Category: Philosophy

Builders:

I have watched the viral video shown below about twenty times. It is an astonishing display of one young man keeping his head, acting without hesitation without instruction, training or a plan, to save someone who was seconds away from a very ugly death.  The Link is to CNN’s 60 second cut, there are others on Youtube that show 2:40 of the events. From any angle, This young man is heroic in his actions.

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All of us know people who use the phrase “I almost died” to describe traffic encounters, weather storms, etc. Looking at the video, the woman’s exasperation can be forgiven by the fact she really was facing death, and knew it. The story isn’t about her, it is about the young man. If you say “Qualities of an aviator” people start listing skills, which are something different. Look closely and watch the man does not panic, even when the first tries to extract the woman don’t work.  Cool and effective under pressure is a Quality of an Aviator.  Second, study how quickly he evaluates the deteriorating situation, makes a new plan, and acts on it. That is also a Quality of an Aviator.

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I have looked, but I have not yet found the Man’s full name, just that he is called “David.” Perhaps one of the many people reading this can find it and let us all know who he is .  I would like to meet him and know more about what his goals and plans are.  This week the cable news industry is bombarding every home in America, 24/7, with a continuous stream of poison noting every failed person they can find, and the more vile the act or venomous the words, the more airtime they are given. We can’t change that, but I refuse to drink the poison when in front of our eyes is obvious evidence of good people in our world.

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In this country, we send a large fraction of students to college because they can play a sport or a game, this is arguably paid for by overcharging the rest of the academic students.  I understand the potential values taught to high school students my athletics, my only point is the Qualities shown above, demonstrated without the scripting of a football play or the safety of a gym, should be a better predictor of future performance and value to society. Perhaps after finding out who he is we can do something to test my theory. I don’t care if he wants to be a Pilot or an EMT, I would just rather put any effort into supporting it, rather than do nothing and listen to another day’s poison.

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-ww.

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Builders,

John Tower was a four term US Senator from Texas.  Between his service in WWII and being a reservist, he wore the uniform of the US Navy for 46 years. He was on the Senate Armed Services Committee for 20 years; he was on the Joint Committee on Defense Production for 16 years; Although he was a Republican, he lead the ‘Tower Commission’, that investigated and condemned the Reagan administration role in the Iran Contra Affair. After leaving the Senate Tower was the Chief US negotiator of the Strategic Arms talks at a critical time in the Cold War.

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In 1989 President Bush nominated Tower to be US Secretary of Defense. Because he had never been a man of blind party loyalty, Tower was attacked on many fronts in one of the ugliest Senate confirmation hearings in history. At the height of the battle in the Senate, Towers enemies stated he was unqualified to be Secretary of Defense, because after serving in the Senate, Tower had worked for General Dynamics and was paid about $200,000/yr. One of Towers supporters went to the microphone and “We are speaking of making this man United States Secretary of Defense, on these issues,  I sure hope that his opinion is worth money to someone.” 

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With the goal of finding someone who had not been paid for their perspectives, Tower’s nomination was defeated by a coalition of his political rivals and enemies.  Another nominee was found, a relative unknown from a state where he had few detractors. He was easily confirmed, 92-0, and thus began the rise to power of a Wyoming Congressman named Dick Cheney.

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Your Aviation Connection: In budget experimental aviation, there is a small (10%) but internet vocal minority that will constantly spout the myth any person who runs a profitable or successful business will advocate products and procedures, motivated solely by quick profit. In this distorted view, anyone who is ‘successful’ can’t be trusted, and their track record should be ignored in favor of getting advice from people who’s opinions have never been valuable enough for builders to spend money on.

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This is a disease that doesn’t affect mid level builders like RV series builders. A part of the reason why their are 10,000 flying RV aircraft is the message Profitable=Evil doesn’t resonate with them. They want to build a proven aircraft, and they want to fly it. They are not interested in getting sidelined by conspiracy theories on success. To the contrary, the majority of RV builders selected Van’s Aircraft, specifically because it was successful and profitable. To sane people, this is taken as evidence of having a good and proven product.

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When people who are against trusting successful people need medical attention, do they look for people who didn’t make it through med school? Do they look upon every successful professional with suspicion? Do the automatically trust the opinion of every amateur or failure? Your guess is as good as mine, I am an aircraft mechanic, I have little understanding of that kind of psychology.

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On the internet last week, the claim was made I advocate pressure cowls because I make money selling baffle kits.  This is a joke, first because pressure cowls work, evidenced by 98% of RV aircraft and 100% of Cessna 172 and 150’s having them, second, we have more than a hundred of flying Corvair powered planes that use a pressure cowl, but lets not forget the point, I don’t even sell baffle kits. Even if I did, I am well known as a person who can’t be bought: Read this story: Expert Witnesses in civil Aviation trials. and know that I was offered $55,000 for 2 hours of testimony against Cessna, and I told their lawyers to “F–k Off. ”  In 2001, I had several attorneys promise me a million dollar settlement if I would sue the PIC in my accident. I told them to drop dead also.   So perhaps it seems unlikely that I would sell out for the ‘big money’ available from Corvair parts sales.

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The anti-success line sold on internet groups isn’t just aimed at Corvairs; I have seen it used against any VW company that lasted, about half of the aircraft plans sellers, and a great number of people who offered parts for plans built aircraft. The people who sell this idea claim to be defending traditional homebuilding, but what they are really doing making it unattractive for people to make products of basic planes, to take away the opportunity for some builders to choose for themselves products that best serve their individual time vs money equation.  If you are a grass roots homebuilder who wonders why there are “A wealth of products for the wealthy“, but far fewer choices for those on a budget, here is a big part of your answer.

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Here is irony: One of the things I do with the modest profits from our 27 year business is put them back into events that serve grass roots builders like our free Corvair Colleges: Corvair College History….in photos. and use the time to write about our R&D and testing projects: Testing and Data Collection reference page. Yet, a number of people who claim I am solely motivated by profit, have actually attended a Corvair College, and certainly almost all people who make the claim have learned something from my websites. These are the some of the people I was writing about in this story:The Hypocrisy of Homebuilders.

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Every builder will choose his own path. Some will follow the proven path because their goal is success, and they interpret success as the sign of good product or service. I am glad to assist these builders, no matter how big or small their budget is.  Others, will choose to condemn any successful company, for reasons that are important to them, but in doing so will greatly diminish their personal odds of building and flying a reliable plane, all as the years drift by and their time runs out. Pick your own personal path carefully, most people don’t get two chances at this.

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Above John Tower in the 1960’s. If you can see past the political necessity of his vote against the Civil rights act to gain office, the man had a long run where he put his loyalty with his conscience instead of either party. It wasn’t a long term strategy for gaining the favor or protection of his party. He was killed at age 65 in the crash of an Embraer twin turboprop, a scheduled airline flight. The accident was traced to the failure of a Hamilton Standard propeller. A later, nearly identical fatal accident caused a major safety probe that laid responsibility on Hamilton Standard’s overhaul practices.

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-ww.

 

 

 

 

 

Builders,

I came across an old box of photos from a long time ago. Below is a little sample. Many of the stirred long forgotten memories. Over the years there have literally thousands of builders we have worked with, and I am pretty sure I have actually touched more than 1,000 Corvair engines destined for planes, met their builders, worked with them. I have run 400 or so engines on our test stand. Sounds like a lot, but the work dates back all the way to 1989.

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The most common ‘complaint’ about Corvairs from people, who have frequently never met me, is that I must have some giant ego. I am not sure how these people missed the fact I am a self described Grease monkey-troglodyte.  My success with Corvairs isn’t because I am so smart, it is actually because I have always been just dumb enough not to know when to quit. The progress was made, not by brilliant insight, but more often by exhausting the permutations of what wouldn’t work, and being very observant of all of the information available, not just the small fraction that served a pet theory.  Ironically, many of the  these critics are the same who need to believe that in their first Corvair engine they have discovered something that eluded detection by myself and all the builders that came with us. That is arguably the very egomania they desperately need to ‘expose’ in others.

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Enjoy a look into the long past, to see some of the milestones of 27 years of work. I have outlasted nearly all of the alternative engine companies of the last decades. There are a number of skilled, experienced builders, but few who have been continuously at it without break, attending airshows in person from coast to coast. It isn’t a contest, but it is a fair reminder that I am still here and I have left a long trail of compulsive critics in the rear view mirror.

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Above, Grace takes apart a core engine at Corvair College #3 at Spruce Creek Florida, 2002.  With her is Gus Warren and Mark Christmann.

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Above, two eras of Corvair advocates: Left is Bud Rinker, right is a young version of me at Sun n Fun 1995.  Bud developed his ‘Rinker Gearbox’ in the late 1960’s. It worked, but he never personally flew it. His two practical articles with data in 1970 issues of Sport Aviation was actually a great contribution, and provided turbo data we later built on. Bud perished in a car accident about 10 years ago.

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Above, before there was gray hair: Pat Panzera and myself looking at the first Dragonfly / Corvair engine mount I built, 1999 or 2000 at the tandem wing fly in in Kansas.

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Above, Myself and Virl Deal at Brodhead 2000. Virl logged 1,100 hours on his Corvair powered Pietenpol over a 15 year period. The button I am wearing says “This ain’t Oshkosh” a then popular Brodhead motto. I am wearing my father’s hat.

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Above, something different, flying an hour of jet aerobatics in Heintz Peier’s L-39 Albatross. 1993.  My work has crossed my path with that of many interesting characters. Heintz was from Switzerland, but lived at Spruce Creek.  My years at Embry-Riddle and this kind of exposure gave me a lot ‘bigger picture’ than most alternative engine guys. Many people like to talk about “pulling G’s” but most light planes have a lot of drag for their energy. Conversely, the L-39 can sustain 5 g’s for 20 seconds without bleeding off all the energy. It was the limit of what I could take at age 30.

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Above, myself and the illustrious Terry Bailey of alto mud creek GA, 1999. Terry was a character from the world of tandem wing planes. The tail of my Pietenpol expresses thanks to people who believed in what I was doing. Bob Bean was the finest person I ever met in aviation, you can see his picture here: Risk Management reference page, he and his wife Sara perished in a weather related Glass air accident in 2006.

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Above, Jake Jaks and myself, at the conclusion of Corvair College #1, in May of 2000.  Jake went on to fly this engine in his Pober Jr Ace. In 2009 he flew it to Sun n Fun and was greeted by the designer and founder of the EAA. Read the story here: http://www.flycorvair.com/snf2009.html .

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Above, At Paul Poberezney’s SAA fly in at Frasca Field IL, 2003.  I am in the green jacket with muttonchops. Grace was the first guest speaker at the fly in that year. In the black jacket is Tom Brown, who’s 1,600 hours in his Pietenpol makes him the worlds highest time Corvair pilot. In the blue jacket is Bill Knight who owns B.H. Pietenpol’s “Last Original”, Bernard’s last plane which lives and flies out of Brodhead. We are standing in from of Bill’s Waco F-2 replica, which was hand built by Tom.

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Above, In my shop with WWII veteran and builder of 8 experimental aircraft, the late Steve Magill of Florida. The engine seen here later flew on Steve’s Pietenpol.  Take a few minutes to read Steve’s story here: Four Men.  Steve was a Landing Craft Coxswain on D-Day. He wanted me to know me how bad that day was, but he just couldn’t put it in words. 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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Grace and I never charged Steve a dime for all the assistance putting his engine together and running it. Most good businessmen wouldn’t ‘waste time’ on a guy with a thin wallet like Steve. That is their loss, they can live in a shallow world worshiping dollars if they choose. For myself, the hours we shared with builders, particularly the ones of Steve’s generation, were their own reward.  This is a concept that the compulsively critical fail to understand.  We have now held 38 Corvair Colleges, and we have never charged anyone for all the things we offered to share at the events. It wasn’t charity, it was an expression of gratitude for men like this:  ERAU – models of integrity #2,   who took the time to freely share with me knowledge they had learned, some of it at a very steep price.  We all live in worlds of our own making, and looking back on the photos gives some satisfaction that I chose to put something positive back in Experimental Aviation, it is small thanks for all that it has brought to my life.

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-ww.

Builders:

My father in law Bob is a life long sportsman, something of an expert of salmon fishing, but well rounded on all points of field craft. The fact his only child is a daughter didn’t deter him one bit from sharing his love of the outdoors.

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Above, a photo from our back yard in 2006. Grace and her father getting in a little informal skeet practice Grace has an unusual stance, but her father coached her to outstanding skills. The 12 gauge is a Winchester model 1912, an heirloom in their family

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From the story Grace’s Dad and Ted Williams:

“My Father in law is from an era of American men that chose the outdoors as their ‘Arena’, just as TR did. These men put many years of patient study and intense awareness into perfecting their field craft. This focus and pursuit has direct parallels to the mastery of being a ‘stick and rudder pilot.’ They both take considerable investment, not of money, but of the willpower to focus on the moment at hand without distraction, to study to subtitle differences between acceptable and better.”

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-ww.

Builders,

Staying with the father’s day theme:

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Above, Gus Warren in the front seat, with his Father Clare Warren in back of our Piet in 1997, Edgewater Florida. This was the beginning of CG work on Pietenpols, we have just finished moving the engine 6″ ahead of the plans location, and the battery is now on the firewall. Many years later I would publish a long series of reports to assist all Pietenpol builders: Pietenpol Weight and Balance project.

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Gus was present for all the early years of Corvair development, and his parents, both pilots,  Were always at Sun n Fun and Oshkosh.

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To understand Gus’ skills as a pilot, take a look at the family portrait above. Gus’ father, the legendary Clare Warren, soloed in 1932, got his pilot’s license in 1936, became an instructor in 1940, logged more than 20,000 hours of instruction, and flew most of the models of light aircraft ever produced in the U.S. Gus’ mother, Joy Warren, soloed and got her pilot’s license in 1967 in the same Cessna 140 she still flies today. Of course, his father was his instructor.  Gus took his first flight in that 140 at two weeks of age. You can’t point out many three member families with 145 years of flying. Today Gus is married, a father, and head of his own family.

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-ww.

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Builders:

On Father’s Day, a memory of a fine afternoon;

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Above my Father, the real William Wynne,  and I standing in front of my Pietenpol, at Brodhead WI, 2000.

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Hoping every one of you is enjoying the day with family or friends, giving time to consider the men who gave us a free world, a home in that world and their enduring example of devotion to family, country and duty.

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From: Patriotism has no Party :

“He is from a generation of men who’s love of country and family were strong enough to never need the acknowledgement of others, far less praise nor reward. They were motivated solely by belief and love.”

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-WWjr.

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Builders:

Below is a flying story I wrote a long time ago. It has no technical information. If your time is valuable, don’t read it, I will not be able to refund your 15 minutes. It is a “fictional” companion piece to The Hypocrisy of Homebuilders. I have the quotes on the word fictional, because only the settings and the central character are imagined. Every other element, the people, the issues, the experiences, are all thinly veiled reality. I wrote it so builders, as individuals, might better imagine what future rewards lie ahead when the project in their shop transitions to the flying machine they spent several years planning, building and imagining it would be.

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 -ww.

 

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Above, sunset on Montserrat, British West Indies. 

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Lets us imagine a homebuilder in Florida, a man who put years of work into designing his own plane, a homebuilt amphibian. It took years more to build it, and because he liked the challenge, he powered it with an alternative engine. He got a seaplane rating, and carefully expanded his experience envelope getting to known his creation. In the year following the first flight, he accumulated 220 hours flying it around the state in all kinds of conditions, and he further refined his creation with improvements that reflected this experience.

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With the confidence in a proven creation and his mastery of it, he broke out a map of the Caribbean and carefully began planning a trip 1,400 miles south east to the island of Martinique, a place he had never been. Because he prepared, and would bide his time on weather, trip  promised to be a beautiful adventure. Along the way there would be stops in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, The Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Dominica and finally Martinique.

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While the flying would fill his mind with images of astounding beauty, His most vivid memories would remain all the people he met along the way. Even though most of them knew nothing about planes, they were all attracted to the person they intrinsically understood to be engaged in the adventure of a lifetime. This attraction became stronger when they discovered that this man had actually built this aircraft.  Invariably this delayed his departure as new friends took him to dinner or brought him to their homes. They looked at the images of his flight, and they were all impressed that he had made the engine also, and it had come from a model of car that some of them had once owned. Nearly every single person would ask for his email address, ask him to stay with them on the way back.

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Eating lunch in Brades on Montserrat,  a woman sat down beside him and asked if he was the person who arrived in the small plane the day before. She was 45 or 50, very tan, a geologist. She had a European accent he could not place.  In the afternoon  she showed him around the island, including the remains of the AIR recording studio. As the sun sank low in the sky, she asked him to take her for a flight. They went around the whole island, alternatively skimming the water and climbing to 1,000′.  They spent some time in a slow orbit at looking at the ruins left by the volcano. They landed back at Little Bay just after sunset. As they walked up the street to a restaurant, she reached over and took his hand.

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He awakened in his little bungalow at first light, and found himself alone; for a moment his thoughts were not clear, it all seemed to have been a very pleasant dream. He looked to the window, the sky had it’s first hint of blue. On the nightstand was a tiny note. In very elegant script it had her name and email, and the single sentence “Think of me as often as you like, but only write if you are coming back.”
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When he made it all the way to L’anse Macabou, on the south eastern tip of Martinique,  he sat in a tiki bar on the beach at sunset, lost in thought.  His bartender, and older man named Henri,  and asked if he was ok. It was a slow night, and Henri had the time to listen as the builder explained he was really moved by all the people he had met on his journey, and that it had been a great many years since he had known such warmth and kindness. Henri smiled and softly said “Bienvenue à la maison” It has been 35 years since the builder’s last French class, but he still understood Welcome Home.

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Upon his return, a friend convinced him to write a short piece about the adventure for an aviation magazine, and include a dozen of his of photos. The builder was reluctant, because he is something of a private person. He never did much on line, kept no builders log, his plane was one of a kind so these was no builders group to join, nor did he have a Facebook page. His friend reminded him of how much he was inspired by old magazine stories. Even though he had never met  any of the builders in the old black and white magazines he had poured through, he felt he knew something about each of them, and this was the connection that set him to sharing the story.

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His plane was made of wood and fabric, built with old techniques. Most of the magazine articles he had used for inspiration were from the late 1950’s and early 60s. In the photos, the builders wore collared shirts in their shops and hats outside. These details are a subtle reminder that five decades have past since the men were photographed, and they and their planes are likely just memories now. He ignored this and looked at the planes and studied  the smiles on their faces. He was the same age as they were then. They are his secret sharers: they know what others can’t; why he spent those years in the shop, how he felt on the hour it first flew. While the people on his Caribbean trip had been attracted to the exercise of freedom and idea of adventure, It seemed that only another homebuilder could really understand what burned inside him, that made him need to create and fly his plane.

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When the article is printed a few months later, his friend brought over a copy. He didn’t have his own because he never kept subscriptions to current aviation magazines. They looked at it together and agreed it was good, they even compared it to the old magazines. His friend mentioned the words “paying it forward.” They spent the evening sitting in the old chairs in his workshop, had some beers and just talked.  The friend imagined  a great number of builders reading the story and being inspired by it. Even after a few beers the builder didn’t like the thought of himself as being ‘inspirational’ to anyone, he couldn’t think of himself that way.

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 After a day or two of looking at the color pictures and the opposing pages with ads for glass cockpit stuff, Our builder did something that made him more comfortable: He put the magazine in the copier, and made a black and white copy of his story, and trimmed off the advertisements. He liked it more that way, and he put it on the wall of his little workshop with a thumb tack. It now looked timeless, just like the old stories he was inspired by.

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The invitation to Oshkosh came by phone call.  A very nice gentleman said that the magazine article generated a lot of talk on line, and if the builder was thinking of flying to Oshkosh, they would arrange a forum time for him.  He had already been once before, but it was almost 20 years ago. He thought about going again many times, but had always put it off because he wanted to go in the plane of his own design. He was a little reluctant to agree to public speaking, but the gentleman said it would likely be “A dozen or two guys just like you.” With this, he got out the maps and started planning the flight, about 1,400 miles, same distance but on the reciprocal heading as Martinique.

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The  six stops on airports on the trip were a reminder of how long it had been since he had been on a domestic cross country. All the restricted airspace didn’t bother him much, but friendly airports he visited 25 years before now all looked like prisons, with razor ribbon topped fences with cameras and gates with electronic locks. The people there seemed indifferent to being on an airport. At one airport the only person he spoke with was a person saying he was parked in the wrong spot.  In Tennessee the airport manager came out in a golf cart and told him “We don’t allow Ultralights here.”  The builder simply pointed to the foot tall N-numbers, required for his international flight, the manager just made a puzzled look and drove off.  None of this really bothered the builder. He had been around aviation a long time, and he knew that not everyone was passionate about it or overly friendly. Light aviation had always been segmented, and few people at airports knew much about homebuilts. It was fine, he was headed to the mecca of homebuilding, and soon he would be among his people.

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He arrived at Airventure the afternoon before his forum. The people at homebuilt headquarters were busy, but couldn’t have been nicer. He was unprepared for how many people were there. Oshkosh had grown a lot in two decades. While many of the people had to be homebuilders, most of them seemed like airshow spectators or people from other branches of aviation. He put a prop card with all the information on his plane. He sat in the shade under the wing and watched the people who walked down the row of planes.

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In the two hours before the airshow, at least 20 people came by and made a negative comment about his creation. This ranged from “What the heck is this?” to “They made a lot of these kits but they were no good.” These people never stopped to think the guy sitting right there might be the builder. People who recognized him as the owner, said things like “Hey, what brand is this” and “Does it come in any good looking colors?” and “What does it cost” and the ever popular “How fast does it go?” When this was asked, he politely pointed to the prop card which said “Cruise 90 mph at 5 gph at SL”.  The most common reply was “Why is it so slow?”  Some of these people were pilots, and mostly EAA members, but maybe not homebuilders. When he pointed out to one of them that this was the same plane in last months magazine which had flown the Caribbean, the guy actually asked “Are you sure it’s the same plane?”

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In the late afternoon, a man came by and asked a few questions. His name tag identified him as the president of an EAA chapter. His questions were a little more thoughtful. The builder noticed the man was wearing a Cherokee shirt. The builder mentioned that he had also owned a Cherokee, but found the amphibian more fun for himself now. The man said “Maybe, but I would never build or even fly in an experimental, they are dangerous.” The builder wondered why, if the man felt that way, he would be a chapter president, but he was not going to ask. He was never confrontational, and it had been a long day.

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  One of the last visitors for the afternoon was a man from Germany. Before he said anything, he read the prop card closely, and then walked over to the builder, introduced himself, and offered his hand. He complimented the builder’s design, and said he had really liked the magazine article, read it many times. He asked a question about how the vertical CG affected the location of the hull step, and the builder said he calculated it from Thurston’s book.  The visitor thanked him and shook his hand before moving on.  It was a nice note to end the day on, as the visitor walked away, the builder put the canopy cover on.

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His forum was at 8:30 am. He was surprised to see 40 or 50 people there. He thought these must be the real homebuilders. He introduced himself. Speaking into a microphone made him feel awkward, he had never like the sound of his own voice. He spoke for a few minutes, gave an outline of the specifications of the plane, how long it had taken to build, etc. He had planned on saying something about how the plane made him feel, how at sunset it was easy to loose track of time and place, and how small he felt on the overwater legs, but strangely not out of place nor in any danger. He had felt these things, but was never any good at putting them in words, and something told him that today wasn’t the day to try.

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The first question came from a guy who asked if he was selling plans, and the builders said he didn’t draw any, and didn’t plan to, but invited they guy to take any dimension off the plane he liked. The guy wasn’t really listening and he said he was “Going to wait for CAD drawings because they make the best plane.”  The builder thought people would chuckle when he said ” I made an OK plane, and there were no plans at all”  but no one got this.  The next guy asked “Why did you choose such a thick draggy airfoil?” The builder tried to explain that it didn’t have a lot of drag because it didn’t have much camber, and it had almost no pitching moment, but the guy who asked the question sat with his arms tightly folded. The man next to him offered “That is a “Killer” airfoil.” The builder politely asked “Who said so? My plane has docile stall behavior.” The man shot back “Ribblet knows a lot more about airfoils than you do.”

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The next person asked “Why didn’t you choose a better engine?” The builder said he thought he had an acceptable engine, because he didn’t have any issues with it. The guy who asked the question said “Well it isn’t as good as a Mazda engine.” The next guy asked what reduction ratio it used, and when the builder said it was direct drive the man said rolled his eyes and said “Oh brother. “ The next guy said the plane would be “20% faster and 30% more fuel efficient if it had electronic fuel injection.”  The builder patiently explained that the fuel system was a single, well baffled, 46 gallon tank that gravity fed the carb, and considering the mission, the simplicity seemed better than any theoretical advantage. The man who asked the question fumbled through the airshow program and didn’t appear to listen to the builders answer.

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Near the end of the forum, a guy asked what the prismatic coefficient of the hull was. The builder said he didn’t know. The guy with the question said that after the magazine article, a discussion group on homebuiltaircraft.com had a long thread on “How poor your hull design was.” The builder let the guy go on for 3 or 4 minutes, including all of the ‘fixes’ that could be done. When the guy stopped, the builder explained that the hull was an exact copy of a Wipline 3450 float, done in wood.  The guy who made the comments had a puzzled look on his face, having never heard ‘Wipline’ before. He has a momentary pause, realizing he had previously made 12 negative comments on line about the builders hull.

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 Clearly, there were normal, socially adjusted people in the forum, but the builder noticed that when the fringe people wanted to pontificate, the regular builders had nothing to say. In time, it devolved to the ‘homebuilders’ in the forum, disagreeing with each other, almost ignoring the builder. At the end of the time, he asked for a show of hands on how many people had flown behind an alternative engine, and not a single person held up his hand. Next he asked how many people had a sea plane rating, and again, not one single hand. He asked how many people hand finished a homebuilt, and 3 people held up their hands. None of these three had asked a question. He looked at the clock and said “Thanks for coming” even though he didn’t feel it.  When leaving, he overheard the two airfoil guys say to each other “That guy is really defensive – I’ll bet he knows his plane isn’t any good.”  The guy who said the hull was a bad design was speaking into his cell phone, and made the comment “The guy is just a  dumb mechanic, didn’t even know what a prismatic coefficient was, he tried to change the subject to the ‘water line’ on the floats.”

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The builder was in no hurry to get back to his plane and meet more spectators with ‘comments’. He wandered past other larger forms, and spent some time listening to the speakers and the questions they received. He noticed a funny thing: Some of the same people from his forum sat in larger forums from commercial companies, and said nothing critical. In general, the more lavish the product, or the greater the ‘celebrity’ of the name associated with it, the more likely it was to be hailed without question.  This wasn’t just at the forums, but was also at the commercial displays. He stood and watched a presentation where the salesman told a group of media people the prototype on display flew great, and had excellent performance. Yet the lack of an n-number, a tail data tag, an airworthiness certificate in the cockpit nor any brake fluid in the clear lines said the plane had never flown, but the display was slick, the presenter was sure of himself, and no one questioned anything he said, there was a small line of people writing deposit checks for a ‘Delivery Position”.

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The builder walked back to his plane after listening to the departure briefing. Right next to his plane was a two seat tandem high wing plane. The designer, a friendly guy with a gray bead, was talking to the guy from Germany. The designer asked  the builder “So, how was your first forum?” and added “Don’t take those clowns seriously.” The builder said he was leaving. The designer suggested stopping at his place, in the hills south of Roanoke, gave him the coordinates.

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While the builder was packing the tie downs, a magazine guy from AOPA stopped by. He claimed to love homebuilts, but when he noticed that the builders plane said “alternative engine” on the prop card, the magazine guy asked if there were any others of this model “with a real engine.” The builder pointed out that he had 600 hours on his engine, so it seemed pretty real, but the guy from AOPA said, “You know what I mean, a good engine.” The builder said ” Please don’t photograph my plane.”  Offended, the writer turned to the designer of the high wing plane and said “Guys like that with car engines give homebuilts a bad name.” The designer just nodded. The joke was the high wing airplane had the same engine as the amphibian.

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The builder decided to hit marinas on the route home, opposed to airports. Because he had an amphibian, he departed to the east, crossed lake Winnebago at low altitude, and was shortly over lake Michigan. Eighteen years earlier, he took this same path in the Cherokee, but he had climbed to 9,000′. On this day he flew  across the lake at 75′. It is the reverse of most pilots, he is far safer flying over water. In a short while the Michigan coast showed up and he followed it down south. Much of the time he was lower than the dunes, but 1,000′ off the beach. He has a large muffler above the wing, and he wasn’t disturbing anyone. At 75 mph, the plane is burned about 3 gallons an hour.  He had 11 more hours range at that setting. With the stress of crowds and critics fading behind him, he didn’t feel any rush to be somewhere else.

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He turned a smooth arc around South Bend, and 25 miles later he over flew Lake Winona. The chart showed a sea plane base. He didn’t need to stop, but he thought about overflying it to check it out for later trips. Nearly as soon as he formed that thought, he realized that he probably wouldn’t be coming this way again.  He flew over at 500′ anyway. It was a weekday, but great weather had a lot of boats out on the lake. As he looked down at all the different types, Ski boats, pontoon boats, Kayaks, and sailboats, all out having their own fun, he wondered why in aviation pilots have to be so compulsively critical of the planes of others? In 30 years of boating in Florida, he couldn’t remember people spending a lot of time concerned about what other boaters chose to do.

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The GPS showed 369 miles to the little airport south of Roanoke. With the 15mph tailwind, he would be there with many hours of fuel and three hours of daylight to spare. The designer said no one would be there, but he was welcome to stay as long as he liked. “There are no locks on the house or hangar, the pickup keys are in the ignition.” It was a good reminder that he had met countless good, generous people in aviation.  To some people, it was a brotherhood like he wanted it to be, but they were a lot farther apart than hoped. He used to be more tolerant of negative people, but one day when he was watching an old film he heard the dialog “There are times you suddenly realize you are nearer the end than the beginning.” The actor was speaking about realizing your life was already mostly over. From there forward he was unwilling to throw away hours of his life by spending them around the compulsively negative.

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After tying his plane down and getting a look around, the builder decided to go find dinner in the small town he had seen when looking for the airstrip. The pickup was a late 60’s F-100, ‘three on the tree’. He liked the way the designer had just assumed everyone knew how to drive this kind of transmission.

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 At the restaurant, the waitress was very friendly, but he knew she was just passing time on a slow night. Away from his plane, his rumpled clothes and tan made him look just like any other guy who had been camping or on the road for a week.  The man at the cash register asked “Are you friends with Bob?” It caught him off guard, and the builder just looked blankly. The man followed with “You are driving his truck.” The builder was temped to tell him they had met at Oshkosh, but tried a disarming smile and simply said “Yes.” Walking out to the parking lot the builder felt funny that he knew a lot about the designers planes and work, but until standing at the register, he had not known the man’s first name. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. It wasn’t that he was particularly bad with names, it just some part of him wasn’t really listening during introductions, perhaps because the probability of getting to know someone new on a first name basis seemed pretty low at this age.

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 It was a really a very nice town, all old brick front two story buildings, gas stations with 1950s architecture, and a little park with a civil war obelisk with ‘Bivouac of the Dead’ inscribed on it .  Sitting in the park he imagined moving here, but a moment later remembered he didn’t have the accent, and he was too old to be ‘the new guy in town’ for a decade. He liked his town in Florida just fine, but it wasn’t his hometown either. Belonging was made of something else.

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It was the same old thought: the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more independent, the less likely you are to feel at home or needed anywhere. It was the ultimate irony of the builders life: He had spent all his adult years carefully preserving his freedom, avoiding marriage, kids, lasting friendships and debt. He had honed his independence and self reliance, and had modest needs that allowed ‘retiring’ before he was 50. Theoretically, he was to have total freedom to wander and travel as he pleased, stay as long as he liked, meet new people without reservation. He had achieved this, but belatedly come to understand that people most often travel to people or places they are attached to, and most humans like being needed, and rarely feel comfortable with the rare person who really is totally independent. He could travel anywhere he liked, but spent vastly more time sitting at home wishing he had someone out there who was longing to see him. Years ago he had confirmed the past is better left in the photo albums and it isn’t out there to visit anymore.

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He checked the weather after driving back to the airstrip; it was going to be perfect for the next few days. Staring at the maps he had to fight the urge to see how many miles it was to directly return to Florida. He understood that everyone felt this way near the end of every long adventure, the feeling that it is done before you have made it all the way back. But he had to remember that most other people had family to return to, a sense of belonging that wasn’t to be found by rushing home. He went back to his original plan of flying the 250 miles to Kitty Hawk, and then exploring Pamlico sound for a day or two. He had not been there in 30 years, his amphibian was the perfect way to see it again. His quiet house in Florida, with it’s empty refrigerator, was indifferent about waiting a few more days for his return.

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He sat out on the front porch and watched the sun sink off the western end of the airstrip. The sky and the mountains were incredibly beautiful at that moment. He started to take a few pictures, but stopped himself after a few when he realized he couldn’t think of anyone he would show them to.  He sat there staring at end of the day, and he kept coming back to the voice saying “Suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning.”  After a long hesitation, he did something that he had previously been able to resist doing. He took out his wallet and carefully extracted a little piece of paper that said “Think of me as often as you like, but……  

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Builders:

After hours at Oshkosh 2014, I was speaking with a  small group of friends, and mentioned that I had now worked in homebuilding for 25 years.  One person offered that it must have held many of the rewards I hoped for, if I had stuck with it, and I acknowledged that it did. But a very insightful friend asked if there was an element that I never expected. He was thinking in positive terms, but my answer wasn’t.  The answer I gave him,  “The Hypocrisy of Homebuilders” is  a very important factor, and every homebuilder deserves a plain discussion of it so they can be better prepared when they meet it.

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Above, a photo of legendary Florida aviator Ed Hoffman and one of his many creations. The photo is from an old Sport Aviation. I find it inspirational; it is laminated and it hangs on the wall of my workshop.  One of the best parts of my 2014 flying season was a chance meeting of Ed’s son flying this plane at the Fantasy of Flight splash in. I made a special effort to explain to him how much the work his father, a man I had never met, meant to me as a homebuilder. Ed’s son smiled and shared a few stories of his father, a much admired homebuilder. 25 years earlier, when I was just starting in experimental aviation, this is how I pictured homebuilding, something of a brotherhood, people who would certainly respect all forms of creativity and the human freedom expressed in the act of building one’s own flying machine.

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Anyone who is involved in light aviation understands that you will encounter an endless stream of people who will compulsively make unsolicited negative comments to you.  If you decide that your path in aviation is homebuilding, these comments will surely double in both frequency and intensity. Homebuilders, even relatively late arrivals, expect and understand this. 

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However, few homebuilders expect or are prepared for this: The many of their most vocal and venomous critics will be other homebuilders. While there are a great number of homebuilders who understand that claiming their own right as an individual to choose what they will do in aviation, requires they respect the right of others to make different choices without criticism, my 27 years in homebuilding says these people are perhaps just 20% of the people who call themselves ‘homebuilders.’ 

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When a new company has a press release that says their yet to fly ‘design’ will be the greatest aircraft ever, because it is made by the Chinese government and made of a composite of asbestos and a residue of political prisoners. It is perfectly OK to tell your friend with his checkbook in hand to slow down before writing a deposit. What is not OK, is to criticize the private choice of another homebuilder, a decision they have made for themselves.  If a person wishes to be able to make their own choice for themselves, than it is absolutely required they respect the same decision made by another person, even if the choice is different.

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In my evaluation, anyone who expects the right to build a plane of his choosing, but criticizes the design, appearance, mission or materials of  the choices of others, is the very definition of the word hypocrite. In my time in homebuilding, with the rise of the internet and societies acceptance of negativity as a somehow admirable trait, this has only gotten worse. Since I can do nothing about these people, The most effective way to support homebuilders, especially new ones, is to frankly tell them to expect that the majority of people they encounter who claim to be ‘homebuilders’ are hypocrites, and will demonstrate this with little or no provocation. You should not let your choices as an individual be affected by them.

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The golden rule is this: Do your homework, listen to successful builders (who made the same plane, you can’t ask RV-4 builders if a Pietenpol is a good idea) and then build the plane you want to, not the one that the majority of people tell you to.

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If you build the Plane that the majority of people tell you to, they 1) It might make them happy. 2) It probably will not make you happy. 3) You will belatedly learn that following the unsolicited free advice of strangers is rarely the route to fulfilling your own personal goals and dreams.

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On an FAA accident report, perhaps the most vital question asks how many hours “time in type” did the pilot have. If we applied the same standard to advice on Experimentals, you would find that 90% of the people offering an opinion or advice have 0.0 hours as PIC in the plane they are commenting on. If their advice was based on having even 5 hours in the type, they would say so.  On the FAA forms, you are not allowed to enter “My buddy had one”, “I flew in one as a passenger” or “I read about it on a website” to the time in type figure. They all count for 0.0, and that is pretty much their value as advice on your Experimental project. 

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If a guy at a typical EAA meeting asks you which engine you are going  to use, and you respond  “An alternative engine” there is an 80% chance he will express a negative opinion, even before he asks what kind. Mind you there is only about a 2% chance he has any personal time flying behind any alternative engine, and chances are he has never personally built any flight engine. Mention on line you are going to use an alternative engine, and you get the same 80% negative response from guys with names like “Flyboy26@hotmale” except most of these guys will claim to have several hundred hours behind any engine you mention. Notice the discrepancy between 2% having and 75% on line claiming to have first hand experience. People with actual experience use real names and have websites with their picture and planes with N-numbers on them.

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If you go a typical EAA meeting and say you are going to build a Fly baby, several people will tell you to forget fabric planes and build a metal one. The next month you tell the same guys you are building a Zenith 601, and they tell you forget pulled rivets. The next month you come back with an RV-7 tail kit, and they tell you Experimentals are dangerous, better get a certified plane. The next month you come back with a Cessna 172, and they tell you Skyhawks are terrible because they are underpowered. The next month you trade the 172 in on a Cessna 180, and they tell you how bad tail wheel planes are, and you are only going to get hurt. You find a guy willing to trade your 180 and $18K for his Cessna 185. You bring it to the next meeting, and all the guys who told you what to do, all sing a chorus about how much fuel it is going to use. This is the first moment that you realize you have been attending this chapter for a year, changed your path seven times on the counsel of people you never seen fly anything. You ask another guy about this and he tells you he has been in the chapter since 1986, and he has never seen any of them fly anything, not even a paper airplane.

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I can offer no explanation for this behavior, but since you know it is out there, perhaps it will do your blood pressure some good if you follow my expectation that 80% of the people who claim to be ‘homebuilders’ will be absolute hypocrites, and that way you can be pleasantly surprised with find out I was wrong, it is only 70%.

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This is a link to Jim Tomaszewski’s Corvair Twin: JAG-2 Corvair Twin, running on film. When I posted the story about it, a Canadian ‘homebuilder’ wrote a long derogatory comment about how it was criminal to advocate a twin with fixed props (in spite of the fact planes like Grumman Widgeons were certified with them). I deleted the comments, and the person wrote and said he was suing me for slander against his character, because deleting his comment made it look like he retracted it. He mentioned having his right to free speech. I simply asked him how from Canada he planned to exercise an American right on a private website.  It actually made me feel good to know that the US doesn’t have a monopoly on the manufacture of d-bags.

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Also, get a look at this story about your local airport: A visit to the insane asylum

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-ww.

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Builders:

Here is a WWII aviation story, but the element I would like to draw your attention to happens 18 years after the aviation event.

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I have known this small piece of American history for more than 25 years.  The part of the story that I find most moving is Colin Kelly III refusal to accept an appointment.  It is an outstanding act of integrity to understand that no matter what is offered you, even at just 18 years of age and speaking with the president of the US, he still had integrity to not accept what he had not earned, particularly if this meant he might be taking the place of a better qualified person.

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This story came to mind about a month ago, when I was listening to someone I know, who holds an important position which requires integrity, was speaking of their child graduating from college, and going on to start working in the same field. Without the slightest hesitation, the parent said they were going to “Pull a lot of strings to get (their child) a good job.”

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I understand supporting one’s child, and I think there is nothing wrong at all with doing everything one can to provide the education to make their child the most qualified applicant, but this isn’t what the person was saying. They were directly stating they didn’t care who was the most qualified applicant, they had connections, and could call in favors, and thought there was nothing wrong with doing so. When I politely asked if their child was OK with this, the parent said “Of course, we paid for their college, they will do as we say”. 

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I was thinking about mentioning to them that their child is nearly 21, and is a responsible adult: they can sit on a jury in a capitol case and in many states, decide if someone else is put to death, and maybe it wasn’t ok that they just “do as we say”.  I wanted to tell  the same person about the story of Colin Kelly III, who even at 18 fully understood integrity, but in the end I decided that I was never going to get this person to consider that perspective, as they had long ago misplaced their own integrity, and likely had no interest in looking for it again.

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ww.

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The complete letter from FDR, dated December 17th, 1941:

“To the President of the United States in 1956:

I am writing this letter as an act of faith in the destiny of our country. I desire to make a request which I make in full confidence that we shall achieve a glorious victory in the war we now are waging to preserve our democratic way of life.

My request is that you consider the merits of a young American youth of goodly heritage—Colin P. Kelly, III—for appointment as a Cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point. I make this appeal in behalf of this youth as a token of the Nation’s appreciation of the heroic services of his father, who met death in line of duty at the very outset of the struggle which was thrust upon us by the perfidy of a professed friend.

In the conviction that the service and example of Captain Colin P. Kelly, Jr., will be long remembered, I ask for this consideration in behalf of Colin P. Kelly, III.”

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http://www.ladailypost.com/content/toths-father-colin-kelly-retires-after-27-years

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