Author: William Wynne

Builders,

Below are a few quick pictures of Ron Zilke’s 3.0L Corvair powered Zenith 750 STOL, now flying in TN. Ron and his son worked side by side thought the project, and it is now a proud moment for both of them.

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Above, Father and son with their plane.  Nearly everyone who buys a kit tells themselves that they will keep an ambitious schedule up and finish in short order. Reality is a little different. There is a lot to learn and do on even the most complete kits, and the reward of finishing a plane most frequently belongs to the builders who enjoy the learning and the creative process, and let the schedule develop as it does.

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The other key element of getting a plane finished and flying is choosing to work with companies who will still be around to support you. Zenith aircraft has been in Mexico MO for 25 years, but they have been in North America for 45 years, all under the ownership and data to day operation of the same family.  While this year marks my 15th year of putting Corvairs on Zenith’s , it is also my 30th year of putting Corvairs on experimental aircraft.  No matter what any new product claims, if the company isn’t going to last, they will shortly offer no support at all to the people who spent money on their products.

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The Zilke’s took 5 years to build and fly their plane. Consider this: About 1/2 the engine companies which displayed at Oshkosh 2014, the same year the Zilke’s bought their kit, are bankrupt and gone. Had they selected one of those companies, they would have had a much more difficult time finishing, if it were possible at all. Building airplanes is challenging enough without that kind of drama. Choose who you work with carefully.

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Above, an image of long term support:  We elected to hold Corvair College #34 in 2015 at the Zenith Factory. If you look closely, the man building his own engine in the red tee shirt at the right is Ron, his son is in blue. If it takes 2, 5, or 15 years for you to finish your plane, I will still be here to support you.

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To see more pictures from the College look here: Photos from Corvair College #34 at Zenith A/C.

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Above, a good side view of the completed and flying plane.  Many great adventures lie ahead for this father son team.

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Builders,

I took the picture below two days ago. The man pictured with me is Chuck Nelson, the person who taught Grace and myself how to fly. Way back then we were small potatoes, and couldn’t afford to insure the mint L-2 he instructed us in, far less monetarily compensate him for the things he taught us. Chuck didn’t care, he was a hard core old school instructor, and if you were there to learn, he was there to teach, and everything else was secondary.

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Over time, was our stock in aviation grew a bit, we never lost sight of Chuck’s initial generosity. For any success I have had in aviation, I can instantly name the person who played a quiet role in facilitating it. If we are speaking of flying, my debt is to Chuck. I have said before that people who do not attempt to repay such acts are worthless. This is one of the few things in life I see no gray area on, nor do I think anyone should get a ribbon for abiding by it, it should be so commonplace that it isn’t worth mentioning.  Perhaps every aviator reading this has their own Chuck, I have just been fortunate that I have had a chance to express my gratitude to him, many people wait to long.

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I have many better pictures of the two of us, but I share this one because it captures his smile, even when his flight is almost over.  Chuck is 85, and his doctor gave him some hard news last week. He is a classic tough guy, he thanked the doctor and headed home.  As a teenage infantryman in Korea, he got a first hand look at human mortality, and 68 years later, no discernible sentimentality has crept in.

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Any man with a life of challenge and adventure behind him, if he is being honest, will have plenty of things to regret. Chuck certainly has his own share, and they are private, and not the subject here.  The focal point here is a lesson that is far more easier to appreciate and integrate into your remaining days.

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Chuck has more than 10,000 hours of pure stick and rudder flying in his logs, and as we sat and spoke of his life, he was very clear that he didn’t regret any hour he had ever spent aloft, nor the years of work he put into earning the title ‘aviator’.  He has had many passions and accomplishments in his life, but only flying has no reservation attached to it. Think about that when you are choosing how to spend the hours of your day.

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Additionally, understand this: While Chucks logs include lots of time in HU-16’s , Beech 18’s T-6’s , P-51s, B-25 and -26 time, and a wide array of heavy radial stuff, he would gladly tell you his three favorite planes ever are SGS 1-26, L-2, and a Pitts S2A. Note they are worth $10, $25 and $50K respectively.  These plane, or a homebuilt of the same value can provide adventure and challenge that an aviator of Chuck’s experience and caliber found richly rewarding.

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Perhaps today is the day you should redouble your own personal efforts to experience more out of aviation, as a full on participant, not a mere spectator. Maybe today is a good day to shed all the things Sterling Hayden called ‘the cancerous discipline of security’, where men refused to take control of their own ship of life and allowed an endless series of consumer distractions to steal the days of life from their grasp.

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Make this decision today, because each of us will have his own ‘short final’ one day, and you deserve to have the same smile as Chuck does above. To have it, you must have done something worthwhile to reflect on. Your life, your choice, make it today, or it will certainly slip away. 

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Builders,

Below is a look at the “Sheradin Special” a Parasol being built by Dan and Tracy Sheradin. While the plane is inspired by the Pietenpol, it shares very few part in common. Dan has taken the time to design and build a unique plane to suit his taste. He has two years of part time work into the plane. They are visiting my place in Florida, and we took the photos below in front of my hangar yesterday.

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Above, a rear quarter look at the fuselage. While it may look very much like this plane: Steel tube Pietenpol fuselage with landing gear and 12 x 4.8″ tires., Terry Hand’s Pietenpol, in person the fuselages are different. Dan’s is a foot longer, and has  a lot more room in the cockpit.  The gear and tires on both planes are similar, but Dan’s has disc brakes and Terry’s has drums.

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Above, a frontal look at the plane. Dan made the gear following this story I wrote: New die spring landing gear on a Pietenpol, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.. The carb shown is a Stromberg we tested two months ago: Stromberg Shootout, Pt #2.

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Above, the plane has a generous passenger door. The pilot is about 4″ further back than a long fuselage Piet.  Dan was able to build with confidence because using this information: Pietenpol CG and gear welding, he could calculate the location of the wing, gear , motor mount and seating and have the CG turn out correctly, rather than  just guessing.

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We didn’t have the wing present, but it uses a Riblett 13.5% airfoil and aluminum spars. The plane has very little wood in it.

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The tail spring is a stainless rod and an ACS swiveling unit. This adds significantly to good ground handing by extending the wheelbase, getting the tailwheel horn geometry in correct orientation with the rudder horn, and having quality operation. You can admire thrifty Piet guys who are rebuilding shopping cart wheels for tailwheels, but you would really prefer the operation of a normal tailwheel.

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Ahead of the firewall, Dan’s installation is identical to our Pietenpol parts. The mount is on of our off the shelf units. His engine is a 2,700 with all our gold parts which ran at Corvair College #39 at Barnwell SC. Dan and Tracy attended four of the Corvair Colleges there.  For a look at some of the parts common to Corvair/Piets, look here: Pietenpol Products, Motor mounts, Gear and Instalation Components.

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Above, the tailwheel from a different angle. It is mounted in an .058 x 1.0″  tube. Many Piet builders switching from the plans tailwheel to a more traditional leaf spring or a rod type forget that the fuselage needs a reinforcement to the front of the spring, because it will be in tension when the spring is deflecting. On Dan’s plane this task is being accomplished by the two small 1/2″ tubes. For a look at a lot more Pietenpol and Parasol information look here: Corvair – Pietenpol Reference page

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Above, a nice overall view of the fuselage. The plane is tall, the center of the prop hub is 63″ off the ground. It will be a very impressive plane on the flight line.

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Hats off to Dan and Tracy Sheradin, to very fine people, traditional homebuilders, people we are very glad to have in the world of Corvairs.

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Builders;

If you were fortunate enough to attend some of the early Corvair Colleges between #6 and #20, there is a good chance you met the Corvair/601XL builder pictured with me,  Jim Waters, a very illustrious character from Philadelphia. 

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An unexpected, but very welcome visitor.  I had not seen Jim in 5 or 6 years. If the name rings a bell, he is easily remembered as a wiry guy with a gravely voice and a relentlessly positive attitude. He rode his Harley to most of the early Colleges he attended. He is recently retired, and is forming a plan to do a lot more flying and seeing friends, particularly those he met in the Corvair world. The picture above is in front of my hangar with its newly installed door beam.

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Jim is a very mechanical guy, First thing in the morning was a trip to our local greasy spoon diner, and second Jim was up on a ladder putting the hanging door tracks back up on my hangar. The outer one glides like it is on magnetic levitation, but the inner one seems to have an inexplicable jam. Not hard and mechanical, actually kind of spongy and draggy. We kneel down to study the ground tracks as the likely source of trouble…….

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….right over your heads slithers out 3′ snake from the door tracks, the same tracks we were just on ladders installing.  It is mad, but mortally wounded, a victim of it’s poor choice of hiding spots and my pulling on the door.  This is a near identical  repeat of an event from my childhood in Thailand, which have me nightmares for months. The first thing I thought of was the line Indiana Jones asked; “Why did it have to be snakes?

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Hope to see many of you later this week at sun n fun.  I’m not planning on bringing any snakes, but I seem to be having some difficulty keeping them out of my day.

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Zenith Builders:

The four big alternative engine companies who serve Zenith builders, Viking, UL Power, Jabiru and Flycorvair, are jointly sponsoring an informal dinner for Zenith Aircraft builders at Sun n Fun. The idea is to have a chance for all Zenith builders present to have a single spot to get together and socialize directly on the airshow grounds. Sebastien Heintz has wholeheartedly approved, and the Zenith airshow staff will be on hand. This event is brought to Zenith builders by Jann, Robert, Nick and myself as “Thank You” to Zenith builders who we have, are or will work with over the long run.

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Above, a photo of myself with the patriarch of Zenith Aircraft, Chris Heintz. This was taken at Sun n Fun 15 years ago. Each of the four engine companies sponsoring the cook out has a long and established track record of serving Zenith builders. Although we attend a number of Zenith events each year, we decided to make our contribution to the Zenith Builders calendar by hosting a memorable event at Sun n Fun.  Don’t miss it.

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When? Where? etc.

The Cook out is 6pm, Thursday in the UL Power booth, which is #5 in ‘Paradise city’ the ultralight area of Sun n Fun, right next to the light plane runway.

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Who? 

The primary invitation is for Zenith builders. Part of the mission is to have a single setting here for fans of Chris Heintz designs to get together, get to know some others working on the same birds, and build some camaraderie.  If you have family in tow, good, if you have a friend with you, make sure he is briefed to know that if he says “I’m thinking of building an RV” we will feed him the burger which fell into the coals.

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RSVP? Cost? 

Reservations are not required, but your hosts would like a fighting chance at being properly prepared for the event.  If you go on the Zenith Builders FaceBook Page, and look at events, you can check in with your intention to attend. When you are at Sun n Fun on Monday and Tuesday, mention attending to any of your hosts or Zenth, just so we have a rough idea.  There is no cost to attending , this is covered by your four hosts.

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As we get a bit closer, we will have a reminder and updates, but if you are a Zenith builder planning in attending Sun n Fun 2019, it is an event not to be missed. We are looking forward to having you.

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If you need a bit more motivation, get a look at this story I wrote: The Value of “Showing up”

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Though for the day on Zenith Powerplant options: 

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Zenith aircraft is nearly unique among major experimental aircraft companies, in the fact they accept many options for builders when it comes to engines. The Zenith designs attract many different kinds of builders, and the company has never dictated a particular power plant for any of their planes. They treat their builders as adults, capable of making informed decisions for themselves.

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At Oshkosh 2003, I told Sebastien that I thought our engine was a good match for his aircraft. His response was to say “If you think so, then buy one of my kits and prove it.” We did, and flew it in 2004. Zenith has a long history of treating engine providers seriously, as long as they demonstrate a commitment to their builders.  The four hosts of the Sun n Fun Cook out have long had this kind of relationship with the Zenith factory.

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In addition to Viking, UL Power, Jabiru and Corvairs, Zenith builders also frequently use Rotax, Lycoming and Continental. Compare this selection with other airframe companies which often dictate just one or two options, expecting their builders to conform to a reduced set of budget, educational and performance options.

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All four of your Sun n Fun Cook Out hosts have been working with Zenith builders a long time; Viking and UL Power almost 10 years each, I have been here for 15, and Jabiru even longer.  While different engines show up from time to time, it is very difficult to any company to offer some quality not already well covered by one of the seven popular established engine options for Zenith builders. If you would like to read a funny allegory about engines, look at this: Unicorns vs Ponies.

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Builders,

Not much gets the system going like an indoor water moccasin encounter. So I still have things to do today, so I toss the snake carcass in the pond, get a coffee to replace the one I spilled over the snake, and head out to the hangar and promptly jump out of my skin and spill the next coffee…..over a pigeon?

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OK, its a one pound bird, but I’m at my “startled by animals in the hangar” daily limit.  I can’t explain why, but this guy is marching all around my hangar.  He can fly, but keeps coming back. If his eagle vision was supposed to warn me of the presence of a big snake, well sorry buddy, you are 10 minutes late to work, and you owe me another coffee.

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Just outside the side door. He has some kind of a band on his ankle. Probably on probation. Someone should contact his parole officer and mention that it isn’t funny to scare middle aged men for entertainment. One more visitor and I’m going to take it as a sign I should have gone to the beach today.

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Builders,

I just was refilling my coffee, walked the 10 feet from the house to the hangar and found this 38″ water moccasin sunning himself. People attribute all kinds of qualities to snakes, but after a childhood in Thailand with cobras and a few decades with moccasins in Florida, It is my opinion that snakes are slightly dumber than cockroaches, which at least know to run.

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No matter what TV personalities think, there are good reasons some people chose to own firearms, and here is my personal reason for the day. The world record for moccasins is only 59″, and 38″ is nothing to be trifled with. The bite has the potential to be fatal, but isn’t frequently. However, the treatment will leave you very sick for a long time, and many people end up with amputations from the necrotic tissue damage.  This snake took that 20 gauge #8 hit in the middle and was still able to bite at a shovel minutes later.  I don’t mind looking after my own safety, as long as I, not others,  get to chose the tools.

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Builders;

How do you know your morning coffee hasn’t saturated the critical neurons yet? Last week I walked out to the hangar just before sunrise, and saw something really odd: My hangar doors appeared to have become 3″ taller overnight. The gap between them and the ground, and the gap between the doors and the hanging tracks had disappeared. For 6 seconds while I just sipping my coffee at first light, the doors seemed to have gotten taller.

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One more gulp of coffee, and I realized the 40′ span front hangar beam has actually given out and sagged down until the weight of the doors was on the ground. My second delusional thought was “This is probably going to take all day to fix.”  It’s in the home stretch today, but it has most of the productive hours of the last 8 days in it.

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My hangar is a 50 x 40 wood structure, it may be the oldest original building on our airport, it predates my house by 20 years. Although it is lightly built, it survived two dozen hurricanes and nor’easters. At the time it was built, our airport was just a little grass strip, a fun place to put up a simple pole barn hangar.  No one conceived of it as the community it has become 45 years later. Almost all the hangars built here in the last 25 years are large modern metal buildings.  The gray truss is the replacement steel beam I welded up from heavy wall 1.5″ square tubing. its 40′ long and 2′ deep. the brackets on the front support the door tracks, which hang from the beam.

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The Aviation lesson here: 

When Grace and I bought the house in early 2006, my plan was to tolerate the hangar for 2 or 3 years, and then tear it down and replace it with a modern metal building, financed off house equity, because every genius in 2006 knew that house values were never going down……

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By 2010, the value of our property was roughly $100K less than we paid.  I didn’t really care, it wasn’t an investment to flip, it was our permanent home, but it was obvious that I was keeping the existing hangar for a long time. This weeks main beam is one of many projects I have done to upgrade the hangar. When external financial situations change, if you still need a hangar or a homebuilt plane, your best option is to get resourceful and productive.  The only other option is quitting, and being the kind of person who was a lot of dull stories about things he was going to do before some ‘villain’ or ‘impossible situation’ showed up.

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The type of skills, attitudes and perspectives I write about, those of the traditional home builder, are exactly the ones I put to work building the gray beam and installing it.  While 90% of the hangars on our airpark are more ‘valuable’ on paper, there is a specific satisfaction to making a major working component that other people bought…..just like your engine.

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Putting away tools in the dark last night, I was consumed with thoughts of times past in the hangar, with my Dad, Grace and the dog, friends now gone, planes and engines which flew away, times never to return. In the dark, everything seemed past tense.  This morning I went out in the sunshine, it is a warm sunny day here.  I walked out on our green runway with bare feet and a coffee, and looked back at my hangar. It seems big when you are making a beam to span it, but walk 400′ away, and  it changes to a small pole barn with a rusty tin roof. Which perspective is real?

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But, from such a little setting has come continuous flow of parts, components and builders who learned a lot. The sunshine always makes me think of things to do, times ahead, friends both old and yet to be met, to share these with.  With that thought I walked back to the hangar, pick up some tools and build the next chapter of my life.

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Builders,

Like many aviation professionals, I have found the coverage of the Boeing 737 accidents pathetic. The media is very weak on most technical subjects, but aviation is always a topic they forget their journalism on and resort to inflaming public fears for ratings.

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Their entire narrative is about Boeing, totally ignoring to completely obvious factor: The 737-max 8 is one of the most advanced machines mankind has ever made, yet foreign carriers are operating these this crews who don’t have enough flight experience to qualify for giving a sight seeing flight in a Cessna 172 inside the US.  CNN has reporters trying to explain ‘fly by wire’ controls, ( Oblivious to the fact they are describing an Airbus not a Boeing ) and never mentioning that the Ethiopian Air Co-pilot had only 200 hours of flight time total, and very questionable training. Few people commenting on this aircraft understand that many foreign pilots are very, very reluctant to ever try to hand fly any element of this planes flight envelope, and they are discouraged from trying it, and this makes them very reluctant to turn off the autopilot, even when it is in error. The Ethiopian Air co-pilot would not have been allowed anywhere near the flight deck of a US operated 737, with good reason. Thinking you can be safe by having very sophisticated machinery, and ignoring the training level of who is flying, is insanity.

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Good thing no one in Experimental Aviation thinks that way, right?

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Look at the picture above, remember when you had 200 hours of flight time, and ask yourself if you would have been comfortable walking onto the flight deck of this plane, with the lives of 100+ people behind you, and taking off.  That is exactly what the ownership of Ethiopian Air did, and now they offer emotional commentary about Boeings alleged poor judgement.

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We are a week away from Sun n Fun 2019. I have been going there for 30 years. Wander through the endless displays and you can see a dazzling supermarket of things for people in Experimental aviation to buy. Ask any salesman if the product he is selling is ‘safe’ and without any doubt he will say it is.  Notice how tiny the segment of products are which qualify as direct training: Books, companies offering flight training and transitions, training on engines and systems. It is as if the management of Lion Air set the priorities of US homebuilders. How well do you think that will work out? 

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I have spent 30 years teaching builders about the engine that powers their plane. This wan’t done so they can save money like most people first guess. This was done because I know that training in aviation is paramount, and without it, no machine can be considered reliable nor safe.  Salesmen, ( and the ownership of Lion Air )would try to tell you otherwise, but that is like trying to argue that you could replace Chesley Sullenberger with a 200 hour pilot and expect the same outcome on the Hudson River.

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You don’t run Lion Air, nor Ethiopian Air,  but you are CEO of your own aviation enterprise, and you also will decide what portion of your budget will be for supposedly ‘safe’ equipment, and what portion of your program, in both time and money,  will be devoted to learning, training, understating and mastery.  Choose wisely, physics chemistry and gravity judge inadequacy without a trace of mercy.

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PS; If you see me as an aviation grease monkey from Florida, perhaps out of his element commenting on International air transport, keep in mind I’m a graduate of the worlds finest aviation university, most of my close friends are aviation professionals, and the chief person I ran this past before typing this happens to be a current 25,000+ hour ATP qualified in both Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Anyone can question my perspective here, but if they are driven to do so, perhaps for the sake of their future passengers, they should ask themselves why they are downplaying training.

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Something humorous: How you know ‘journalists’ are a joke today: Boeing has more than 5,000 737s on order today, that is 10 years worth of production, it is the most successful airliner in world history, more than 10,000 of them have been built. This particular aircraft is the #1 threat to Airbus.  About a third of Airbus is owned by European states. Journalists are completely blind to how quickly and why European entities condemned the 737, these people have a very strong vested interest in seeing how many of the 5,000 Boeing orders they can get canceled. Notice how not a single news reporter questioned the flight data recorder being sent to France for analysis. It’s all a big charade. Just make sure your own aviation program has a lot more integrity that this circus, because you do have a vested interest in that story.

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“I’ve killed microwaves and laptops. I’ve killed everything that plugs in or has a ‘not user serviceable’ sticker at one time or another. And I’m here to kill you, Little water heater, for what you done to Ned.”

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Builders,

We had a very busy weekend working at my place, with a lot of assistance from Dan Sheradin on NC, the same Corvair/Pietenpol builder who helped out with this project: Stromberg Shootout, Pt #2.

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On Saturday afternoon Dan and I took a short break, along with Ryan from SPA, for another session of our club, The ‘Appliance Assassins.’ The subject of todays attention were two water heaters removed from my house.

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In my personal view, there are powerful consumer forces trying to fill your life with junk appliances, and the antithesis of this is choosing to have real machines in your life. I covered the concept in this story: Machines vs Appliances Part #2. Terminating appliances is powerful reminder to stay focused on mechanical quality, particularly in all things aviation. I have shot my old malfunctioning Dell laptop with a Thompson SMG, and it was the most rewarding feeling I ever got from a computer.

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Above, I’m holding Ryan’s Freedom Arms 83 chambered in .454 Casull, a very potent cartridge.  To see some of my previous “A-A” club work with Ryan, get a look at this: Machines vs Appliances, putting metal in microwaves.

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This is an appliance sticker, and it should be revolting to you also. Selling things knowing nothing about them is gross, and besides, this planet can’t afford to have 6 billion people on it running through disposable appliances. The comparative solution is machines which last, preferably built by your fellow countrymen who need quality jobs to have a fair shot at having a rewarding life. It isn’t PC or fashionable, but this is important: Made in America – data plates – obituaries to US manufacturing jobs .

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American craftsmanship, both of the above at Freedom arms products, one in .454 Casull, the other in .22LR

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Table of hardware, mostly Dan’s. Ruger Alaskan is in .44 Mag. The LCR-X is mine. All of these were made in America. Everyone has a natural right to be proud of the work of the craftsmen of their own land, only in America are some people apologetic about such natural pride, and it is typically people who have no connection to manufacturing who don’t understand why anyone would admire the craftsmanship of his neighbors, people from his own community and life experience. People who have been brainwashed to be pure consumers, people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, are the last to understand pride in craftsmanship and honest quality work.

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Dan with Marlin in .30-.30. Went right through heater, didn’t care it was full of water.

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.454 Casull went right through both sides also. .44 Mag had a bit of trouble doing so out of a 3″ barrel.

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Top to bottom, .30-.30, .454 Casull, .44 Magnum.

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Myself, Dan and Ryan, in my yard, after another productive meeting of the Appliance Assassins.

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