fill out the parking area so members and visitors can get a good look at the airplane. The design, by Steve Wittman, was seemingly ahead of its time as today the folks are pushing the airplane to speeds in excess of 230 mph on 180 hp! Simple construction, simple maintenance, and a blast to fly, it will continue to prove itself and be popular for years to come. In addition to the special parking area, we will have a magnificent example of the W-10 in the Homebuilders Hangar on Monday morning for a hangar review where you can get up close with the airplane and a builder who knows it inside and out. The airplane will be on display inside from 9 a.m. to noon, and the review is scheduled from 10 to 11 a.m. with builder Dave Conrad. Come check out a wonderful little airplane, meet the knowledgeable and friendly Tailwind builders, and enjoy the anniversary of an airplane designed by our Oshkosh airport namesake, Steve Wittman.
the W-8. Of course, since t he Tailwind is an E-AB, builders are free to make their own engine choice. In 1974, Wittman completed his fourth personal Tailwind, powered by a converted Oldsmobile V-8. This was the first W-10. He started offering supplements to the plans for the W-8 to show builders how to create a W-10, later evolving into a completely new set of plans. The W-10 is designed for the Lycoming O-320, Continental O-300, and Buick/ Oldsmobile V-8 engines. The landing gear is moved forward to improve propeller clearance, and the fuselage is 5-1/2 inches longer, with all of the length added to the horizontal stabilizer area. The larger horizontal tail is
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mounted higher on the fuselage, and the vertical fin and rudder are reshaped. The depth of the fuselage side truss in the cabin area is increased, and the control stick and elevator control system is completely redesigned and pushrod-actuated. Triangle wingtips increase the wingspan to 24 feet and substantially improve takeoff, climb, and glide performance. A longer fuselage and larger horizontal tail improve stability and reduce the negative angle of the horizontal stabilizer, thereby improving cruise speed.
sells plan supplements for the fuselage mods and landing gear. If there were a category called “speed per dollar,” the Tailwind would be in a class all by itself. Consider the cost of getting started on a composite or metal kit airplane. Then consider that you can start a Tailwind building project for just a few dollars. Typically, a Tailwind builder starts construction with the wing ribs. Just $100 worth of plywood, spruce, and glue will get you going on the ribs.
A careful shopper can build a Tailwind for less than $20,000 with a used engine and VFR panel. No homebuilt airplane with comparable performance comes close. Jim St anto n , EAA 7074, is a retired commercial pilot
who has been flying for 57 years. He completed his first homebuilt, a Wittman Tailwind W-8, in 1964, and was the youngest pilot to fly a homebuilt to the 1964 EAA fly-in. His current Tailwind W-10 project is nearing completion, and he hopes to bring it to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2013.
THE JIM C LEMENT M ODS
Jim Clement, who has built 10 Tailwinds, was the second builder to complete a W-10. Starting with No. 4, he modified the cabin area to improve comfort and ease of entry. The rear spar carry-through tube at the top of the fuselage was moved aft 3 inches, with a dogleg on each side to join the original wing-fitting locations. The rear door post has a dogleg, moving the post back 6 inches at the upper fuselage stringer, and a diagonal tube is added on each side. These mods allow the seat back to be reclined up to 15 degrees. The changes, which most current builders use, are commonly referred to as Clement mods. Jim has also built two W-10s with tricycle landing gear that he designed. The first was completed in 1997. The nose gear is similar to the Van’s RV-6A, and the main gear is relocated aft of the seats. The tricycle gear is 30 to 40 pounds heavier and 7 mph slower than the Tailwind W-10 with conventional landing gear. Jim designed and built a two-piece fiberglass cowling with matching spinner for t he W-10, available from multiple suppliers. He
Red and Marilyn Hamilton’s Tailwind W-10
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Racing the Tailwind Red and Marilyn Hamilton; Fort Bragg, California; N374WT In 2003, when Red and Marilyn Hamilton’s Tailwind first flew, it had an under-pitched prop that exceeded 3200 rpm in level flight, so a Catto prop allowing full power was installed. “Without any fairings at that time, I was going about 186 here in cool air,” Red, EAA 257929, said. “A bunch of things were done at once—closing the cowl inlets down some, gear leg fairings, cuffs top and bottom of the gear legs and struts—that got about 23 mph gain to 209. All of my testing is done here at 1,000 feet.” After EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2004, Red raised the compression to 10-1 and had BPA flowbalance the cylinders and static and dynamic balance the engine. Special coatings were used on the exhaust and most of the engine parts. Red cut out the bottom of the cowl and moved the air intake away from the surface and forward, and reduced and extended the cooling air exit. “That did help some,” Red said. “This is how it was at AirVenture, where we went 214.68 against a headwind in 100-degree temperatures where some competitors had to throttle back due to engine temperatures.” After that, Red tried closing the air inlets more by moving the inboard ends outboard. “That was a mistake by 3 mph, so we undid that mod,” Red said. By reducing height, Red was able to close the air inlets down a little more without higher temperatures. Red has spent a lot of time on the Tailwind since November 2006; many of the things he tried had no effect. “I have tried many different winglets on the tips, lots of internal and under-thecowl flow directors,” Red said. “Most do nothing. A few have survived.” In 2012, N374WT set Sport Air Racing League class records in two races, reaching 235 and 236 mph. “The 235 and 236 closed-course speeds of last summer are about all I want to do with that airplane, I think,” Red said. “I may run AirVenture Cup again when it is from west to east to try and get the class record back.” Valerie Vaughn; Pearland, Texas; N710DH—modified W-8 with a Continental C145 When Valerie, EAA 623080, bought her Tailwind in 2006, she was a 300-hour private pilot. Now at about 500 hours of Tailwind time, she has since earned commercial, instrument, and CFI ratings and instructs part-time. “At first glance, the Tailwind doesn’t seem like anything special,” Valerie said. “It is only when you realize that one can be built for under $20,000, complete with engine and basic panel, that it starts to sink in what a great deal it is.” As for performance, Valerie said the Tailwind can go as fast as or faster than most RVs, and the range and fuel effi ciency are on par with the best glass designs. “The construction is proven and simple,” Valerie said, adding that the Tailwind stacks up well against newer designs that cost far more. “Now throw in the cool factor of Steve Wittman and his racing heritage,” Valerie said. “The fact that he was mostly self-taught and still managed to become a respected aircraft designer and engineer. The spring gear and other innovations he is responsible for. I don’t know of any other homebuilt with as rich a heritage as the Tailwind.”
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF
EAA
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June 2013
Tomahawk
Treasure THE TRAVELS AND TRIBULATIONS OF ROD LEWIS’ P���B/C
BY JIM BUSHA
IT’S APPROXIMATELY �,��� MILES as the Cub fies between Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and Murmansk, Russia. Eortless to reach by today’s airlines, that wasn’t the case back in 1941 when this Curtiss-built P-40 Tomahawk was on a slow boat to Russia, having been diverted rom England and the Royal Air Force. An unbelievable journey to say the least, but what’s even more incredible is the act that this rare airplane survived the harsh elements, and its journey back into the air actually spanned the entire globe beore owner Rod Lewis brought it to AirVenture 2012 to share its history with ellow EAA members.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GAVIN CONROY
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P-40 pilots (L to R) Kevin Eldridge, Rod Lewis, Stu Dawson, and Steve Hinton.
TOMAHAWK TRIVIA
The long-nosed, short, and round P-40B/C Tomahawk model, made amous by the erocious shark mouth-painted examples own by the infamous American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers, actually started out as a radial engine-powered fghter. Built by the Curtiss Aircraft Company, the P-36 Hawk, to many, resembled a miniature version of the P-47 Thunderbolt with its round features both up ront and in the rear. Although light and agile, the Hawk wasn’t really what the U.S. Army Air Corps had in mind or a ront-line fghter back in the late 1930s. When most o the new oreign-designed fghters like the Spitfre, Hurricane, and B 109 took to the sky, they all had one thing in common—an inline engine. The designers at Curtiss shifted gears and swapped out the round engine for the latest and greatest model—a 1,100-hp liquidcooled Allison V-1710 inline engine. Curtiss thought it had a winner on its hands, and so did the Army Air Corps, who eventually began to order the new fghter called the P-40 Tomahawk. Up ront, the Tomahawk’s distinctive overbite concealed more of a rounded triangle with one circular oil cooler
“I quickly realized it’s the most handsome fighter to ever pass through my workshop.”
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situated on top of two similarly shaped Prestone radiators. This cluster o coolers and the narrow opening they hid behind were a little too sleek on early models, as overheating was a prevalent problem, especially in hot weather. For protection the P-40 carried an assortment of armament that included two .30-caliber machine guns in each wing, along with a pair o hard-hitting .50- caliber Browning machine guns concealed on top and inside o the long nose. The Tomahawk not only had a killer bite, but it could also joust in the air with the best o them. In the very early 1940s the United States had three ront-line fghters at its disposal: the Tomahawk, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, and the Bell P-39 Airacobra. O the three, the Tomahawk reigned supreme as the British took notice o the sleek fghter. Placing an order with Curtiss, the British renamed it the Tomahawk IIB and found great use or it in the deserts o North Arica. One o the more than 900 RAF Tomahawk IIBs built was serial number 14777 and given the British fuselage code of AK295. But beore it could reach British soil, this aircrat was diverted to Russia, where it arrived by ship in December 1941. It ew gallantly with the Russian 147th Fighter Regiment and the 1st Combined Division, 20th Guards Regiment, beore it was shot down on February 1, 1942, near Murmansk. It lay undisturbed on Russian soil or a short time beore the Tomahawk fghter became an obsolete ront-line fghter in early 1943. Outclassed and outgunned, the Tomahawk nonetheless held the line for the Allies until more advanced fghters could be produced. During that time, not only did Curtiss redesign and modify the P-40, but it also renamed the airplane, calling the new models Kittyhawk and Warhawk. For almost 50 years, Tomahawk 14777 languished in a dormant state of outdoor misery before being rediscovered in 1990 by some warbird saviors. More than 25,000 restoration hours later, it fnally returned to the sky. RECOVERY AND RESTORATION
In 1990 the remnants of Tomahawk 14777 were pulled o the Russian ground and brought home to th e United States, whe re restoration commenced on the rare fghter. The remains traded hands a couple of times
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY BY
PAUL BOWEN, GAVIN CONROY
with some fuselage work started by Tom Wilson of Georgia. Bud Wheeler overhauled the Allison engine to like-new condition, while the rare and uncommon Curtiss Electric propellers were overhauled in Texas. Eventually the whole works was boughtt by Rod L ewis an d sent to the bot bough tom of the world, New Zealand, where Warren Denholm, owner of Avspecs, and his talented craftsmen put all the pieces back togeth t ogether. er. Because Becaus e of other ot her P-40 projects taking up space, Warren Warren sent th e wings off to Murray Griffiths of Precision Aerospac e in Australia. Aus tralia. Unfort Unfortunate unately ly for the team at Avspecs, this would not be a quick rebuild, unlike anything they had tackled before. The project arrived in the shop around 2007, Warren said. Though the engine had been overhauled, Warren, EAA 665530, sent it to Vintage V12s to have it overhauled again since it sat for so long. “With the Tomahawk restoration, I initially didn’t think it would be too bad because there are are lots of drawings—and drawings—and part
Remnants of the Tomahawk were pulled out of the Russian ground in 1990.
of the reason so many P-40 restorations are going on around the world is the fact that there are some great drawings still available via the Smiths onian,” Warren Warren said. The project came with many missing pieces, but Warren fgured it wouldn’t matter since the Smithsonian had everything on microflm microflm.. However, the model B/C drawings, for some reason, didn’t exist. “The worst part for us was the lack of engine installation and cowl drawings. Thankfully we had another example to look at—but it was a half a world away.”
P��� EARLY DAYS
A
Warren and his team traveled to the Seattle, Washington, area, where they were able to photograph and take measurements of Paul Allen’s P-40C located with his Flying Heritage collection. Filling in as many gaps as possible, Warren advanced forward with the project. According to Warren, Warren, Tomahawk Tomahawk parts are some o the most difcult to fnd. Anything used in the war war,, especially in the frst three years beore new models came out, is especially challenging since most parts were scrapped or buried.
By 2nd Lt. Tom Anderson, USAAC, 79th Fighter Group, 85th Fighter Squadron
fter a few dry runs and a blindfolded checkout, I was deemed ready to fly the Curtiss P-40. It was a sight to behold and was a true gun fighter in its own right, having proven its worth with the British in North Africa and the AVG Flying Tigers in China. The P-40 would become my front office during my combat career,, but not until I learned the secrets and nasty habits of this flying tank. career
I was newly posted with the 79th Fighter Group at Bedford, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1942 as our squadron was hurriedly trained in fighter tactics before being shipped overseas. When I began intensive training in aerial combat, I thought the P-40 was a very maneuverable airplane. That was, until I found myself fighting for my life in a death spin over the Atlantic Ocean. I had been up at 10,000 feet chasing tails with a fellow P-40 pilot who had a lot of stick time in the Warhawk. I was trying my damndest to get on his tail when all of the sudden I went into the screwiest spin I had ever encountered. I must have overcontrolled the P-40 as I began to tumble downward to the open sea. The gear horn was blowing in my ear, which only intensified the excitement and fear inside the cockpit. I chopped the throttle and tried to recover, but every move I made only intensified the spin as that nagging horn blew louder and louder. It was time to get while the getting was good, as I was losing a lot of altitude, so I decided to bail out. I tried to get the canopy back, but it wouldn’t budge. No matter where I looked inside the cockpit, my eyes couldn’t keep up with the intense spinning as I tried to orient myself. I let go of the stick and tried to open the canopy with both hands—still jammed. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, and my only thought was, “I’m gonna make one helluva splash when I hit!” Suddenly,, the nose of the P-40 dropped a little, and I caught it at the last secSuddenly ond. I popped the stick forward and pulled out less than 200 feet over the ocean. I was that close to having an airfield named after me!
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“We “W e had done fve other Kittyhawk restorations beore this one, and I didn’t think the Tomahawk was really anything unique,” Warren said. “I was dead wrong! I just thought it would be a minor pain to fnd the parts or it, but once it started to t ake shape in the workshop, you quickly see the dierences.” The Tomahawk sits at a steeper ground angle than a regular P-40, Warren said, because its tail is shorter. Also, the design o the cowling and “It’s all we had the way the radiators ft inside didn’t change over when the war time—the design was right rom the start. broke brok e out.” out.” “One has to remember the Tomahawk is a 1930s design, a real antique airplane compared to something like a P-51,” Warren Warren said. “The wing has fve spars, the tail plane is the same, and the rest o t he airplane has got all sorts o strange idiosyncrasies in the way the systems work that are unique to the typical airplane designs o the 1930s. So when you bring it all together and it works, you are overwhelmed with the satisaction o basically re-creating an era o the golden age o ight.
���� ��� � CURTISS P���B/C TOMAHAWK TO MAHAWK
“I oten ound mysel standing back and just staring at this beauty, which to me is a work o art. I quickly realized it’s the most handsome fghter to ever pass through my work shop.” When it came time or paint, the obvious choice would have been the shark mouth example own by the Flying Tigers. But owner Rod Lewis, EAA Lietime 498155, wanted to memorialize another small band o heroes who took to the sky outnumbered and outgunned. “Rod wanted the scheme worn by the Tomahawks that ought over Pearl Harbor on Decembe r 7, 7, 1941,” Warren said. Contrary to what the movies show, Americans had the Tomahawk when George Welch and Ken Taylor took o during the attack on Pearl Harbor and shot down six Japanese airplanes. As a tribute to the eorts they made during the United States’ frst day o WWII, Avspecs painted the P-40 as best it could to represent what George Welch’s airplane would’ve looked like on the morning o December 7. A THRILL A SECOND: FLYING THE TOMAHAWK
N number: N295RL number: N295RL Powerplant Make & Model: Length: 31 Length: 31 feet 8 inches Allison V-1710-C-15 37 feet 3-1/2 inches 1,100 hp Wingspan: 37 Wingspan: Horsepower: 1,100 Horsepower: 12 feet 4-1/4 inches Height: 12 Height: Propeller Make & Type: Curtiss Type: Curtiss Electric Maximum Gross Weight: 7,632 Weight: 7,632 pounds Cruise Speed: 250-plus Speed: 250-plus mph Fuel Capacity: 120 Capacity: 120 gallons VH: 378 mph VH: 378 1 Seats: 1 Seats: Original Price: $44,000 Price: $44,000 www.LewisAirLegends.com Empty Weight: 5,615 pounds
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Stewart “Stu” Dawson o Celina, Texas, started in aviation the old-ashioned way—washing airplanes, sweeping out hangars, and pumping gas into old roundengine airplanes. “As a 16-year-old kid I hung around some guys that ew a twin Beech, and that was the biggest airplane I had ever seen in all my lie,” Stu said. “Eventually I got my ratings and then became a copilot on the twins. The old airplane bug bit hard, and I loved the round motor stu. I eventually ound mysel tied in with the ‘wrong crowd’—the warbird crowd—and I never looked back!” Stu, EAA 187007, conessed that although he eventually made a living as an airline pilot, he is busier now in retirement checking people out in antique and warbird airplanes, including ellow Texan Texan and EAA Warbirds o America member Rod Lewis. Stu met Rod at Reno a ew years back, and the two have been riends since, both having a ond addiction or the historic warbird treasures. One o Rod’s latest acquisitions was the P-40 Tomahawk. With so many dierent warbird examples in his stable at
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MELODY WOLLANGK, WARREN DENHOLM, PAUL BOWEN
The panel, before and after.
Lewis Vintage Collection of San Antonio, Rod needed assistance bringing some of his airplanes to AirVenture, and that task fell into Stu’s lap. “I have own a P-40 beore, but never a C model,” Stu said. “The only time I have really seen a C model was in a history book—until I became acclimated with it when Rod acquired it.” Unlike other models, the C has a 1,100-hp, long-nose Allison engine with a longer cowling, and the fuselage is rounder and shorter, Stu said. “It’s a neat airplane to y, but it doesn’t like hot weather at all. We don’t pull as much horsepower out of this one, and the power settings are com pletely dierent than the other P-40 models. It handles like any other P-40 on the ground; it’s got bad brakes like they all do!” According Accordi ng to Stu, S tu, the t he prelight pre light is very ver y straightor strai ghtor ward, with wi th emphaemp hasis on making sure there is plenty o coolan t and oil on board. The 9-gallon oil tank is in the back on the C, and i it’s overilled, it’s hard to get the bubbles out of the oil, causing oil pressure to fluctuate. “There’s no dipstick or it, so you just kind o got to know how much to add each time,” Stu said. Inside the cockpit, it’s a standard P-40, except or an electric primer. “That old sweet Allison just starts every time—it ’s nowhere near as temperamental as the Merlin is,” Stu said. “You “You don’t end up blowing fre out o it as it bicks and bangs. When the Allison gets the blades turning all you have have to do is hit the starter starter,, hit the primer, give it two shots, and it lights— really user-riendly.” Stu stressed the importance o getting the P-40 airborne as soon as possible to avoid overoverheating the engine, especially during high temperature days. For takeoff, takeoff, Stu said the
“It handles like any other P-40 on the ground; it’s got bad brakes like the th ey al alll do do!” !” Warren Denhome and fellow P-40 pilots and owners giving a Warbirds in Review presentation at AirVenture 2012.
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The P-40 Tomahawk in formation with a later-model P-40 Warhawk.
Tomahawk doesn’t really need too much right boot to keep it centered, but he admitted it is a tad more squirrelly because of its shorter fuselage. “It’s not bad, but the thing about P-40s is you don’t want to use the brakes too much, because the next time you need them, they won’t be there—they get hot very quickly,” Stu said. Overall, Stu said the P-40 climbs and cruises well, and is a lot of fun to y. He especially likes the way the controls work. “In my hum ble opinion, they are a little bit better than a Mustang,” he said. “The elevator and ailerons on a P-40 are nice and light. I like to cruise in the 210-215 mph range at 21 inches and 2100 rpm, and that gives me about 45 gallons per hour fuel burn.” Slowing to land in the Tomahawk is easier than one might expect. “I slow it down to less than 100 mph over the fence. It’s really no problem to get a P-40 slowed down. The aps are simple because you only have three choices—up, down, or off—down is, of course, ull aps.” Because the tail wheel on the P-40 is tricky, Stu prefers wheel landings. “If you three-point it, the tail wheel will shake on you, because on the P-40s t hey are steerable. And when you set them
“ That old sweet Allison just starts every time.”
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down, they want to rattle a little bit more, and they will end up kicking the rudder pedal pretty hard, telling you to get your head back in th e game.” Before he lets the tail come down, Stu likes to let the P-40 run up high on its wheels. “Landing the C model is a little more twitching than the longer-fuselage P-40 models like the K or N. But heck, I ew Pitts Specials a lot, so I feel that has really prepared me or these types o fghters.” All in all, Stu said it was a t hrill to y the Tomahawk. “It’s all we had when the war broke out. It was the best we had during those dark days. Right now there are only three P-40B/C models ying in the world, and I never would have guessed that a poor kid from Texas like me would be ying one!” EAA Jim Busha, EAA 119684, is an avid pilot and longtime
contributor to EAA publications. He is the editor of Warbirds andVintage Airplane magazines, and the owner of a 1943 Aeronca L-3. For more information about EAA Warbirds of America visit www.Warbirds-EAA.org.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GAVIN
CONROY
SECOND
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SHIFT
TWO NIGHT AIR SHOWS TO ILLUMINATE AIRVENTURE OSHKOSH IN ����
BY MARK PHELPS
What’s it like to perform in a night air show? What are the special concerns of the performers and the organizers? How does the air boss not only help ensure a thrilling spectacle, including lights and pyrotechnics, but also keep the show safe and on schedule?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW ZABACK
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e all know EAA AirVenture Oshkosh is wellknown for its daily heart-stopping air show performances. For decades the weeklong event has felded a variety o acts that can’t be beat, rom tiny, nimble aerobatic monoplanes and biplanes to lumbering transports; rom fre-spitting warbirds to graceul composite sailplanes; rom colorul parachute teams to simulated air racing. The daily dance card is flled with widely varying acts, e ach one dierent rom the la st. And the un on Wittman feld has never slowed down ater sunset. Feature-artist concerts, entertainment programs at Theater in the Woods, barbecues large and small—organized or impromptu— even just plain old sunset hangar ying under a wing have all been part of the activities that make AirVenture as special as it is. But starting in 2010, EAA extended the daytime aerial drama and artistry into the after-hours with its AirVenture night air show. Night or twilight air shows are becoming more popular across the country, and this summer’s event has added a second perormance to the schedule. Besides the weekend twilight event, this year the night sky will light up with the best aerial perormers and pyrotechnics midweek, on Wednesday night. Scheduled perormers include the AeroShell Aerobatic Team ying North American AT-6s, Bob Carlton in his jet-powered Salto sailplane, Matt Younkin in his Twin Beech Model 18, Gene Soucy in Showcat, Steve Oliver in the Super Chipmunk, and Roger Buis performing in Otto the Helicopter. An AirVenture stalwart, Rich’s Incredible Pyro will provide pyrotechnics or the show, and both perormances will conclude with a “best in the Midwest” freworks display.
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Thanks go out to Rockwell Collins or presenting the AirVenture night air shows, in addition to its sponsorship of the afternoon shows. Jim DiMatteo, EAA vice president of AirVenture features and attractions, said, “The additional night show is being scheduled in response to those EAA members and AirVenture attendees who said they missed this phenomenal event because they came to Oshkosh earlier in t he week.” So what’s dierent about preparing and executing a night show? The person to start with is the one who is in charge of the entire operation. The air boss or EAA’s shows is Wayne Boggs, a veteran o decades o air show experiences. “Everything slows down,” he said. “O course, saety is the highest priority, and at night all the moving parts of the air show are moving around out there in the dark.” Though it covers much o the same subject matter, there is a separate perormers’ briefng or the n ight show. And remember, whatever goes up has to start down on the ground. Safety on the runways and taxiways is especially important with a night show. Wayne said it’s vital to keep the perorming aircrat
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEKEVIN THORNTON
better “isol ated” as they stage th emselves for takeoff. The same holds true up in the air for aircraft that have launched and are awaiting their turn to perform. Airspace control is critical to avoid collisions. Reference points for performers— before, during, and after t heir routines—must be established ahead of time. At a show performed at an airport, as is the case with AirVenture, the runway lights make an unmistakable reference line for performers. But some night air shows take place above other venues, and other reference points are necessary for visual cues, such as headings to roll out onto after a maneuver. This can be particularly challenging over water, and boats are sometimes recruited to serve as lighted show line parameters. Pre-show briefings are critical to any air show, but their importance is amplified for a night show. That’s where reference points are discussed, crowd lines are established, and all the performers can coordinate their schedules to ensure everyone is on the right page at the right time. “Show lines tend to be longer at night,” Wayne said, “and if there isn’t a runway, you can pick something long and straight.” At over-water shows sometimes lighted buoy s provide ref eren ce. Wayne said there is one natural conflict between making the show more impressive and keeping it safe: “The producer wants it as dark as possible, while the air b oss prefers to have as much light as he can get, either launching the show with plenty of twilight left, or keeping the runway lights up full.” Bob Carlton ies his jet-powered Salto sailplane during the night show, but this is not new to him. “I started ying night shows in my Steen Skybolt biplane about 11 years ago,” he said. “The frst time I tried aerobatics at night with pyro, I thought, ‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.’ I tried it out away from the airport, west of Albuquerque where there is just nothing on th e ground. I had my ground crew drive out with a couple of cars to turn on their lights, but th at was it .”
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRADY LANE
Bob found that nighttime aerobatics got easier quickly, and ying with a lighted runway or a reerence point made a huge di ference. He said, “It was a steep learning curve, but you learn tricks, like what reference points work—or not.” Bob has been performing at night in the glider for about eight years, the last fve wit h the jet engin e. He said the night show is different. “It’s not about the aircraft; it’s all about the pyro. By regulation, I’m limited to no lower than 500 feet, and the maneuvers are spread out—a lot softer. At night, I’m really more of a platform for the pyro.” He said the choreography is attuned to that principle, and the musical score takes on a more central role to the performance. His music is written by Oshkosh native Alice Evans. “When I heard her song ‘Canyon River’ I thought, wow, that would go well with my act. I played a video o my ying with her music in the background, and I knew I had found the right score for my performance.” Bob said flying the airplane is more challenging during a night performance, so he tries to offload as much of the work as possible. He computerizes all his pyrotechnics, and has it all down to just two buttons. “The first button I push starts the com“THE FIRST TIME puter check to ensure I TRIED AEROBATICS all the pyro is set AT NIGHT WITH PYRO, properly, and the second button starts the I THOUGHT, ‘THIS IS THE sequence. After that, CRAZIEST THING I’VE all I have to do is fl y.”
EVER DONE.’” The AeroShell Team.
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”IT WAS A STEEP LEARNING CURVE, BUT YOU LEARN TRICKS, LIKE WHAT REFERENCE POINTS WORK�OR NOT.”
Visual cues can be challenging under the circumstances. Bob said, “When you pull up to the vertical, you can’t just look out at your wingtips for reference to the horizon, because, well, they’re on fre. I joke with my riends that I talk to mysel, repeating, ‘Use the force, Luke.’” Like most pilots involved with night air show work, Bob agrees the most difcult and
dangerous time is on the ground, taxiing out for takeoff or returning to the ramp after landing. Particularly with his long-winged glider, airport signs and other obstacles are more of a hazard at night, and the risk doesn’t stop even after the airplane is parked. He said, “One night, I tied down the glider and came back a while later to fnd it had been driven over by a atbed truck. Fortunately, it had enough clearance and there was no damage, but…”
Matt Younkin’s Twin Beech 18.
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June 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY
GESCH, T YSON RININGE R
Once up and away, Bob said, night ying has its advantages. “The visibility is usually good, and the air is smooth. And because it’s a softer routine, I’m more relaxed. What’s really cool at Oshkosh is to look down on 10 square miles o ashing cameras rom the crowd.” A good friend of Bob’s, Roger Buis, pe rforms in his Schweizer 300C as Otto the Helicopter. The daytime show is chock full of comedy and fun, with a clown face stuck on the front of the helicopter, in which he performs aerobatics and brings his act to a patriotic conclusion. Except for the last part, the night show is a stark contrast. “Totally dierent. No unny stu,” Roger said. He removes the clown face to maximize his visibility from the bubble cockpit, and keeps the maneuvers to a gentle minimum, the better to show off the extensive pyrotechnics. Roger said, “I asked Steve and Susan Oliver to look at my routine, and they advised me to focus on doing what a helicopter can do that a fxed-wing aircrat can’t— hovering, pedal turns, pirouettes, and backward ight—and then add pyro.” He said “DAD ALWAYS TOLD their advice worked. them. The act concludes with a garrisonME, ‘TAKE OFF. DO WHAT As whimsi cal as size American flag suspended beneath Otto may appear, the helicopter and a 40-million-candleYOU’RE GOOD AT�ONCE. Roger is meticulous power spotlight shining on the Stars and AND THEN LAND.’” in his preparation, Stripes as the national anthem plays. At a especially for the recent charity performance in Texas, he night routine. “For said, he was told that two four-star generevery minute of the als in the audience stood and saluted when show, there’s an hour’s the spotlight hit the flag. preparation. I have a One of Roger’s biggest challenges? “Night 10-minute routine, so that’s 10 shows make for a really long day. All the other perhours of prep work for every formers are enjoying social events when I still have to go perormance.” Eight o those hours are perorm. By the time I’m done ying and securing the helicopter, spent beore arriving at the show site— all the ood’s gone!” examining the show line and terrain, So please, if you spot Roger wandering around the AirVenture brie fing the routi ne, et c., and there are two grounds after the night air show, somebody slip him a sandwich. hours before each flight to prepare and Matt Younkin ies an unusual air show aircrat, a 1940s-vintage attach the pyro racks. Beech Model 18, aka the Twin Beech. It’s a cabin-class airplane, He said, “I do all my preparation in a steroriginally designed to transport executives, not y around at night ile environment. Signing autographs is fun, doing aerobatics. but I need to con centrate.” To that end, he Matt’s night display is also different from other performers’. recently acquired what he calls a “motor The only pyrotechnics spewing flame, smoke, and sparks in garage” where he can make his preight prep his wake come from the exhaust stacks of the two Pratt &Whitney arations in solitude. R-985 radial engines. The rest o his show lighting comes In particular, Roger’s night performance from 21st century LEDs and HID equipment from Whelen has a patriotic theme. He said his goal is to Aviation Light ing and LoPresti Speed Merc hants (the Boom leave the crowd without a dry eye among Beam landing light).
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June 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TYSON RINI NGER
ENJOY THE OSHKOSH NIGHT AIR SHOW TWICE THIS YEAR: ON WEDNESDAY, JULY ��, AND SATURDAY, AUGUST �.
“This modern lighting is really a marvel,” Matt said. “It doesn’t have nearly the amperage draw of the original lights, so we can set up a really impressive display.” And the design of the lighting display is an interesting throwback to early air show airplanes, such as Harold Krier’s. Harold had starburst paint schemes on the top of his air show aircraft (first a clipped-wing Cub, then a Great Lakes Special, and finally a de Havilland Chipmunk) and checkerboard patterns on the bottom. That was so the crowd could more easily see when the airplane was inverted. Matt’s Beech 18 has all the “glowing” lights on the top and the sparkling lights on the bottom for the same reason. It’s also a safety decision. “The top glows and the bottom twinkles,” he said. “So I’m not distracted by what’s going on underneath.” Matt has been doing night shows in the Beech since 2008, and said that around 70 percent of the performances he books now have a night show attached. He typically does more than 20 shows a year. Unlike most air show aircraft, the Beech 18 has relatively limited visibility rom the cockpit, leading Matt to y an especially conservative routine at night. “It can be a challenge to maintain situational awareness,” he said, “and I use the instruments inside the cockpit a lot more. Especially the artifcial horizon and the directional gyro or picking up my heading when I roll out. And, of course, the altimeter. When the horizon goes away at night, I use whatever cues I can from the ground, too. Street lights or even a line of passing cars can substitute or the horizon when you plan ahead.” Matt’s Beech 18 is essentially t he same as it came from the actory, with the exception o some modifcations primarily
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intended to lighten t he airframe. All the insulation has been removed, he said, and the generators have been replaced with alternators, which are not only lighter, but produce more electricity. He is especially kind to his engines: There are no abrupt throttle inputs, and all the power changes are performed as smoothly as possible. “The Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial is the most reliable and best engineered engin e in history—as long as you treat it like it ’s not,” he said. “I run at just under t akeoff power for the whole show routin e,” he said, “so I have to watch boost and cylinder head temperatures. With the ram air scoops, you can increase manifold pressure by 3 inches when you accelerate from 80 to 180 mph in a dive—and then lose that much on the uphill side.” His engines are “bone stock,” and he said he keeps his maneuvers positive, being careful not to overstress the 70-plus-year-old airframe. The night routine in the Beech 18 lasts about 10 minutes rom takeo to fnish, with about six minutes of performing involved. It’s choreographed to coordinate with a soundtrack, and the light show is a big part of the package. Matt sai d, “Dad always told me, ‘Take off. Do what you’re good at—once. And then land.’” His late father was the legendary Bobby Younkin, one of the air show industry’s best-known names. And Matt takes his dad’s simple advice to heart. As with all the othe r performers at nigh t air shows, Matt is particularly careful about ground operations. Since the Beech 18 is a big taildragger wit h limited visi bility from the cockpit, “there’s a lot of extra planning on the taxi route, positioning for takeoff, and the recovery.” So when you’re relaxing on your blanket, looking up at the stars at AirVenture this year, think of all the planning and preparation that has gone into the AirVenture night air show. The perormers love ying their routines, and they all hope you will enjoy their demonstration as much as they plan to enjoy ying it. EAA Mark Phelps, EAA 139610, is an aviation writer living
in New Jersey. He is the former editor of EAA’s Vintage Airplane magazine and the owner-pilot of a 1954 Beechcraft Bonanza.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM
KOEPNIC K
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH BANKS
STABILIZED APPROACHES CAN IMPROVE SAFETY
Learning to avoid loss of control in the airport environment BY J. MAC MCCLELLAN
EAA IS PART of
an FAA-sponsored group studying general aviation s afety, searching for ways to improve the record. What jumps out of the safety data almost immediately is that loss of control is the leading cause of fatal and serious injury accidents in general aviation. And most loss of control accidents happen in the airport environment. These facts should surprise nobody. The situation hasn’t really changed in years. And that is the frustration for all of us who care about our
own flying safety, and the well-being of our fellow pilots and passengers. Nobody knows how many loss of control accidents happen during approach and landing each year because only crashes that cause injury or serious damage are counted in the NTSB records. Hundreds of accidents are serious enough to be counted, but many hundreds more loss of control wrecks on landing bend airplanes and hurt pilots’ pride but don’t make it into the accident totals. The one common feature of
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each of these accidents is that the pilot lost control before the airplane was brought to a safe stop. Loss of control on or near the runway leads to ground loops, excursions into the weeds, an overrun, or even a nose-over. But those events usually don’t cause serious injury. If a pilot stays on the ground once he is there, the eventual slide to a stop may not be pretty, but usually only the airplane suffers. If a pilot tries to correct a loss of control after touchdown with a late go-around attempt, the situation becomes very critical, because the airplane hits whatever is ahead while accelerating instead of slowing down. Late go-arounds trying to save a botched landing are a recipe for disaster. But the loss of control that causes the greatest bodily harm occurs most often in the traffic pattern. In a typical fatal accident near the airport, the pilot loses control with enough altitude to hit the ground really hard, but not enough altitude to recover control. That is the accident scenario the loss of control working group is most concerned with, and the type of accident that must be prevented to make meaningful progress in the general aviation safety record. When you want to improve, it makes sense to examine others who are doing better. My parents used to call that “keeping up with the Joneses.” If somebody is healthier, wealthier, and happier than you are, it makes sense to see what they are doing differently and try to learn from their success. When it comes to improving general aviation safety we have the “Joneses” to study, namely the airlines and business jets. Loss of control by an airline or business jet crew is so incredibly rare that we talk about accidents like the one in Buffalo years after they occurred, even though millions of successful flights have
happened since. Meanwhile, a week, and often even a day, doesn’t go by without a loss of control accident in general aviation. What are the jet guys doing right, and what can we learn from them? THE STABILIZED APPROACH
There are, of course, many differences between how jets and typical general aviation airplanes operate. Pilot training and experience levels are very different on average. The jets use longer runways, and the jets themselves are certified to more stringent performance and reliability standards. But operationally there is one major difference in the way jet pilots fly versus most general aviation pilots, and that is the stabilized approach. The concept of the stabilized approach is a product of the jet age. To fly slowly enough to use runways of practical length, jets h ave very lar ge flaps, and t ypically have some type of extending leading edge devices. The wing flaps and leading edge devices change the camber of the wing, allowing it to produce more lift at a lower airspeed. The Fowler flaps on jets exten d aft as well as down to increase effective wing area, thus lowering stall speed. All of the devices that unfold from a jet wing are great at increasing low-speed lift, but they do that at the price of high drag. That means a typical jet needs a lot of power on landing approach even though it is descending. If a jet pilot allows the airplane to fly too s lowly, or for a too -high sink rate to develop, a great deal more power will be needed to arrest the descent. But turbine engines can take several seconds to spool up and increase thrust, so the jet pilot who starts sinking too rapidly on approach may not have enough altit ude to halt the descent. The classic unstabilized approach accident many of us remember involved New York Yankees st ar catcher Thurman Munson. Thurman had moved up from a propeller twin to a Cessna Citation, and while on approach at Akron, Ohio, in good weather, he allowed a high sink rate to develop. By the time he added enough power it was too late, and the airplane hit well short of the ru nway, killing Munson, though a person in the right seat survived. So what exactly is a stabilized approach? There are at least five major
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH BANKS
elements that define a stabilized approach: Configuration—The airplane is configured for landing with flaps and landing gear extended, is in trim, and engine power is stable. Heading—You are tracking the extended centerline t o the runway. Only minor heading changes necessary to correct for wind or turbulence to maintain alignment can be made. Bank angle is typically restricted to 15 degrees or less. Glidepath—You are tracking the glidepath, typically 3 degrees, to the touchdown zone on th e runway. Sink rate—Your descent rate is constant and no greater than needed to remain on the centerline of the glidepath. Airspeed—Your indicated airspeed is at or no more than 10 knots faster than the calculated V REF (landing reference speed) for your aircraft weight. V REF is one of a few airplane performance targets that have a zero tolerance be low. Allow the airspeed to slip below V REF on approach and you will bust a checkride.
In a typical fat al accident near the airport, the pilot loses control with enough altitude to hit the ground really hard, but not enough altitude to recover control. Because hitting the ground is the threat on any landing approach, the point at which an approach must be stabilized is usually established as height above the runway rather than distance from t he runway. Actual operating procedures may vary, but typically a jet crew should be stabilized on the landing approach at 1,000 feet above terrain or when crossing the final approach fix, whichever is higher. The final approach fix on a typical ILS is around 5 miles from the runway. A standard 3-degree glidepath will intersect 1,000 feet AGL about 3 miles from the runway. That means jet pilots work to maintain stable airspeed, heading, and descent rates for several miles on every
approach to landing. And the safety record clearly shows that stabilized approaches really do work. STABILIZED APPROACHES FOR PISTON PILOTS
What makes sense when approaching in a large jet doesn’t necessarily transfer directly to flying general aviation airplanes safely. If you have ever been stuck behind a pilot flying a 4- or 5-mile stabilized approach at V REF airspeed in a Skyhawk, you wonder if you are going t o fall out of the sky before you ever get to the runway. Yes, I know pilots trainin g to fly the heavy stuff need to learn, but miles-long stabilized approaches in piston singles just aren’t necessary and don’t add to safety. So what elements of a stabilized approach make sense for piston airplanes? How can we learn from the jet guys without turning the traffic pattern into a giant parade of slow-flying singles? I think the first change piston pilots can make is to redefine the altitude floor where you need to be stabilized. Piston airplanes don’t weigh all that much, so the threat of a high sink rate developing that can’t be arrested is minimal. And a piston engine responds almost instantly to throttle movement, so any excess sink that does develop can be halted with power application. There is no universal agreement on this, of course, but I believe that if a piston pilot is stabilized on approach at 300 feet AGL the risks have been minimized. Obviously, that level may even be too high approaching some runways that have obstructions, or when keeping the pattern in close. Instead of insisting on meeting all of the stabilized approach criteria in a piston airplane, I think it is useful to focus on what is most important and not be unstable in more than a couple parameters at once. VREF —The standard calculation for V REF is to multiply stalling speed for your weight and configuration by 1.3. That gives you a 30 percent margin above stall. That may sound like a big margin, but it really isn’t. For example, many piston singles with landing flaps extended stall around 50 knots, and that makes V REF 65 knots. That gives you a 15-knot margin to account for wind and turbulence, or
even to give you time to recover if you become distracted and allow the airspeed to decay. Remember, stall speed increases with any bank angle, so be sure to account for expected maneuvering when calculating the proper V REF airspeed. Any reasonably modern POH contains stall speed data for aircraft weight and bank angle. In most piston singles the difference in st alling speed in a 20-degree bank, for example, is small compared to wings-level stall speed, but precision matters when you want to fly with a safety margin, but not so fast that you can’t get down and stopped. Configuration—When I learned to fly many years ago the sage advice was to always be in position in the traffic pattern to reach the runway if the engine quit. That made some sense in the Cessna 140 I was flying because it was hard to get that lightly loaded airplane to come down at all with power above idle. The 140 has flaps, but they are not very effective, but many of the classic light airplanes such as Cubs, Champs, and T-Crafts don’t have flaps at all. Slipping is about the only way to bleed off extra altitude and airspeed. In those airplanes V REF is important to maintain a margin above stall, but als o as a maximum speed target for flying too fast to maintain the desired glidepath. In more modern airplanes with effective flaps it makes sense to many pilots to not extend full landing flaps until on short final committed to land. The normal procedure in most piston twins on approach is to hold landing flaps until committed to land in case one engine quits, or you have to make a go-around and one engine quits. In either case changing configuration close to the runway violates the stabilized jet approach procedure but still makes sense. In some piston singles—particularly several Cessna models—the flaps are so big and so effective the climb rate during a goaround with full flaps is minimal, even negative at higher landing weights and high density altitudes. But you need to remember that V REF applies to your configuration. If you approach without full flaps, you need to know the stalling speed with flaps as selected and fly the appropriate V REF .
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Then, when you extend landing flaps, slow to the new V REF for that configuration. Runway alignment—Turning onto a short final in a piston airplane is unstable by definition, but not necessarily unsafe. Keeping your pattern fairly tight makes it easier for other pilots to keep track of you. A continuous arcing turn from downwind to final can be easier to fly than two 90-degree turns from downwind to base, and then base to final. But be sure to level the wings in a low-wing airplane at least a few times so you can look for traffic out on the final. When turning onto a short final other elements of the stabilized approach become more critical—namely maintaining appropriate V REF airspeed and avoiding a high sink rate. If the airspeed is stable on target throughout the turn to final, and the descent angle is steady, the key elements of the landing approach are stable even though heading is changing close to the runway. But, you really want to intercept the runway extended centerline at least a couple hundred feet above the ground. Being in a bank any lower invites the possibility of being upset by a wind gust that could increase bank angle dramatically, and dangerously, before you can correct. Stable glidepath—While it is ideal to be stabilized on a constant glidepath angle leading to the touchdown zone, even when turning onto short final, it is not always possible in piston airplane flying. At many runways obstruct ions may force you to fly a steeper than normal glidepath, or you may need to “chop and drop” after clearing the obstruction. Any maneuvering close to the ground, or change in glidepath angle, removes some margin and adds at least a little to the risk of the landing approach. There is no real way to stabilize an
approach when you need to descend rapidly after clearing an obstruction near the threshold, but that simply means airspeed control is even more important. You need to maintain a s afe airspeed margin above the stall to clear the obstruction, but can’t afford any extra airspeed or you won’t be able to get down without gaining too much speed.
So what elements of a stabilized approach make sense for piston airplanes? How can we learn from the jet guys without turning the traffic pattern into a giant parade of slow-flying singles? To operate from short or obstructed runways, we can’t fly the classic stabilized approach. It’s a tradeoff we make to get the most utility from our airplanes. But my advice is to only fly an unstable glidepath when necessary. I am constantly amazed by how many piston single pilots try to get the wheels down in the first 10 feet of a 6,000-foot-long runway. I know, practice is how you learn to land short, but for routine operations aim for the normal touchdown zone, which on conventional runways is hundreds of feet from the threshold. A stabilized approach in a general aviation piston airplane is not going to match the jet procedures in every way. We have more maneuverability, less drag and mass, and more-responsive engines. But we still need to fly with safe airspeed margins, and avoiding a high sink rate no matter how light the airplane may be is critical. The accident record shows GA pilots too frequently fail to fly a safe airspeed and make abrupt control inputs that can lead to a loss of control and disaster. To prevent those disastrous loss of control accidents in the airport environment, we can look to and copy the discipline of the jet pilots that has helped make their safety record so enviable. J. Mac McClellan,
EAA 747337, has been a pilot for
more than 40 years, holds an ATP certificate, and owns a Beechcraft Baron. To contact Mac, e-mail
[email protected].
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN STRATHDEE
STICK AND RUDDER BETTER PILOT
Collision Course When weight and balance impact performance BY ROBERT N. ROSSIER
to think about when planning a ight. We need to be aware o weather, airspace, and trafc. We need to veriy the aircrat is in airworthy condition, and that we too are ft or ight. Once air borne, we must constantly assess the environment and our situation, and make any changes needed to maintain the saety o our ight. One area where pilots sometimes become complacent is their weight and balance calculations. What they seem to orget is that weight and balance not only impacts aircrat perormance, but also has a major aect on aircrat controllability. Even i an aircrat starts out with its center o gravity (CG) within limits, the situation can change during ight as uel is consumed. Any time we exceed weight and balance limits, we can easily fnd ourselves on a colli sion course with disaster. In normal conditions o loading, the aircrat CG is orward o the center o pressure o the wings. A downward orce on the tail is required to maintain aircrat balance, and the wings provide additional lit to compensate or the downward orce. I the wings lose PILOTS HAVE A LOT
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lit, or i the tail loses its downward orce, the nose tends to drop, and the aircrat tends to gain airspeed, which enhances recovery rom an inadvertent stall. As we increase the weight o the aircrat, the wings must generate more lit to carry that weight. That means they operate at a higher angle of attack, which translates to increased drag. Thereore, the engine must deliver more power to maintain the same airspeed. I extra power is not available, the aircrat will y at a slower speed. As aircrat weight increases, so does stall speed. Increased weight also means longer takeo distances and reduced climb capability, since it takes more power to accelerate the mass of the aircrat or lit it to a higher altitude. In
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL ANNINO
some cases, an overloaded aircraft won’t even climb out of ground effect. Such was the case with the pilot of a Piper Cherokee 140 with three passengers and a full load of fuel departing from a 3,368-foot runway with a slight uphill grade (0.4 percent). At the time of the accident, the density altitude was approximately 2,000 feet. According to the NTSB report, witnesses observed the aircraft lifting off about two-thirds of the way down the runway. It climbed to an altitude of about 40 feet, where it experienced a high pitch angle and then settled back down to low, level ight. The aircrat pitched up again, then appeared to take on a high sink rate. The aircraft descended behind a tree line and crashed in a nose-down attitude, killing the pilot and two passengers. The third passenger was seriously injured. The investigation determined that the aircraft was loaded more than 100 pounds over its maximum gross weight. According
to the pilot’s operating handbook, the aircraft would have required 2,200 feet for takeoff under the conditions of loading and prevailing temperatures. An aircraft’s weight and balance condition also affects control performance. As the CG moves forward, the controls will feel heavier, and more force is required on the yoke or stick to make pitch changes. As the CG moves aft (closer to the center of pressure), the controls will feel lighter, and a very slight force will readily cause pitch changes. In this situation, the aircraft is less stable, and the pilot may have difculty making proper control inputs to maintain desired ight path. Even more disconcerting is that in a stall, the nose may not naturally drop to aid in recovery. In fact, with an aft CG, it may not be possible to recover from a stall or spin. Such a condition may have contributed to the crash of a twin-engine Beech 76 Duchess making an intersection departure
from a 5,100-foot runway in Perris, California. According to the NTSB report, the aircraft was more than 270 pounds over gross weight, with 288 pounds of baggage loaded in the aft cargo compartment, which had a weight limit of 200 pounds. Additionally, the aircraft was loaded with the CG beyond the aft limit. The overloaded aircraft rotated early, climbed into ground effect, and subsequently stalled and crashed in an open feld. As stated in the NTSB report, “Airplanes at or aft of the rear CG limit are very sensitive in pitch control, and may even be at or near a dynamically unstable ight regime in terms of pitch handling and dampening characteristics. Accordingly, the airplane would have been especially sensitive to the full nose-up trim tab adjustment. Additionally, stall speeds increase as gross weight increases, so, in the takeoff condition, the airplane would have stalled at a higher
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STICK AND RUDDER
airspeed, sooner than the pilot would have normally experienced and expected. expected.”” The lone pilot of an amateur-built RV-6 may have also fallen victim to control problems when maneuvering to avoid birds while in the landing pattern. According to the NTSB report, the pilot had just completed a our-hour ight and had entered the landing pattern at West Jordon, Utah. While no bird-strike evidence was found in the wreckage, local radar data revealed multiple small targets in the area at the time of the crash indicative of migrating birds. GPS data from the airc raft suggests the pilot initiated an abrupt turn (determined to be a 65- degree left bank) in the pattern, which may have led to an accelerated stall and loss of aircraft control. Witnesses saw the aircraft in a spiraling, nose-down dive. The pilot was killed in the subsequent crash.
As the NTSB rep report ort note notes, s, “Th “The e airpl airplane ane was loaded toward its aft center of gravity limit, which could have increased its pitch sensitivity, thereby exacerbating the turn. A successful recovery from an unintentional stall-spin at pattern altitude is extremely unlikely.” Yet Y et another effect of of changing CG is aircraft performance as measured in climb capability and fuel economy. When an aircraft is loaded with a forward CG, a larger force is required on the tail to balance the aircrat in straight and level ight. This means the wings are carrying a higher load, and the aircraft will have reduced climb performance. Since the wings must operate at a higher angle of attack to produce the required lift, they also generate greater drag, and that translates to reduced fuel economy economy.. By contrast, an aft CG means less downward force is required on the tail, and the wings are required to produce less lift. This
results in better climb capability and better fuel economy. economy. Just remember that an aft CG makes the aircrat more difcult to control and degrades the ability to recover from an inadvertent stall. Flying an aircraft in turbulent conditions with an aft CG can be highly demanding and utterly exhausting. Pilots should always be aware of the weight and balance condition of their aircraft, and consider the effects of CG on aircraft performance and controllability. Even when we stay within the CG limits, control characteristics of the aircraft will vary with changes in the CG. Once we leave the limits of the approved operating envelope, we can easily fnd ourselves out o control and on a colli sion course with disaster. EAA Robert N. Rossier , EAA 472091, has been flying for
more than 30 years and has worked as a flight instructor, commerciall pilot, chief pilot, and FAA flight check airman. commercia
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82 Sport Aviation
June 2013
WHAT WHA T WENT WENT WRO WRONG NG BETTER PILOT
Bird Problems for an RV-6A BY J. MAC MCCLELLAN
BIRDS ARE A VERY REAL threat to airplanes of all sizes. If I
ever need a reminder of that, th at, I can walk a few offi ce doors over and chat c hat with Jeff Skiles about what birds can do to change your flying life. But the NTSB believes believe s that the mere presence presenc e of birds in the traffic pattern was enough to claim an RV-6A pilot without any actual impact. The Van’s RV-6A that crashed was issued its special amateur-built airworthiness certificate in 2000. The RV-6 is one of the most popular models in the incredibly successful Van’s lineup of kit airplanes. The RV-6 is the first from Van’s with side-by-side seating inst ead of a single seat or tandem. It was also first in the lineup to offer a tricycle gear option. The “A” “A” indicates the airplane has a nose wheel. The RV-6 RV-6 first flew in 1985 and was was a variant of the RV-4. RV-4. Even Even though the cabin is a generous 43 inches wide, the RV-6 cruise speed is only about 3 mph less than the narrow tandem-seat RV-4 when both airplanes are equipped with the same power power.. In 2001 the RV-6 was replaced by the more refined RV-7 in the Van’s kit lineup. The pilot pilot was was not the builder. builder. He purchased the RV-6A RV-6A in 2005. 2005. The pilot had earned his private pilot certificate about a year before purchasing the RV. The NTSB reported the pilot had logged a total of 978.6 hours, but the last log entry was about a year before the accident, so he almost certainly had more time. The pilot had flown the RV about 810 hours in the six years he owned it. The RV-6A had flown 1,052.5 hours when it underwent underwent a conditional inspection about five months b efore the crash. The engine was a four-cylinder Lycoming Lycoming that had been stripped of its data plate and was operating in the experimental category. category. A serial number on the
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crankcase revealed revealed that it had left the Lycoming Lycom ing factory in 1976 as an O -320-E2D -320-E2D,, the same model engine that powered the Cessna 172 Skyhawk in the early to mid1970s. In the Cessna the engine was rated at 150 hp, but in the RV the carburetor had been replaced with an Ellison throttle b ody injector,, so power output may have been injector higher.. It also had an electronic ignition syshigher tem in place of one of the magnetos. There was nothing in the records of the conditional inspection to indicate that the RV had any outstanding mechanical or airworthiness problems. There were, however, two issues the NTSB noted. One is a series of gray markings in the paint on the left side of the fuselage aft of the wing that can be seen in a photo of the airplane taken prior to the accident. It turns out the pilot would often tie his dog leash to the wing step while he preflighted and loaded the airplane. One time he forgot the leash and took off, and the flapping leash damaged the paint but not the metal structure. The other maintenance issue the NTSB examined was a crack in t he sliding canopy. The crack was about 30 inches long and
WHAT WENT WRONG
directly over the pilot’s head. Investigators discovered that the crack had been “laced” with safety wire about four years before the accident. To “lace” a crack a series of holes are drilled along each side of the crack and fine safety wire is pulled through the holes much as one would lace up a football. The procedure is FAA approved for temporary repair of minor windshield cracks in unpressurized airplanes. The mechanic who had performed the conditional inspection told the NTSB the RV owner had bonded over the crack with acrylic and that the mechanic monitored the crack at each inspection, and there was no deterioration or increase in its length. The daylight VFR flight originated at Fort Huachuca/Sierra Vista in southern Arizona with a destination of South Valley Regional Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. The pilot had a Garmin GPSMap 496 handheld GPS navigator in the cockpit, and investigators were able to re-create the entire flight using data extracted from the 496 memory chip. Over the nearly four-hour flight the pilot cruised at 8,700 feet with a groundspeed of around 158 knots for the first part of the trip before climbing to 12,750 feet in the Grand Canyon region. At the higher altitude groundspeed dropped to around 145 knots. Altitudes are, of c ourse, GPS, not barometric. The pilot was in contact with controllers and received VFR flight following advisories throughout the flight, including a clearance to descend through the Salt Lake Class B airspace. At all times the flight was unremarkable, and nearing the destination of South Valley airport the Salt Lake controllers cleared the pilot to switch to the South Valley UNICOM frequency. There was a recording of the South Valley UNICOM frequency, and the RV pilot was heard reporting that he was “on the downwind entry for Runway 16.” The recovered GPS data showed the RV was flying at a groundspeed of 106 knots at an altitude 1,000 feet above the terrain, all perfectly normal for a downwind entry. Twenty-six seconds after announcing entry into the downwind, there was an indiscernible distress transmission made on the UNICOM frequency. At about that time witnesses observed the RV in a spiral,
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nose-down dive, at an altitude estimated to be between 300 and 500 feet AGL. Some witnesses reported observing the airplane transition from a spiral descent into a spin before disappearing from view. The recovered GPS data showed that at about the time of the distress call the RV’s groundspeed slowed from 106 to 95 knots and the airplane made a 15- degree left turn. Over the next nine seconds the RV had completed a 360-degree turn and descended to 180 feet AGL, and groundspeed had dropped to 52 knots. The wreckage was located about 150 feet from that last recorded GPS position. The RV crashed on the concrete sidewalk about 5 feet from the main entrance to a school. The airplane was upright, and intact, though there was very extensive crushing and fragmentation from the firewall to the aft cabin. There were not marks on nearby trees, lamp posts, or the school building, indicating the descent path had been nearly vertical. The pilot was killed by impact forces. What could have caused an experienced pilot to lose control so totally under benign weather conditions while flying downwind at an appropriate speed and altitude? One theory pursued by the NTSB was that the canopy may h ave failed. Certainly a door or canopy opening or departing in flight has startled more than a few pilots to the point of losing control. But nothing in the wreckage indicated the canopy may have come open or failed. In fact, the evidence all pointed to the canopy frame being in the closed position at impact. And there were no marks on the tail that would have been expected if the canopy had failed in flight, and the overhead sun shade was found in the cabin. But the NTSB hit upon another possibility—birds. The person responsible for bird mitigation at the nearby main Salt Lake City International Airport told the NTSB that turkey vultures, which can have a wingspan up to 6 feet, often soar in the thermals at about traffi c pattern altitude. He said other raptor-type birds also circle in the thermals, and white pelicans and California gulls are also frequently flying near the airport. NTSB investigators studied the Salt Lake primary radar returns at the time of the accident and found that no other aircraft was
near the accident airplane, but there were a number of targets that were most likely birds, or flocks of birds, flying in the area of the crash. By studying the GPS data, investigators determined that the RV-6A would have been banked about 65 degrees to achieve the 500foot turn radius recorded while flying at 106 knots. The calculated bank angle remained relatively constant as the turn progressed, and the groundspeed decreased to 75 knots with a corresponding turn radius of 300 feet. The GPS data indicates the RV pilot was banking and pulling to maintain altitude as he most likely tried to avoid the large birds around him. Another factor was the location of the CG. Investigators weighed the contents of the airplane—including a 5- to 10-pound dog in a carrier on the right seat—and determined the CG was about an inch ahead of the aft limit. An aft CG reduces elevator stick force, so it would have been easier for the pilot to load up the airplane in the turn. An aft CG reduces pitch stability and may alter behavior at the stall. An accelerated stall would have been possible, even likely, during the steeply banked turn. And that’s what the NTSB determined caused the pilot to lose control. “The pilot’s execution of an abrupt maneuver, likely to avoid birds, which resulted in a stall and spin” is the official NTSB probable cause of the accident. RV airplanes are responsive and have relatively light control forces. Pilots love their maneuverability, but in t his case the reflexive bank and yank to avoid huge birds apparently sent the RV into a stall without enough altitude or time to recover. The NTSB does not report on the fate of the dog riding in the right seat.
This article is based solely on the offi cial final NTSB report of the accident and is intended to bring readers’ attention to the issues raised in the report. It is not intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory. J. Mac McClellan,
EAA 747337, has been a pilot for
more than 40 years, holds an ATP certificate, and owns a Beechcraft Baron. To contact Mac, e-mail
[email protected].
I’LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN BETTER PILOT
Accidental First Flight High-speed taxi test leads to flying BY CARL ORTON, EAA ������
IF YOU’VE BUILT AN AIRCRAFT , you know the joy of obtaining the air-
worthiness certificate as your reward for years of diligence and hard work. With that joy comes the flip side of the coin—first flight and the uncertainty that surrounds it. So, we prepare. When I made the decision to build a Sonex, I chose the conventional tailwheel configuration, even though I had never before flown a tailwheel aircraft. My main reason for going with an unfamiliar configuration was that, without a footstep, the Sonex is a bit awkward to enter if built in the tricycle configuration. That, plus Sonex designer John Monnett chided us that he’d never seen a bird with a nose wheel! I guess I figured that if I’m going to invest dollars, blood, sweat, and tears in this project, I’d better ensure that the “cool” factor was a part of it. Always in the back of my mind, I knew that I’d have to make some adjustments in preparation for the first flight. While I’ve flown several different types of general aviation aircraft, the majority of my hours were in Cessna 150/152s and 172s. Other builders commented that the Sonex is about the easiest tailwheel airplane to land, so that provided some comfort. Still, I had zero hours in a Sonex. Zero. Not even a familiarization flight with another builder, since my weight would have resulted in an over-gross condition. Once again, others pointed out that
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the first builders had no existing aircraft to try out, and if they could do it, I could, too. I delayed my tailwheel training until just a few months prior to my expected first flight. Training went smoothly, and I soon had a new endorsement in my logbook. Still, due to insurance regulations at the FBO where I got my training, I had never made a solo flight in a tailwheel airplane. I thought I had all the bases covered: I used EAA technical counselors to assist with my build, but used my neighbor/CFI as a flight advisor since he is very good at scenario-based training and we have a good rapport. I was aware that the Sonex (and other aircraft) with pushrod aileron and elevator controls might be sensitive to someone used to slack-cabled older GA planes, so I knew I didn’t want to over-control. I was able to obtain some stick time in an RV-12 that also used pushrods for control, as well as having a traditional stick as opposed to a yoke, so I felt I was ready.
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT BELLISLE
Following receipt of my airworthiness certificate, I set about preparing the Sonex for flight. That included reinstalling the seat pan, upholstery, cowl, and all inspection covers. I also used this time to calibrate my fuel level sensor, since I had only filled the tank enough for initial engine runs and fuel flow testing, not taking the time to fill it one gallon at a time. When my CFI was sitting in the plane checking things out, he expressed some concern that the rudder might have some unusual-to-me sensitivity. He suggested that as part of my taxi test, I do a high-speed run. Now, I don’t want t o open a can of worms, but the pros and cons of high-speed taxiing have been debated for years. I had tried a high-speed taxi in my C-172 after a maintenance action, and it almost got out of hand. So I responded “unable” to my CFI. Still, he suggested at least a medium-speed run, somewhere around 30 mph, just to get the tail wheel off the ground and test its
efficacy. After all, it would be b etter to know it while on the ground than during initial climb-out, right? Later that week, I decided to try it out. I was alone—no support staff or other distractions. I went to the airport in the evening when traffi c was not a factor. After calling the tower and discussing what I wanted to do, I assumed I’d just stay on the taxiways, since there are two paralleling the runway. The tower responded with, “No, we’d prefer if you did this on the runway.” Okay, I thought; that will probably be better anyway, since it’s 6,000 feet by 100 feet. Lots of room in which to play. As I taxied for the first time other than just near my hangar, I noticed how loud the aft fuselage is. For those unfamiliar with the Sonex, the stock tail wheel is 4 inches of hard rubber, such that any and all vibrations resonate into the aft fuselage. Not unpleasant, but no mistake about what’s going on back there, either.
When I was cleared to take the runway, I slowly advanced the throttle. It didn’t take much. The stock push-pull throttle (same type as in a C-172) doesn’t have much travel— about 2 inches full stroke. In a few seconds, I was getting close to 30 mph, so I slowly pushed the stick forward. The tail came up and it got really quiet. Wow, what a difference, I thought. I then glanced out the side of the canopy, and realized I was about 8 feet up in the air! Naturally, I pulled the throttle back, and the airplane dropped like a rock, so I pushed the throttle back in. And climbed again. The cycle went on two or three times until I finally found an rpm that resulted in a somewhat acceptable descent rate (kind of hard to figure out when only a few feet off the ground and you have zero experience with the sight picture). After a safe but ungraceful landing and rollout, I made the turnoff to return to my hangar. As I was taxiing, I hit the push-totalk and just casually mentioned, “That was
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89
I’LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN BETTER PILOT
Throttle-Body For 30-125hp 4-Stroke Engines
Included in AeroVee Price!
a product Line of Sonex Aircraft, LLC
or call: 920.231.8297
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June 2013
interesting,” to which the tower responded, “Sure looked like it from up here!” As a side note, I should also mention that the runway at my usual airport of choice is 3,500 feet by 40 feet. No hangars were available, so I had to find a different location. My family also encouraged me to not have my first flight at the smaller field, as the extended runway centerline had trees off both ends. In retrospect, having the larger field with a much greater width probably helped save my Sonex (and me!) from physical d amage. The lesson I hope to share is to always assume flight will occur, even if that’s not in the plan. I thought I had everything covered, but hadn’t considered the unknowns. I was securely strapped in with the harness, had the canopy closed and locked, and had the basic plan thought out. I knew the plane was different from prior types I’d flown, but had not considered all of its unique qualities. Nor did I realize how low to the ground I sat, creating a very different sight picture. Instead of pulling back on the throttle once the tail came up, I was so mesmerized by the reduction in noise from the tail wheel that I left it at full power. The Sonex was slippery, and once inertia was overcome, it only took a second or two to go from 30 mph to the mid-40s, enough for flight. I hadn’t planned for a descent power setting, since I hadn’t planned on flight. The AeroVee engine has a higher rpm setting than most Lycomings and Continentals; maximum rpm is 3400, and typical cruise is 3200 rpm. Coupled with a short throttle travel, slight movements result in large rpm changes—again, not a bad thing if you’ve done it before, but I had not realized just how significant that would be when trying to smooth out a landing. Additionally, I had not considered the sight picture. The Sonex sits quite low when compared with certificated GA airplanes. I don’t care how many hours one sits in the garage making airplane noises; until you’re on the runway and in motion, it’s a whole ’nother picture. My limited taxiing around the hangar could not have presented the same image, but I didn’t realize it at the time. Complicating this issue is that as a brand-new engine, the best thing is to get flying under full power and cooling to ensure adequate break-in. Sitting or taxiing for hours is not beneficial. When I called my two sons (one a regional jet pilot, the other with ATC) to tell them what happened, both agreed that since my flight was probably longer in both distance and duration than the Wright brothers, I should call it my first flight. Nah, I needed more than that. A few days later, I made the first official flight, my first flight in a Sonex, and I was grinning the whole time. The Sonex is a joy to fly and really is a very easy tailwheel airplane to land. That flight went surprisingly well, all things considered. I learned many valuable lessons, and most importantly, some good Sonex lessons, by my ill-fated taxi attempt. Transition training in a Sonex would have been a benefit, but I did the next best thing, obtaining currency in an RV-12 that had similar control characteristics and a stick instead of a yoke. Still, not thinking about power settings and the sight picture created challenges. Fortunately, those issues remained fresh in my mind and were not a factor for the official flight.
HANDS ON WHAT OUR MEMBERS ARE BUILDING/RESTORING
Homage to a Local Hero Croatians create first-in-flight replica BY ANTON �TONY� CVJETKOVIC, EAA �����, WITH HARRY A. SCOTT, EAA ����
IN ����, A GROUP OF AVIATION enthusiasts in Croatia were determined
to build a replica of the country’s first airplane and fly it on the 100th anniversary of the aircraft’s first flight. Croatian inventor Eduard Slavoljub Penkala (1871-1922) designed and built the first airplane to fly in that country—taking off for the first time on June 22, 1910. Penkala’s fascination with the Wright brothers and other aviation pioneers motivated him. A prolific engineer and innovator, Penkala is credited with more than 80 inventions, including the mechanical pencil, hot water bottle, dynamometer, nanometer, and more. Cedo Curcic, a veteran of sport aviation in Croatia, initiated the program, and the late Goran Ilic was project coordinator. I was asked to design and engineer a Penkala replica for the centennial. The intention was to fly it then and continue flying it for years to come to commemorate the achievement. I was proud to be involved since I was born, raised, and educated in Croatia and have always felt a passion for aviation and homebuilt aircraft. In 1951, I designed, built, and flew the CA-51, a single-place, low-wing aircraft with a wood airframe with a Volkswagen engine. After immigrating to the United States, I built and flew a stronger version, the CA-61, with a Continen tal engine, which was featured in and on the cover of the November 1965 issue of Mechanix Illustrated . Later, I designed, built, and flew the CA-65, a two-place, side-byside, low-wing aircraft with retractable landing gear, a wood
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airframe, and a Lycoming O-290 engine. The CA-65 was followed by a metal version. Besides my commitment to homebuilts, I was privileged to work with many of the top aviation companies in the count ry. My engineering “day jobs” started in 1957 at Cessna, then at Stanley Aviation working on the encapsulated ejection seat for the B -58. From there, I moved to Solar Aircraft, where I worked on the Minuteman rocket motor casing. At General Dynamics, I worked on the XB-70A ducting and high energy rate formatting. Rohr had me developing C-141 components, and at North American Aviation I worked on the Apollo. Northrop Ventura had me exploring a jet-propelled drone, and finally, at North American Aircraft Operations I served as a supervisor in stress analysis on the B-1B. I also supported the space shuttle at the company’s space division. Re-creating Penkala’s original airplane was a challenge. Neither the original
PHOTOGRAPHY BY VESNA CVJETKOVIC
airplane nor his drawings survived. [Unfortunately, the pilot crashed the airplane a few months after its first flight, and Penkala lost interest in aviation.—Eds.] Available information came only from a few photographs and Penkala’s application at the Budapest Patent Offi ce in Hungary. From these sources, we established the wingspan, chord, and area, as well as fuselage length and height, propeller diameter, and the positions for the engine and pilot. The design features a low central panel with eight wood struts braced by 20 steel cables and the fuselage lower longerons, which supports the pilot, engine, and landing gear. From the central panel outer edges, fabric strakes extended aft to the horizontal tail roots. Penkala envisioned this as a lifting surface. However, during flight, it is set at zero degree angle of attack and has no camber, an extreme taper ratio, and a low aspect ratio, so it does not contribute lift. The original propeller location was at the leading edge of the wing and central panel with the engine and pilot behind. This produced a CG at 70 percent of the wing chord, which is extremely tail-heavy and grossly unstable. For safety, we departed from the exact design of the original and moved the pilot and engine forward to obtain a CG of 30 percent of the wing chord. This produced a stable and flyable airplane. The Penkala wing had a thin cambered airfoil section, typical of the period as seen on the Wright and Blériot aircraft. These airfoil sections had a maximum lift coefficient of 1.0. For the CA-10 Penkala replica, I switched to a NASA CR153937 airfoil section with a maximum lift coeffi cient of 2.0. This airfoil section was developed in 1970 by the University of Illinois in Chicago for its low Reynolds number, optimizing it for lowspeed flight. Empty weight is 963 pounds and maximum gross weight is 1,177 pounds, allowing 198 pounds for the pilot and 16 pounds for fuel (10 liters, or 2.6 gallons). This produces a stall speed of 36 mph. The propeller is designed for a maximum speed of 55 mph. Our Penkala replica has a drag coefficient of 0.31. To obtain the desired maximum speed we selected a modern 80-hp Rotax engine. Its weight approximates Penkala’s engine, and it provides a positive margin of safety.
Sitka spruce is used to make the spars, leading edge struts, ribs, and fuselage frame members. The front spar is a box type with a birch plywood web. Rib gussets and the lower central panel are also of birch plywood, and the rear spar is a simple beam. Every third rib has a full web to resist torsion. The wing, strake, and empennage are covered with cotton fabric. The metal parts are made from 4130 chromoly steel. The wheels come from a moped and include brakes. The replica has conventional cable-activated flight control surfaces with a steerable tail wheel. As the anniversary of the first flight approached, we checked the airframe and flight control rigging. We also tested the landing gear tracking and the brakes, along with ground-testing the engine and fuel system. The Penkala replica was ready on time for its anniver sary flight. To my apprehension, the first flight was made from the grass strip of the Zagreb airport in front of a crowd of more than 20,000 people and media. It consisted of a takeoff, straight flight, and landing. Many subsequent flights have been made with good success.
Although not a pure replica, the CA-10 is representative of the original, safe, and reliable. It’s able to perform flights for aviation enthusiasts and fans, and is a point of national pride. Visit www.SportAviation.org for a link to
more information.
Eduard Slavoljub Penkala
Tony Cvjetkovic, project initiator and administrator Cedo Curcic, and airframe builder Marijan Ivancek. AIRCRAFT SUBMISSIONS
SHARE YOUR CRAFTSMANSHIP WITH EAA SPORT AVIATION READERS WORLDWIDE! Send us a photo a nd description of
your project and we’ll consider using it in “What Our Members Are Building/Restoring.” Please include your name, address, and EAA number. We reserve the right to edit descriptions. For guidelines on how to get the best photo of aircraft, visit www.SportAviation.org . MAIL: EAA E�MAIL:
Publications, Aircraft Projects, P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086
[email protected]
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HANDS ON WHAT OUR MEMBERS ARE BUILDING/RESTORING
ARKANSAS
THE LUSCOMBE is
LUSCOMBE �A
a 1940 8A that was found in a garage in Wisconsin more than three decades ago. The aircraft has been in some state of restoration since 1982. I brought it home to Arkansas in
the winter of 2010 and started work again. With the help of my father and a good friend, the restoration was completed in June 2012. The first flight went very well, without prob-
lems. It is a fun airplane to fly and cheap to operate. Bill Hooten, EAA 485194; Greenbrier, Arkansas E-mail:
[email protected]
WASHINGTON PULSAR III
THIS IS A ���� KIT that I purchased in
2010. It is a Pulsar III powered by an 85-hp Jabiru 2200 directdrive engine. It has a solid-state ignition by Light Speed Engineering, a smoke system, Dynon SkyView glass avionics, a T2000 transponder, Microair communications radio, an ELT, a wingleveler autopilot, and electric trim on the elevators and ailerons. Empty weight is 665 pounds with a max gross of 1,320, qualifying for light-sport status. Construction of the Pulsar is fiberglass and honeycomb core with hard points for the engine mount, wing, and tail attach points. My paint was applied by local airbrush artist Matt Reich. More than 2,300 hours went into construction, and its inspection was March 15, 2012. A special thanks to Darrin Jackson of Jackson Flight Center in Moses Lake, Washington; Steve Dentz, Gary Weaver, and Dick Orvid for their expertise; and all of the vendors—especially the folks at Dynon and Jabiru for their help on installation and configuration. The Pulsar is very stable and a joy to fly. Larry Wheat , EAA 794003; Moses Lake, Washington E-mail:
[email protected]
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June 2013
NORTH CAROLINA
SONEX
MY FIRST PROJECT ,
N635LL, made its maiden flight at the Siler City, North Carolina, airport on December 5, 2012, with my mentor/hangar mate, Wayne Andrews, at the controls. I soloed a J-3 Cub in 1957. Then life got in the way of my flying, and now, at age 77 and a half, I am working on my sport pilot certificate. I started building the kit even before my first ride in a Sonex. It’s powered by a Jabiru 2200 engine and has dual controls. The paint is Krylon Sun Yellow from a rattle can! I received great help from my R/C buddies, especially Chris Bobo and Wayne Andrews. Great kit, plans, and support from Sonex! Larry Long, EAA 322773; Candor, North Carolina E-mail:
[email protected]
NEVADA
BERKEZ
I BOUGHT MY BERKEZ with
Infinity retractable gear and started a three-year upgrade since many components were no longer state of the art. I added a Dynon SkyView panel, a new transponder, an MT constant-speed prop, and a supercharger for the engine. Due to the added weight at the rear, we extended the nose 20 inches and relocated the battery and hydraulic pump up front to keep the CG in limits. We also modified the winglets, but the work is not done. I am a retired airline pilot with 17,000 hours on MD-80s, MD-11s, and Airbus A320s, but since I have no experience with canard aircraft, I am looking for someone who has good knowledge to help complete the airplane. I do fly the Robin DR400, but have no flight hours with canards. If there is anyone available in the Las Vegas area, I would be happy to hear from you, since the plane is located there. Thank you very much indeed for your help. Peter Fischer , EAA 1021424; Bachenbülach, Switzerland E-mail: peter.fi
[email protected]
WAIEX NEBRASKA and flying partner Mike Tabler MY BUILDING
and I started our Waiex on October 1, 2012, and completed it 10 months later after 1,350 hours of work. Since we are both retired pilots from the 55th Wing, 343rd Squadron, the aircraft is painted in the colors used on P-51 Mustangs flown by the sq uadron in World War II. Our Waiex flies great and is powered by the AeroVee engine. Sonex has been great in working out any hic cups we have had along the way. Dick Harriman, EAA 236895; Papillion, Nebraska E-mail:
[email protected]
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HANDS ON INNOVATION ON THE FLY
Technology Meets Real World Trying to keep the interface intuitive BY MARK PHELPS
to y down to Sun ’n Fun with him in his awardwinning Lancair Legacy. I wrote about Jay and the airplane in the January 2013 issue o Sport Aviation (“A Unique ‘Father-Son’ Legacy”), and he was anxious or me to experience the lie and times o a Legacy pilot—that is, lie at 230 knots. He also preers having two pilots on board on a long trip like this. But in the Legacy, it’s not such a long trip, ater all. Jay keeps his airplane at Hartord-Brainard Airport (HFD) in Connecticut, and the ight down to Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Florida looked like about fve hours’ ying time. I woke up early to drive up rom my home in New Jersey, and we launched about 8 a.m. Like most builders who choose ast airplanes, Jay invested a hety amount o his building budget in the panel. He has a Chelton electronic ight instrument system (EFIS), a digital autopilot, Electronics International engine monitoring system, and lots o other goodies. He also has a video camera mounted behind the seats to record takeos, landings, and other interesting ight segments. He can control the camera rom his smartphone and even use it as a monitor to see what he’s recording. Jay likes his gadgets. He’s also a careul, prudent pilot, and the weather was orecast to be good enough or a VFR departure, and downright clear as a window in a Windex actory once we crossed the north shore o Long Island Sound, about 30 miles rom HFD. The plan was to pick up
JAY SABOT ASKED ME
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June 2013
ight ollowing right ater takeo, climb to 8,500 eet once clear o the lower weather, and transition right over the top o the JFK Class B airspace. Jay’s Chelton panel was all the rage when he was selecting avionics or his airplane hal a dozen years ago. Though not as eature-rich as some o the wonder-glass equipment available now, the Chelton still has a good reputation or reliability and ease o use. Jay’s system has ADS-B weather and trafc service, and an impressive moving map multiunction display. I was most curious about how the ADS-B trafc depiction would translate to what I would see with my real-world eyeballs. Partly because it’s been a long winter, neither o us was instrument current, but the trip looked like it would be an easy VFR routing. As it turned out, it ended up a good example o how valuable maintaining IFR currency can be. As we waited or the sky to clear a bit above the airport, we checked radar on our computers, chatted with weather brieers, and listened to the ATIS at HFD. The brieer assured us the overcast was liting, and we could see the sun burning through the broken cloud layer. The ATIS promised 1,200 eet o ceiling, then 1,400, so we decided to launch. It was VFR, but only just. It took a ew miles, but we ound an opening to the clear blue above, and Jay used the Legacy’s perormance to leap through the hole. It wasn’t dangerous, but the departure would have been a lot less stressul i we had been able to fle IFR. We could have climbed right through the thin cloud layer and been on top in seconds rather than having to look or an opening to squeak t hrough. We weren’t done with cloud dodging. Even though the weather genies had assured us the sky beyond the coastline was clear, we encountered a cloud layer above the JFK Class B right at our cruising altitude o 8,500.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RUSSELL MUNSON
Jay preferred descending to 6,500 rather than climbing to 10,500, but that encroached on the New York Class B—a barrier that sometimes seems more impenetrable than any cloud layer. But this time, when I asked the controller about chances for a descent to 6,500, he quickly offered, “Roger. Cleared through the Class Bravo at 6,500.” Ah, the unpredictability o ying around the Big Apple. (I remembered to repeat the magic words, “Cleared through the Class Bravo.”) Ater that, the ight settled down to a very pleasant cruise. The Legacy is not exactly spacious inside, but the reclined seating position is comfortable. You just don’t have a lot of room to move around. It contrasts mightily with the cabin of my V-tail Bonanza, where there seems to be plenty o room or ight bags, extra equip ment, and snack foods. The good news is for the Legacy you don’t have to sit there that long. I was soon seeing true airspeed
numbers on the Chelton that were 78 knots better than my Bonanza’s. We landed at our fuel stop, Columbus County Municipal Airport in North Carolina, refueled, had a sandwich, and reviewed the 42-page arrival NOTAM for Sun ’n Fun. As we were walking out to the Legacy, a pilot in a V-tail Bonanza similar to mine taxied in and told us he’d heard us talking to New York Center, and wondered how much faster the Legacy was. “How long have you been here?” he asked. “About an hour,” Jay said, without a trace of bragging in his voice. It’s just t he way things are when you y a Legacy. Jay gave me a quick lesson in interpreting the trafc symbology on the ADS-B, and I was anxious to see how it corresponded to where the target aircraft showed up on that big clear “screen” called the canopy. It was very accurate. I would look off the nose at the angle presented by ADS-B and up or
down depending on the relative altitude readout, and most of the time I spotted the speck out there representing the airplane I was looking for. Of course, the aircraft of greatest interest were the 12 o’clock, level targets moving in the opposite direction. While I would probably have seen them in plenty o time even without ADS-B, knowing their exact relative position eased stress and assured me I wasn’t missing something. I wouldn’t relax my scan based on having ADS-B, but it’s a lot more comortable. Jay’s workmanship in building his Legacy is close to impeccable, so he was annoyed when his fuel pressure readout started uctuating. It was obvious that the gauge was at fault, since all the other pertinent readings were on target—and the engine continued to run awlessly. When we got to Sun ’n Fun, he visited the Electronics International booth and got what he needed to fx the loose connection.
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INNOVATION ON THE FLY
That’s not all Jay got at Sun ’n Fun. We ew back home with a little extra baggage— the plaque or Reserve Grand Champion Kit Homebuilt. Among the takeaways or me on this wonderul trip was my resolve to retain instrument currency. It’s just so much easier to get around when you don’t have to dodge clouds. There’s no need to worry whether there will be a hole up ahead, or i you should descend early below a broken layer into the bumpy air underneath. Another takeaway is that advanced technology in cockpits is a wonderul thing, though it’s important to balance its practical value with the basic elements o ying the old-ashioned way. The fnal takeaway—230 knots gets you there in a hurry. EAA Mark Phelps, EAA 139610, is an aviation writer living in
New Jersey. He is the former editor of EAA’s Vintage Airplane magazine and the owner-pilot of a 1954 Beechcraft Bonanza.
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June 2013
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MARK PHELPS
HANDS ON HINTS FOR HOMEBUILDERS
Homebuilt LED Dimmer and Light Fixture BY WALTER KELM, EAA �������
I AM CURRENTLY BUILDING a Van’s RV-9A and want to equip it for day and
night VFR. To this end, I designed a small LED light fixture made from aluminum tubing. I built two such lights and will mount them on each side of the cockpit, aimed at my panel. Each “tube” light has two red and two white LEDs, each with corresponding colored polycarbonate lenses. I plan to mount the fixtures on ball-socket camera swivel mounts available from Amazon.com for about $12 each. A simple tab or aluminum
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rod could also be used, because once it is set up, it should not need to be re-aimed. Once the wires are soldered inside the inner tube I recommend encasing the LEDs and close wiring to avoid movement and wire breakage. The dimmer module uses an LM317T three-terminal integrated circuit (IC),
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF WALTER KELM
arranged as a constant current source. The circuit design came from the Texas Instruments online application notes for this particular IC. In the past a fellow member submitted a dimmer circuit using the same IC for incandescent lights, but arranged in an adjustable voltage configuration. Since LEDs are current-flow dependent, the constant current arrangement is better, in my view, and keeps the IC terminal isolated to the heat sink. I RTV-glued the resistor and small IC circuit board with riveted heat sink (not as critical to the size) to the back of the potentiometer. The whole thing is not much larger than the potentiometer itself. The wiring schematic uses a DPDT three-position toggle switch to power the instrument lights at full voltage, as well as the LED dimmer module in an off—red LEDs—white LEDs arrangement. The wiring schematic would be self-explanatory, and the simple calculations used for a max current flow is set at 20 mA. On my 14 volts DC aircraft electrical system, the dimmer powers all four colored LEDs, even with the IC dropping 3 volts. It works great and dims both colored LEDs at the same amount even though they have differing forward voltages (Vf ). The end caps and tubing were purchased from Aircraft Spruce. The Ultra-Bright red and white LEDs, clip-light red and white plastic LED mounts, LM317T integrated circuit, and resistor were all purchased from www.AllElectronics.com.
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF WALTER KELM
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HANDS ON HINTS FOR HOMEBUILDERS
Hand Sanding Tips BY TONY BINGELIS
HAND SANDING is
the final surface preparation for almost any kind of surface that is to be painted. The final sanding helps clean and smooth old surfaces. But more importantly, it is used to freshen any surface and provides the necessary “tooth” for better adhesion of the primer or top coat. Sanding is equally effective for composite, wood, fabric, or metal surfaces. Do most of your heavy hand sanding with the help of a non-rigid sanding block (rubber or foam) in order to obtain a true surface free of waviness and bumps. For light hand sanding (wet or dry), fold and tear a sheet of wet/dry paper into four pieces and fold them as shown. Be careful when using handheld paper as you may develop an unevenly finished surface because your fingers will tend to exert localized pressures. Handheld paper also tends to ride over hard spots (small bumps of dried glue
or paint) and leaves the spot virtually intact. To remove a small localized hard spot or lump, use a smooth file or a hard sanding block to reduce and level imperfection before continuing your hand sanding. Do not sand into a composite structure to remove a large raised area. Make the correction in the manner approved by the designer. Try to do all of your sanding with straight strokes, either horizontal or vertical, and resist the temptation to sand with circular movements. This is particularly important during your final sanding because a circular pattern leaves swirls and sandpaper scratches that may be visible through the final top coat.
Note: This homebuilder s tip is an excerpt from Tony Bingelis’ book Sportplane Construction Techniques , copyright 1986. Illustrations have been re-created.
Block size 3” x 5” x 1/2” Poor (circular movements)
Fold Foam or rubber
3” x 9” x 1/2” Fold full sheet of wet/dry sandpaper and tear in half or quarter pieces. Fold as shown to fit your palm (sanding without backup block).
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June 2013
Grit outside
Better (straight strokes) sanding techniques
Sanding backup blocks
ILLUSTRATION BY TONY BINGELIS
HANDS ON SHOP TALK
Learning to Speak English (Wheel) No longer a gadget, the E-wheel can be part of any workshop BY BUDD DAVISSON
LAST MONTH, WHEN I was roaming around Daniele Beltrame’s tiny but efcient workshop via digital images, I didn’t know which was more interesting: his Midget Mustang or the wild variation o home built tools he used to build it. This was homebuilding at its best: create the workshop, to make the tools, to build the airplane. Totally vertical homebuilding. Since I was ocusing on his approach to making a compound curved aluminum cowl, naturally the tool I noticed the most was his home-brewed English wheel. Mixed in with the photos Daniele sent o his English wheel was a shot o a magazine article that looked amiliar, penned by someone with whom I am quite amil iar, and it re-ignited the ervor I’d elt when I did that article back in April o ’96. At the time, we were doing a series on ree-orming aluminum, and in that particular episode we showcased Jim Younkin’s approach to a comb ination baby En glish wheel/ bead roller that he’d built in his shop. The most impressive thing about his little compounding machine was that it was so simple that almost any homebuilder could build it. And it could be set up to perorm two o the most common and, at the same time, the most demanding things you can do with sheet metal: orm compound curves and roll beads. This was where Daniele, in true homebuilder
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ashion, took the kernel o an idea and expanded it to match his needs. And that got us thinking past Daniele’s interpretation o the English wheel-cum-beading rolling into the whole world o the English wheel. In ’96 only a small percentage o home builders had even heard o an English wheel and even ewer had actually seen one in action. That has changed radically. Today, it seems as i every shop worthy o the name has an English wheel, and compound curves no longer make builders break out in hives. You know a tool has lost its loty status and is now part o the common tool experience when companies like Harbor Freight stock them, when Googling “English wheel” yields page ater page o hits, and eBay auto matically knows what you are searching or when all you’ve typed is “English wh.” The truth is that what used to be a very narrow feld has broadened out to where it is easy to get conused. So, we’re going to simpliy the search or those who don’t already have an English wheel by giving a semi-guided tour o both homebuilt versions and ready-to-roll actory jobs, inexpensive and not-so-inexpensive. First, the unctions explained: Basically what an English wheel does is squeeze the metal really hard between a bigger roller with a at ace and a smaller one with a radiused ace (the anvil) that creates a point o contact. Push the metal between the rollers and they squeeze a narrow area, which makes that area a little wider and a little thinner, which imparts a slight curve to the surace. Push the metal back and orth enough times in the right directions and you can orm just about any kind o gentle compound curve. You can also beat aluminum (3003 or something similarly sot and workable) into rough shape with a hammer and shot bag (Younkin calls that “creating scrap”) and then smooth it out with the wheel. So, what you need is a larger, very hard upper wheel, a smaller lower wheel or anvil, also hard, with a radiused ace, and a way to adjust the position o the lower wheel so as to orce it against the upper wheel with what amounts to brute orce. Because the pieces o metal you’re working with are sometimes
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DANIELE BELTRAME
fairly wide, the wheels have to be held in position by a C-shaped, unbelievably stiff (and heavy) frame of various dimensions. Because the concept is pretty simple, the proliferation of both factory and handmade versions makes for a wide variation in quality, cost, u tilit y, and size. The variations: Size can vary from small versions meant to be clamped in a vise, to slightly larger bench models, to elegantly shaped and brutish heavyweight oor models. •
Daniele Beltrame’s heavier-thanusual bench model approach to the mini-wheel in the Jim Younkin article was to upsize everything and put his very advanced scrounging abilities to work fnding applicable parts. I’m working on the assumption here that all homebuilders can do what Daniele did; look at the photos and fgure out your own approach. Few details are needed.
The frame must be stiff en ough to resist exing because o the high orces exerted where the wheels meet. The very shape of a “C” means a lot of metal will b e required. •
The wheels must be hard enough to resist being damaged, especially when the material is suddenly pulled out and the wheels slam together. This can create tiny flat spots, which can be a problem with cheaper versions. •
In ’96 only a small percentage of homebuilders had even heard of an English wheel What follows is a visual catalog, of sorts, in which I give a brief tour of Daniele’s approach and a broad visual over view of other types and sources for both kits and fnished items. A link to the complete Baby Wheel article that got Daniele started on his wheel in the frst place is available at www.SportAviation.org . Prices for ready-to-use bench versions run the gamut rom $129 to $5,000. All will squeeze metal but, as we move into the higher-quality versions, what seems like “work” in the less-expensive ones suddenly becomes pure joy and producing quality work becomes easier. So, you get what you pay for.
Daniele Beltrame’s unit is heavier than most bench wheels. His upper wheel is the sanding wheel from an industrial stone sander. He machined the lower wheel from high carbon steel. Having his own lathe made making this version much easier.
The Beltrame unit is unique in the way it is driven because it i s also used as a beading roller, and both upper and lower wheels are driven by the crank (a ratchet handle, by the way). Most beading rollers only power one wheel, and that pulls t he metal through nicely. When in English wheel mode, the gears are disengaged and not used. The gears were scrounged from the junk pile at an electric drill factory.
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SHOP TALK
Daniele also varies from the usual way of mounting the lower wheel (anvil). Rather than having it sitting in a U-shaped saddle, it is pivoted on a very heavy axle mount. A note on the upper tube/bearing assembly: Use 2 by 1/4 inch wall (or heavier) DOM steel, which is available at many steelyards or by e-mail from Speedy Metals O nline or someplace similar. Have it machined to accept automotive bearings available from NAPA No. 6004-2RSJ. The inside diameter of those bearings is 0.78, so the shaft must be 13/16 cold roll (usually 1018 steel) or shafting material (usually 1045 so it’s harder) and turned down where the bearings run.
The lower anvil is adjusted vertically via a threaded rod or bolt coming in from the bottom through a welded nut. The vertical shaft must not be free to turn, so a groove (or distinct flat) should be milled in it to keep everything lined up with set screws. In a pinch, this groove can easily be done with a Dremel tool or angle-head grinder with a cut-off wheel and a steady hand. Relatively inexpensive already-slotted shafting is available from McMaster-Carr, which has almost anything anyone needs to do anything. There you’re looking for a 3/4-inch keyed shaft (PN 1497K161). A foot of it is about $20. It also has unkeyed shafting that’ll work for the main shaft that mounts the upper wheel.
The adjustment wheel at the bottom of the anvil section can be a handmade wheel, a star wheel, or a cast-off electric motor pulley. Use your imagination.
Younkin’s baby bench-top bench-top wheel/beading roller is much smaller but is built very much the same and functions the same, except when in beading mode only the top wheel is powered. See the PDF at www.SportAviation.org for deta ils.
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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DANIELE BELTRAME
SHOP TALK
And then there are killer ready-to-go bench-top machines like Tinman Tech’s superlative bench model, the Mercedes of bench wheels. This is high-end professional grade and will last longer than anyone reading this. Other sources sell similarly priced high-quality machines.
At the lower end of the bench-top spectrum is the wildly inexpensive Grizzly Tools concept. Priced so low that they are hard to pass up, they are made for light work or you can spend some time beefing them up and have them work reasonably well for hobby-type work as seen in most homebuilts. This one is ready-made for the homebuilder in that we have the mindset and abilities to beef i t up and compensate for any of its weak points.
The hot rod folks have an easier approach to building a dedicated miniwheel that can be clamped in a vise for making small parts. The upper wheel is a Ford wheel bearing for something like a ’70 Thunderbird (NAPA 88128R), which is 3 inches outside diameter (O.D.). A bigger bigger,, 4-3/8 inch O.D. bearing is NAPA 63102RSJ. The lower, anvil wheel can be an insert bearing normally used in pillow blocks. It has a radiused face and will ride on a 3/4-inch axle nicely. These bearings are readily available from Tractor Supply Inc. for about $12 (PN SA204-12), but you have to buy them from its store. It doesn’t sell them online. An online gear is made by SKF, and it’s about twice as expensive. A cheaper one is from USA Bearings and Belts (PN SB204-12). All of the bearings are sealed and have extremely hard faces so they work well in this application. A link to the entire building sequence is available at www.SportAviation.org. This one is super easy. If you have a lathe, it’s a Sunday morning project. The lathe work is simple and won’t cost much, if farmed out. Most of us have enough scrap laying around to make this, once we have the bearings.
For someone ready to build a serious floor version of an English wheel, order Tinman Tech’s plans for its monster machine (shown). Again, searching “English wheel for sale” will turn up a mind-boggling number of sources for wheel s of al l sizes . Harb or Frei ght makes a floo r model , and se arching “modifying Harbor Freight English wheel” will turn up a number of websites dedicated to fixing all of i ts weaknesses. A similar search for “modifying Harbor Freight beading roller” will yie ld a ton of information on making the roller more efficient including motorizing it. Those are very usable beading machines as-is for homebuilders in aluminum, but make sure you polish the edges off the female rollers because they’ll cut into the metal.
Budd Davisson is an aeronautical engineer, has flown more than 300 different types, and has published
four books and more than 4,000 articles. He is editor-in-chief of Flight Journal magazine magazine and a flight instructor primarily in Pitts/tailwheel aircraft. Visit him on on www.AirBum.com www.AirBum.com..
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aviation’s aviation’ s future Your investment TODAY enables EAA to continue programs such as Young Eagles, Air Academy, Youth Aviation Scholarships and Youth Aviation Education. Inspire tomorrow’s aviation innovators, pioneers, pilots and dreamers. Visit Visit GiveWingsToEAA.org or call us at 1-800-236-1025.
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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DANIELE
BELTRAME
Member Central p.112 Pilot Caves
•
p.114 News From HQ
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p.118 Board of Directors Nominees
•
p.��� Gone West
•
p.��� Members/Chapters in Action
QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR MEMBERSHIP? Want to change your address or need other assistance? EAA’s Membership Services staff is available to assist you Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Central time). Call 800-JOIN-EAA (800-564-6322), e-mail
[email protected], or visit www.EAA.org/membership.
INTERNATIONAL YOUNG EAGLES DAY ����
EAA chapter members and volunteer pilots all over the world will do their part to promote aviation to youth during the 20th annual International Young Eagles Day on June 8. EAA Young Eagles volunteers—45,000 pilots and 50,000 ground-based—have given nearly 1.8 million flights to kids between the ages of 8 and 17 since the program’s founding in 1992. To learn more about EAA Young Eagles and how you can get involved, visit www.YoungEagles.org .
Veteran Young Eagles pilot Fred Stadler, EAA 37882, has flown more than 5,000 Young Eagles.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY H.G. FRAUTSCHY
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MEMBER CENTRAL PILOT CAVES
Pilot: Larry Robbins, EAA 145492 Location: Deerfield Resort (TN44), LaFollette, Tennessee
isn’t ideal for flying, Larry and his wife and copilot of 40 years, Karen, use their hangar as a gathering place for friends to kick back and play bag toss. The black and white hangar floor features a handcrafted tile image of a P-51, complete with exhaust flute detailing and two-tone grout. In the hangar is a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub that was purchased by Larry’s father in 1955 for only $175 and needed a complete restoration. Today the aircraft is a prominent, and working, feature in the Robbins’ hangar alongside a white Glasair 1 FT that was built in Larry’s basement. A 1969 Plymouth Barracuda 340 fastback that resembles Larry’s first car is also found in this nostalgic hangar, but only makes appearances on sunny days.
WHE N T HE WEAT HER
Do you have an interesting pilot cave? Send a snapshot to
[email protected] to share your aviation space with fellow EAA Sport Aviation readers.
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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF LARRY ROBBINS
MEMBER CENTRAL
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MEMBER CENTRAL NEWS FROM HQ
Disney’s Planes Set to Take Off at AirVenture buzzing about this summer’s release of Disney’s Planes, the animated airborne answer to Disney ’s popular Cars movies, and EAA has landed a special preview screening in Oshkosh. A week before the movie opens in t heaters nationwide AirVenture attendees can see it at the Fly-In Theater, sponsored by Ford Motor Company, on Friday night, August 2. “We’re so happy to share the film with the passionate aviation community at AirVenture,” said Klay Hall, the film’s director and an aviation enthusiast. Before the exclusive screening, Hall will discuss making the film and share behind-the-scenes st ories and secrets. Disney’s Planes is the story of Dusty (voice of Dane Cook), a plane with dreams of competing as a high-flying air racer. But Dusty’s not exactly built for racing—and he happens to b e afraid of heights. The voices of Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Julia LouisDreyfus, Stacy Keach, and others are also featured. The screening is included with regular EAA AirVenture admission on August 2. The Fly-In Theater features a five-story-high screen and full sound system that presents aviation and other action movies for AirVenture attendees.
THE AVIATION COMMUNITY IS
JETMAN TO SOAR OVER AIRVENTURE
See Yves “Jetman” Rossy’s first U.S. public flights at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2013.
it flies, you’ll see it at Oshkosh” will prove true once again as Yves “Jetman” Rossy will make his first public U.S. flights this summer at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. Rossy’s aircraft is a carbon-Kevlar jetwing with four 50-pound thrust jet engines strapped to his back. He is taken to altitude via helicopter, launches, ignites the engines, and propels himself to speeds up to 150 mph controlled by a simple hand throttle. The Swiss aviator uses his shoulders, body, and legs t o steer, pitch, and descend. The U.S. flights are sponsored by luxury Swiss watch manufacturer Breitling.
THE OLD SAYING, “IF
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Jetman made a successful private flight over the Grand Canyon in 2011. EAA assisted Rossy with the paperwork to make the U.S. flights possible in cooperation with John Parker, owner of t he jetwing and key to obtaining FAA authorization (yes, it has an N number—N15YR). He’s also conducted numerous demonstrations in Europe and other locations. “I am excited to share my project with fellow enthusiasts and be a part of aviation’s biggest gathering in the world,” Rossy said. “EAA helped me secure the experimental exhibition special airworthiness certificate for my jetwing. It will be a privilege to attend Oshkosh and demonstrate how experimental projects can push forward the boundaries of flight.” Jetman’s flights will be part of AirVenture’s air shows during the week, and specific details of his flight schedule will be announced as they are finalized. EAA AirVenture air shows are presented by Rockwell Collins.
´ PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDRE
BERNET, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
MEMBERCENTRAL
CHICAGO RETURNS TO OSHKOSH history’s all-time greats, returns to Oshkosh to perform on AirVenture 2013 openin g day, Monday, July 29. The concert , presented by Ford Motor Comp any, is free to all AirVenture opening-day attendees and will be held on Phillips 66 Plaza following the afternoon air sh ow. “Chicago gave one of the best-attended opening night concerts we’ve ever had at AirVenture, so we’re very pleased to work wit h Ford Motor Company to welcome this legendary band back to Oshkosh this year,” said Jim DiMatteo, EAA’s vice president of AirVenture features and attractions. “Ford is proud to be the sole automotive partner with EAA for more than a decade and pleased to enhance the experience for everyone attending EAA AirVenture Oshkosh,” said Kevin Keling, North America corporate events manager for Ford Motor Company. “Chicago performed a great show in 2010, and we’re excited they will return for this year’s opening night concert to start a sensational week at aviation’s annual reunion in Oshkosh.” CHICAGO, ONE OF MUSIC
‘OMG!’ WIN AN ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE IN THE ‘OH MY OSHKOSH!’ SWEEPSTAKES
tickets by June 30 and you could win big in the “Oh My Oshkosh!” Sweepstakes! Just purchase admission tickets, camping, aircraft rides, or other items in advance to receive automatic entries into the “Oh My Oshkosh!” Sweepstakes and the opportunity GET YOUR ADVANCE AIRVENTURE
to win an ultimate AirVenture experience this year! The grand prize winner receives a plane-load of prizes, including two B-17 flights; two Aviators Club weekly passes; Camp Scholler (improved site) or fly-in camping for the entire week; and choice of VIP access to the opening day Chicago concert presented by Ford Motor Company or the August 2 Gary
Sinise/Lt. Dan Band concert hosted by the Disabled American Veterans and EAA Warbirds of America. Four second prize winners win two Aviators Club weekly passes, two Ford Tri-Motor flight tickets, and Camp Scholler or fly-in camping for the entire week. Don’t delay! Purchase by June 30 and you may have another reason to say “Oh my!” at Oshkosh.
OSHKOSH WELCOMES AVIATION INNOVATORS of aviation innovation, and this year EAA has established a new location to showcase new ideas, technologies, and products that advance aviation. Called the Innovations Pavilion, it will be located right in the middle of the show on Celebration Way. Aerospace innovators and entrepreneurs will display their designs and inventions. Ranging from new concepts OSHKOSH IS THE HOME
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM KOEPNICK
in propulsion to space exploration, exhibitors will include many well-recognized leaders in the field like ATK, NASA, Sierra Nevada, and others advancing new designs and concepts like Solar World, Trixy, Yves Rossy/Jetman, Nimbus UAV, and Eurosport. Each day look for presentations on developing technologies such as alternative fuels, commercial space efforts, how to start an aviation business, and many
others. The Innovations Pavilion provides a stage for inventors and entrepreneurs to display their new products and concepts, to generate and excite public interest and engagement, and, in some cases, to bring potential investors together with entrepreneurs. All aviation innovators are encouraged to contact Holly Williams at
[email protected] to apply for exhibit space in the Innovations Pavilion.
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MEMBER CENTRAL NEWS FROM HQ
EAA, GAMA, BUILD A PLANE SPONSOR TEACHERS DAY at EAA AirVenture will be held on Tuesday, July 30, sponsored by Build A Plane, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), and EAA . Teachers Day exposes educators to a variety of programs and curricula that allow them to put aviation in classrooms—from middle school through high school.
THE ANNUAL TEACHERS DAY
Presentations are given on materials available from private industr y, the fede ral government, and aviation organizations that expose students to all aspects of aviation, from vocation to avocation. Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a number of hands-on presentations and to speak directly to program specialists. A wide variety of free
take-home materials will be available for all attendees. Attendees can obtain one graduate credit through Viterbo University as well as complimentary admission to EAA AirVenture after attending Teachers Day. Space is limited so teachers should register now at BuildAPlane.com for the free event. For more information, call 804-843-3321.
EAA AIRVENTURE CUP RACE BACK FOR ��TH YEAR
Race will continue in 2013 with the full support and involvement of EAA, plus a new starting line and
THE EAA AI RVENT URE CUP
additional race classes to include production planes, warbirds, and vintage aircraft. The 16th annual race takes place on Sunday, July 28, starting for the first time at Mount Vernon Airport (MVN) in Illinois, and finishing at Waupaca Municipal Airport (PCZ). Race officials are asking those who wish to participate register by July 1 at www.AirVentureCupRace.com. The AirVenture Cup Race is a timed
race, and for 2013, each aircraft’s time will be recorded beginning on its takeoff from MVN, as well as at each turn poin t. To finish the race, each aircraft will fly over PCZ to obtain its finish time before circling to land. Each class has first, second, and third place awards. To learn more about the race and available sponsorship opportunities, contact Kandi Spangler at kspangler@ jetbrokers.com .
ShopEAA.com for a sneak peek at AirVenture
2013 merchandise!
ShopEAA.com | 800-564-6322 Your EAA merchandise purchase supports EAA programs that grow participation in aviation. Copyright © 2013 EAA
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JEFF PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MILL ER
MEMBERCENTRAL
HOMEBUILT MILESTONES TWO ICONI C HOME BUILT AI RCRA FT
designs celebrating important anniversaries in 2013 will be recognized at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2013: 60 years of the Wittman Tailwind and 50 years of the Thorp T-18. EAA is working with Tailwind and T-18 aircraft owners to bring as many of the aircraft as possible to Oshkosh in 2013. Aircraft owners should contact members in their respective groups or Chad Jensen at
[email protected] to find out more. Specific activities will be announced as they are finalized. The Wittman Tailwind is one of many aircraft designed and built by Oshkosh resident Steve Wittman, the renowned aircraft designer and racer who is the namesake of Wittman Regional Airport. The Tailwind is based on
Wittman’s racing aircraft of the 1940s and ’50s. (See Page 50 for our feature story on the design.) The Thorp T-18 was designed by John Willard Thorp in the early 1960s as an allmetal, low-wing monoplane. It was unique at the time because of its “matched hole” riveting technique that helped it be a low-cost, quick-to-build aircraft. One of the highlights of the model was in 1976, when EAA member Don Taylor flew around the world in his T-18, which is now part of the collection in the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh. Homebuilt aircraft are featured at “show center” along the AirVenture flightline and can also be parked in the homebuilt aircraft camping area, which was expanded last year.
GARY SINISE & THE LT. DAN BAND CAP SALUTE TO VETS DAY AUG. � GARY SINISE AND THE
Lt. Dan Band will return to AirVenture for the fourth time this year as the grand finale of a daylong salute to veterans on Friday, August 2. The popular band will be hosted at by the Disabled American Veterans and the EAA Warbirds of America at the Phillips 66 Plaza stage. Sinise played Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor in the classic film Forrest Gump, and is the star of the hit TV series CSI: New York. For the band, however, he plays bass and is a well-known supporter of veterans as well as active-duty military. The Lt. Dan Band covers everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Beyoncé, Zac Brown Band to Jimi Hendrix.
SA_MGL_����
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE
CUKIERSKI
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEMBER CENTRAL
2012 EAA Elections Nominees for the EAA board of directors EAA MEMBERS WILL HAVE the
opportunity to elect seven Class 1 directors (three-year terms) at the organization’s annual business meeting held du ring EAA AirVenture Oshkosh on Wednesday, July 31, at 8:30 a.m. at t he Theater in t he Woods. The following 20 individuals have been nominated. Stuart Auerbach, EAA 689374 (Incumbent) Stuart, a founding member and former director and treasurer of the TBM 700 Owners and Pilots Association, earned his private pilot certificate more than 30 years ago. Today, Stuart is a CFI and ATP, and holds singleand multiengine land and sea, turbojet, and rotorcraft ratings. He is a member of EAA’s President’s Circle and President’s Council. Professionally, Stuart serves as a general partner at Ampersand Capital Partners. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Columbia University and a master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School.
Jim Phillips, EAA 149430 (Incumbent) Jim is a shareholder of the business law firm of Godfrey & Kahn S.C. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He chairs its tax/benefits group and is a member of the firm’s management committee. Over the years Jim has served on the boards of several business, educational, and nonprofit organizations, and has taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Jim has been an active EAA member since the 1980s, involved in chapters as both a member and an officer. He has built two planes, a Sonerai II and an RV-8, and also has his instrument rating.
Eileen Drake, EAA Lifetime 852455 (Incumbent) Eileen is the vice president and general manager of Pratt & Whitney AeroPower. She previously served as vice president and general manager for Hamilton Sundstrand Power Systems, and vice president of operations for United Technologies Corporation (UTC). She is a graduate of the U.S. Army Aviation Officer School, where she qualified as an Army Aviator in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as a distinguished military graduate. She subsequently served eight years of active duty with the Army with her final assignment as Airfield Commander of Davidson Army Airfield in Virginia. Eileen and her husband are currently building an RV-8.
Charles Precourt, EAA Lifetime 150237 (Incumbent) Charlie is the vice president and general manager of the Space Launch Division at Alliant Techsystems. He participates on EAA’s executive committee and chairs the safety committee, and built a VariEze that first flew in 1987. Charlie, who retired as an Air Force colonel in 2000, graduated from the USAF Academy in 1977 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. He was an F-15 pilot, instructor, and flight commander, and a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. A veteran of four space flights and member of the Astronaut Hall of Fame, Charlie has held several management positions within NASA, including deputy program manager for the International Space Station, chief of the Astronaut Corps, and director of operations for NASA at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.
Phillip Martineau, EAA 593215 (Incumbent) Phil is chairman and CEO of Pittsburgh Corning Corporation and Pittsburgh Corning Europe. He also serves on the board of directors for Alleghany Corporation. Phil has been a pilot for more than 30 years with a commercial certificate, and single-engine land and sea and instrument ratings.
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Frederick Telling, EAA Lifetime 519586 (Incumbent) Fred is chairman of Oragenics and serves on the board of Cell Therapeutics and Easai N.A. He is also a member of the board and executive committees of CED, Warbirds, and the United Hospital Fund of New York. Since retiring from Pfizer in 2007 after 30 years with the company, he has been a visiting lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health and MIT’s Sloan School. Fred is certificated to fly helicopters and single- and multiengine aircraft. He races his T-6 Baby Boomer at the Reno National Championship Air Races each year, and owns another T-6 and a P-51 Mustang named Lady B .
James “CB” Clark, EAA 500238 James is the principal and founder of BANG! Technologies and previously was vice president of AT&T, executive director of Bell Labs, and chief technology officer of NCR Corporation. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MIT’s Sloan School of Management with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and a master’s in marketing. James served as chairman of the 60th anniversary reunion of the Tuskegee Airmen. The former president of EAA Chapter 242, he has flown hundreds of Young Eagles, co-built an RV-6, and is currently building an RV-6A. James is an active air show performer with Team AeroDynamix, which performed at EAA AirVenture 2012 and is returning this year.
Doug Crumrine, EAA 77708 Doug has more than 10,000 flying hours in military and civilian commercial aircraft. In the Air Force, he was trained in technical and maintenance fields, earning his A&P certificate. After two years of active duty, he transferred to the Illinois Air National Guard and went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in aviation management from Lewis University. Doug retired after 27 years in the military and is now an international line captain for American Airlines. He also spends time improving his RV-8. Doug is vice president of EAA Chapter 983 in Granbury, Texas, and is chairman of the airport committee in Pecan Plantation Airpark.
Geoff Downey, EAA 105011 Geoff, a retired Wisconsin State Trooper and state patrol chemical test coordinator, served four years in U.S. Naval Aviation Attack Squadron VA 1-5, including 13 months in Vietnam. He has been an EAA member since 1984 and has volunteered with the organization for the last 27 years. Having served 25 years as the EAA AirVenture chairman of rotorcraft judging, Geoff now does daily pilot bri efings at Oshkosh. He is one of the founding members of EAA Chapter 897, and ran the chapter’s fly-in breakfast for nine years.
Will Fox, EAA 239742 Will, a registered professional engineer, is a consultant for Fox Aviation who previously spent 34 years with Los Alamos National Laboratory as a design engineer, project manager, and senior engineering manager. He is also an EAA technical counselor and flight advisor. Will teaches pilot and instructor ground school, aerodynamics, and experimental aircraft safety. He is a commercial pilot, flight instructor, and aerobatic pilot and instructor. Will owns a Pegazair SP-180, a Questaire Venture, a Bonanza V35, and an Eagle XL ultrali ght. His latest proje ct is a Questair Venture kit plane.
Jeff Gentz, EAA Lifetime 158356 Jeff, owner of Orion Sport Aircraft and Certiflight, has more than 9,500 hours as an ATP instructor pilot. He also holds current CFII and MEI ratings. An EAA volunteer of 30 years, Jeff currently acts as the chairman of EAA’s A-Team, giving tours and fulfilling EAA VIP, donor, and majo r spons ors’ needs. He has flown nearly 4 00 Young Eagles since becoming an EAA volunteer pilot
Bob Hart, EAA 386263 Bob is treasurer for the International Aerobatic Club and served as the IAC Chicago chapter’s president from 2005 to 2009. Having flown more than 16,000 hours, Bob works for United Airlines in Chicago as the line check airman on the Airbus A319/320. He is an ATP with a CFII rating. Additionally, Bob has flown competitive aerobatics in an Extra 230. He also built an award-winning Pitts S-1C that he flew competitively for three years. Bob flies a completely restored 1945 7AC Aeronca Champ, and is building an Acro Sport II in his home shop with his two teenage daughters. Bob is an active EAA Chapter 932 member, volunteering with the Young Eagles program and speaking at local FAA Wings seminars and at EAA AirVenture.
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MEMBER CENTRAL
Alan Klapmeier, EAA Lifetime 141042 Alan, founder, CEO, and chairman of Kestrel Aircraft Company and formerly Cirrus Design, is responsible for development of the VK30 kit aircraft and ST50 aircraft. He assisted in the certification process of the Cirrus SR20 and SR22. A 1992 EAA August Raspet Memorial Award and 2007 EAA Freedom of Flight Award recipient, Alan has served on the GAMA board of directors and was chairman in 2008. Alan currently holds a position on the AOPA Air Safety Foundation Board of Visitors and the Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association board of directors. An IFR-rated private pilot with more than 10,000 hours, Alan owns a 1950 DHC-1 Chipmunk, a Cirrus SR22TN, and a PA-46T Meridian.
David Mercer, EAA 379378 David retired as the president and CEO of YMCA in 2000. He is a former chairman of Leadership 18, an organization of the largest nonprofits in the country, which includes the YMCA, American Red Cross, and United Way. NonProfit Times magazine named David one of the 50 most influential nonprofit executives in the United States five times during his 42-year YMCA career. He founded and chaired the EAA Camp Scholler Volunteer Center in 2000, and received an EAA President’s Award in 2001. David is currently the volunteer center’s vice chair.
Dave Morss, EAA 133735 Dave is founder and president of Myriad Research in Redwood City, California, conducting flight tests on experimental aircraft of all types. He started flying at age 14 and has since logged more than 28,000 flight hours in more than 300 types of aircraft, including 40 first flights in prototype aircraft. In addition to being an accomplished pilot, Dave is an air racing veteran who holds the record for the most races at Reno with 204 and counting more than 30 years. In 1998 he was awarded the Spirit of Flight Award by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Dave serves the Commemorative Air Force as a check pilot in vintage aircraft and is an FAA designated pilot examiner and airworthiness representative.
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John Petersen, EAA 195282 John is founder and president of the Arlington Institute. He helped create the world’s first national surprise anticipation center for the government of Singapore. John also spent 25 years with the Navy, flying EKA-3B aircraft off carriers in the Vietnam era and C-118s to Europe and Asia. He has delivered more than 300 presentations about the future of general aviation. John is chairman of the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, and has been an EAA member for the last 30 years.
Judith Rice, EAA Lifetime 458303 Judy is the founder and captain of Think Global Flight, president of the board of the National Coalition for Aviation and Space Education, and the executive director of Laminar Research’s Fly to Learn X-Plane project. She was EAA’s executive director of youth education from 1997 to 2002. Judy is the a recipient of EAA’s Outstanding Grounds Volunteer award in 1993, the Air Force Association Exceptional Service Award in 2007, the Ninety-Nines Fran Sargent Award in 2010, and the National Air Transportation Association Business Award in 2010. She is an instrument-rated commercial pilot, advance ground instructor, and certificated flight instructor. She owns a Grumman TR2 and has logged almost 3,000 hours in numerous airplanes.
Paul Schafer, EAA Lifetime 202519 Paul earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He c ompleted U.S. Air Force pilot training and went on to command at the squadron, group, and wing levels. He was an outstanding graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School, and was twice named the A-10 Instructor Pilot of the Year. Paul was awarded th e Lance P. Sijan Leadership award for his combat command in southwest Asia, and flew more than 40 combat missions over southern Iraq. He retired as a major general after 32 years of service. Paul, whose first homebuilt project was a self-launching composite glider, is building a Onex in his garage. A commercial pilot with more than 3,000 flying hours, Paul is a member of EAA Chapter 186.
Louis Seno, EAA Lifetime 31489 Lou is currently chairman emeritus of Jet Support Services, following his work as a senior management team member overseeing GE Capital Solution’s worldwide business aircraft unit. He was elected to the board of directors of GAMA in 2011. An ATP with more than 6,000 flying hours, Lou has been an active member of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University President’s Advisory Board since 2001 and chairs the institution’s development committee. He is a member of the board of governors of the Flight Safety Foundation, and sits on the board of directors of Duncan. Lou holds an ATP certificate and has more than 6,000 hours in numerous piston and turbine aircraft.
Cody Welch, EAA 115674 Cody helped develop EAA’s Ford Tri-Motor touring program, and has served as a Ford Tri-Motor captain since 1993. He is vice president and a board member of the TriMotor Heritage Foundation, and is a 2003 EAA President’s Award recipient. The president and founder of the nonprofit group Wings of Mercy East Michigan, which provides free rides in GA aircraft to and from medical centers, Cody is also an active Air Care Alliance committee member, working on a n ational fuel reimbursement program with the FAA for nonprofit volunteer pilot organizations. He has been airport manager of Price Airport in Linden, Michigan, since 2001.
BOARD ELECTION AND VOTING PROXY PROCEDURE EAA members may vote in person for the organization’s directors and on other matters, and learn about EAA’s fiscal and operational progress, by attending the members’ annual meeting held each year during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. All EAA members may vote at the annual meeting, whether they are present in person or not. If a member is unable to be present, he or she may instead vote by proxy. A proxy is a document that appoints someone else (the proxy holder, or agent) to vote at the annual meeting on behalf of the member. Note that a proxy is not the equivalent of a mail ballot, which a member might mail to the organization as the member’s vote. Instead, under Wisconsin law, the member delivers or mails the proxy to the holder (or to someone acting on behalf of the holder). The proxy holder then casts the member’s vote at the annual meeting. Since the 2012 Annual Meeting, EAA has sent two suggested proxies to
CHANGE OF ANNUAL MEETING DATE TO WEDNESDAY, JULY �� Notice is hereby given to EAA members that the date of EAA’s annual meeting of members has been changed to Wednesday, July 31, at 8:30 a.m. CDT at Theater in the Woods on the EAA AirVenture grounds at 3000 Poberezny Rd., Oshkosh, WI, during AirVenture 2013. The annual meeting had traditionally been held on the Saturday morning of AirVenture. This responds to comments from members that the Saturday morning meeting was too late in the week for them to attend.
AMENDMENT OF EAA ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION Notice is hereby given to EAA members that the membership will be asked to vote to approve Restated Articles of Incorporation of Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc., at the EAA members’ annual meeting, to be held at Theater in the Woods, at 8:30 a.m. CDT, on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. Approval of the Restated Articles of Incorporation will require a two-thirds vote of the members present at the meeting in person or by proxy. Over the past year the EAA Board of Directors decided that the preferable governance structure for EAA involved the creation of a Chairman of the Board officer position with a three-year term. Because the current Articles of Incorporation permitted only one-year terms for offi cers, the Board undertook a project to amend the Articles to permit a three-year term for the Chairman, and at the same time update and streamline the Articles. The EAA Board has approved the Restated Articles and recommends adoption by the members. The proposed Restated Articles would revise the current Articles by (i) updating language relating to EAA’s IRC 501(c)(3) classification to conform to current usage, (ii) moving the officer section to the bylaws, thus giving the Board the ability to create a three-year term for the Chairman, (iii) providing the Board more flexibility in the timing of appointments and terms of Class III Directors appointed by the Board (no substantive changes are being made in Class I and Class II Directors), and (iv) making other minor updates and language changes at the Annual Meeting. The proposed Restated EAA Articles of Incorporation and the current Articles (updated in 2007) are available online at www.SportAviation.org.
its members. The first designated Rodney Hightower, Eric Gurley, and Louis Andrew as the proxy holders; however, Mr. Hightower and Mr. Andrew have since left EAA’s board of directors. A second suggested proxy form has been sent to members, designating Jack Pelton, Dan Schwinn, and Jim Phillips as the proxy holders. Either proxy form may be used. If you do not plan to attend the annual meeting in person, please sign and return either of these forms to EAA. If you wish another person to serve as your proxy holder, a proxy designating that person should be mailed or delivered to that person or persons so they may submit it. EAA is not legally required nor practically able to assume the responsibility for assuring that proxy forms that name other persons as holders are separated and delivered to those named holders. If you have any questions regarding EAA’s proxy procedure, please contact EAA headquarters.
www.eaa.org
121
MEMBER CENTRAL
Gone West “Not alone into the sunset but into the company of friends who have gone before them.”
ALABAMA
IOWA
PENNSYLVANIA
William Shaver (EAA 7 11378), Huntsville
Gaylen Knaack (EAA 693619), Correctionville Carroll White (EAA 2 25906), Rhodes
Gladys Adam (EAA 1050714), Madera William Weeks (EAA 50596), Glen Mills
William Engelking (EAA 655586), Chandler Rae Froelich (EAA 99693), Mesa Lee Gilpatrick (EAA 1078123), Lake Havasu City
KANSAS
SOUTH CAROLINA
Paul Bryant (EAA 119492), Prairie Village Tommy George (EAA 242956), Valley Center
Raymond Miller (EAA 115661), Taylors
CALIFORNIA
KENTUCKY
Joseph Carbaugh (EAA 334440), Mariposa John Morss (EAA 136787), Newport Beach Dennis Newton (EAA 3172), Apple Valley Richard Otto (EAA 819067), Walnut Creek James Wion (EAA 221472), Sacramento
David Stone (EAA 1047813), Bowling Green
COLORADO
MASSACHUSETTS
George McHenry (EAA 419002), Pueblo West
Oliver H. Durrell III (EAA 1079540), Plymouth
DELAWARE
MINNESOTA
ARIZONA
TEXAS
Donald Childs (EAA 26608), Dripping Springs Paul Edison (EAA 1017486), Garland James Light (EAA 758212), Kerrville
LOUISIANA
Harry Abbott Jr. (EAA 690162), Baton Rouge Bruce Miller (EAA 355127), Harahan
VIRGINIA
Paul Gardella (EAA 14059), Burke Robert Hess (EAA 327989), Yorktown WASHINGTON
Peter Niklaus (EAA 879498), Normandy Park David Austin (EAA 190095), Dover FLORIDA
John Horan (EAA 1028539), Rotonda West Donald Knowles (EAA 1007032), New Port Richey Luther Miller (EAA 884044), Niceville Glenn Smith (EAA 1023144), Lakeland Lee Smith (EAA 7 35064), Lakeland Ted Van Wormer (EAA 1079078), Sebring Roman Wernikowski (EAA 170434), Ocala
Travis Anderson (EAA 701584), Mountain Iron Harold Cotant (EAA 693539), Laporte Adam Menze (EAA 379302), Ottertail Vicky Skodje (EAA 395118), Faribault
WISCONSIN
Patricia Carey (EAA 460628), Pardeeville Glen Derber (EAA 63377), Neenah Ernest Groth (EAA 1054234), Elkhart Lake Eugene Tepe (EAA 361318), Roberts
NEW YORK
Russell Hardy (EAA 113265), Eggertsville
WYOMING
Dale Wright (EAA 523971), Wright NORTH CAROLINA
Carl Kester (EAA 308261), Greenville Larry Woods (EAA 172554), Winterville
AUSTRALIA
Kent Crenshaw (EAA 789978), Savannah
NORTH DAKOTA
CANADA
ILLINOIS
Edmund Jensen (EAA 701289), Fargo James Skadberg (EAA 227267), Carrington
Jean Dueck (EAA 717469), High River, Alberta Daniel Mariage (EAA 841984), Weston, Ontario
OHIO
PUERTO RICO
Clarence Sollberger (EAA 1012873), Stow
Francisco Baco (EAA 881718), Guaynabo
OREGON
SWEDEN
William McMichael (EAA 359283), Salem
Hans Olsson (EAA 278910), Arjang, Varmland
Hartley Young (EAA 100556), Melton, Victoria
GEORGIA
William Butler (EAA 175749), Mundelein James Frejd (EAA 247059), Elk Grove Village Mel Leavitt (EAA 7 25209), Wheaton Ralph Morgan (EAA 522860), Monticello Robert Smelser (EAA 124499), Newark
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF MILLER
www.eaa.org
123
MEMBER CENTRAL MEMBERS/CHAPTERS IN ACTION
Midland Aviation Camp BY JEFF SKILES, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITIES AND MEMBER PROGRAMS
MANY OF OUR CHAPTERS have
created unique programs to further aviation and introduce young people to our passion. One such program is a weeklong youth aviation camp operated by Chapter 1093 in Midland, Michigan. The Midland Aviation Camp invites 16 campers to a day program that teaches the basics of aerodynamics, careers, weather, and aviation history, as well as the basics of flight planning, such as calculating speed and distance, Zulu time, and GPS operation. The planning phase culminates with each camper planning a complete three-legged cross-country flight. Other activities include a tour of a control tower, use of flight simulators, and a paper airplane competition. The camp is staffed with the participation of 40-45 volunteers made up of chapter members, local volunteers, and campers from previous years who return to teach and mentor this year’s participants. So, what are the results of the Midland Aviation Camp? The chapter offers a $2,500 flight-training scholarship that it splits among the best participants of the camp. Last year this $2,500 scholarship was split among seven applicants, allowing them to get a taste of flight training. Six of those young adults who participated in 2012 have gone on to earn their private pilot certificates. Six new pilots in the world from one weeklong camp! EAA Chapter 1093 was founded in 1995 and fosters a welcoming spirit for young people, not only with its generous scholarship awards, but also through other activities. The
124 Sport Aviation
June 2013
chapter has sponsored the Aviation Camp since 1996 and has a strong mentoring program that encourages young adults to attend and volunteer at its pancake breakfasts, spring clean-up days, and monthly meetings. The photo of the 2012 Midland Aviation Camp tells it all; most of the camp leaders and instructors who are kneeling are former campers themselves. EAA chapters are instrumental in building the future of aviation and being the local hub of aviation enthusiasm in their communities. Please share your chapter stories with us so that we can highlight your amazing programs for our membership.
CONGRATULATIONS CONGRATULATIONS to
Jerry Johnston, EAA 59063, and Gene Smith, EAA 105537, for earning the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for 50 years of accident-free flying.
MEMBERCENTRAL
WHAT’S NEW IN CHAPTERS BY JEFF SKILES, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITIES AND MEMBER PROGRAMS
CHAPTER VIDEO MAGAZINE
Our first edition of the Chapter Video Magazine in May included many exciting stories. Jack J. Pelton spoke of the future plans for EAA. We brought Paul Poberezny’s P-64 out of the AirVenture Museum and back to life, culminating in an engine run by Paul. We began our five-part steel-tube fuselage build. And, we heard from a young volunteer at EAA who has come all the way from Germany to work at the mecca of aviation, Oshkosh. The Chapter Video Magazine is a new production from EAA specifically for chapters that can be seen at your monthly meeting. It is meant to be shown only at a monthly chapter meeting, so we are asking our chapter leaders not to post this content to the Internet to keep this valuable content reserved for chapters. On the first of every month we send a link to the Chapter Video Magazine download to
your chapter leaders so they can have access to the current month’s production, designed to support our chapter leaders and allow them to easily present interesting content at your meetings. The Chapter Video Magazine is being created by EAA’s extremely talented multimedia journalist Brady Lane, so we know the quality will be exceptional. There are many exciting stories that will be coming your way over the next year, and we hope to introduce our chapters to the fantastic things that our members are doing around the country. If you haven’t seen the new Chapter Video Magazine in your meetings, ask your chapter leaders for it. And when you come to Oshkosh for the convention, please stop in the Chapter Pavilion, where you will be able to view the first three months of this fantastic new offering. CHAPTER PAVILION
You will see a new presence around chapters at AirVenture this year. Chapters, Young
Eagles, and Eagle Flights will be located together in a large tent right at the compass rose across from the EAA Welcome Center on Knapp Street. Chapters are the backbone of our organization, and our new Chapter Pavilion at the center of AirVenture shows the commitment EAA has to its chapters and most dedicated members. In the Chapter Pavilion we will have space for our own chapter forum presentations and will be asking our chapter leaders and members to share their success stories. We will also be able to provide space for closely associated organizations like the Academy of Model Aeronautics to show our members how chapters can work with other organizations to bring youth into aviation. For our chapter leaders, members, and volunteers we will have a continuous showing of our new Chapter Video Magazine as well as the Careers in Aviation videos for Young Eagles and youth members. If you are a chapter leader, member, or Young Eagles
www.eaa.org
125
MEMBER CENTRAL MEMBERS/CHAPTERS IN ACTION
volunteer, or want to become one, please stop in and find out more about chapters at EAA. DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITIES
We have a very exciting personnel announcement at EAA for our chapters and homebuilding communities. EAA is very fortunate to have Charlie Becker returning from AOPA to lead our homebuilding community. Initially we posted a position for a homebuilders community manager at EAA, but Charlie is of such great capability that we have elevated the position to director of communities. He will also lead SportAir Workshops and the Flight Advisor and Technical Counselor programs, and will share responsibility with me for all of our EAA communities. In this capacity, Charlie will work closely with the Homebuilt and Ultralight aircraft councils and our Vintage, Warbirds of America, and International Aerobatic Club divisions. We are very excited to have Charlie back where he belongs in a position to use his tremendous skills and abilities to craft the future at EAA.
THE JUNE ���� edition of
EAA’s Chapter Video Magazine will be available to download by chapter leaders on June 1. Here are this month’s feature highlights: News From HQ An update on the features and attractions coming to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2013. Van’s Aircraft Tour: Behind the Scenes Explore the inner workings of the world’s most popular kit manufacturer. Steel-Tube Fuselage Construction, Part 2 An over-the-shoulder look, packed with hints and tips. If you would like to view this month’s Chapter Video Magazine, please attend an EAA chapter meeting near you. Find a chapter at www.EAA.org/chapters/locator . EAA’s Chapter Video Magazine is a monthly video series designed to enrich your chapter meetings and grow participation in aviation. For more information, visit www.EAA.org/chapters/videomag.
Meet me at the Brown Arch Leave your mark on an EAA AirVenture landmark.
Purchase your brick by June 15, 2013 and have it inscribed with a message of your choosing and placed at the Brown Arch for AirVenture 2013. VisitAirVenture.org/arch or contact Robin Kasel
[email protected] or 1-800-236-1025 for pricing, brick selection and information.
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ce ttable experien e rg fo n u an r Join us fo ining airworthy a m re w fe e th l aboard one of B17.org or cal it is V . rld o w t. B-17s in the erve your fligh s re to 7 1 2 -6 9 1-800-35
mOvercas t. s tsfor Aluminu and opera tionsco ce an ten ain 7 tour help coverm nues from the B-1 Fl y i n g ” –Reve ep ‘e m
“ Ke
© 2013 Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc.
MEMBER CENTRAL
WELCOME, NEW LIFETIME MEMBERS Scott Albers (EAA (EAA 1024117), 1024117),Medford, Medford,Wisconsin Wisconsin Edward Berthold (EAA 845558), Fox River Grove, Illinois Patrick Booth (EAA 684747), Austin, Texas Mike Broomfield (EAA 7 29234), Edmond, Oklahoma David Carberry (EAA 622440) Stockton, Utah Robert Clay (EAA 1110773), Lee’s Summit, Missouri Matthew Defenbaugh (EAA 584131), Biggsville, Illinois Leslie Drake (EAA 622500), Lincoln, Nebraska Michael Elliott (EAA 560650), Cameron, Texas Bruce Evans (EAA 692474), Glen Allen, Virginia John Feldvary (EAA 669583), Jackson, Michigan Christopher Freeze (EAA 1109424), Martinez, California Samantha Fuhrman (EAA 832107), Roachdale, Indiana Klein Gilhousen (EAA 439938), Bozeman, Montana Bernard Groceman (EAA 204642), San Antonio, Texas Mark Hahn (EAA 9003390), Kewaskum, Wisconsin James Harvilchuck (EAA 9018764), Orland Park, Illinois Amy Henderson (EAA 856392), Fulton, Missouri Tom Henderson (EAA 856391), Fulton, Missouri Ted Horstman (EAA 869105), Kalida, Ohio Neil Hutton (EAA 880238), Wray, Colorado Serena Kamps (EAA 1011028), Pickett, Wisconsin Cyrus Kano (EAA 880598), Cataumet, Massachusetts Alberta Knox (EAA 1109278), San Rafael, California John Kuetemeyer (EAA 612949), Crystal Lake, Illinois Roger Larson (EAA 1008404), Madison, Minnesota Don Luchtenburg (EAA 618533), Grundy Center, Iowa
128 Sport Aviation
June 2013
William McCulloch (EAA 638747), Raleigh, North Carolina Leslie McGilvray (EAA 298301), Central Point, Oregon Shannon McKinney (EAA 1012091), Carthage, North Carolina Harry Morgan (EAA 1006954), Hannibal, Missouri Ralph Morgan (EAA 655779), Moore, Texas Scott Morgan (EAA 602986), Allen, Nebraska Maria Morrison (EAA 667836), Port Townsend, Washington William Morton (EAA 377331), Naples, Florida Derek Nagle (EAA 876437), Ada, Michigan James Nau (EAA 1016586), Louisville, Ohio Vincent Olson (EAA 743388), Spring, Texas Clifton O’Meara (EAA 867544), Georgetown, Texas Carol Presley (EAA 1109747), Charlotte, North Carolina Clay Presley (EAA 1057163), Charlotte, North Carolina Jeff Reynolds (EAA 655575), Port Orange, Florida Brian Ross (EAA 569338), Eau Claire, Wisconsin Rodney Sargent (EAA 1012266), Edmond, Oklahoma Larry Schronce (EAA 610251), Ada, Oklahoma 351054), Fond du Lac, Wisconsin Brandon Scott (EAA William Shaw (EAA 696222), Fond du Lac, Wisconsin Jeffrey Sherwood (EAA 568520), St. Louis, Michigan Karl Thomas (EAA 858189), Mesquite, Texas John Viney (EAA 1019212), Albuquerque, New Mexico Dale West (EAA 385722), Green Bay, Wisconsin David Willingham (EAA 283298), Hernando, Mississippi Michael Wonder (EAA 227951), Bloomfield, Indiana Daniel Zambrano (EAA 1017951), Atlanta, Georgia
MEMBER CENTRAL PARTNER INSIDER
Helpful Information LOOKING FOR MORE information on
an EAA benefit or program? Here’s some general contact information
to help you get started. Membership Join, renew, or questions: www.EAA.org/join or 800-JOIN-EAA (800-564-6322) Member Benefits EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan (for U.S. EAA Members): www.EAA.org/insurance or 866-647-4322 EAA Aviation & Non-Aviation Accidental Death Insurance Pla n: www.EAA.org/insurance or 877-230-3252 EAA Aircraft Insurance C-Plan (for Canadian EAA Members): www.EAA.org/insurance or 855-736-3407 EAA Visa Credit Card: www.EAA.org/visa ASTC Museum Passport Program: www.EAA.org/passport EAA Informational Webinars: www.EAA.org/webinars EAA Hints for Homebuilders Videos: www.EAAVideo.org EAA Flight Advisor: www.EAA.org/flightadvisors EAA Technical Counselors: www.EAA.org/techcounselors Member Discounts AirVenture Admission: www.AirVenture.org/planning/admission.html EAA SportAir Workshops: www.SportAir.com or 800-967-5746 EAA Ford Tri-Motor Experience: www.AirVentureMuseum.org/fordtrimotor EAA B-17 Flight Experience: www.B17.org Ford Vehicle Partner Program: www.EAA.org/ford John Deere Partner Program: www.EAA.org/johndeere Hertz Rental Car: www.EAA.org/hertz LaserGrade FAA Tests: www.EAA.org/lasergrade Membership Community EAA Chapters: www.EAA.org/chapters/locator EAA International Aerobatic Club: www.IAC.org EAA Warbirds of America: www.Warbirds-EAA.org EAA Vintage Aircraft Association: www.VintageAircraft.org EAA Ultralights: www.EAA.org/ultralights EAA Homebuilders: www.EAA.org/homebuilders
130 Sport Aviation
June 2013
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5905, or www.paragear.com
$295.00. Complete kits available. Contact Aircraft
Change. All Aircraft, Engines, UAV, Wind Tunnels,
Spruce @ 951-372-9555, www.aircraftspruce.com
Prototype Designs. Propeller Repairs. Worldwide
customer service, designers, manufacturers, materi-
Shipping. Prince Aircraft Company, P.O. Box 2669-A,
als. Always in stock: epoxy, polyester, Vinyleter resin,
Pennsylvania Parachute Company -Pilot Emergency
carbon fiber, Kevlar, lightweight fairing & bonding
Parachutes www.pennsylvaniaparachute.com,
Baby Great Lakes —These aircraft are well proved
Whitehouse, OH 43571-0566A. Phone: 419-877-5557,
compounds, Nida Core, PVC Foam Core, Vacuum
610-317-2536
designs, which are easy to construct and fly. Classic
http://princeaircraft.com, Credit Cards accepted.
bagging & vacuum resin infusion supplies. Order
good looks & aerobatic. Plans available for Baby Great Lakes $229.95, Super Baby Great Lakes (beefed
Ed Sterba Propellers Custom Carving for Homebuilts
PLANS/KITS
up version) $295.00 & Buddy Baby Great Lakes (two-
513 68th St Holmes Beach, FL 34217 941-778-3103
Plans advertised in EAA Sport Aviation must have satisfied the
place) $250.00. Info Pack is $13.75. Contact Aircraft
PEDAL POWERED P-51 Mustang, fully detailed,
FAA minimum requirements of the Experimental Amateur-built
Spruce at 951-372-9555,www.aircraftspruce.com
prop goes around when pedaled, steering by stick/
Category and must have been operated a minimum of 25 hours
tail wheel, for kids 3-7, $2500, U pay 4 shipping,
when using an FAA certified engine or 40 hours with a non-
Christavia—Ron Mason’s field workhorse is easy
406-837-1199
certified engine and should have satisfactorily demonstrated its
to fly and provides STOL performance, good cruise
advertised qualities. The FAA Operation Limitation must have
speed, large cabin, low maintenance. Order Info
been amended to permit flight outside the test flight area.
Pack (FREE), MK-1 (tandem) plans ($275.00) MK-2
SERVICES
conversion plans (side-by-side) ($35.00), or MK-4
Patent , Trademarks, Copyrights. Robert Platt Bell,
Volksplane-Complete VP-1 Plans $64 w/FREE
(4-place) ($275.00) from Aircraft Spruce at 951-372-
Registered Patent Attorney, EAA Member, 821 River-
Aviation themed gifts-spinners-kites-puzzles-retro
Designers Handbook, Pilots Handbook, builders
9555, www.aircraftspruce.com
view Drive, Jekyll Island, GA 31527. robertplattbell@
signs-windsocks order from redneckpilot.com
photos & Flight Reports. www.volksplane.com &
online www.lbifiberglass.comor call for free catalog 800-231-6537, technical assistance
Business for sale. Manufactures fairings for Vans
RV broker - Ray 602-820-8590
www.evansair.com
Aircraft wires from Bruntons of Scotland. Certified
MT & Hoffmann Propellers for aerobatic, homebuilt
& production aircraft. Call for quote. Steen Aero Lab, (321) 725-4160. www.steenaero.com
gmail.com. PH. 912-635-2147.
One Design—Dan Rihn’s high performance aerobatic
monoplane cruises at 160 mph and is ideal for basic
wires featuring stronger rolled threads. AN665 stain-
RV Builders-Upper/lower gear leg intersection fair-
through advanced aerobatics. Quick, easy construc-
less terminal assemblies. Call for quote. Steen Aero
ings www.aerosu.com 507-635-5976
tion with outstanding performance. Info pack is
Donate projects to Cornerstone 501c3, founded ‘68
FREE and plans $376.95. Contact Aircraft Spruce at
205-821-9076
[email protected] donateyourplane.com
Lab, (321) 725-4160. www.steenaero.com Skybolt plans $165, Pitts S1-C plans $250, S1-SS updates
WANTED
951-372-9555, www.aircraftspruce.com Donate your airplane , project, boat or RV to
www.terminaltown.com - Electrical supplies:
$100, materials & components. Knight Twister plans:
Mil-Spec wire and terminals, fuses, blocks, wire
single $250, two-place $285. Firebolt plans $275. Great
Starduster—Lou Stolp’s classic Starduster Too is a
Samaritan Aviation, a charity that provides mission/
protection, tools and kits On-line catalog, secure
Lakes plans $350. Pilot & aircraft accessories. Steen Aero
2-place, open sport bi-plane using a Lycoming O-360
medical services to remote areas of the world. www.
ordering
[email protected]
Lab, (321) 725-4160. www.steenaero.com
engine. Features a 4130 steel fuselage with spruce
samaritanaviation.com970-249-4341
134 Sport Aviation June 2013
AT YOUR SERVICE: ADVERTISE RS IN THIS ISSUE
ADVERTISER
Advanced Flight Systems AeroConversions Aerotronics, Inc. AEROX Air Repair, Inc. Aircraft Specialties Services Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Aircraft Spruce & Specialty/Cozy Aircraft Tool Supply Co. Bendix King CAF B-29/B-24 Squadron California Power Systems Cessna Aircraft Company Cirrus Aircraft Daher-Socata DiNelly Aerosystems Ltd. DTC DUAT Dynon Avionics EAA Aviation Insurance/Falcon EAA Airventure Oshkosh 2013 EAA B-17 EAA SportAir Workshops EAA Sweepstakes 2013 Epic Aircraft Flabob Flying Circus/Randolph Flight Design USA FltPlan.com Flying Eyes Sunglasses Ford Motor Company Garmin Glasair Aviation Grand Rapids Technologies, Inc. Hamilton Watch Hearing Help Express Helicopter Association International (HAI) Hertz Rental Cars HTP America Inc Jeppesen J.P. Instr uments Leading Edge Air Foils, LLC Lincoln Electric Lycoming Mahindra Aerospace Marvel-Schebler MGL Avionics MODS International, Inc. Moduline Aluminum Cabinets MT-Propeller Phillips 66 Piper Plane Power Poly-Fiber Aircraft Coatings Pratt & Whitney/Canada Progressive Insurance Savvy Aircraft Maint. Management Sennheiser Sky-Tec Sonex, Ltd. Sporty’s Pilot Shop Stauer Stewart AC Finishing Systems Superior Air Parts Tempest Trade-A-Plane Trutrak Flight Systems UL Power UMA Instruments Van’s Aircraft, Inc. Vertical Power Wag-Aero Wicks Aircraft Supply Zaon Flight Systems
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For more information from EAA Sport Aviation’s advertisers, please phone or visit them on the Web, and mention that you saw their ad inEAA Sport Aviation Visit www.EAA.org for a listing of this month’s advertisers. .
Copyright © 2013 by the Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. All rights reserved. EAA SPORT AVIATION (USPS 511-720; ISSN 0038-7835; CPC#40612608) is owned exclusively by the Experimental Aircraft Assn., Inc. and is published monthly at the EAA Aviation Headquarters, 3000 Poberezny Rd., Oshkosh, WI 54902. Periodical Postage paid at Oshkosh, WI 54901 and other post offices. [U.S. membership rates are $40.00.] EAA STATEMENT OF POLICY – Material published in EAA SPORT AVIATION is contributed by EAA members and other interested persons. Opinions expressed in articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. Accuracy of the material is the sole responsibility of the contributor. ADVERTISING – EAA does not guarantee or endorse any product offered through our advertising. We invite constructive criticism and welcome any report of inferior merchandise obtained through our advertising so that corrective measures can be taken. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to EAA SPORT AVIATION, P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086.
www.eaa.org
135
EAA’S LOGBOOK WHERE WE CAME FROM
INSIDE THE ISSUE Highlights from June 1963:
PG. 4
The 128th Air Refueling Squadron in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, bundled up to help move this North American F-86H, which has been in EAA’s possession since 1961 and is currently displayed on the EAA grounds.
PG. 7
Harold Krier, EAA 499, of Wichita, Kansas, designed and built the Krier-Kraft aerobatic biplane in pursuit of America’s hopes for winning the 1964 World Precision Aerobatic Championship.
E
d Lesher of Ann Arbor, Michigan, designed and built the Nomad to demonstrate the potential advantages o a pusher confguration, eaturing an unobstructed cabin view and a swing-over control column. Those who ew the new design ater its completion described the experience as “refreshing.” The unorthodox aircraft design was viewed as an excellent example of ever-progressive EAA member work. EAA Founder Paul Poberezny noted in the Homebuilders Corner that enthusiasm is the key to furthering the development of aviation for the average person. He said that a group effort, whether it is from an EAA chapter, family members, or friends, is necessary to continue to expand general aviation and develop new aircraft. 136 Sport Aviation
June 2013
PG. 18
The PL Laminar, which took first prize for original design at the 1962 EAA fly-in, was dropped from the type certification program and recertified in the amateur-built category. View archived issues of EAA Sport Aviation in the Members Only section at www.Oshkosh365.org .
