Friends,
A few comments on the subject of Unicorns vs Ponies:
Old School EAA member Dan Branstrom writes:
“Great writing! Over the years, unfortunately, in the airframe aspect of unicorns, there have been many designs debuting at Oshkosh that represent the wings of unicorns. The most spectacular being the BD-5, which garnered thousands of orders, and shipped hundreds of kits, minus an engine before going belly up. It is a sexy plane, and it was supposed to go fast on little hp. Read the sad story under “Bede BD-5″ in Wikipedia. Yes, there’s a number flying,but they’re modified substantially from the original, and way too many pilots died along the way. You can not only lose money and time on unicorns, but your life.-Dan”
Corvair/Merlin on floats, builder and flyer Jeff Moores of Canada writes:
“Very smartly done, William. That was humourous, insightful, and sadly true. Many would-be builders waste too much money on unicorns. I am very pleased with my WW Corvair Pony!!-Jeff.”
Builder Harold Bickford writes:
“Hi William,
It looks to me like the internet guy aka TB is thinking about automotive or race applications.and high rpm levels. Nonetheless his commentary is only speculation. If he would take the time to read the SAE papers from Chevrolet specific to the Corvair he might better understand why and how Ed Cole and company designed the engine and car the way they did. Or he could read what the tuners of the day did and why. In either case they did the work (engineering and/or tuning) and it was for automotive and not aero applications. And they did “find” the 15-20 HP with far simpler changes than this fellow is imagining but again it is an automotive application.
As we know, Bernard Pietenpol realized the engine had potential for aircraft use and pursued that path. You and your cohorts have gone from there and developed a good 100 HP engine based on the Corvair. When folks ask why I’ve chosen to use a Corvair for the Piet the first question to them is this: what do they know about the Corvair? Almost immediately they want to change the subject. It may not be fun for them but does provide a great opportunity to have a factual rather than speculative understanding of how and why the Corvair is a good choice for a variety of aircraft. -Harold”
Waiex/120 hp Corvair builder Greg Crouchley writes:
“Excellent post! Seems that 1 unicorn converts nicely into 100-120 ponies. Looking forward to 24- Greg”
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