Yes, Pietenpols do need 5th Bearings..

Builders,

Dan Weseman was speaking to a guy who wanted to build a Corvair powered Pietenpol.  He told Dan that it didn’t need a 5th Bearing. Dan told him he was not correct about that, that is was our joint policy that Pietenpols do need 5th bearings on their Corvairs.

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Funny thing happens next: Guy who has never built a Corvair, nor a Pietenpol, tells Dan, a guy who has about 1,000 hours of Corvair time in 10 or 12 different Corvair powered planes, works with this stuff every day, is the closest of friends with me, and has his finger on the pulse of the Corvair world, that Dan is wrong, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

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I don’t have the imagination to understand how a guy with essentially no experience, tells the guy with 15 years of hardcore experience and full access to all I know after 28 years, that he is wrong. That is beyond my comprehension. So just sticking with the direct question: Yes, Pietenpols do need 5th bearings, period.

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Above, Bob Lester with his Corvair powered Pietenpol at CC #39 in Barnwell SC. The plane is now approaching 900 hours. Ever since hour #1, the plane has had a 5th bearing on it. Before this plane, Bob had a Corvair powered KR-2, and experienced a crank break in it before the advent of 5th bearings. When it came to his Piet, he was not going to gamble nor rationalize; It has a first class 2,700cc Corvair with a 5th bearing. The plane has modest instrumentation and an ‘industrial’ finish.  Bob understood that actually managing risk effectively means a solid motor comes before paint and radios. 

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I’m not sure who is promoting the idea that some Corvair powered aircraft really don’t need a 5Th bearing, but let me be really clear: Every Corvair powered plane needs one, period.

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I have heard a lot of rationalizations on why Pietenpol do not, but these opinions are mostly based on very old experience, and I can easily name 4 Corvairs without a 5th bearing on Pietenpol that have fractured a crankshaft. Fortunately, no aircraft were destroyed nor anyone seriously hurt, but no one should gamble that he can become the 5th guy on that list, because he could easily become the 1st guy on a different list, a title  which is posthumously awarded.

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Here is something of a wake up: I go to Colleges to teach people how to build the best motors possible, and how to exercise good judgement. I do this for free. When I drive there, I take a 31 year old truck, worth about $1,500. The 3,000cc Corvair in my plane cost  5 times this amount of money to build. Although my work earns me a “McDonalds assistant Manager” level of income, I don’t cut corners on aircraft engines to save money.  Just like a Pietenpol, my plane has a passenger seat, and the person getting in it can read the FAA mandated sticker saying that the plane does not conform to certified standards, but the passenger has a rational expectation that the builder and pilot was intelegent enough to make a $1,050 investment in safety.

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When a guy comes to a College driving a pickup truck that litterally is worth thirty five times as much as mine, and he wants to cry poverty about the $1,050 cost of a 5th bearing, I may look like I’m paitently discussing it with him, but that is just an illusion provided by my first class anger management training. In reality, I think he is making a very poor decision. In my experience, there is no correlation between ability and willingness to pay.  I have seen an awful lot of people who drive $50,000 vehicles and live in $500,000 houses claim a $1,050 5th bearing is too expensive. Perhaps these people need to look into the rising cost of final expenses to understand what they can’t afford.

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Lots of people say “BHP didn’t have one” or “No one had one before 2003” My response: Great, go back to the first chapter of my book and read the sentance that says “I reserve the right to get smarter.” Look at it this way: Does anyone think at the FAA will accept an anual inspection on a certified plane that didn’t comply with any AD written since 2003 because the owner says “It was considered airworthy in 2002 before that AD was issued.” Really, run that past your FSDO and let me know how that works.

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In the greater Pietenpol community, theyre are many people who like old wives tales and don’t like airworthlyness. At Brodhead, the Pietenpol gathjering, I had one of them actually stand up and say to me that I was “Ruining Pietepols” by teaching people about CG issues on them. He stated “Some people just want to fly low and slow and not worry about that stuff.”  I told him he had just publicly advocated running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas all at once.

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I can’t help people like that. I can’t help people who think that a $2,000 paint job comes before a 5th bearing. I can’t help people who spend $1,500 on wire wheels but say things like “it will be alright.” In the words of the most famous guy from my Florida town; “Say you will be alright come tomorrow, but tomorrow might not be here for you.”

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Are you listening? Oshkosh 2016: Lynn Knoll, flanked by his sons, brought his 2700 cc Corvair/Pietenpol to Airventure. The plane took 12 years to build. It had 60 hours on it, and it did not have a 5th bearing.  After congratulating them on completion, I took them aside and flatly and plainly told them they needed to go diretly home and install a $1,050 Weseman Gen I 5th bearing. It would take one weekend. His sons thanked me for this and said they were certianly going to do this.

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The following spring, they called to say the plane now had 200 hours on it, they never put the bearing on, and now it had a broken crank. Besides the fact it now had $3,000 worth of internal engine damage, their dad flying the plane had just barely made it back to the airport. It had been a very close call. One of the son’s said to me “You were right” casually. He offered that his dad didn’t want to spend the money, and it was his plane. I wasn’t intrested in his addmision that I was right, that was evident enough, and I really wasn’t intrested in the rationalizations. I my book, you get one dad in this life, and if he is too cheap to take care of himself, you do it for him.

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Think that was the last time I’d have that discussion? At Corvair College #41, Keith Goff had his new Corvair Powered Piet on hand. It did not have a 5th bearing. I privately said to him that he needed to correct this, Dan and Rachel were right there, and he could directly order it on the spot. When he offered “It was on his priority list” I shared the story of the Knoll Pietenpol, and told him that he was in the process of making the exact same mistake.

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Standing beside me when I said this was Pietenpol builder Terry Hand. I pointed out to Keith that in the last 18 months, both Terry and I had lost our fathers, so neither one of us was casual about people taking unnecessary risks, particularly if it involved someones dad flying a plane, or someone like him, who is a dad.  I said that either Terry or I would have taken anyones serious advice to protect our fathers, and I didn’t understand anyone who was going to ignore what I had to say about this to save $1,050.

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Please read: “If only someone had told him……”

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WW