Year: 2013

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Steel tube fuselages part #2

Builders,

A while back I wrote a story on the subject of design considerations for risk management in experimental aircraft. It was one of the most popular essays I put together in the 20 months we have been on this site.  If you missed it, you can get a look at it by clicking on this link:

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Steel tube fuselages, “Safe” planes and 250mph accidents

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Part of the above story is examining the structure of fuel dragsters in accidents, as they are something of an extreme example of steel tube aircraft fuselages. I was searching for something else on You Tube and came across this link,

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHfcC6EHnbc

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which is a 500km/hr (300mph) accident in an Australian top fuel dragster. Total damage to the driver was a burned thumb. You may not be planning on having that kind of an accident, but it is visual proof of the value of simple concepts like steel tube fuselages and perhaps the idea of flying in a surplus Nomex jumpsuit or at least not flying in shorts and sandels.

On the way back from CC#26, Grace and I stopped by the giant Summit Racing warehouse in Georgia, exit 216 on I-75, (They are open 7 days a week 9am to 9pm). As I walked in I was surprised to see a restored version of Don Garlits’s “Swamp Rat 13” (the car blown in half in our original story) on display hanging from the ceiling. Hundreds of people a day go through that store, but I doubt that many of them know the significant history of the car or the role it played in the evolution of motor sports.  People drift through racing, aviation, and many other serious human pursuits with little appreciation of the depth of experience precedes, and is still available to them. I find everything a far richer experience when I have some understanding of those who pioneered their arena at a very high level of intensity.

Above, Don Garlits in command of Swap Rat 13. A very different era; Open face helmets and a 2,500 hp hemi in your lap.

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3,000 vs 3,100 cc Corvair engines.

Builders,

A number of builders just getting into Covairs miss the distinction between these two engines. Below I have a number of links to illustrate the difference, but in a nutshell, the 3,100 was the “big bore” option on corvairs between 1998-2008. It has since been largely superseded by the 3,000 cc Corvair with good reason.  There are still a number of 3,100s flying, and there will be for a long time, but very few, if any new ones are being built these days. A number of builders who previously flew 3,100s have elected to build a 3,000 as their next engine. There are reasons for this, and I will detail them below.

Above, the 3,000 cc Corvair that is flying in the Panther prototype. Notably, Dan Weseman successfully put several hundred hard hours on his 3,100cc engine in his “Wicked Cleanex, ” but opted for an all-out 3,000 cc Corvair in his aerobatic Panther. The engine both cary the same 120hp rating, but the internal differences make the 3,000 more durable, and it is far easier to build.

On the surface, the difference between a 3,000 and a 3,100 is simple: the 3,000 has a 92mm bore and the 3,100 has a 94mm bore. But the details go far deeper. The 3100 was originally developed for dune buggy’s in California, and piston/rod cylinder kits were sold by a number of companies in California. I bought one from Bob Sutcliffe in 1998, and his quality was good.  At early Corvair colleges we assembled at least 15 and perhaps as many as 20 of these engines. It was very apparent that the quality of the kits varied a lot. The other issue was that builders who knew nothing about engines spent lots of money on poor kits from California, and them brought them to Colleges and said “I just spent $5,400 with a dune buggy place that has never seen an airplane, and now I would like you to build this for me for free this weekend.”

The main problem with this was several fold, first, ‘free work’ isn’t what colleges are about; second, these engine required a lot of hand work and fitting to even be assembled. Often they had no standardization, and individual pistons and cylinders could only occupy specific locations on engines. The big one was that each of these engines required a custom set of pushrods to be made so the valve geometry was correct. We and others like Mark Langford repeatedly told people that this was not a first engine to build. Most people listened, but there was a certain type of person that just wanted a bigger engine although they were unwilling to learn the required detailed information to understand and assemble it.

Internally, the 3100 had many VW 94mm parts in it. Here are the things about that that I didn’t like: The pistons, even good ones made by Mahle, were cast. The VW wrist pin is 22mm, and the dune buggy mentality was to just bore out the Corvair’s .800″ (20mm) rod to take the larger pin and run it as a steel on steel no bushing floating pin. This worked, but was a poor way to do it. The California companies would occasionally send out a rod with a .060″ wall thickness around the pin and think nothing of it. These engines also had the head gasket cut so large that it broke into the upper head bolt areas. Using the VW pistons made the compression height wrong for the Corvair, requiring custom pushrods to correct it. The Compression on these engines was really too high to safely have Mr. average pilot run car gas in it. Many of the people attracted to them didn’t recognize that Mr. average pilot was a polite name for them. If you would like to read about 3100s that worked well, look at:

KR-2S at 700 Hours – Joe Horton

and:

Zenith 601XL-3100cc Dr. Andy Elliott

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Above is the 3100 of Dan Weseman in the Cleanex. This engine and the one in Chris Smith’s ‘son of cleanex went on to log about 500 hours each. Note the reverse gold oil filter housing on the engine. Have a look at four 3100s taking off in a row from Corvair College#16 in South Carolina, Langford, Weseman, Smith and Horton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK23b-BWptE

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The first Correction actually came from Brady McCormick, Owner of the now defunct Magnificent Machine.  What Brady did was have a new forged piston made in 94mm. This was a good idea, and he incorporated the Corvairs deck height and pin diameter in his design, automatically correcting the geometry. But it still had the head gasket issue, and the piston design Brady chose was a light weight one for high rpm engines. It’s compression was still high, and It could not tolerate having a dish machined in it. Still it was an improvement, and perhaps 15 engines were built this way. Examples would be Jim and Rhonda Wesemans Celebrity; Mike Robitie’s Cleanex engine;( Guest writer: Phil Maxson, flying a 3100cc Corvair in his 601XL ) and several production engines we built like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1ov0DAbe8&feature=plcp

Brady’s pistons are no longer available, and the forging blanks they were made from have been acquired by Clark’s Corvairs as the basis for their USA made forged pistions. (They are only made to .060″ over bore now, and 94mm is a .264″ overbore)

Above Jim and Rhonda at CC#23, with Dan in the cockpit. the engine in this plane is a one of a kind reverse rotation Corvair, a 3100 with Brady pistons. Jim is a life long professional aircraft mechanic by trade, and a very clever guy. He had the experience to create a very unique Corvair for his plane. Most builders are far better off building an engine that is a regular “bolt together” experience. Jim and Dan developed their 5th bearing as a father/son team. Jim and Rhonda make Corvair cowling and baffling kits, but they made their best contribution to experimental aviation back in 1975…by having Dan. 

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The actual permanent solution was having a better forged piston made, and reducing the bore to 92mm. In doing this we went to a different American manufacturer that specialized in pistons with thicker crowns that could have a dish milled in them. Below is a look at the 3,000cc piston top in a bore along with the head is designed to match.

Above, a 92mm/ 3,000cc Corvair set up. This is the final evolution of the big bore Corvair for aircraft use. Note how the head gaskets don’t break into the stud holes. The flat area on the head and piston are referred to as “the Quench”. There come very close to each other, making the charge burn much quicker with much less chance of detonation. The dish in the piston keeps the static compression low, ideal for running on car gas or 100LL.

The 3,000 cc engine is a far better engine for builders to work with. Although I can build any Corvair engine I like, and our 601XL had a very strong 3,100 in it, I didn’t hesitate for a second to switch to a 3,000 cc engine for our Wagabond. People who only know a little bit about engines often think that loosing 100cc is going backward, but in reality I typically de-tuned our 3100 because it had cast pistons and what I considered excessive compression. On the Wagabond’s 3,000 cc engine I am setting up to run at full power for as long as I like without having to retard the timing for car gas operation. Let this serve as a basic introduction to how the 3,000 cc engine has surpassed the 3,100 as the dominant big bore Corvair flight engine. For more 3,000 cc stories follow the links below.-ww

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World’s Strongest 3,000cc Corvair, built by Greg Crouchley

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Panther Prototype Engine 3,000 cc/120 hp to OSH

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3,000cc Engine Running

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Getting Started in 2013, Part #16, 3,000 cc Piston/cylinder kits

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Flying Zenith 750 w/3000cc Corvair, Doug Stevenson, California

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3,000cc/Billet Crank Shortblock, Destination: Waiex

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New 3,000 cc Cleanex, Dale Williams, SC

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11 Days left to sign up for Corvair College #27

Builders,

I actually had not watched a minute of television in a long time, none of my trucks have a radio, and the only thing I have been listening to in the shop are old Neil Young and albums and a very well worn copy of Exile on Main Street. I looked at FB today for the first time in months, and I just found out that we now have a totally non-functional government instead of the usual basically non-functional government. My apologies for not recognizing the exact transition point. If any of you are just now finding yourself disappointed in all of the elected, let me say I admire how long you have held out hope and optimism.

Although I have a degree in Political Science and a pretty sharp knowledge of American history,  I didn’t actually come up with a solution, and didn’t think any of my comments would help, so I just turned the computer off, when back to the shop, made some parts, while listening to 1969’s Everyone knows this is Nowhere. I can assure you that listening to the guitar work on Cowgirl in the Sand in a national crisis may seem irresponsible, but it actually is just as effective at finding a solution as gluing your eyes to cable TV news. (Zero % effective) with the additional benefit of far lower blood pressure and I actually got some useful work accomplished. After 6pm I put in an hour wiring our Wagabond today. If you spent an hour on TV news or talk radio today, but didn’t do anything on your plane, try reversing that tomorrow and see if you feel better when your head hits the pillow tomorrow night.

We are just 11 days away from the sign up for CC#27 closing. The event is November 8-10 in Barnwell SC. I have a long standing policy on never allowing any talk about politics whatsoever at Colleges. If all of the people you know are spending their free time complaining about politics, I can’t fix it, but I can offer you a 72 hour, politics-free oasis. From what I saw in five minutes on FB, that is an oasis that is well worth heading for, even if you have to drive 1,000 miles.-ww

Above, Kevin Purtee and Shelley Tumino receiving the Cherry grove trophy at Barnwell (CC#24) last year. They hosted CC#22 in Texas in 2012, and are hosting CC#28 in February 2014 at San Marcos, TX. Don’t miss signing up for #27, it closes in another nine days, and February is a long way off.

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CC27 – https://corvaircollege.wufoo.com/forms/corvair-college-27-registration/

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The Event also has it’s own Face Book Page:

https://www.facebook.com/CorvairCollege27

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A visit to the insane asylum

Builders,

It is surrounded by a fence and barbed wire. You need the gate code to get in.  The people inside tell themselves that the security is for their own protection, to keep others out, but if you go inside and listen to them, you understand that the chain link fence to keep them inside. Think I am speaking of a  serious mental institution?  I could be, but I am not. I am speaking of our local county airport. Don’t feel safe just because you live far away; I have visited countless small airports all over the country, and I am willing to say that most of them had plenty of nut jobs that needed to be fenced in. Follow my little adventure and understand a bit more about the mentally ill people who can be found at most airports….

Last month, My friend Doug was in town, and our task for the day was a simple one. Doug had heard about a Maule M-4-210 for sale at a municipal airport about 30 miles away. Both Doug and I own gliders, and we have been looking for a potent tow plane. Doug wanted to look at this one because it has a 210HP six cylinder Continental and a constant speed prop, and he could do a lot of things with the plane besides tow. The plane was said to be recently covered, fitted with a fresh engine and reasonably priced. The owner gave us a green light for a through inspection and invited Doug to fly it if he liked. It all sounded simple enough, but we made the mistake of going there on a Saturday, which is the day most of the inmates are at the asylum…..

Above is a photo of B.D. Maule and the prototype M-4. While the factory has been located in Georgia since 1968, This photograph was taken in Michigan were Maule was a long-established aircraft Company.

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Let me start by saying Doug is a very pleasant soft-spoken family guy who would blend right in with the other 50-year-old guys at your local EAA chapter. He never speaks about his credentials unless you pry it out of him, but having known him for a long time I will tell you he is a USAF vet, has most of the ratings you have heard of, is a graduate of a well-known aviation university, is an A&P, and is a skilled pilot in many kinds of antique and sport aircraft. I have watched Doug just smile while a private pilot lectured him on flying. What makes this really funny is what Doug has done for a living for the last 20 years: He has flown 9,000+ hours, mostly in single engine aircraft, in the worlds ‘hot spots’, where getting shot down and killed might be preferable to being taken into the ‘care’ of the locals.  He only vaguely mentions where work is, and he has never mentioned who he works for. (I assume it is the good guys because the FBI agent who questioned me as a security reference said so.)

We did a 45 minute inspection on the plane. In that length of time, a large number of inmates came by to tell us things. It would be inaccurate to say they came over to speak with us, because I didn’t detect that any of the listened to a word we said. I want to be accurate, and not imply that every thing people said to us was crazy. Out of 8 or 10 people, one guy came over just to ask what time it was. He seemed normal. Everyone else had something wrong with them. Below, in Red, are a sampling of things that were said to us. S.E Hinton famously wrote “Even the most primitive societies have an innate respect for the insane” abiding by this, we just nodded our heads when they spoke. My comments in Italics are just my thoughts, I didn’t really engage any of these people.

Guy #1 “Maule was a fine southern gentleman. he really showed them Yankees how to build a plane”

Reality: B.D. Maule was born in Ohio. He lived most of his life in Pennsylvania and Michigan. His aircraft company was started in Michigan, and he did not set foot in Georgia until he was 57 years old.

Guy #2 ” Every Maule ever built was made in Georgia”

Reality: The 1966 model we were looking at was made on the assembly line in Michigan. It said so on the aircraft’s data plate.

Guy #3 “If you want to tow gliders, you have to put a set of huge steel cables from the firewall to the tail post to take the load, otherwise you will pull the steel tube fuselage in half. I know this, I worked on a lot of tow planes (probably not true), and I judged airplanes at Sun n Fun for 15 years” (sadly, I know this to be factual.)

Reality: Gliders have a weak link in the rope so that you can’t break anything while towing. The breaking strength of the link varies with the weight of the glider, but it us just a few hundred pounds at most. The line it self is a piece of line that looks too light to hang clothes on. A single 1/16″ welding rod has greater tensile strength. The only cable that runs forward is the release cable that opens the hook, it is made of very fine cable and it is never under tension.

Guy #4 “That starter is brand new. The reason why it isn’t working is that you have the jumper cables on wrong”

Reality: Between us Doug and I have 48 years of being an A&P. The starter was not new, It was freshly spray painted, but this looked like it was done in place. It was a 90 degree drive style, which can cost thousands of dollars if you actually buy a new one. This one had a broken internal clutch spring. The guy making the claim was the plane owner, who was neither a pilot nor a mechanic, but felt his general expertise covered both subjects.

Guy#5 “The engine was overhauled by the skydivers on the other end of the field. When they were all done, some other guy signed it off. They do great work even though they are not mechanics. You don’t need to be to work on airplane engines, they are pretty simple”

Reality: This aircraft is type certified, and you most certainly need to be a mechanic or work directly under ones’ supervision to do anything substantial on such a plane. If you gave me a choice between having your average weed-smoking skydiver and Helen Keller work on my aircraft engine, I would choose Ms. Keller, even though she is deceased.

Guy#6 “The yoke only went about half way to the right because the avionics guys put the vacuum filter on wrong and the control column ran into it, it took a long time to figure out, but it wasn’t a big deal because they always put more control travel in these planes than you really need.”

Reality: the type certificate data sheet for every certified aircraft specifically states the exact control deflections. You are required to have every bit of it available. Good homebuilt aircraft plans also specify these exact figures.

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Things to take away from this story:

1)  There is no ‘safe’ airport. Don’t think for a moment that because it happened in the south that you are safe because you live elsewhere. I have had hours like this at airports in every part of this country. Make your shop ‘safe’ from idiots. You wouldn’t let the biggest idiot at your local airport into your home, but if you read stupid things from unqualified people on the internet, you are essentially inviting the biggest idiot on the planet to come and work on your plane. Think that over. At least 50% of major mistakes on home builts originate as ideas from the net proposed by people the builder never met.

2) You will never help these people, do not engage them or try to speak with them. You are far better off pretending you don’t speak English. If they overheard you, then try quietly telling them that you are on an undercover assignment for the FAA. If they offer to help you with anything, ask them to hand you a tool, and then tell them that you used to have highly contagious “Genital Leprosy” , but the CDC in Atlanta is pretty sure you are in remission right now.

3) If you accept the premise that you can learn a lot and get smarter by hanging out with smart and clever people, than you must also accept the WW corollary that “Stupidity is a Contagion” Do not spend any time with these people, do not socialize, hang out with nor have a single thing to do with them. I directly attribute my 2001 accident to allowing my standards of what I did in aviation and who I did it with to be eroded slowly by being around idiots.

4) Your home built is a clean state. It isn’t polluted by the misguided effort of every previous owner who opted to have the cheapest person work on it rather than the best. Be glad you are building your own pure plane. If you let idiots talk you into incorporating stupid things into your project, then you might as well just go out and buy the worst used plane, owned by the biggest idiot at your airport. Keep your plane a thoroughbred.

5) Your are a clean slate. If you don’t know how to fly nor build a plane or an engine, Good. Then we can get you started right, and you will not have to undo any bad habits or false ideas. Succeeding in this game is all about picking the right people to learn from, developing good judgment, and then exercising it. You are not going to accomplish any of these things by spending time with the inmates at your local asylum, so just stay far away from them.

6) There are many great people in aviation, and over time you can make life long friends with many of them. Do not accept lesser quality in place of real aviators of skill, ethics and judgment. We have fun at Colleges because I have made sure we do not welcome nor tolerate idiots and fools. The definitions of those two words don’t have anything to do with how much a person knows about planes or flying. It has everything to do with character, and as a thoroughbred, even a green one, you deserve quality company. If you have already encountered your quota of fools, change your setting and find better people.

-ww

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Corvair vs O-200…. weight comparison

Builders,

A Zenith 701 builder that I spoke with at the open house wrote me a short note asking some questions about the weight comparison between these two engines. This is something I have directly compared, something we have very good data on, and some valid and useful commentary.

For people with short attention spans, I will cut to the chase and say that a modern Corvair, as we teach people to build them, with electric start and a charging system, weighs the same installed as a standard O-200 Continental. You can see in the photo below that I have weighed, thrust tested and dyno run them side by side personally. Many people will comment on the subject of engine output and weight on power plants they have never laid a hand on, far less run on a dyno. Most of the “evidence” people present is well intentioned, but erroneous just the same. Bad data, presented with good intentions or malicious ones, is still bad data. The numbers here come from personal measurement, intentionally done in public for people to see.

“More Lies are told in experimental aviation than in singles bars” is a saying I made up 15 years ago to illustrate the loose association with truth that many people in our field have. The most common fib told in home building is under  quoting how much something weighs. (This is ironic, because compared to numbers like HP output, true stall peed, or ultimate G strength, the weight of anything is a very simple matter to check, but very few people ever do.) Many people I quick to point the finger at salesmen, but let me also say that I have done the weight and balance on something like 100 homebuilt aircraft, and only found 10% of the owners were remotely telling the truth on their W&B sheet. Many of these people told their buddies their plane was exactly 100 pounds lighter than is was. Frequently they repeated it often enough that they forgot they made it up, and could have passed a polygraph test swearing to it. Take this away: Don’t believe anything you hear about weights unless you are listening to the guy who did it himself, who has photo documentation of him doing it. If you would like to read a funny story about how reality has a hard time competing with fantasy, take a moment to read this link:

Unicorns vs Ponies.

On the left above is the Continental O-200 as removed from a 1959 Cessna 150. This engine is considered the standard  against which all other 100hp class engines are measured. It is a direct drive 4-stroke, 4-cylinder engine of  200cid. It carries a horsepower rating of 100 at 2,750rpm. I have read that Continental produced about 50,000  O-200s. On the right is a 170cid Corvair engine. For size comparison, the O-200 is 32″ wide without the baffling.  The Corvair is 28″ wide.

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The caption in italics above is actually nine years old from our main page flycorvair.com. It is from a long test series on dyno and thrust testing the O-200. You can read the full story at this link: http://www.flycorvair.com/thrust.html . The picture above shows that a Corvair is smaller physically than an O-200. Let me also offer that I know a bit about Continentals and I like them. Graces Taylorcraft has an STC’ed C-85-12 in it, an engine that is nearly Identical to an O-200 in physical size and weight. Keep in mind that when people compare engine weights on the net, very few of these people have owned both of the engines they are commenting on, and in many cases, the guy offering the data has owned neither. It doesn’t make then bad nor evil, it just means their data on this subject probably isn’t good.

What about the often quoted 188 pound weight for an O-200? That is erroneous, as it does not include the starter, mags, plugs, carb, oil, or many other items it takes to run the engine. The data was actually presented that way so if a manufacturer chose Eisman mags instead of Bendix, he could do a weight and balance engineering solution on the engine. The 188 number was never meant to be a comparison all up weight.

What about the new light weight O-200? Yes, it is lighter than a traditional model, by as much as 20 pounds. But this engine, which Continental rep. Kim Winner brought to the Zenith open house, sells for $20,000. It is new, and they have made very few of them, and you are not likey to come across one for sale used for another 20 years. Many of the parts in it can not be used on older engines. Most builders are taking about a Corvair they could build on a $8500 budget vs a traditional O-200 taken from a Cessna 150 for roughly the same money. If you want to spend $20K, I can build you a Corvair that is far lighter than the lightest O-200 ever made. Given $8,000 or $10,000 just to spend on weight reduction, much could be accomplished, but that isn’t an engine most people are considering, and neither is the new light weight O-200.

Is an O-200 ‘Approved’ for a 701 but not a Corvair? You can call Zenith and speak with Roger or Sebastien, and I am sure that they would advise any 701 builder to first consider lighter engines. But they would also tell you that both engines have powered 701s before. We bought our 701 test bed kit directly from the factory in 2005 and completed it in 2007.  Sebastien sold it to us to test the concept after seeing the success of our 601/Corvair program. The 701 worked. we made no attempt to lighten the Corvair for it, and the plane weighed 677 pounds ready to fly. (if that didn’t sound very light compared to other numbers you have read on the net, go back and read Unicorns vs Ponies again.) It did not need any ballast whatsoever to get into the CG envelope. On this last point, the Corvair has a distinct advantage over the O-200; The Corvair is ‘flat’ on the back, and can be pulled right back to the firewall without creating a maintenance issue. An O-200 has the mags and wires sticking out the back, and they require several more inches of clearance to be removed without the requirement of pulling the engine off the mount. Although the Corvair and the O-200 effectively weigh the same, you can’t get the O-200’s CG nearly as close to the firewall. It may require ballast just to get into the front of the CG range.

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Above, Our test bed Corvair powered 701 in the Zenith booth at Sun n Fun 2010.

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I have heard that a heavy engine can break the 701 nose gear, truth? Yes, a very heavy engine could be a factor, but when we built our 701 I studied this closely, and a far bigger issue was people flying the plane forward of the published CG envelope. One guy had tried a Geo engine with a belt drive on a 701. This was actually lighter than a Corvair, but the engine layout was very long, and it had to be positioned well forward to clear items from the firewall end of the engine. The result was I guy flying around 2″ ahead of the forward CG limit. The plane could be landed smoothly by rolling it on at 60 mph, but that wasn’t the point of the 701. When the Geo guy tried landing slow and pitched the nose up, he found out that planes that are ahead of the forward CG limit drop their nose like a rock at high angle of attack. This is the effect that harms the plane. It is actually a CG issue, not a weight driven one. Poor pilot technique is another big factor. Any guy willing to get a little time in type training and fly within the published CG range has little to worry about.

What about reasonable cost Corvair modifications to reduce weight? A 3,000 cc Corvair actually weigh 7 pounds less than standard ones becase the bigger engine uses a lighter aftermarket cylinder set. A billet crank is nearly 4 pounds lighter than a stock one. A welded pan is a pound lighter than a billet one., etc. There is a list of parts than can get 15 pounds off a Corvair, but most builders find the engine to be acceptably light in the basic form. People frequently ask about putting aluminum cylinders on Corvairs. I have been working with Corvairs for 25 years, people have been talking about these for at least 12 years, and yet no one has ever taken a set flying. I have good reason to doubt the would work.  If some one tries to talk you into anything that has never flown, and the national expert doubts will work, realize they want you to be a guinea pig.  They sell down at the pet store for $20, and if your life is worth more than that, don’t be anyone’s Guinea pig.

Last Comment of weights: Two people in the alternative engine game, myself and Robert Helms, president of UL power, never hesitate to tell the truth about how much our respective engines weigh. Robert has nothing to loose by doing so; He has the lightest engine on the market, he doesn’t need to embellish the facts. In my case I don’t have anything to gain by under reporting the weight of a Corvair. People choose the Corvair because it is affordable, smooth, a learning experience, well supported, made in America and a multitude of other reasons. It has the features above, while having an acceptable level of weight for a broad variety of aircraft. If I fibbed about the weight of the engine I wouldn’t attract any significant amount of new builders, but it would undermine the trust and rapport with builders we already have in place.-ww.

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Steve Williamson Pietenpol at 60 hrs., SoCal.

Builders,

We had previously featured Steve Williamson’s Piet in this story:

New Pietenpol, EAA #1279, French Valley CA

Steve mailed us the update letter and photos below:

“Hi William,

Just to update you on our Chapter 1279 Pietenpol, we have more than 60  hours on the airplane since its first flight on January 5 of this year.   The Corvair engine is performing flawlessly (after some early glitches you  already know about).

We were unable to make the West Coast Pietenpol fly-in at Hollister in June  due to a death in my family.  But we did put the airplane on display for  the first time last weekend at the Flying Circus event at Flabob Airport in  Riverside.  I must say it looked right at home among the beautiful examples  of antique airplanes and it attracted a lot of attention from the crowd of  admirers.  We had a local paint shop do a color match of the blue Poly  Fiber paint on the fuselage and create a high gloss paint for the aluminum  cowling.  That, along with the powder coated “Air Camper” valve covers  really made the airplane stand out.  (See photos below)

Thank you for all the support and encouragement you gave us in the  building of our Corvair engine.

All the best,

Steve Williamson President EAA 1279, French Valley CA.”

 
 
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Corvair Motor Mount for Bearhawk LSA

Builders:

Below are photos from my road trip to meet with Bearhawk designer Bob Barrows. The result is that we now have a Corvair to Bearhawk LSA mount.  While many alternative engine people apply their engine to aircraft against the designer’s wishes, I have never promoted such combinations. It is far better to work with the designer. Many designers have specific reasons why some alternative engines are a poor match for their airframes. Engine people who ignore these points are not doing any builder a favor by selling such engines to builders. They are either driven by the zealous belief that their engine is the answer to every need, or they are motivated by greed, and neither of these is a good reason for a builder to work on such a combination.

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Our work with Bob on his airframe design exemplifies the opposite approach. We spoke of the combination several times over the past few years, but it was not until this year that Bob chose to closely study the combination. As I mentioned in a previous story, he is Mr. Old School and conservative, and earning his evaluation meant far more to me than having a half dozen company salesmen elect to make Corvairs an option for their builders.

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Above, a look at the result. This is a factory built, deluxe Bearhawk LSA fuselage with our Corvair, sitting on the mount that Bob and I worked out in a day’s effort. The thrust line is only 1″ lower than standard to clear the Corvair’s starter. Bob calculated 1 degree down thrust, and set the engine straight in the fuselage. The engine’s datum line is 10.625″ ahead of the firewall. We set it up to accommodate our 2901S gold oil filter housing and a 2950 rear alternator. The arrangement actually uses our standard intake 3601S and the same exhaust that fits a Zenith, our 3901A. This engine has an MA3 carb on it. It is in a very good position with respect to gravity fuel flow and keeping it above the lower longerons for safety.

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When we write a story, I type the words, but Grace puts all the pictures in place, because I am a moron around computers. I can move them from one spot to another, but I am terrible at downloading them from any of our cameras. As a consequence, I ask Grace to start the storyboard by putting in the pictures.  While we have 70 full camera cards of pictures, at least 1/3 of the images are of the Dog, and Grace likes to insert “Gratuitous Dog Photo” in every story.  Above, Scoob E at CC #26.  Dan Glaze taught me the phrase “Happy Wife, Happy Life”. Words of wisdom.

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We had to drive away from our place in Florida at 6:30 a.m. in order to make it all the way to northern Georgia by 2 p.m. Above is the dog’s enthusiastic response. Grace felt much the same way, pointing out that “I will get to see Bob at CC #27 shortly, have fun, tell Bob we say hello.” Grace and Scoob E were real troopers on the 2,400 miles to CC #26 in Mexico, so they took a pass on this one.

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Above, Bob working on the same plane, but with a Continental case. Bob’s base engine for the design is the small Continental. He used this opportunity to check his base mount on a production fuselage, and then we did the Corvair mount. Bob is a hardcore builder, and quickly shaped all the tubes in his mount. We tacked them with my 220V fine wire MIG welder. The alignment was checked many times in the process using a variety of levels and plumb bobs.

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Above is the Corvair mount in process. The yellow string is the airplane’s thrust line, that is why it is offset in the main bearing bore of a spare case. The basic mount is built on one of our standard trays, part number 4202.

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Above, the top view. The Corvair is 28″ wide, several inches narrower than a Continental. The Bearhawk LSA is 31″ wide. This is about 10″ wider than a J-3 cub.  At first, the number sounds almost too big, but after we made the mount, Bob took me out flying in the plane, and everything seemed just right. At first Bob just said I should go fly it myself, a great compliment I am smart enough not to accept. Although the plane flew very well with no bad habits and struck me as easy to fly, I still had a vision of becoming instantly famous in the EAA as “The Jackass who ground looped Bob Barrow’s plane.” I was very happy to let Bob do the TO and landing and the majority of the flight. The plane was the very pleasant combination of light on the controls but with positive stability on all axes.

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Above, Bob on the left with his builder Rolly. He was very helpful and a great sport about letting us have full run of his hangar.

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After the work on the mount was done at noon on day two, Bob packed up and flew back to his home base in Virginia. Instead of a long ride directly back to Florida, I opted to drive over and see my sister Alison and her husband Col. Nerges at their place in Charleston, S.C.  A number of builders met John and Alison at CC #24 in Barnwell last year. Above, John and I goofing around on the 3rd floor deck of their super-cool home, which is right on Charleston harbor. If you look closely you can see the Ravenel bridge in the distance. No one who is 50+ really looks good in a close-up, but it is always great to spend a few hours with family.

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Funny Suburban story. Although we have just had our new ride a few weeks, it has already logged 3,850 miles on road trips. It gets about 12-13 mpg towing the trailer and is very comfortable. Every friend of ours who works in aviation thought it was neat that Northrop-Grumman was the previous owner. Many of them who rode in it commented that it even smelled a little bit like aircraft. Our friend Paul Salter, who works at NAS Jacksonville, specifically said that it “really smelled a lot like a P-3 or an EA-6B” inside. I was kind of convinced that it was the black rubber floor mats in the Florida sun. If you work on planes for 25 years, you even learn to love the way they smell.  Just this morning when I was doing a detailed clean up, I found the source. In the back, in the pocket where the 3rd seat would have been mounted, was roughly 4 ounces of Jet Fuel. In the photo above I am sopping it up with paper towels. (There was enough that I was afraid to let the Shop-vac inhale it.) Grace got a big laugh when I showed her and she said “I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning.” Happy wife, happy life …-ww.

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Predictions of “The Magnificent Stick”

Builders,

Let me introduce a mysterious character known to his friends simply as “The Magnificent Stick.” He is a very interesting combination of being outside the main stream of our industry, and yet he is totally connected by an extensively cultivated network of insider friends, contacts, paid informants, malcontents and moles. If you need to know something, just ask; but beware, information comes with a price. He may try to recruit you to his shadowy army of intelligence gathering. I share his photo below after asking his permission. He gave his ok to any photo taken before 2000, as he has since had work done that defeats facial recognition software. He changes his look often, and I have had a minute long conversation with a guy in the booth at Oshkosh only to have the person I am addressing say “William, wake up, it’s me, The Stick.”

If you are a Corvair guy, you may have met him, but probably don’t know it. If you met him twice, but a year apart, you probably didn’t understand it was the same guy. If you are reading this, and you think you may know who he is, please do not e-mail your guess, and certainly don’t write in to any website and identify yourself as potentially being able to identify him. It’s not a good idea. When you read the stuff he has given me permission to leak, you will understand why he has a long list of cranky people trying to track down a name he uses on his drivers license.  If you are good at keeping secrets, and would like a chance to meet him in person, I have word that he will be at Corvair College #27. Your only question will be which one of the other builders is he?

Here is an example of the depth of information that The Stick has in his possession: Last week, I wrote a story complaining about “J-Mac Mcllean” the editor in chief of EAA publications. Shortly afterward the shop phone rings. The caller ID has a very strange number with the prefix “868” (I later find out this is for Trinadad in the West Indies). It is the Stick calling. When I asked where he was, he just said “Pool side at the Hilton, but that isn’t important now.” He then asked if I wanted to know Mcllean’s exact salary from the EAA.

me: “Sure. “

TMS: “He is paid $170,000 annually, and has a $40,000 per year pre-approved expense account”

me: “Wow.”

TMS: “Would you like to know what AD was missed on his last annual? His tax rate? shoe size?

me: “Maybe just knowing how much he is paid to write stories about French turboprops is enough”

TMS: “OK, but have you heard that the Chinese government has been making offers on buying Piper Aircraft? Did you hear they are working on Lancair at the same time?”

me: “Really?”

TMS “Sad but true. Gotta go, my babe is here with a pitcher of martinis.”

Blast from the past, Circa 1999: The magnificent Stick stands with Grace and myself in front of our Pietenpol by our old hangar at the Spruce Creek fly-in. -ww

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SPA Panther will be at CC#27, Nov. 8-10, Barnwell SC.

Builders:

Dan and Rachel Weseman, well known to Corvair builders, have confirmed that they are bringing the Panther and their family to CC#27.  While thousands of people have seen the Panther in person on display at Sun N Fun and Oshkosh, and have the extensive films of the plane flying aerobatics on their site and you tube, I will assure you that there is nothing like seeing this plane in action, in person, right from the side of the runway. Builders attending Barnwell will be afforded this, as well as a chance to examine the plane closely, and ask Dan questions in a far more focused and productive setting than Oshkosh. Airventure is fun, but it can not hold a candle to a college when it comes to learning in depth information.

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They will also be at the College in their traditional role supporting Corvair engine building. They offer the new Billet Cranks #1001B, as well as the full processing on GM 8409 cranks, The group #2950 rear alternator and the #3000 Weseman bearings. Contact Rachel for more availability information on these items, especially if you are heading to the College.

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We have several Panther builders already signed up for CC#27 who are coming to work on the Corvairs that will power their Panthers. These guys are planning on being there for the full event and getting the most out of it. In addition to these builders, Rachel has arranged with PF Beck, our local host, to have potential Panther builders stop by and get a look at the plane in person when it is in their neighborhood.  To my mind, these same people will be able to a look at a first class Corvair College in action, and we have a very good chance of welcoming them aboard as fellow Corvair builders at the next College. If you know someone interested in getting a look at the Panther encourage them to check out this link to The panther page:

http://flypanther.net/

For Builders who would like to read more on the plane, the main page is:

http://flywithspa.com/panther.html

Above, Paul Dye, Editor in Chief of Kitplanes magazine, made the pilgrimage to Florida for a test fight in the Panther. He was totally impressed. He gave the plane a full check out, which will appear in a future issue of his magazine. Grace and I also had a chance to spend some time with him, and I found him to be a real homebuilder, and a surprisingly knowledgeable guy on many facets of our branch of aviation, very interested in getting to meet homebuilders in the field . He had nothing but positive things to say about his first experience flying behind a Corvair.

Having Paul Dye as the Editor of Kitplanes is very encouraging in an era where the Editor of EAA publications is more interested in the multi-million dollar French TBM-850 turboprop than any new homebuilt. Like most homebuilders, I have traditionally found the EAA’s publications as my primary source of printed information. Thirty minutes with an editor who came across the country to personally fly a real homebuilt design with an affordable engine was all it took for me to understand that we are far more likely to find our kind of information in Kitplanes these days.-ww.

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Bearhawk LSA, Corvair motor mount in development

Builders,

I will be out of the shop Monday and part of Tuesday. I am headed to North East Georgia where Bob Barrows and I are meeting at the shop of one of his Bearhawk LSA builders. I am bringing up a Complete dressed out Corvair engine and enough equipment to develop a Corvair/Bearhawk LSA mount.  While theoretically this could be done other ways, Bob is old school, and there is nothing like having all the elements in one place, even if the logistics require a little work.  It is a 6 hour drive for me to get there, and Bob is flying the LSA prototype down from his airfield in Virginia, about 3.5 hours airborne.  His plane has 30 gallon tanks, and his trip will be non stop on less than half of that.

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Above, a small photo of the Bearkawk LSA. At a glance, it looks like many traditional aircraft, but in person it is easy to see that it is nearly 10″ wider than a J-3 and has all metal wings with a modern airfoil and single strut bracing. Bob is bringing this aircraft to display at CC#27 at Barnwell SC in November.

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I will have pictures and more stories upon my return.  I will be back to cover email on Tuesday night, and will be back in the shop and at the regular phone on Wednesday.-ww