Month: February 2014

Builders,

I often complain about disinformation on internet discussion groups, but I don’t often provide examples. Well, in the interest of humor, maybe we should look at a few…..

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The internet isn’t new anymore, and you would think that by now most people writing to discussion groups would know their comments will have a very long shelf life, and this equally applies if they are brilliant or if they are Bull.

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Actually, I suspect many of the people on these groups know this, and that it why the don’t use their names. Yesterdays “Flyboy26” who said something stupid becomes “Conexpert21” with a clean history tomorrow.

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OK, here is one of my favorites: Couple of years ago on a Pietenpol discussion group guy gets on and says he is going to use a Corvair, (Mind you, the Corvair is the designer, Bernard Pietenpol’s choice for the airframe.) He immediately  gets a negative reaction from Continental fans. Below is a sample:

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“Car engines are not designed to operate anywhere near full power for more than a few seconds at a time, whereas an aircraft engine must be capable of full power continuously.  That’s why Corvairs require such little tricks as painting the pushrod tubes white to try to keep the oil down to a manageable temperature.  Putting that engine in an airplane is asking it to do something it was simply not designed to do.  Now the Corvair guys are adding a 5th main bearing (at significant expense, negating the supposed cost advantage of using a car engine to begin with) to handle the loads that a propeller puts on the crankshaft.  There have been numerous cases of crankshafts breaking in Corvairs in aircraft, although I don’t know of any in a Pietenpol, other than Shad Bell’s. Car engines (other than the Model A) also tend to get their power at higher RPMs than are useful for driving propellers.  Props really loose efficiency when the tips start going supersonic (to say nothing of being VERY noisy – ever hear a T-6 takeoff?) and with the size props used on planes of our size that happens at about 2500 RPM.  Power generated at speeds faster than that is not very useful and there needs to be substantial torque in the 2000 – 2500 RPM range.  That’s why so many auto engine conversions require gearing to reduce the propeller speed, which adds cost, weight and complexity, and hurts reliablity.”

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OK, where do we start? – We don’t run the engine at it’s automotive power setting nor rpm limit-Painting the pushrod tubes is to protect the O-rings, has nothing to do with oil temps- It wasn’t designed as an airplane engine, that is why we converted it into one – Dan’s bearing is $1,050  and building a cheap engine wasn’t a goal, building a good one is. – Two Piets with no radius on the grind broke a crank , no damage to either plane. More than 100 Corvair Piets have flown, less than 10 have a 5th bearing.- I have well documented examples of dramatic performance increases with Corvairs and 68″ props over small Continentals with 72″ props.- 2500rpm on a 72″ prop at 60mph is barely above .7 mach at the tip. All direct drive certified engines since WWII are either 2700 or 2800 rpm rated, often with props well over 72″ in diameter. Steve Wittman disproved the slow prop myth with his Buttercup…in 1937. (He used a 64″ prop at 3,400 rpm on a plane that flew slower than a Piet) – you only need torque at 2000-2500 rpm if you have to run it at that rpm, and you would only do this if it is a pre-war design with old metallurgy like cotter-pined rod nuts.

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OK, why am I bringing this up? First, because if anyone Googles “Pietenpol Corvair” that top quote comes up as if it was written yesterday. I write a lot about how builders are subject to continuous disinformation in the guise of helpful advice. If that is what they hear all the time, and they have not see a Corvair fly a Pietenpol in person, ‘theory’ like this seems real.

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The same list has lots of stories about affordable Continental engines that are  available with accessories for $6000, and in some cases it is said these engines are “Zero timed”.  What these people don’t understand is that the original manufactured is the only person allowed to claim “Zero timed.” Below, from the Continental website:

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“Because it’s an exact science.

Continental produces a rebuilt engine to factory-new engine specifications, and we are the only facility authorized by the FAA to build zero-time Continental Rebuilt Engines.”

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And yes, it’s in the regs: “This only applies to the original engine manufacturer and may not be represented by field overhaulers.”

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 You can’t call up Continental in Mobile AL, and get a Zero time C-85 for $6K. (Small problem, they have not made a C-85 in 44 years and do not offer Zero time ones) It is worth noting that the 85 has a nearly identical parts count to a 0-200, and a zero time version of the latter is well over $18K…if you already own a good core.

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Let’s just say that a builder doesn’t know the difference between the FAA terms, Zero time, Overhaul to new limits, and overhaul to service limits. The last is not even vaguely comparable in quality or lifespan compared to the first, and I do not believe that there is a single C-85 for sale in the country with an actual legal logbook with an entry that that meets even the definition of overhauled to service limits, with the yellow tags and the accessories for $6k. Not even close. Grace’s Taylorcraft has a C-85 engine in it, and the parts alone to overhaul it correctly cost $8800 in 1999, and this did not include buying the engine nor any labor,  just the parts to overhaul it.

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The only C-85 you will find for $6K is one made of well used parts and a fresh paint job. That isn’t “Zero timed”.  The key words are “experimental only” and “no logs” when you see these engines for sale. That means they contain parts that are not legal for use on Certified planes. Such an engine will never make TBO, and if you are unlucky, it will break. When it does, you will then find out that many aircraft shops and mechanics will not touch your $6K engine. Ask any person who works in a FAA licensed repair station about having out of spec parts in the shop. When I ran the MT propeller repair station the FAA inspectors required all out of spec parts to be marked with a stamped X and kept in a locked room for condemned parts that only the director had keys to. If you have out of spec parts around, they might get into certified engines, and then the repair station gets it’s ticket pulled. That is why professional shops don’t work on junk.

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I like Continentals, and have a lot of time flying behind them. Their primary quality is reliability. but you only access this quality by spending top dollar to keep the engine the way that it was from the factory.  Anyone who thinks that you can have the reliability of a certified motor when you buy one that is advertised as “no logs” or “experimental only” is on drugs. You don’t get to have it both ways.   Continental’s reputation was not built on engines made of junk and spray painted. If the engine was just as reliable with out of spec parts, then they wouldn’t be out of spec would they?

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There are always people who argue that they have to have “a reliable certified engine” and that they will not fly auto engines. Then the first thing they do is go out and look for the cheapest collection of parts bolted together that are masquerading as a “certified”  engine. That behavior isn’t rational, but people who are compulsively cheap often are satisfied with the illusion of reliability instead of the real thing.

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Want to know who isn’t fooled by this? Our old friends Physics, Chemistry and Gravity. If the FAA considers the engine un-airworthy in a certified plane, it is just as un-airworthy in an experimental one. Physics, Chemistry and Gravity don’t care if the plane was built in a factory or your garage.  An engine built of out of spec parts doesn’t magically become airworthy when it is bolted on an experimental.

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So now, when you read something like this actual quote from the C-150 discussion group:

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“I have a recommendation for an excellent shop in Canada, with whom I’ve worked for 20 years. My O-200 was zero’d there few years ago, and I’m very happy with it. PM me if you like.

Pilot DAR”

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That the “pilot DAR” doesn’t know what he is speaking about, because you can’t get a zero timed Continental from anywhere but the factory, and the factory is 1,400 miles south of the Canadian border.

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There is some realistic advise on the net, for example the comment below:

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“You don’t really know until you open the engine up; a bum crankshaft can add thousands to the overhaul cost.  Figure on a bare minimum of $12,000 up to slightly over $20,000 depending on what you are doing and what comes up.  Remember the accessories are part of the cost and the old ones can be mostly good or all junk.”

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If you are building a Corvair and looked at Dan’s $2,200 new billet crankshaft and thought it is a good value, you are right. If someone thought that was expensive, they better not buy a worn out, undersized or previously prop struck Continental, because their new cranks cost a lot more than that, and don’t forget, they will have spent $6,000 on their ‘core’ engine, not the Corvair average of $200.

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Below is an advertisement for Don George, a respected, but fair priced FAA overhaul shop in central Florida. Note the fine print that says the core parts from the engine you already own must be reusable. If you had an engine with an “experimental only” crank in it, they would not accept it, and the price would be even higher:

Overhaul    Your Engines Price includes fuel system, magnetos, starter, new harness and spark plugs. Price is contingent on repairable crankcase, crankshaft and cylinders and    subject to applicable air worthiness directives and service bulletins.

O-200-A  (New Cylinders)			$15,818

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I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I think the internet is all bad. After years of having damage done by bull stories on the internet to my work with the Corvair, my new approach is to directly point out disinformation in hopes of getting people to recognize this type of story comes from people who are not an asset to home building.

Builders:

I would like to share stories of four men I met in aviation. One of them is still with us, three are gone now. They did not know each other, but I have spent some time with all of them. I address many people as ‘friend,’ and to any observer I have treated these men as friends. But there is an important distinction at work here: ‘Friends’ is a term implying that both parties are equals. In this case, we are not equals, these men are of a different breed and experience, and humility forbids me from elevating myself to their level. These men are all part of “The Greatest Generation.”

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I ask myself, “What challenge have I been asked to rise to? ” Nothing significant really. But these men arrived in their teenage years to meet a global crisis. Few words captured their situation better than Winston Churchill’s speech at the darkest moment of WWII, the collapse of France:

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“But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.”

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He was speaking for men of the British Empire, but as the war expanded it drew in American youth with the exact same stakes, nothing short of Civilization as people understood it, was on the table, and in that hour, the odds did not look good. Into this storm, four young American men went.  These four survived what 405,399 others did not. They paid a price for it. We can look back 70 years, consider their deeds and the lives they lead since, and honestly conclude that they gave our Country it’s finest hour.

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Steve Megill, was a great guy who came to many of the early Corvair Colleges and was a regular at out Spruce Creek and Edgewater hangars. He built a very nice Pietenpol and put his Corvair on it. He lived in central Florida, but he was a born and bred New Jersey guy in the best sense. He built 8 home builts and owned numerous certified planes. He was not made out of money, he was just a hard worker and an efficient guy.  He was just about deaf, and he couldn’t hear anyone on the phone. He would often call up, just say into the phone “I am looking forward to seeing you guys tomorrow!” even as I tried to in vain to say “IT”S 5 DAYS TO OSHKOSH STEVE”. He would come over anyway, and even if we were super busy, we would gladly have him around anyway.

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Steve liked to come over at 6am, and invariably he would go down to the McDonald’s on US 1, and have a senior coffee and hang out in the front corner table where all the gray haired guys with ball caps that said “WWII” on the front would hold court from 6-9am. They were given space and respect, even by the teenagers. People intrinsically understood that this was a club to themselves, and they would just as soon not make small talk with the rest of the patrons.

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One morning when Steve came over, Gus Warren and I stopped at McDonald’s on the way to the hangar. On the ride in I had just said something to Gus about how I felt I had worked enough years in aviation to be considered ‘important.’  When we walked in, we saw Steve but he did not see us. Because of his deafness, he could not tell that the story he was sharing with the men of his generation could be heard by most of the people in the front of the restaurant.  He was relating that 60 years earlier to the day he was the Coxswain on a Landing Craft that made 3 trips to Omaha beach. It was June 6th. Steve had a very hard time just saying that, even to men who understood.

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Gus and I quietly slipped over to the counter and ordered. While waiting, I made Gus promise me that if I ever called myself ‘important’ again, he would punch my lights out. A year or so later in a quiet hour in the hangar, Steve tried telling me how bad that day was, but he just couldn’t. He said several times “They were just boys” and “It was murder.” He said that leaving those men on the beach was the worst moment of his life, and it never went away.

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On the left, Steve Megill tears down his core engine at Corvair College #3, held at our Spruce Creek hangar in 2002. (photo from Mark Langford.)

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Sam Sayer was a very interesting character. He was an energetic ball of fire, and a good craftsman. He was building a KR-2. He quickly became a regular at our Edgewater hangar. In a few visits, it was apparent that Sam might have been past getting a medical, LSA was not a rule yet, and his KR wasn’t going to fit it. None of this affected the quality of Sam’s work, nor his productivity. He had specific ideas he wanted to built, things that I wouldn’t advise trying, but I didn’t care. He liked coming over, and that was all that counted.

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In WWII, Sam was a B-17 co-pilot  and was shot down on his first mission by an 88mm flak shell that went through the throttle quadrant but failed to detonate. They flew back to France on one engine before bailing out. He evaded capture and returned to England. Give that a little thought, and picture a 20 pound steel shell crashing through a throttle pedestal by your leg, just missing you while still traveling 1,600 feet per second. Sam told the story with a practiced humorous detachment. At other times he would talk about how reluctant people were to make friends outside their crew, it was too hard to get attached and have them not return.

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I have only thrown 4 people out of a Corvair College. The very first one was working at the bench at CC#8 next to Sam. He kept loudly saying that he knew VW’s better than Corvairs, and liked them a lot because “everything made in Germany is great engineering.”  I took the guy aside and privately told him that, Sam might not want to hear that, that it was November 11th, Veterans day, and free speech didn’t apply in my hangar.  The guy reiterated that it was his opinion and he had a right to say it to Sam if he wanted to. Summoning all the restraint and diplomacy I could muster, I told him to “Get the fuck out of my hangar.”

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Below is an excerpt from the story: Built by William Wynne? Built according to The Manual? I am speaking of Sam’s engine, and how I didn’t hold his design to the same standard as younger men. There is a difference between treating everyone fairly and treating everyone the same. In the hangar, we do the former, not the latter.

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“Plenty of things are wrong with me; in many ways I am an opinionated jackass and I have made plenty of mistakes in life. But here is something that I do correctly: When a veteran aviator in his 80s shows up at my hangar, doesn’t have a medical, is pretty much aware that he isn’t going flying, and just wants to enjoy himself by exercising some creativity and building something with the hands that still bear the scars of shrapnel from an 88mm shell fired 60 years before, he gets the red carpet treatment.

I am not there to lecture a man my father’s age that he is “Doing it wrong.” It is my task to make that man’s day a little brighter and do anything I can for him: Tools, time, coffee and being a good listener. If a 35-year-old guy came to a College and wanted my help to build and run the above engine and then put it on his plane, the answer is of course ”No,” and I am going to make Mr. 35-year-old do it the right way, because he is going to take it flying, and he didn’t sacrifice his youth in 1944 trying to do something to stop fascism. Most aviation companies wouldn’t let a guy like Sam hang around any longer than it would take to find he didn’t have a lot of money to spend: “That’s just good business.” To hell with them, they may be business people, but in my book they are not aviators and they are piss poor Americans if they judge the value of men like Sam by the thickness of their wallet. This country is filled with people who think that having a yellow ribbon sticker on their car that says “Support the Troops” completely fulfills the obligation.”

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Above, in a photo taken at Corvair College #9. On the left stands Sam Sayer.   He’s wearing a Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame shirt. He was inducted for his career racing hydroplanes

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Dick Phillips joined the US Navy at age 17 at the height of WWII. He was on the USS Bunker Hill when it was hit by two Kamikaze’s minutes apart. It was one of the worst of these attacks, and the ship turned into an inferno that took the lived of 393 of his shipmates. He went on to a long career in the Navy, and was an EAA member for 40 years. I did not meet Dick until he was 80 years old. He lived at the airpark we moved to. Above all else, he thought of himself as an aircraft mechanic, and if you wrenched on planes for a living, you were probably OK in Dick’s book.

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Dick was a tough guy on the outside, but when you got to know him, he would share his real self. He had very mixed feelings about the deaths of his shipmates. He always wanted to get something out of every day. He had lived every day since he was 18 years old with the feeling that he was operating on time borrowed from others. He had a sense of obligation to use it well.

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Below is an excerpt from my story, Dick Phillips – Bravo Zulu. Click on the title to read more about his life and personal philosophy.

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“Dick told me that he was determined to get into WW II. All he wanted to do was attack the Japanese and do as much damage as possible before he was killed. He hoped to live to 18 or until he could see that the tide had changed in the War. After the attack, he said that he still felt that he would not live to 20, and that his goal was simply to “Go Down Fighting.” At the end of the War, he realized that he knew much about death, but little about life. He gave it some thought and decided he would try life, and he would concede to live to 21 and see how things looked, if there really was any reason to live longer than that. He told me that by the time he was 21 he had enough good things happen his in life that he decided that he wanted to live forever. He didn’t make it, but he got a lot closer than his 393 shipmates.”

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“In a way, WW II was a portal that men like Dick and Ernst Gordon stepped through. They were very young one day, and in many ways they were vastly older a short time later. It was a one way portal, there was no going back. Dick was never a young man again. Ernest Gordon could not find his way “home”.

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Above, Dick in the 1960s. He was a tough kid from Brooklyn. He joined the Navy after his 17th birthday, at the height of WW II.

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Dick Otto is the only man here still with us. However, that sentence does not make you understand that Dick isn’t just getting by, he is our SRB, (Senior Ranking Builder). He has finished and run his Corvair, a 2,700 with a Dan bearing, on the front of his 601XL, plans built of course. He works on the project nearly every day. At his age, he doesn’t have time to waste. Spend some time with him and you will come to the conclusion that you probably don’t either.

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I have seen the film “When Trumpets Fade” many times, but what do I know of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest? Nothing really. The film is very disturbing, but would any rational person claim that it could provide any understanding of being there? The battle claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, but the name is little known. But seeing a film doesn’t qualify a claim to understand. Who among us understands that kind of conflict? Dick Otto.

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Many years ago, at Corvair College #11, held on Veteran’s Day, Dick shared the story that he had been part of the US Army drive into Germany in WWII. He said the moved to the front and fought from a Self-propelled 105.  I later related this on our webpage, Dick called me up and wanted to make sure I understood that he was Infantry. Nothing wrong with Armor guys, but he wanted to say that he was Infantry.

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There is a popular misconception that the German army collapsed at the close of WWII, that they were down to old men and boys. It is a myth, the US Army lost more men in the last 150 days of WWII in Europe than it lost in 7 years in Vietnam. I know this as a statistic, Dick Otto knows what that looks like in person.

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Below is an excerpt from two stories about Dick: DickOtto in California, S.R.B. (Senior Ranking Builder) and :MailSack – Letter of the month – Dick Otto, 601XL Calif. I encourage you to click on the links and read them.

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“If you have not met him, let me introduce Dick Otto, your fellow Corvair Builder. Let me tell you some impressive things about Dick; The 601XL that he scratch built over the last five years is really nice. He has diligently put together a first class engine while building the airframe. Although he doesn’t feel great every day, he still gets out to the shop and works through it. Although he doesn’t yet have a license, he is pretty sure its just another skill he is going to pick up when the time comes. Dick is an easy-going guy, he has been to a number of California Colleges, and everyone who met him liked the
guy. Oh yeah, the last detail that puts it in perspective……He was born in 1921.”

From Corvair College #11, 2007. “Standing beside me at right above is Dick Otto, Corvair builder from Northern California. Although Dick just got into Corvairs this year, he brought an entire collection of engine parts meticulously prepped. We used his stuff to demonstrate case assembly and installing the piston-rings-cylinder assemblies. Dick was a real trooper, working during the chilly mornings and staying late into the night. He drove about 100 miles to get to the College, and to stay close to the action, he chose to camp out near the airport. As it was Veterans Day, Dick shared with us the experience of crewing a self-propelled 105 mm in a U.S. Division drive into Germany in Spring 1945. Now read this sentence slowly: Dick Otto is 86 years old.

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Below is a letter that Dick wrote last week in the comment section. It is mostly about his frustration trying to find a retail outlet that supports US made products and workers. It contains a political comment at the end.  Everyone knows that I don’t let stuff like that float around my website or come up at Colleges. If anyone else sent a letter with that, I would delete the political part. But you know what? I don’t feel morally right editing what Dick would like to say. I didn’t do anything to defend civilization and the right of speech, Dick and the other men on this page did.  I have lived my whole life in a world provided by them. I am not morally or ethically qualified to edit anything that man would like to say.

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Giving one guy a pass on a political comment isn’t treating everyone the same, but, in light of what he has done and I have not, I am going to say it is fair; Steve was the only guy who stopped by our hangar any day and stayed as long as he liked, but I found it fair; Only Sam could build an engine in my hangar I wouldn’t fly without changing, but that’s fair. Again, treating everyone the same really isn’t the same as being fair. I don’t feel like I am the same as any of the men above.

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From Dick: “I do agree with you about products from china. I will relate to two shopping adventures I recently had. My kitchen faucet started leaking so I set out to purchase a new one. I went to my local ACE hardware store. Every faucet they sold was made in China.
This was also true of Home Depot and Lowe’s. The sad truth about this was that these were the products that were once all manufactured in the United States. These companies had all sold out the American workers. Delta, Moen are just 2 of the companies. But all of the brands that were once made in this country are now made in china. The only brand not made in China
was American Standard it was made in India. My Sunbeam electric blanket
that was made in the United States stopped keeping me warm at night. I like to sleep with the windows open and the temperatures in sunny California get down to the mid 30′s. I went to every store that sold electric blankets, Sears, Penny’s, Bed Bath and Beyond, Macy’s you name it all of them sold blankets made in China. It is no wonder that so many people in this country are out of work. I have attended three of your colleges and I know you do not allow politics to be discussed, A darn good rule. Most of the companies that have outsourced the making of these products and others. I am guessing now are owned by Republicans or controlled by Republicans. And of course they do this not to sell a cheaper product to us (they charge us the same price as when it was made in this country) but to satisfy the greedy people that own stocks in there company so they can get a larger return on their investments. I get on the internet every morning to check my credit card balances, my bank accounts and fly corvair. I read all your comments just finished reading about Pete Seegar Thank you for all your work to make the Corvair engine the success that it is. “
dickotto10@gmail.com

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Above is the very first picture of dead Americans the US public saw in WWII. We were already two years into the conflict. This was published only after it was reviewed at the highest levels. The men above joined the war having never seen such images, the war censors restricted them. These men died on Buna beach in the South Pacific. I first saw this photograph almost 40 years ago. I can’t remember what I felt as a kid looking at it.

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Since then I have spent a long time looking at it thinking about how these men were some ones cherished child, someone’s beloved older brother, a person a sweet heart hoped to marry and have children with. Had they lived they could have been your favorite teacher in high School, or your flight instructor. If they lived long enough, they could be the old man down the street that people didn’t speak kindly about. Or they could just have been a great guy you didn’t get to spend enough time with, and gone before you got to say that.-ww

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