Old Friend Karl Henning from IL, shared this picture with me at Oshkosh. It is a Crackerjack, powered by a two cylinder, 1/3 Corvair conversion. This is the second 1/3 Corvair Karl has flown, the first was an Airbike.
Contact Magazine was donated an engineless Crackerjack that I in turn loaned to Pete Plumb, the designer, to use as a test platform for his new 1/2 O-200 engine he’s bringing to market.
Nick, my friend Fletcher Burns wrote the book on this about 15 years ago He is honest, so he said it weighed 80 pounds made 30hp and took some skill to build. He was competing against people who claimed a 1/2 VW made 50HP and weighed 60 pounds, outright lies, but people believe what they want to hear, and Fletcher wasn’t interested in spending his life responding to people who kept asking why his engine didn’t make any power. Then came the nuts who claimed they had the idea first (but never built one) and therefore they were “Entitled” to a share of his non-existent profits. I used to distribute the manuals, and some of the vermin sent me letters saying they deserved the profits. One of these people was a homeless person who had part of a corroded corvair in a shopping cart. he posted on HomebuiltAircraft.com and gained vocal support from the moderators, who didn’t see the shopping cart picture, but knew he built nothing. They liked it because most of them have built nothing. I have the utmost respect for Fletcher, not just for developing it, but for understanding that that market segment was vocally dominated by mentally ill keyboard warriors who never had the nerve to use their real names and of course they never went to Oshkosh and identified themselves. He was smart enough to just walk away and spend his creative hours far from the maggot critics, the people who want to buy a unicorn, and the mentally Ill with shopping cart stories. -love W
Nick, this is a very engine package for sure, it’s too bad no information or parts are available- I share in the frustration of the design loss. It seems like we loose so much in homebuilt aviation simply because it was not preserved.
The 1/3 Vair is the issue of affordable aviation in the internet era in a nutshell; Very clever guy makes something very affordable for people who are willing to get their hands dirty and invest of themselves. Builds it, tests it, flies it, takes it to Oshkosh and sells book with drawings on how to make 100% of the parts. Works, but his efforts are criticized to death by people who have never seen it or read about it; the very people, the super budget builders, who should be his most staunch defenders, are the first to bite one of the few hands willing to feed them.
It was never designed to sell parts, so the parts not available issue does not apply here, there are zero proprietary parts in it. Manuals can still be found. I brought them to Oshkosh for 5 years, asking $20, sold just one. The negative people successful killed demand. That his who to blame for lack of affordable products
I am in the midst of building one of these for my legal eagle. I already have heads and will be running the 92mm cylinders/pistons from SPA. Wish there was an easy way for a stroker crank on these things but having spoken with dan on the matter im sure there wouldnt be many others willing to shell out the cash, even if it STILL cost less than the comparable VW engine build. I started a facebook group about the engine and there is also a yahoo group. Mine will either have twin mikunis or a single zenith below the engine.
William……….still got copies of Fletcher’s manual that you would part with? Sure would like to buy one from you if you want to sell me one. Thank you very much.
Contact Magazine was donated an engineless Crackerjack that I in turn loaned to Pete Plumb, the designer, to use as a test platform for his new 1/2 O-200 engine he’s bringing to market.
Pat
Do you have any resources for the 1/3 Corvair, such as how it is done and all the important numbers like HP and RPMs and such?
Nick, my friend Fletcher Burns wrote the book on this about 15 years ago He is honest, so he said it weighed 80 pounds made 30hp and took some skill to build. He was competing against people who claimed a 1/2 VW made 50HP and weighed 60 pounds, outright lies, but people believe what they want to hear, and Fletcher wasn’t interested in spending his life responding to people who kept asking why his engine didn’t make any power. Then came the nuts who claimed they had the idea first (but never built one) and therefore they were “Entitled” to a share of his non-existent profits. I used to distribute the manuals, and some of the vermin sent me letters saying they deserved the profits. One of these people was a homeless person who had part of a corroded corvair in a shopping cart. he posted on HomebuiltAircraft.com and gained vocal support from the moderators, who didn’t see the shopping cart picture, but knew he built nothing. They liked it because most of them have built nothing. I have the utmost respect for Fletcher, not just for developing it, but for understanding that that market segment was vocally dominated by mentally ill keyboard warriors who never had the nerve to use their real names and of course they never went to Oshkosh and identified themselves. He was smart enough to just walk away and spend his creative hours far from the maggot critics, the people who want to buy a unicorn, and the mentally Ill with shopping cart stories. -love W
Nick, this is a very engine package for sure, it’s too bad no information or parts are available- I share in the frustration of the design loss. It seems like we loose so much in homebuilt aviation simply because it was not preserved.
The 1/3 Vair is the issue of affordable aviation in the internet era in a nutshell; Very clever guy makes something very affordable for people who are willing to get their hands dirty and invest of themselves. Builds it, tests it, flies it, takes it to Oshkosh and sells book with drawings on how to make 100% of the parts. Works, but his efforts are criticized to death by people who have never seen it or read about it; the very people, the super budget builders, who should be his most staunch defenders, are the first to bite one of the few hands willing to feed them.
It was never designed to sell parts, so the parts not available issue does not apply here, there are zero proprietary parts in it. Manuals can still be found. I brought them to Oshkosh for 5 years, asking $20, sold just one. The negative people successful killed demand. That his who to blame for lack of affordable products
*very interesting
I am in the midst of building one of these for my legal eagle. I already have heads and will be running the 92mm cylinders/pistons from SPA. Wish there was an easy way for a stroker crank on these things but having spoken with dan on the matter im sure there wouldnt be many others willing to shell out the cash, even if it STILL cost less than the comparable VW engine build. I started a facebook group about the engine and there is also a yahoo group. Mine will either have twin mikunis or a single zenith below the engine.
William……….still got copies of Fletcher’s manual that you would part with? Sure would like to buy one from you if you want to sell me one. Thank you very much.
Randy S. Hager
Venus, TX