World’s fastest Simplex

Builders,

I worked in the hangar today prepping a production engine for a test run tomorrow. Although it rained on an off here, it was tee shirt weather, and a good day for getting into a working groove. In the afternoon, Vern stopped by and kept me company, and we talked about all the things we would like to do this year.

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Somewhere in the conversation Vern brought up the my 1955 Simplex, which I keep as a piece of art in the living room. I have had the bike for more than 20 years, it stared as a bare chassis I found at the Turkey Rod Run. Vern asked when the last time I had it running was, and I said about 12 years.  While I was prepping the engine, Vern wheeled  the Simplex from the living room to the hangar and cleaned the carb and the gascolater.  It didn’t take much monkeying, it started on the second pull. After airing up the tires, we took it for a few laps around the airpark.

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Above a 19 second movie of Vern riding the bike. “The Worlds Fastest Indian” is Vern’s all time favorite movie, thus the story title. Original Simplex’s had modest power. Mine has 2 times the output and an asymmetric  Comet overdriven variable speed drive. The originals went about 35 mph. I clocked mine at 56mph on the taxiway at the Spruce Creek Fly-in, but since the tires are dry rotted today, neither of us did more than 30 mph or so.

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Above, the bike beside our runway at dusk. Simplexes were made in New Orleans 1935-60, at the worlds first air-conditioned assembly line. They were the brain child of Paul Treen. The bike only weighs 125 pounds. If you look at pictures all the way back to Corvair College #1, you can see it at our old hangar.

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In 1989, I was offered a running Indian “30.50” Pony Scout for $2,500, but in a decision I have regretted ever since, I chose not to buy it for the shallowest of  reasons: I only had $50 more than that in the bank. I like bikes from the 1920s and 30s, but in the 1990s, they became really unaffordable, so I caught up with the idea of making something of the same flavor. Thus the bike above. It really isn’t useful, but most art has no utility.

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Your Aviation Connection: If you are approaching home building for the best reason, because you want to lean, build your personal skills, and create something with your own hands, you will find that the skills you acquire, spill over into many other aspects of your mechanical world. This is particularly so for people who learn a lot about engines while homebuilding, a much smaller club. Vern and I knew how to start a decade dormant engine on the second pull, because we know how they work. There are a great number of people who can afford to buy any machine, but they live in dread of the moment it stops because they have chosen to know nothing about how it works. That is embarrassing on a bike, it has more serious consequences in planes. By choosing to learn all you can about planes, you are putting yourself in a small group of people….The ones who will know the rewards of homebuilding, not just the surface ones that can be bought by anyone.

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-wewjr.

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