Starduster: A Classic Cross-Country

KITPLANES MAY 2018 Jet Eze • Diesel RV-10 • Silence Twister • Biplane Cross-Country • Lightweight Sportsman • Prop Strike Inspections • Epoxy Basics • Battery Rejuvenation

Jet
Eze
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In the Shop:

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• Epoxy Basics
• Battery Rejuvenation
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Silence Twister to OSH www.kitplanes.com
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 CONTENTS
May 2018 | Volume 35, Number 5

Builder Spotlight
6 Jet Eze: Turning a dream into reality, part 1. By Lance Hooley.
14 Light Planes Perform Better: How one builder shaved
200 pounds off his Glasair Sportsman. By Dave Prizio.
20 Jet A for the Rest of Us: The Continental diesel RV-10.
By Dan Horton.
30 The Real McKee: In the ultimate FUUN exercise, Andy
McKee flies the Atlantic in search of AirVenture and friendly
colonials. By Tom Wilson.
38 Biplane Cross-Country: Tennessee to Connecticut in a
30 Starduster SA-100. By Dana Hague.
50 Rapid Prototyping and Experimental Design:
Epoxy and fuel resistance tests, part 1—epoxy basics.
By Eric Stewart.
66 Ask the DAR: Electric motors, major repairs, combining parts
from several kits, using completed wings. By Mel Asberry.

Shop Talk
49 
Plane and Simple: Coil those sheets! By Jon Croke.
54 
Maintenance Matters: Engine inspection and repair after
a prop strike. By Dave Prizio.
58 
Home Shop Machinist: Sharpening bits and random tips.
By Bob Hadley.
65 
The Creative Homebuilder: Light-duty control cables.
By KITPLANES® Staff.
72 
Aero ’Lectrics: Harbor Freight leads the charge! By Jim Weir.

Designer’s Notebook
75 
Wind Tunnel: Design process, part 6—obstacles.
By Barnaby Wainfan.

Exploring
6 2 
Editor’s Log: Chasing ratings. By Paul Dye.
62 
Checkpoints: Three common discrepancies. By Vic Syracuse.
78 Rear Cockpit: On electric light. By Tom Wilson.

Kit Bits
5 Letters
67 List of Advertisers
68 Builders’ Marketplace
80 Kit StufF: Drawing on experience. By cartoonist Robrucha.

38
For subscription information, contact KITPLANES®
at 800/622-1065 or visit www.kitplanes.com/cs.
On the Cover: Too much fun! Lance Hooley in his one-of-a-kind Jet Eze.
Photographed near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, by Richard VanderMeulen.
KITPLANES May 2018 1
 EDITOR’s LOG

I think my last formal flight review (the

Chasing Ratings
one you have to fly every two years with
a CFI) was probably over two decades
ago. Yet, amazingly, I am fully current and
legal to fly as PIC anytime I want! How can
that be? Isn’t a biennial flight review (BFR)
required? Well, yes, of course it is. But you
can satisfy the requirements for a flight
review in a couple of different ways—and
I found that the most interesting way is to
do some continuing education—other-
wise known as adding ratings.
Now the truth is, most pilots who fly
for their own satisfaction and enjoyment
don’t need additional ratings. A private
license with Airplane, Single Engine,
Land is sufficient to fly what the vast
majority of Experimental aviation pilots
choose to use to leave the ground. But
there is a benefit in achieving additional You can get a seaplane rating in two days at Jack Brown’s in Florida—a great way to
add a new skill and keep yourself learning.
ratings that exceed simply having what
you need; it satisfies what I would argue I earned my first license back in the and we need to keep ourselves up to date
is a need for continuing education. 1970s, before we had the various classes in order to stay with it.
The flight review came into being of airspace (although we did have TCAs), Continuing education is more than just
because of the need for pilots to review before we had METARS (we had sequence the law—it’s a darn good idea as well. It
and hopefully learn a little more after reports instead), and before you needed keeps us limber mentally, and it brushes us
passing their check ride. In the old days, specific endorsements to operate high- up on skills that we might let atrophy. For
there was no such thing. A pilot could earn performance, complex, or taildragger air- instance, for a recent rating, I needed to
their license, and so long as they made planes. If I hadn’t been concerned about demonstrate my ability to fly instrument
three takeoffs and landings (to a full stop continuing education, I’d have sailed approaches in a twin with one engine
if in a taildragger) within 90 days of carry- merrily through airspace I didn’t under- inoperative. The trouble was, the airplane
ing passengers, they were good to go— stand, not knowing the weather, and we were using only had a basic six-pack,
even if their last flight was a decade or never having anyone sign me off as com- no autopilot, and basic avionics. I hadn’t
more previous. That caught the attention petent to fly any of the four conventional- flown that way for years, despite the fact
of people who study accidents and inci- gear airplanes that live in my hangar. Well, that I trained for my instrument rating
dents, and the FAA felt that the interests OK—I am grandfathered on all of those that way back in the dark ages. Brushing
of safety were better served if they made endorsements, so I don’t actually need up my scan and getting sharp flying with
sure that pilots were at least exposed to the signatures, as I did have the training. raw needles is not something that I will
a basic review once every two years. The point is, the aviation world changes, use in my everyday flying, but it sure did

Paul Dye, KITPLANES® Editor in Chief, retired as a Lead Flight Director for NASA’s Human Space Flight

Paul Dye
program, with 40 years of aerospace experience on everything from Cubs to the Space Shuttle. An avid
homebuilder, he began flying and working on airplanes as a teen, and has experience with a wide range
of construction techniques and materials. He flies an RV-8 that he built, an RV-3 that he built with his
pilot wife, as well as a Dream Tundra they completed. Currently, they are building a Xenos motorglider.
A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 5000 hours in many different types of aircraft and is an
A&P, EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor, as well as a member of the Homebuilder’s Council. He consults
and collaborates in aerospace operations and flight-testing projects across the country.

2 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

knock the rust off and restore some depth
to my instrument skills. Modern avionics
and displays just make it too easy.
Now many pilots practice their skills a
lot; they go up routinely and shoot touch
and goes, turns about a point, and even EXPERIENCE
stalls. They do these things weekend
after weekend and are confident that
they are staying sharp. But the truth is,
OSHKOSH
when we fly with ourselves all the time,
Magnificently crafted homebuilts
we have no outside critique, no one to
point out that we have gotten sloppy Expert knowledge from 1,000 forums and workshops
with the rudder in the stall, or are flying
Help build the One Week Wonder RV-12
ten knots too fast down final. Even if you
routinely fly with a friend, trading off stick Find what you need from nearly 900 exhibitors
time and watching each other fly, you are
still dealing with a situation where com-
mon mistakes can go unnoticed. I am not
shilling for the CFI world when I say that
instructors are trained to be critical—and
more than that, to recommend fixes and
techniques to make you a better pilot.
Chasing ratings is one way to keep JULY 23-29
yourself sharp, and it is a lot of fun going BUY NOW & SAVE!
after new experiences like flying on floats EAA.org/Kitplanes
or soaring without a motor. Adding an
endorsement for a complex aircraft or
one of them old-fashioned taildraggers
doesn’t increase the number of lines
on your license, but the experience is
just as valuable. Getting a new rating is
a great accomplishment, but you can
get the same feeling for less money just
transitioning into a new type of aircraft.
It’s all good—and all valuable.
What’s important in the end is that we
never stop learning. Aviation is vast, and
the opportunities to learn enormous. The
learning pays off in enhanced safety—
© 2018 EAA
but just as important, in enhanced fun.
And for those of you with ongoing build
projects, remember that if you really
want to fly your own Phase 1, you owe
it to yourself—and your airplane—to be
as sharp as possible when the day comes
for you to slip the surly bonds and leave
the planet for the first time in a new craft.
Getting some quality instruction will pay
benefits in safety, lower insurance rates,
and the satisfaction that you are doing
your best as a pilot.
So what new thing will you learn about
in the next month? The next year? Go
and explore—there is a world of experi-
ence waiting to educate you. J

Photo: Courtesy of Paul Dye KITPLANES May 2018 3

 LETTERS
EDITORIAL
Editor in Chief Paul Dye Another Catch-22 metal housing with a ferrite bead on the
editorial@kitplanes.com I read with interest the “Forty-Amp power-in leads. Problem solved!
Executive Editor Mark Schrimmer Catch-22” article in the December 2017 Ralph Hoover
Art Direction Dan Maher issue. I recently inspected an RV-6 that
Contributing Editors Larry Anglisano, Marc Ausman, had an upgraded 60-amp alternator Jim Weir responds: It is worse than that.
LeRoy Cook, Jon Croke, with healthy #8 wires from the alterna- Ralph’s observation is correct…almost.
Robert Hadley, Dan Horton,
Louise Hose, Amy Laboda, tor to the bus. However, the wire from Apple started the whole controversy by
Dave Martin, Sid Mayeux, the bus to the master relay was only #12 completely violating the convention that
David Paule, Dave Prizio, at best. In a high-current battery charg- the most power you can take from a USB
Ken Scott, Elliot Seguin,
Dick Starks, Eric Stewart, ing scenario, it could have overheated. port is half an amp (500 mA). Then they
Vic Syracuse, Barnaby Wainfan, So wire sizes need to be looked at, as went a step further to say that they were
Jim Weir, Tom Wilson. well as circuit breaker values, when putting some electronics into the charg-
Web Editor Omar Filipovic upgrading alternators. ing cable to tell the USB port how much
Cartoonist Robrucha Bill McLagan power they needed. Then they changed the
ADVERTISING way that they did that little maneuver.
Sr. Advertising Manager Chuck Preston Reader McLagan makes a good point— Then the second-gen iPads started sucking
805/382-3363 one that we observe, but forgot to point 2.1 amps, which nearly all USB circuits
chuck@kitplanes.com
out. Always check the sizes of wiring couldn’t supply…except those designed by
BUSINESS OFFICE throughout a system on a used, older Apple. To top it off (as I now understand
Belvoir Media Group, LLC homebuilt when doing an upgrade. You it) the current production iStuff takes as
535 Connecticut Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06854-1713 never know what you might find.—Ed. much as the USB circuit will allow, and
if that isn’t enough to keep the batteries up
EDITORIAL OFFICE
535 Connecticut Avenue
iPower by iBruteForce to speed, the device slowly dies.
Norwalk, CT 06854-1713 I enjoy Jim Weir’s articles, but I have an
editorial@kitplanes.com issue with “iPower by the iBruteForce SOS
Method” in the January 2018 issue. To whom this may concern: The SOS
CIRCULATION
Circulation Manager Laura McMann There is nothing wrong with the ana- article [January 2018] by Myron Nelson
log power supply. In fact, other than was crazy good!
SUBSCRIPTION DEPARTMENT efficiency, it is preferable to a switching Frank Brewer
800/622-1065
www.kitplanes.com/cs supply used in most chargers. The issue
P.O. Box 8535, Big Sandy, TX 75755-8535 is a lack of bias on the data lines. Apple Myron Nelson’s SOS article is Brilliant!
products require a bias on the data lines Thanks for this. I’ve sent it to several
REPRINTS FOR PUBLICATION
AND WEB POSTING AVAILABLE to tell the device how much power is pilot friends.
Minimum Order: 500 available from the charger. Without the Leland Barron
Contact Jennifer Jimolka, 203/857-3144 bias, they charge at a very low rate or
not at all. I learned this after I installed OMG! MN’s article about acronyms
an off-the-shelf DC to DC converter to forgot the most important one—TLA
Change of address? get 5V DC to charge my iPad. A com- (three letter abbreviations). NASA would
Missing issue?
Subscription Question? mercial panel-mount charger replaced be shocked.
the converter, but I then discovered Christian von Delius
Visit www.kitplanes.com/cs.
Or call 800/622-1065 that the noise from the switching
from the U.S. and Canada. power supply swamped the GPS sig- We heard from many readers about
nal to my Garmin 396. Once I figured Myron’s story. Glad you liked it! Look for
more from Myron in the future.—Ed. J
Foreign 903/636-1112 or fax
203/857-3100. out the charger was the issue, I put in a

Website Information: General homebuilt aircraft information, back issue availability, online directories ordering info, plus a Kitplanes® article index and selected articles can be found at www.kitplanes.com.
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KITPLANES May 2018 5

6 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes
 Turning a dream into reality, part 1.
It started in 1974 with my first flying lessons. I was 14. Deliv-
ering newspapers, riding 17 miles a day on my bicycle before
school, landed me enough money to take a one-hour lesson a
month, or sometimes every other month at 12 bucks an hour
with the instructor in a Cessna 150. Soloed on my 16th birth-
day after riding my bike to the airport…it was only 12 miles.
I had to ride my bike; I did not have my driver’s license. The
state trooper who gave me the driving test a few days later had
a good laugh with it—yep, can fly an airplane but could not
drive to the airport.
In ’77 I enlisted in the Air Force and ended up at Fairchild
AFB, Spokane, Washington. This is where I built my Rutan
VariEze. Pusher, canard, looks futuristic...sign me up. In
’86, during my crop dusting days, I decided to build a Rutan
Quickie. Single place, pretty inexpensive, cheap to operate,
and took me six months to complete.
In ’95 I built a DR-107 One Design. I was getting heavy
into aerobatics. The 107 took me two years to build. What a
Photos: Richard VanderMeulen and Lance Hooley
By Lance Hooley
crotch rocket! One of the easiest taildraggers to land I have
ever flown. It had an O-360 in it with a fixed-pitch prop. Just
a blast to fly. During my time with the 107, I was doing fabric
work for Ray Williams in Tennessee. This gave me experience
rebuilding airplanes—mostly Pitts, but also a Stinson 108,
Skybolts, and an Eagle or two.
Some of this rebuild stuff was insurance work...translation,
it be broke. Cracked spars, ribs, wing tip bows. This started me
down the path of how do I do this?
While flying for a commuter airline in Orlando, Florida, in
1999, I worked at Jim Kimball Enterprises doing their fabric
work. This was top-end stuff. You only do the best with them.
Their award list shows it, too. In 2000 I moved to Tennessee
again and was out of building airplanes. But not for too long.
Back to Building
In 2001 the bug to build bit me again. Just kinda in my nature
to create. This is when the Long-EZ kept coming back to the
KITPLANES May 2018 7
top of my “wanna build” list. Fiberglass
work was no stranger to me, so this did
not slow me down…well sorta. The fin-
ish work is labor intensive. The biggest
expense is time. Lots of time to build a
moldless composite airplane.
There were also a lot of unknowns.
Could I build another airplane? Yeah,
I’ve already built two other Rutan-type
airplanes. Where would I do it? Hope-
fully at home. The build goes faster
when you can work on it anytime you
can. How long would this one take?
Longest it had taken me in the past was
two years. Could I afford it? Pay as I go;
Canard tip. On a lot of the parts for the original Long-EZ, Burt Rutan says, “Sand to a
this will defer the costs over a period pleasing shape.“ Works for me…This is made out of carbon.
of time. It will cost blood, sweat, and a
few tears. It’s not a hobby if it doesn’t building a Long. So my soon-to-be wife Robert told me some time later it was
involve blood. and I did a day trip over to see him. My then he realized I was serious about this
Have you noticed the question of concern about the older design was put and being a builder.
could I build it did not come up? In no to rest when Robert suggested I build
way did I think I had all the knowledge it with current knowledge of fiberglass Why Not a Jet?
to build it. However, I do not believe in structure and materials. So now it gets interesting. As if building
can’t. Learning is enjoyable to me. So The visit started a friendship between an airplane was not interesting enough
finding out all I needed to know to build Robert and myself, which we continue already. From here on, it’s not a Long-
an airplane was part of the journey. So today. Robert ended up being my men- EZ. I wanted a big engine in it…more
why build? Learning. Building a cool tor with airplanes. He mentored me in power. The only time you have too much
airplane almost exactly as I wanted it the building process, building for ease power is right before impact. I wanted
was cool itself. of maintaining and flying homebuilts. to put an IO-360 in it with dual elec-
The Long-EZ has always had an How did this happen? Easy. Robert gets tronic ignition. Robert said fine, but we
appeal to me. Man, is it an older design a lot of tire kickers. People talk a lot and needed to change the structure since a
though, like 1977 or so. But even to this then do nothing. It gets frustrating since Long has a 190-knot VNE and was never
day, it looks futuristic. Along came an Robert does not charge for this…consul- intended to have this much power.
article in Sport Aviation about Robert tation. It blows his time though. Then I First up was the canard. The airfoil
Harris and the EZ Hangar in Coving- disappeared for a while, so naturally he is the stock GU canard…the internal
ton, Tennessee. I was living in Nashville thought I was a pipsqueak tire kicker, structure is a bit different. Next came
at the time and called them. Robert was too. I called Robert one day to say I had the wings and winglets. They come
more than willing to talk to me about the center section spar built in Florida. from another design, modified for

The inside of most of the nose is a box structure; this is the Robert doing a layup on the bottom of the Jet Eze’s carbon fiber
beginning of the nose. cowling.

8 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

The second tub, with all the mods for strength, out of the garage The center section spar ready for fiberglass layups. The black
for the first time. No wheels yet. lines are for fiberglass weave orientation reference.

higher speeds and weights. The winglet
construction was pretty much stock at
this point.
I had the fuselage to the tub stage,
with mods for the higher horsepower
engine, when I called Robert about the
center section spar mods needed because
of larger engine mount attachments.
Robert suggested making the fuselage
man size—four inches wider right down
the middle and six inches longer in the
back seat, along with moving the front
seat bulkhead top forward one inch and
moving the main gear aft one inch, so
it would stand on its own and not have
to be parked nose down. He also men-
tioned adding a ply of Kevlar to the bot-
tom for off-airport puncture resistance.
Crap. It would be easier and quicker for
me to build another fuselage than mod-
ify the current one.
I gave the tub away…don’t know if the
guy who took it ever did anything with it.
But I built another tub with all the mods.
I didn’t know how to make these mods
when I started tub 2, but I figured it out as
I went. All the measurements in the Long-
EZ plans had to be changed—spar cut-
outs, bulkhead locations, etc. Change one
thing and change six more…do the math.
Here is where we took a large jump
toward unique. Robert suggested put-
ting a GE T-58 jet engine on it, like he
did with the CozyJet he built. Whaaat?
Robert put a feather in my cap and said
he thought I could handle the building
and, more importantly, the flying of it.
Up to me, but it would be different. I
saw a challenge. Boy, did I underesti-
mate this. Yep, we would only have to
bolt it on and build a different engine
mount. How hard could it be?
Full-On Building
Robert came to Kissimmee, Florida, to
pick up my fuselage and take it back to
his shop for us to have a concentrated
effort to get some critical components
built under his supervision. Robert and
his wife, along with my wife and me, got
the nose on it, along with the gear under
it, and the canopy on it, mounted in car-
bon fiber. The nose gear is mounted a lit-
tle lower than expected, as the main gear
is modified for much higher weights and
is longer than a Long-EZ gear. Mine is
more like a Rutan Defiant. So for the
airplane to sit at the correct attitude on
the ground, we had to mount the nose
gear lower. It has an F-4 style bump on
the bottom…you did notice this, right?
Most people don’t. We did all this in 10
days. This also exposed me to Robert’s
advanced building techniques. Really

Robert (on the left) and I cutting the canard cover and canopy Canopy prior to being cut off. Yep, it’s bedded in carbon fiber.
off to glass the inside of each. Most of the airplane is constructed with E-Z Poxy.

KITPLANES May 2018 9

advanced. How else were we to do all
this in just 10 days? Oh yeah, we also
cut out all the access holes these parts
needed and glassed them in this time.
We also completed minor stuff like cut-
ting the canopy off the tub, mounting
all three gear, cutting the canard access
cover, and cutting the nose off for the
batteries to be kept in the nose.
The canopy is much larger than a
Long-EZ. As you can see from the pic-
ture on page 6, there is a lot of room
between my helmet and the canopy.
The canopy is also twice as thick as a
Long-EZ canopy. Airplane Plastics in
Tipp City, Ohio, blew the canopy plas-
tic for us. I sent in a full-size drawing
This is how the “pleasing shape” starts out...with foam blocks hot glued together, then
from the side and top, and they sent a you sand off what doesn’t look right.
clear test canopy. We marked the test
canopy with a grease pencil, indicating of fuel per pod times 6.75 pounds per More Math
things like move this down, make this gallon is…a lot of weight. Back to learn- I wanted to know how much the
shorter, etc., and sent it back. A short ing. How to translate the weight to the strakes would hold, based on the size
time later, the actual canopy arrived, strakes? I figured it out, along with the I made them. Robert wrote the for-
tinted like I wanted, and it fit great. plumbing required to get the fuel from mula upside down on the forward face
Really nice job at what I thought was the pods into the strakes where fuel is of the left center section spar. It’s still
a very reasonable price. usually kept. there. Here was more math I had to
With the airplane back in Kissim- Next came building the strakes them- learn. There is only one straight line in
mee, I built four sets of pods…yep, four. selves. They are bigger than a normal the strakes: the aft edge. Everything
All four are modified FeatherLite pods. Long. Plus I wanted the strakes to carry else is a curved edge. We did quick
They are mounted permanently. Usu- the load of all four pods. There is addi- measurements and figured 107 gallons
ally the pods are removable. Mine are tional structure inside the strakes for total. Based on this, I did not need the
not. The inner two are fuel tanks, and this. OK, I got carried away and over- pods. I mean, we have over three hours
the outer pods are for baggage. Remem- built the strakes and pods. The pods of fuel in the strakes alone, and I have
ber the change rule? How do you make have bruised, tweaked, cut, and poked a two-hour bladder. The pods stayed
mostly hollow structures (the pods) all of us. They do not move—at all. I on just for the cool factor alone. They
load bearing? They were meant to carry think they sometimes reach out and kinda grow on you. We were wrong
15 pounds each. Twenty-five gallons grab you because you’re too close. about the quantity of the strakes.

(Left) Looking forward inside one of the fuel pods prior to installing the back half. I put several baffles in to keep fuel slosh to a minimum.
(Right) Near the end of primer coats. Notice the unevenness on the pods—not quite finished yet.

10 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

Internal structure of the left strake. I built two sub spars to carry
the load of the fuel and baggage pods.
Turned out to be 105.5 gallons. Well,
they were quick measurements!
More math again: This engine will
suck an Olympic-size swimming pool
of air in one minute. What size do you
make the intakes? Too small and you
starve the engine, too large and it creates
an air dam and drag, along with tun-
nel rumble and other problems. There’s
a formula for that, too. Four of us used
the formula and came up with the same
square inches for an answer needed
to size the intakes. Now build them!
Aaargh. More aerodynamics involved
here. By the way, the intakes work really
well. We ended up with the airframe on
a trailer, pulled it through several thun-
derstorms, and the water left a lot of
Robert (on the left) and I sanding the blend for the blended winglets. We were both
much heavier back then.
Robert standing behind the finished carbon fiber cowling—all
5 feet of it.
streaks inside the intakes. They were all
straight lines—perfect attachment front
to rear. It was cool to see.
Aft of the intakes on the firewall is
where the plenum has to bend the air
around to the engine. There is a fair
amount of voodoo involved with this.
You don’t want to choke the air or cause
it to separate and hit the first stage tur-
bine at an angle. There are something
like 45 cure cycles in the plenum alone.
Yeah, it’s complicated. If you want to
know how to build them, talk to Robert.
He’ll probably laugh at you and say,
“It’s complicated.”
The cowling is one-piece carbon
fiber…well it is now. What you do
is this: Put the engine on, cover it in
foam, carve to a pleasing shape, glass
the bottom (yeah, the airplane has to
be upside down), turn the airplane
over, then glass the top. Next, pull the
cowling with the foam off in one piece,
get rid of the foam, add rigidity to the
inside, add the attachment points to
put it back on the airplane, and you’re
done! Yeah, right. Down the road I put
a rather large hole in it where it had to
be modified to accept the alternator, it
needed intake scoops on the bottom to
allow ventilation air, and I also added
drain holes. Had to build a bump for
the alternator hole, too. More aerody-
namics here.
Blended Winglets
I thought it would be cool to have
blended winglets. There’s no drag advan-
tage in having them unless you can do
better than about 150 knots in cruise,
but it sure looks good. Talk about adding
problems. The rudders on this airplane,
Longs, and VariEzes are on the winglets.
However, the inside surfaces of the wing-
lets create lift. So the rudder only goes
outboard. This makes the rudder act like
a flap on a wing and increases the lift on
the inside surface, which pulls the nose
around. Works just like a normal rud-
der, only different. Also when you want
brakes, you push on the rudder pedals,
just like a normal airplane. When the
rudders reach full deflection, you start to
get brakes. So yes, you can push on both
KITPLANES May 2018 11
The front half of the winglet in the foreground has been cut off
to allow the wing spar to be extended into the winglet.
rudders at the same time in flight…mini
speed brakes. So…the blend is curved…
and it needs a cable going through the
wing to actuate the rudder. This got into
arms, radiuses, and deflections. Great,
more math. Remember the change rule.
So I figured it out. Move the rudder out
sometime when you see the airplane, and
you can see how I did it.
Then there is the problem of structur-
ally integrating the winglet to the wing
and the shape of the blend. This is a big-
gie. The Long-EZ is able to take a side
load on its winglets of 170 knots at 90
degrees. Now, I would not want to try
it, but it’s strong. Robert came down to
Florida for a visit, and we went after it.
Basically—very basically—we extended
the wing spar through to the tip of the
winglet. Then we put the winglets on,
shaped the foam for the blend, and
Clear blue sky at Oshkosh 2017…
oh, yeah, the jet is pretty nice, too!
12 KITPLANES May 2018
Both winglets ready for the fiberglass layups. Notice the cutouts
for overlap onto the main wing spar at the end of the wing.
glassed them on in three days. Day two
was kinda long, but we got it done.
This is where the pipsqueak thought
he was the master. When we glassed the
outer skin of the winglets, I wanted to
use peel ply at the end. Peel ply is used
to wick up the excess epoxy, smooth
the layup, make the layup appear thin-
ner, and pre-prep the surface for more
layups later. Robert had only seen peel
ply in 2-inch wide rolls…this would
take forever. I came out with a roll that
was 5 feet wide. Slapped it on, and we
were done in 10 minutes. Robert uses
this technique to this day.
Before I wanted blended winglets,
I thought I was going to use the stock
winglets and had already built a pair
to mount on the wings, complete with
antennas in them. We did not use them
because structurally, they were not
strong enough to use blended. There
is a lot of this when you build a one-
of-a-kind airplane. Many parts I have
built two or three times. Two sets of
winglets, two fuselage tubs. What hap-
pens is this: I would be trying to over-
come a problem, build the solution,
and then see a better way—sometimes
safer, sometimes lighter, sometimes a
cooler way of doing it. I found it easier
at times to think on it until I was happy
with the plan, then jump in. Yep, you’re
gonna make mistakes, yep you’re going
to make more than one of the same
part. But you know, in the end you’re
learning, solving problems, and making
it happen. And that’s what the Jet Eze
project was all about.
There’s still a lot more work to do
before it flies, but we’re out of space, so I’ll
tell you the rest of the story in part 2. J
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 GET ADS-B “OUT” AND
STAY BELOW YOUR $2,000 CEILING.

GDL™ 82 ADS-B DATALINK

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Light Planes
Perform Better
How one builder shaved 200 pounds
off his Glasair Sportsman. By Dave Prizio

14 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 The Glasair Sportsman is a great utility air-
plane, and because of that over 400 of them
have been built. It has that unique blend of
utility—good useful load, good comfort, good
range, and decent speed—combined with
excellent short-field performance. Like the
Cessna 182, it is one of those planes that seems
to be greater than the sum of its parts. How-
ever, that doesn’t mean it can’t be made even
better. And what better way is there to improve
a plane’s performance than to shed 200 pounds
of empty weight while retaining all of the
plane’s great qualities?
This is the challenge that Ted Setzer embraced.
He is one of the original developers of the Stod-
dard-Hamilton GlaStar, the progenitor of the
Glasair Sportsman, and a longtime and recently
retired Glasair employee. To say he knows this
plane well is an understatement. So, how did he
cut so much weight off an already pretty effi-
cient design, and what, if anything, can other
builders learn from him and apply to their proj-
ects? Let’s see.

Low-Hanging Fruit
For Setzer the first part of weight savings is to
pick the lightest possible components that will
do the job. He calls this the low-hanging fruit.
He chose the ECI IO-375 engine with a coun-
ter-weighted crankshaft over the more com-
monly used Lycoming IO-390. The availability
of the counterweighted crank was a vital part
of this decision because of problems that non-
counterweighted 375 engines had with vibra-
tions that caused propeller problems. With this
issue under control, he was able to save over 30
pounds on the engine alone while still main-
taining the same power level.
The next piece of low-hanging fruit was the
propeller. The new Hartzell Trailblazer com-
posite prop saved a good 15 pounds over the
standard 80-inch metal prop. It also brings
added performance with its highly refined
aerodynamic design. More performance and
less weight, admittedly at a cost, was a double
benefit. The lesson here is that the choices made
early in the construction process, even before it
begins, can make a big difference in where you
end up with the final weight of your project.
This is the kind of thinking that has allowed
CubCrafters to build such light Super Cub-
type airplanes. Any builder can embrace this
kind of thinking.
Lithium batteries are another weight saver
that has become very popular. Ted, of course,

Photos: Ted Setzer and Dave Prizio KITPLANES May 2018 15

(Left) A section of prepreg fiberglass is being bagged for vacuum curing at the Glasair factory. This option isn’t really available to the
average builder, but Glasair does now offer a carbon fiber fuselage option that saves even more weight than prepreg. Unfortunately, it is
rather expensive. (Right) The Sportsman firewall assembly goes together with a flange that is riveted to the firewall with Monel rivets and
then attached to the fiberglass fuselage. Substituting titanium for stainless steel saved Setzer two pounds. A piece of titanium ordered
over the internet will cost the typical builder about $200. Be sure to only use commercial pure titanium.

couldn’t resist the temptation to save A weight saving that Setzer was did save a few pounds. Titanium was
an easy 10 pounds by taking advantage quick to utilize, and is easily within not used for structural nuts and bolts.
of this option. He also used copper- reach of the average builder, is to sub- Standard AN hardware was left as is to
clad aluminum wire for his battery and stitute titanium for the stainless steel do its important jobs.
starter wires. I am not so sure I am ready firewall. This resulted in an easy two-
to endorse this practice, but it undeni- pound saving. If you decide to go this Lightening Up the Wings
ably saves weight. way, be sure to get commercial pure and Tail Surfaces
That wraps up what Setzer calls low- titanium and not one of the stronger Setzer was most radical in his weight sav-
hanging fruit, but he was only getting alloys that is very difficult to cut or ing measures when it came to the alumi-
started on weight savings. form. He also used titanium hardware num parts of his Sportsman. For those of
wherever he could for non-structural you who are unfamiliar, the Sportsman
Fuselage Weight Savings items. This came at some extra cost but uses a steel cage inside a fiberglass (or
Setzer’s next weight-saving idea was
a little more exotic. As a longtime
employee of Glasair, he could tap into
some things that most of us could not,
such as access to the factory molds for
the fuselage. He was able to use pre-
preg fiberglass cloth in Glasair’s molds
to form his fuselage. Prepreg is simply
fiberglass cloth that is pre-impregnated
with resin of the exact proportions
needed to achieve maximum strength.
The weight saving comes for elimi-
nating excess resin. Once laid up, the
prepreg must be vacuum bagged and
heated in an oven for several hours.
Obviously, this option is not available
to the average builder. He also modified
the tail of his Sportsman to resemble a
Cessna 180’s tail. This didn’t save any In Setzer’s Sportsman everything got the lightening treatment, even pulleys. Also note
weight. He just wanted to do some- the lightening holes in the gear leg sockets. Each hole only saves a tiny bit of weight,
thing different. but it adds up.

16 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

(Left) Here the lightened elevator is being fitted up to the horizontal stabilizer. It will next get covered with Poly-Fiber cloth. Corner
gussets were employed to replace the strength lost by removing the aluminum skin. (Right) The rudder is fitted to the vertical stabilizer
to make sure everything will work well before covering. Note that the Sportsman’s distinctive tail has been reshaped to resemble that of
a Cessna 180. This saved no weight. It was just something Setzer wanted to do.

now optional carbon fiber) fuselage with
aluminum wings and tail surfaces. That
aluminum was mercilessly attacked by
Setzer’s lightening program. It should be
mentioned that Setzer has access to the
original designer of this airplane, so he
was able to properly analyze every weight
saving measure he undertook. The
things he did should not be considered
by anyone lacking such skill or access to
someone who has it.
The most noticeable change Setzer
made was using fabric-covered control
One of the differences between the original GlaStar and the Glasair Sportsman is the
extended chord of the flaps. Setzer added another two inches to his flaps, figuring if a little
was good, more would be even better. His plane does have a lower stall speed as a result.
surfaces throughout—ailerons, flaps, ele-
vator, and rudder. This does not exactly
break new ground in aerodynamic
design. World War II planes from the
AT-6 to the B-17 used fabric covering on
their control surfaces. Of course, making
fabric-covered parts involves a lot more
than simply removing the aluminum
skin and stretching Dacron over the ribs
and spars. The aluminum skins on the
original control surfaces provided a lot of
strength. That strength has to be replaced
in any redesign. The big challenge was to
replace the torsional rigidity or resistance
to twisting in the new parts. Some of this
Setzer did with help from the original
designer, some of it he did by feel based
on what he had done with the other con-
trol surfaces. In any case, he saved a lot
of weight, and the control surfaces work
very well. This technique could be uti-
lized by most builders, but make no mis-
take about how much effort went into it.
This is not an easy way to save weight.
A place where Setzer was particu-
larly aggressive is in lightening the wing
spars. Here he enlarged lightening holes
and shaved metal off the spar flanges as
much as he could. The concept is simple
enough. The spar has a constant cross
section from root to tip, but the bend-
ing loads diminish the farther from the
point of attachment you move. Setzer
used a circular saw with a carbide blade
to attack the spar flanges, using it as
a plane rather than cutting off pieces.
Anyone could duplicate his effort, but it
would be unwise to do so without some
very serious consideration of the con-
sequences. This is not something to be
taken lightly—no pun intended.
Setzer wanted to track his weight
saving measures as he proceeded, so he
devised a way to account for all of his
trimming and shaving. Every day he
would carefully sweep the shop floor
before he started work. At the end of the

KITPLANES May 2018 17

day he would again sweep the floor, gath-
ering up all the trimmings and chips and
weigh them. It didn’t come to a lot each
day, but over time it added up.
Wet Wings
Stealing an idea from Van’s playbook,
Setzer dumped the factory-welded
aluminum fuel tanks and went with a
wet-wing design to add fuel and save
weight. Doing this in a plane that was
not originally designed for such a fea-
ture takes quite a bit of modification to
pull it off. Ribs that once had holes in
them must be replaced with solid ribs,
and everything must get sealed with
the RV builder’s favorite goop—Pro-
Seal. Setzer’s modification required
using thicker skins in the fuel tank
sections, which added weight, but that
was more than offset by the elimina-
tion of the tanks.
Not Everything Saved Weight
Besides building a very light plane,
Setzer wanted to create a better STOL
plane to give him access to off-airport
landing spots that he otherwise would
have to pass up. To do this he did some
things that actually added weight. The
biggest penalty paid were gear legs
that were not only three inches lon-
ger, but also about 1/8-inch diameter
larger to better gain prop clearance
and absorb the rough terrain he had
in mind to conquer. He also extended
the chord of the flaps by two inches,
Using a circular saw with a carbide blade, Setzer shaved all of this extra material off the spars.
He collected up the shavings each day and weighed them to keep track of his progress.
18 KITPLANES May 2018
Every part, even these hat sections, fell under Setzer’s lightening program. Here you can
see how he scalloped out the unused material between attachment points and drilled
the hats to get them as light as possible.
which negated the weight savings from
the fabric covering, but did give him a
lower stall speed.
Another weight saving Setzer passed
up was the elimination of paint on the
metal surfaces. It is some extra work to
keep aluminum wings and the eleva-
tor polished, but it undeniably saves
weight. These were painted for the sake
of appearance and less maintenance.
While on the subject of paint, it is
amazing how much weight a paint job
adds to the empty weight of an airplane.
Setzer weighed his plane before paint
and came up with an empty weight of
1207 pounds. After paint that number
climbed up to 1260 pounds, a 53-pound
weight gain. It seems likely that 20
pounds or so could have been saved by
leaving the aluminum surfaces bare.
Weight Savings Not Utilized
Most of Setzer’s weight saving ideas
involved little or no extra cost but
merely a lot of extra work. The big excep-
tion to that was the Hartzell Trailblazer
prop. That 15-pound saving cost several
thousand dollars.
Another extra cost step not taken was
the use of magnesium wheels in lieu of alu-
minum wheels. Setzer began his project
too soon to utilize the carbon fiber fuse-
lage option now available from Glasair.
This has become a popular way to trade
dollars for weight savings for builders
who are so inclined. The problem with all
of these weight-saving ideas is that the far-
ther you go in your efforts to save weight,
the more expensive it gets per pound
saved. This is a problem well known to
serious bicycle riders. Removing weight
from your bike requires removing weight
from your wallet, and at an alarming rate
as you push things farther and farther.
This was not in Setzer’s plans.
The Final Results
The typical Glasair Sportsman weighs
about 1460 to 1470 pounds. The factory
has a lot of history on actual weights
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Setzer rivets together an aileron. The gold color is from the alodine process he used to
inhibit corrosion.
through its Two-Weeks-to-Taxi pro-
gram, so these are real numbers. Setzer’s
plane weighed 1260 pounds after paint
with standard 6.00x6 tires. That is an
honest 200-pound weight saving. He
added some big 31-inch Alaska Bush-
wheels that wiped out about 40 pounds
of that, but the same amount would
have been added to a more conventional
Sportsman to get the same benefit.
What, if any of this, could the aver-
age RV builder utilize? That is a fair
question. Some of the things Setzer
did would not be readily available to an
RV builder, and others would be diffi-
cult to duplicate. Lightening the metal
structure can be done. But it cannot be
emphasized too much how important
it would be to only attempt this with
the assistance of a sharp engineer well
versed in aircraft structures. It would be
wrong to assume that Van’s was careless
with weight in their design.
Setzer’s low-hanging fruit is available
to most builders unless you are build-
ing an ELSA kit. An O-320 engine can
be tweaked to duplicate the power of
an O-360 without too much trouble or
expense, saving 10 to 15 pounds. A com-
posite fixed-pitch prop such as a Catto
can save even more weight compared
to a metal fixed-pitch prop without
incurring much added cost. Composite
constant-speed props can save around
15 pounds compared to their metal
counterparts, but admittedly at an
extra cost of several thousand dollars.
A lithium battery is an easy 10-pound
weight saving, but careful attention to
your wiring such as overvoltage protec-
tion is a must if you go that way.
Perhaps the biggest weight saver is
one that has not yet been mentioned—
don’t put things in your plane that you
don’t need. Setzer certainly took that
to heart, as should every builder. It is
so easy to add 50 or even 100 pounds
to the empty weight of a plane with
added items that seem like a good idea,
but are really not necessary. Another
way weight gets added is by adding
complexity to what should be simple
systems. Engineer/builders are famous
for this. Remember, the best design
is almost always the simplest design,
which is so often also the lightest
design. Complexity adds weight and
usually decreases reliability, two bad
things to do to an airplane.
Setzer added 40 pounds to his new
airplane by adding heavy tires. The good
thing about them is that he can easily
remove them if he no longer needs them.
However, for the flying he wants to do,
these are important to the success of his
mission. That is the good kind of added
weight. Any builder with a special need
such as this should feel justified in add-
ing weight to meet that need. Just be
sure you really need it. J
KITPLANES May 2018 19
 Jet A for
Scott Flandermeyer is a patient man.
Roll the clock back to 2008. A boom-
ing U.S. economy had taken a hit follow-
ing the Wall Street subprime meltdown,
and fuel prices dived with it, driven by
reduced demand. By December, whole-
sale avgas was under $2 per gallon, rosy
news indeed for pilots who had the
means to fly. But then, like the stock
market, fuel prices rebounded.
Flandermeyer had begun a Van’s
RV-10 kit in 2008. By mid-2010, about
20 KITPLANES May 2018
the time he began to think about an
engine choice, an avgas pump sporting
a $6 sign wasn’t unusual in Atlanta. Jet
A was far less pricey, so it didn’t take
much to turn his attention to the talk
of new diesels. After all, he burned Jet A
by the ton in his day job at Delta.
The possibilities were limited; only
DeltaHawk and SMA appeared to have
suitable engines. DeltaHawk’s two-
stroke diesel V-4 was a nice fit in terms
of weight and size, but produced little
more than the bare minimum power for
an RV-10. At that time, DeltaHawk had
a few pre-production engines out with
potential military and OEM customers,
but was telling everyone E/A-B applica-
tions would have to wait.
The French SMA opposed four was
much further along the development
curve, having received both EASA and
FAA certification by 2002. The SR305-
230 had already been installed in a vari-
ety of aircraft, most notably as a popular
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the Rest of Us
Cessna 182 retrofit. So, Flandermeyer
gave SMA a call. The U.S. sales repre-
sentative was encouraging, but after
consulting the home office, the eventual
answer was “No.” Although SMA repre-
sentatives had indicated the engine was
available to homebuilders (at AirVenture
2008), in reality it seems they wanted
the participation of kit manufacturers,
not an individual effort.
There was one last possibility. In the
spring of 2010, Continental entered
Photos: Scott Flandermeyer and Dan Horton
The Continental Diesel RV-10.
into a diesel technology licensing agree-
ment with another manufacturer.
CEO Rhett Ross was firmly commit-
ted to transforming the company into
a worldwide supplier of engines, and
outside the U.S., that meant Jet A. Now
rising 100LL prices added a potential
U.S. market. Buying access to an exist-
ing design was a way to begin their own
development from an advanced posi-
tion, rather than starting from scratch,
and enter the market years sooner.
By Dan Horton
Licensing put Continental in the
game, but there was no Jet A product
available, not yet. For Flandermeyer, it
was a long shot, but he called anyway, and
kept calling every few months. Today he
laughs, and says “They just never told me
to go away.” Eventually he found him-
self talking to Mike Gifford and Johnny
Doo. They were open-minded, and kept
asking questions. “How would you do
this?” was the common theme. Doo gave
him a draft copy of the manual. “Here,
KITPLANES May 2018 21
proofread this for us. Tell me what you
think.” They talked a lot, a steady two-
way exchange.
In reality, Flandermeyer’s timing was
near perfect. Teledyne sold Continen-
tal to AVIC of China in the spring of
2011, accelerating the company’s focus
on non-avgas development. Then they
bought the assets of the Thielert bank-
ruptcy in 2013, adding the Mercedes-
based CD-135 and CD-155 geared
diesels to the product line. Suddenly
Continental was the world leader in
Jet A piston engines, with committed
management at every level, and Flander-
meyer was in the door.
Still, progress was slow. With a new
corporate owner, new business divi-
Huge primary oil cooler holds nearly five quarts. The sump holds eight more.
sions, and new cash, Continental had a
lot of organizing to do. OEM interest at the improved 230-horsepower Conti- Flandermeyer’s experimental CD-230
Cessna (for what became the Skyhawk nental (which the type certificate calls came with a formal contract. He would
JT-A) and a large number of engines a TD-300-C) was no longer the end follow the factory’s operational dic-
already in the field sent the water-cooled product. The new goal was 265 horse- tates to the letter, doing maintenance
CD-135/155 program to the head of power for fixed-wing applications, as directed and supplying a constant
the line. The Thielert buy came with a which would again stretch the devel- stream of data. Disclosure to outside
Mercedes-based V-6 diesel too. Both opment calendar. However, since cer- parties would require approval. Owner-
the V-6 and the licensed flat four were tification required a demonstration of ship of the engine would remain with
targeted for certification, with develop- the production process, the factory had Continental, because if deemed suc-
ment teams on both sides of the Atlan- built a batch of CD-230 parts. Some of cessful in the RV-10, it would be a mere
tic. Flandermeyer heard “next quarter” the resulting engines went to the test stand-in for the real purchase, a produc-
repeatedly, but remained committed. cell for verification. Others were used tion CD-265 to be delivered later. In
Finally, in late 2015, he got a diesel. to run prototype parts for the 265. A the meantime, Flandermeyer would be
The engineering staff had made a lot few were quietly distributed to inter- both installation engineer and test pilot,
of changes along the way, so many that ested parties…and one homebuilder. with a little help where needed. He was
delighted, and set to work.

The Nitty-Gritty Shop Stuff

The first task was the design of a motor
mount, which required a careful analy-
sis of weight and balance. The CD-230
looks a lot like any other flat four, but
has massive rotating and reciprocat-
ing components compared to an avgas
engine of similar displacement. The core
weighs about 450 pounds, including
the primary exhaust and turbocharger,
but without the air-to-air induction
intercooler, the high-pressure induction
plumbing, or the very large oil cooler. In
comparison, the RV-10’s typical IO-540
has a core weight of roughly 400 pounds
with induction and starter.
Most builders gravitate to a light-
weight propeller when confronted
Lower inlets feed the oil cooler and air-to-air intercooler. with extra engine mass, but diesel prop

22 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

options are limited. As a rule of thumb,
combustion pressures are about three
times higher. When combined with a
low cylinder count, it means the prop
must deal with very high oscillating
torque. The prop hub and blade roots
must be significantly larger for the same
power level, and blade vibration analy-
sis is critical. MT and Hartzell had
each developed a propeller for the SMA
diesel, and either could be flown on the
CD-230. Flandermeyer selected the less
pricy MT, which weighs 65 pounds. In
comparison, a typical MT for a gas 540
is about 40 pounds, plus spinner.
The MT hub incorporates a signifi-
cant extension, which pushes the engine
mass rearward to a position roughly
equal to the rearmost four cylinders on
the 540. The heavy accessories (turbo,
intercooler, and oil cooler) are also
toward the rear. A battery is behind
the baggage compartment, and as the
CD-230 requires 24 volts to crank, that
battery would be a Concorde RG24-
16 at nearly 30 pounds. In the end, the
prop stayed in the same place, and air-
frame CG was not greatly impacted.
An acquaintance recommended a
structural engineer to design the motor
mount. The FAA had issued special cer-
tification guidance for the Cessna Sky-
lane diesel program, which required
higher margins for torsional strength;
specifically 4x mean torque as com-
pared to 2x for a gas engine. Follow-
ing those guidelines seemed sensible.
Although beefy, the finished motor
mount geometry is similar to the
Lycoming mount it replaced.
Flandermeyer was able to measure
and pattern a set of engine baff les
taken from an SMA engine, which just
happened to be removed from its air-
frame at the time. Friends at the airline
shop helped with stout brackets and
fittings. Aero engineers interested in
the project quietly offered advice and
drawings. Serendipity ran rampant.
It seemed as if every time a challenge
arose, he immediately stumbled across
the right people.
There are three fuel pumps, an elec-
tric Andair to deliver fuel from the
tanks, an engine-driven rotary pump,

KITPLANES May 2018 23

and the high-pressure injection pump.
Fuel filters were relocated to the wing
roots, so cleaning them doesn’t cause
a Jet A smell in the cabin. There are
no water separators. The fuel system
returns roughly 40 gallons per hour to
the tanks, so it requires 3/8-inch return
lines, plus a duplex fuel selector to
route the fuel back to the source tank.
It’s possible to plumb the fuel return
directly back to the engine, but doing
so requires a fuel cooler. Flandermeyer
installed both a tank return system and
a fuel cooler, as specified by the manu-
als, although the factory engineers are
satisfied that wet wing metal tanks
shed more than enough heat to the
airstream. N104ST’s system is instru- Hot compressed air from the turbocharger passes through this large intercooler, then
to the intake manifold.
mented, and so far fuel inlet tempera-
ture has gone no higher than 105° F directly to the injection pump. That’s Pacific Oil Cooler built a custom unit,
during an Atlanta summer (max is 149° also true of Flandermeyer’s experimen- which was plumbed in series with a nor-
F). The fuel itself is strictly Jet A or sim- tal engine. Right now the system uses a mal sized cooler to meet the total capac-
ilar, as highway diesel fuel has not been pair of Electronics International “red ity requirement. The cooling oil flow
tested. Flandermeyer adds Biobore, a cube” FT-60 turbine senders (one feed, rate (15 gallons per minute) requires -12
popular anti-microbial. one return), but significant pressure lines (3/4 inch). The auxiliary cooler was
Accurate fuel flow instrumentation pulsation in the diesel’s fuel flow makes ducted to provide cabin heat, as the oil
has been a challenge. Earlier CD-230 them inaccurate. system is always above 150° F in flight.
B and C models used a computer and It’s safe to call the CD-230 and Pacific built the air-to-air intercooler
servo to control the injection pump; the CD-265 “oil cooled engines,” as they too. The oil itself is full synthetic, cur-
cockpit fuel flow indication is derived shed about 2/3 of their waste heat via a rently an experimental Phillips 10-40
from the computer’s fuel map, not an dedicated oil system with its own pump, obtained via Continental, along with
actual measurement. For simplicity, separate from the lube flow. The required an equally experimental Tempest filter.
Continental eliminated the computer heat exchanger is huge by conventional Synthetics work very well, as there is no
and servo during CD-265 development; standards. An off-the-shelf unit from tetraethyl lead in Jet A.
the cockpit power lever is connected the Cessna Skylane STC wouldn’t fit, so Sharp-eyed readers may notice an
electric preheat system. The lowest

CD-265 Specifications allowable oil temperature is 20° F (less

requires preheat), and anyway, a cold
Scott Flandermeyer is currently flying a hybrid built with CD-230, CD-265, and prototype diesel can be hard to start. It saves
parts, but it won’t be on his RV-10 forever. Eventually N104ST will sport a new CD-265, and time too, as the manuals require 150° F
we’ll go back then for a serious look at in-flight performance. For now, imagine 260+ hp to sump temperature and less than 130 psi
nearly 10,000 feet, then cruising at 235 hp on less than 12 gallons an hour. before advancing above 1500 rpm.
The cowl required a lot of modifica-
Model per type certificate: TDIO-304-A tion, and likely will require more. The
Bore and stroke: 4.995 x 3.937 inches obvious difference is a pair of oil cooler
Displacement: 303.64 cubic inches and intercooler inlets at lower left and
Compression ratio: 15:1 right. Both connect to internal fiber-
Maximum altitude: 20,000 feet glass ducts, which expand to the area
Maximum continuous power: 262 hp @ 2500 rpm of their respective heat exchangers. The
Recommended cruise: 235 hp intercooler seems to be doing fine, but
Max rpm/Idle rpm: 2500/800 oil temperature currently limits climb.
Fuel requirement: Jet A, Jet A-1, Jet Fuel No. 3, TS-1 Calculations since showed the lower
Consumption at 262 hp: 94 pounds per hour left inlet to be much too small, so it and
Consumption at 235 hp: 85 pounds per hour its ductwork are scheduled for surgery
—D.H. at the next annual.

24 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 Resizing the conventional air inlets
by the spinner resulted in little change
to cylinder head temperatures, not sur-
prising since they are heavily oil cooled.
The cylinder barrels, however, are
entirely air cooled. Thermocouples on
the barrels may allow reshaping much
of the nose. Currently all three cooling
flows (air-to-air, oil, and cylinder baf-
fle) exit the cowling in a conventional
manner at the bottom of the firewall.
Flandermeyer installed a pair of electric
cowl flaps, which do help tailor flow
between climb and cruise.
The diesel brought one bonus to the
installation: a painless exhaust installa-
tion. The primary exhaust connecting
the cylinder heads to the turbocharger
is a critical component. Builders install-
ing the typical gas 540 six-cylinder
must purchase or fabricate an entire
exhaust system, but Continental sup-
plies the turbodiesel with everything
but the single tailpipe.

Let’s Go Fly
The primary engine controls are simple.
A diesel has no throttle plate. Instead
the cockpit power lever is connected to
the CD-230’s injection pump; power
varies in proportion to delivered fuel. A
mechanical stop prevents the pilot from
inadvertently moving the fuel control
to idle cutoff. An MT governor, driven
from the forward end of the camshaft,
controls rpm. As a practical matter,
N104ST’s prop lever is used to exercise
the 3-blade before departure, and is then
parked at the full forward stop until the
next flight. When airborne, the CD-230
B and C always run at 2200 rpm. The
CD-265 will offer 2200 to 2500. There
is no mixture control.
Diesels typically incorporate a cold-
start glow plug system, fundamentally
an electrically heated rod extending
just a wee bit into each combustion
chamber. The installed Bosch system
is fully automatic. When armed with
a panel switch, it looks at OAT and
decides how long to heat before turn-
ing off an indicator light, after which
the pilot need only turn the key. Typi-
cal glow time is about 7 seconds at 32°
F. As a compression ignition engine, it

KITPLANES May 2018 25

starts even better hot (instantly) than
cold (pretty darn quick).
The engine unquestionably sounds
like a diesel at idle, a pleasant rumble.
If the sound and feel isn’t enough, 31
inches of manifold pressure at 1000
rpm suggests things will be different
on this flight. With an OAT around
70° F, we reach the 150° F minimum
oil sump temperature required for full
throttle by the time we taxi to the end
of KFFC’s Runway 31.
This particular Experimental diesel
is a mix of standard CD-230 produc-
tion parts, some CD-265 parts, and a
sprinkling of prototype parts under
test. As a test mule, there is no cali-
brated stop on the power lever. Instead,
power is set by consulting a compres-
sor inlet temperature vs. altitude chart
Inside the Continental CD-265
After seven years of development, the
Continental CD-265 (fixed wing) and CD-
285R (rotorcraft) share very few parts with
their distant Gallic ancestor. The pistons,
connecting rods, crankcase, cylinders,
cylinder heads, head gaskets, tension studs,
oil pump assembly, sump casting, primary
exhaust, turbocharger, injection lines, and
intake manifold are new…and it’s not the
entire list. We visited Continental in Mobile,
Alabama, for an inside look.
—D.H.
There are five main bearings supporting
four massive crank throws. Main bearing
carriers are forged steel (dark material),
clamped between aluminum case halves.
An all-aluminum case would not be strong
enough, while an all-steel case would be too
heavy. An oil passage feeding a nozzle in the
bearing carrier (barely visible here at about
7 o’clock) sprays cooling oil at the underside
of the piston and lubricates the wrist pin.
26 KITPLANES May 2018
to determine an acceptable manifold
pressure. The limit is an eye-popping
95 inches at high air density (for exam-
ple, at sea level and below freezing),
while standard-day sea-level condi-
tions call for 91 inches. At 70° F and
800 msl, Flandermeyer pushes in about
86 inches and starts rolling while the
engine and turbo reach equilibrium,
then adjusts for 87 inches as we climb
past 2000 at 1250 fpm.
Margaritaville beckons, but sched-
ules don’t allow a long cruise today.
We settle in at 4500, under the Atlanta
Class B. Pulling the power to 70 inches
results in 155 KTAS. CHTs quickly
drop to the 300° F range, with a turbine
inlet temperature of 1025° F, far lower
than typical for a comparable turbo-
charged avgas engine. The fuel flow
The fully machined intake port is shaped to
maximize combustion chamber swirl veloc-
ity, critical for clean diesel combustion.
CD-265 cylinder heads are CNC machined
from aluminum billets, rather than cast-
ings. Every surface is machined, including
the ports. Valve layout is conventional,
with pushrods and rockers. Here the
aluminum intake spigot is at upper left,
and the gray steel exhaust manifold stub
is at lower right. Steel plates (one shown
here, in light green) support the ends of
the clamp studs.
indication is semi-useless, oscillating
between 8 and the low 9’s. However,
Flandermeyer says we’re at 70%, and if
true, we don’t need a fuel flow meter.
Diesels are lean burn IC engines, and
as such, exhibit a consistent BSFC at
any power setting. This engine’s BSFC
is about 0.360, so assuming 70% of
230 hp and Jet A at 6.84 lbs/gal, we’re
burning about 8.5 gph. That’s not bad
for a cabin airplane down low in the
thick air, and it’s worth remembering
the CD-230/265 will produce the same
70% well up into the oxygen altitudes,
where the RV-10 will go a lot faster.
Descent can be tricky. The CD series
is restricted to a minimum in-flight
manifold pressure, below which com-
pression ignition may not light the
fire. The manual currently requires 45
Most of the “combustion chamber” is a
recess in the top of the piston, again typical
for a diesel.
Gasoline IO-360 connecting rod and pis-
ton pin at top, CD-265 rod and pin at the
bottom. Although engine displacement
is 15% less than the gas engine (360 cubic
inches versus 304 cubic inches), combus-
tion pressure is roughly 3x higher, so the
piston, pin, rod, and crank are all massive.
Compare the piston pins, and then the rod
journal diameters, which are 2.125 inch
versus 2.75 inch.
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Six one-piece studs extend from cylinder
head to the opposite cylinder head, all
the way through the case and crankshaft
supports. Four shorter studs extend from
cylinder head to the outside face of the
opposite case, at the most forward and
rearward positions. Long stud length
provides consistent clamp pressure across
a wide range of operating conditions.
They’re carefully tensioned at assembly
(pre-torque, then torque to angle) to
provide a high level of fatigue resistance.
In addition, two small diameter studs at 3
and 9 o’clock clamp each head to its barrel.
The wrist pin end of the connecting rod
is pyramidal. Tension load is much less
than compression load, and it allows
additional supporting material in the
piston crown.
Combustion chambers are flat-topped.
In addition to six stud locations, there are
two passages for the oil cooling circuit,
two dowel pin bores, two recesses for
head gasket rivets, and the pushrod tube
openings. Fuel injector is near the center
of the chamber, between the valves, with
the glow plug to its right.
Oil cooling circuits are separate from the
lube oil system, sharing only the sump.
Most of the oil volume is circulated to
the heads. The valve seats are oil cooled;
note the annular grooves machined
into the valve seat openings. When the
steel valve seat ring (not shown here) is
shrunk into place, the machined grooves
form an oil passage behind the seat. The
relatively cool seat boosts heat transfer
from the hot valve when closed, extend-
ing valve life.
Drillings on each side of the exhaust port
remove material to reduce heat transfer
to the head. In addition to reducing CHT,
it keeps more heat energy in the exhaust
stream, where it can be utilized by the
turbocharger.
Connecting rod big end, with the conven-
tional two-piece bearing shell in place.
The rod is manufactured as a single piece,
then the rod caps are fractured away from
the main body in a controlled process.
When reassembled and clamped, the
resulting fracture seam is so fine that it is
practically invisible to the naked eye.
The fuel injection is old-school P-L-N;
the modified Bosch P7100 distribution
pump (P) seen here pushes metered fuel
through hard steel lines (L) to mechani-
cal injection nozzles (N). A mechanical
system doesn’t support all the injection
tricks possible with electronic control, but
it is robust, requires no electrical power,
and is understood by mechanics world-
wide. The CD-265 has no electronics,
other than those required for glow plugs
and instruments.
Head and barrel are separate parts, with a
multi-leaf metal head gasket. The finned
barrel is aluminum with a pressed-in iron
liner. In this photo the clamp studs have
been replaced with assembly jig rods.
Classic mechanical injection nozzle. High-
pressure pumped supply pulse lifts a spring-
loaded check valve off its seat, allowing fuel
to squirt through fine holes in the nozzle,
which protrudes slightly into the combustion
chamber. A small quantity of bleed fuel cools
and lubricates, and is returned to the tank or
supply pump via the ports on the side.
KITPLANES May 2018 27

Flat four layout is conventional for GA, but every detail is different.
inches when OAT is less than 30° F, no
less than 30 inches under any circum-
stances, and a minimum CHT of 212°
F. Carrying power is complicated by the
diesel prop, which maintains a lot of
pitch even when against the blade stops.
The combination works fine for a cruise
descent at 150 to 160 KIAS, resulting in
about 1000 fpm. However, slowing up
for the pattern requires patience. The
RV-10 is slippery, and the coarse pitch
offers little braking effect. Flandermeyer
nurses the throttle back to around 34
inches on downwind, then 31 inches
into the flare. The diesel doesn’t seem
to care (we’re in warm, thick air), but
CHTs are below 230° F as we coast out,
on a 70° F afternoon.
Eye on the Prize
N104ST is an experimental project in
the true sense of the word, a new appli-
cation with a learning curve for all
concerned. The goal is to expose issues
and fix them, so future users can install
and fly with minimal effort. With 80
hours clocked, the punch list has been
remarkably short.
Early on, the installation devel-
oped more EGT split than desired, so
a Continental team swapped out the
injection pump and injectors. It may
28 KITPLANES May 2018
not have been strictly necessary, but it
allowed returning the original pump
to Mobile for inspection, a training
opportunity for all.
Every oil change includes analysis at
Blackstone; the airplane is grounded
until the results are known. In a fine
example of unanticipated aggravation,
one sample got lost in the mail (it turned
It took a long time to get to this point, but once started, the installation went quickly.
up a few weeks later). The oil coolers
alone hold nearly five quarts, and the
big one has its own drain. However,
there is no separate fill port, so a com-
plete change requires filling the sump,
then running the engine until the ver-
natherm valve opens (which refills the
coolers), then refilling the sump. It’s a
bit risky (the sump level drops dramati-
cally when the valve opens), so for now
the team is simply draining the sump
every 25 hours without draining the
coolers, roughly equal to a complete
change every 50 hours. The big cooler
may get its own fill port.
Flandermeyer’s number one devel-
opmental goal is weight loss. Van’s
Aircraft publishes an RV-10 empty
weight of 1600 pounds, but the Van’s
demonstrators are famously spartan.
Most RV-10’s fall into a range between
1675 and 1750 pounds, as owners tend
toward leather interiors, loaded panels,
and air conditioning. N104ST tips the
scales at 1917 pounds empty, which
is portly, but the excess isn’t strictly
due to the engine itself. The avionics
are extensive, and more than one cow
contributed to passenger comfort. The
SafeAir1 extended range fuel tanks
add 7.5 gallons per side at a cost of 15
pounds. A stock Van’s cowl is about
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21 pounds, but 104ST’s cowl is a cut-
and-try prototype, full of extra glass and
filler. It weighs a whopping 37 pounds,
plus the internal glass ductwork for the
coolers on both sides, and may get even
heavier with the next cut-and-try.
Going forward, the cowl and ducts
will probably change to carbon with
the CD-265 install. Hartzell’s “Next
Gen” foam core carbon blade should be
significantly lighter, as compared to the
MT’s wood core; a spokesman says they
are committed to the CD-265. Replac-
ing the lead-acid main battery with a
pair of EarthX LiFePO4 batteries in
series will chop another 20 pounds.
An additional 18 pounds of aux bat-
teries (ensuring electrons for IFR with
the all-glass panel) are also subject to
change. Still, it’s impossible to elimi-
nate the entire diesel weight penalty.

Print
Compared to a parallel valve 540, the
core engine and required coolers total
as much as 80 extra pounds. The near
term goal is 1850 empty.
As you see it here, full main tanks

& Digital
(60 gallons of Jet A), two standard
humans, and 35 pounds of baggage puts
N104ST at the Van’s-specified gross of
2700 pounds. Flandermeyer considers
minimum fuel to be 5 per side, leaving
50 useable. Cruise fuel burn at 90%
power (which is perfectly fine) works
out to be a fuzz less than 11 gph, or 4
hours plus a VFR reserve, plus the cap-
tain’s 10 gallons. The full 90% (207
hp) is available to around 13,000 feet,
where true airspeeds are high. Fill the
aux tanks, load a pilot and 100 pounds
of gear, pull the power back to 55%, and
endurance becomes more than 10 hours
with a VFR reserve.
Continental is dead serious about
piston Jet A. Fuel cost, fuel availability,
and remarkable fuel efficiency are the
driving forces in a world market CMG
intends to lead. Scott Flandermeyer, on
the other hand, did not intend to lead
the E/A-B world into a diesel future.
He just wanted an efficient RV-10.
Although it will require more work

Either Format–Great Savings!

(and dollars) to reach the ultimate goal,
Flandermeyer clearly remains fasci-
nated. When you’re having fun, effi-
ciency is merely a bonus. J Subscribe now at www.kitplanes.com/subscribe

KITPLANES May 2018 29

The Real
McKee

In the ultimate FUUN exercise,

Andy McKee flies the Atlantic in search
of AirVenture and friendly colonials.
By Tom Wilson

30 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 Featured on our June 2005 cover, the
Spitfire-esque silhouette of the Silence
Twister makes it memorable, but with
only two flying in the U.S., it’s still a rare
sight on this side of the pond. Sufficiently
nimble for polite aerobatics and just stable
enough to fly far over the horizon, the
Twister is an all-around companion for the
solo pilot. Thirty-three kits have been sold
worldwide; 25 are currently flying.

So, why does the Silence Twister cross the Atlantic? To

get to the other side, of course. And that’s just the point to
Andy McKee’s story. Unlike Alcock and Brown, Andy built
his Twister and flew it from England to North America and
back again because he wanted to make the builder-goes-to-
Oshkosh pilgrimage and peep North America. Having to
cross ice water was just a collateral spot of bother.
And after meeting with Andy at AirVenture last sum-
mer, it soon became apparent that long flights over challeng-
ing terrain were in some ways just another notable node in
an orbit filled with restless travel and motor-fueled ennui
hunting-killing.

New Zealand, England, and the World

“A keen petrol head,” by avocation and a graphic designer
when it pays, Andy was born in New Zealand to an English
mother and Kiwi father, but has mainly lived in England most
of his 46 years. “Dad was a private pilot with 3000 hours…
[and] had been flying for 50 years. So I was brainwashed by
birth and grew up around aviation and flying.” Naturally
Andy started in power flying, but after the initial excitement,
the “What now?” doldrums set in, thanks to renting the
usual tin dreadfuls and paying fearful prices for the privilege.
Andy’s father was a glider pilot, so Andy went engineless
for five years, and the sport did seem to consume him. Men-
tions of soaring in Minden, Nevada, and getting his Dia-
mond badge via an overachieving 26,000-foot ride gave us
that impression. But, as Andy points out, “There are not

Photos: Paul Dye, Andy McKee, Tom Wilson KITPLANES May 2018 31
many good gliding days in the U.K., so
a glider sitting around doing nothing
is pretty common. There may be only
three or four good soaring days in Eng-
land during the summer, and if you were
at work, you missed it for the year.”
So Andy bought a RANS S-10 and
flew that, but found it “barely capable of
aerobatics…a few cross-countries, but not
made for that, either.” Like many before
him, Andy had reached his aviation limit
because of what was available to him. If
he were to continue, it was going to take
something out of the ordinary.
Learning to Twist
On the right side of the Atlantic the
AERO Friedrichshafen aviation show is
where it’s at for light to medium aviation.
“First time I was there for four days and
still didn’t see it all,” is how Andy put it.
But in 2009 he found the Silence Twister
display, “sat in it and set my fate.” Lik-
ing the promise of aerobatic and cross-
country flight wrapped up in a light
and personal package, Andy bought his
Twister kit in 2011. “It was a big invest-
ment, a real financial commitment, so I
saved up.” It helped that, “costs [were]
spread out over the five and a half years
of building.” And as many a dedicated
builder has discovered, pouring all your
money into an airplane means “No holi-
days. I didn’t go do the things you would
do without the airplane.
32 KITPLANES May 2018
“People always ask how much. What
I tell them is for what I sold the RANS
S-10 is what I spent on the instrument
panel on this one.”
Also like other builders, Andy
soon discovered the reality of the kit
he had bought into. A product of the
composite revolution, the Twister was
designed by two German brothers,
Thomas and Matthias Strieker. Origi-
nally they were deep into composite
RC model aircraft, developing an RC
Twister that must have performed well
and obviously looked good. People
joked they should “build a real one, and
10,000 hours later, they had the proto-
type and some kits,” explained Andy.
In 2002 the Strieker brothers founded Andy McKee’s wickedly dry sense of humor
and adventurousness camouflage his inner
Silence Aircraft GmbH and put the seriousness. His long-distance flights over
Twister into very low-volume produc- the North Atlantic Ocean and escapeless
tion. Actually, this was just part of the Canadian forests were very carefully calcu-
Striekers’ industrial composite firm, lated and well planned for risks. In the end
as their expertise is in building molds nothing went wrong, no doubt partially
because of so much attention to detail.
and honeycomb sandwich structures
for industry, automotive, marine, and that out. Parts were sometimes missing…
aerospace fields. Thus, the Twister kit sometimes instructions weren’t com-
remains a high-interest sideline to their plete.” Thankfully Andy kept a detailed
industrial production. blog during his Twister’s construction; it
To Andy, this manifested itself as an is a valuable resource to anyone building
extra building challenge. “It’s a very low- a Twister today.
volume kit; nothing fits too well. This is Another obstacle for Andy was
kit number 28 in the world…the manual where to build. His first move was to
is being translated into English from London and a mews house—an old,
German by the Germans. Dimensions small, in-town accommodation above
don’t match in places, so you have to sort a stable, which had been converted into
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Looking for reliability in a compact form, Andy opted for ULPower’s UL260iSA 4-cylinder. The aerobatic engine boasts fuel injection
and raised compression to make 107 hp from just 2.6-liters (159 cubic inches). The carbon fiber plenum cooling is Andy’s own work.
As for expense, the ULPower mill cost about $20,000 in round numbers, or “Certainly not as expensive as the iS version of the Rotax.”
a single-car garage. He outfitted it with
carpet, heater, and insulation, so even
in the damp English winters, it was
toasty warm. “It’s important to have
a good environment,” Andy observed
dryly as we sat sweating in the humid
AirVenture afternoon.
Comfy or not, the narrow and small
garage barely fit a car and required
careful measuring before Andy towed
a trailer to Germany to transport the
kit home. The fuselage, with no rudder
and no components firewall-forward,
barely cleared the garage door by a scant
10mm (.3937 inch).
Addressing the obvious, Andy noted,
“The negative is you can’t do all the work
in there. You can do the wings and tail
as they pull off. You can work on the
wings individually and same with the
tail group.” But working room was sub-
marine-like, and final assembly was out
of the question.
Thus, once the big pieces were fin-
ished, Andy moved north of London
to Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, where he
engaged a double-car garage and house.
During the walk-through the real estate
agent asked Andy if he wanted to see
the bathroom. “No, just the garage,” he
answered in true builder’s fashion. Turns
out the previous renter built model air-
planes in the garage, so the Twister ulti-
mately came together in an ironic setting.
Time building started with the deposit
in April 2011, followed by picking up the
kit in August 2011. Construction began
a month later, and the first flight was
in December 2016. Call it five and half
years, including the two months spent
putting the mews house garage together.
The Twister
Given its honeycomb construction with
Kevlar lining, the Twister kit’s major
pieces come assembled, but definitely
need finish attention, and in a few spots
final manufacturing for things such as
root ribs. Past that, the main tasks are
choosing an engine, running systems,
and figuring out the instructions.
Engine choice seems somewhat up
to the builder. The prototype Twister
actually received a twin-rotor Wankel.
Jabirus were specified for the produc-
tion kits, yet Andy opted for a 2.6-liter,
Minimal instrumentation corrals the
weight spiral and puts maximum emphasis
on the Dynon FlightDEK-D180 display. It’s
flanked by backup airspeed and altimeter
instruments. The rotary dial at left is the
flap selector, and the backup compass is
at right. The red button seen forward of
the stick is the engine start switch, made
possible by the electronic ignition and
fuel injection systems.
KITPLANES May 2018 33
Even with the custom 6-gallon “headrest” tank, there’s still storage
room in the turtle deck. Only the top of the tank is visible here;
it forms the headrest storage area floor. Fuel in this tank gravity
flows to the left main tank, leading to a notably aft CG until this
aft-most tank is emptied.
Seen at AirVenture last summer with emergency equipment
displayed on the seat back, the Twister’s cockpit is obviously a
cozy perch for long-distance touring. The single-piece, reclined
seat with two layers of memory foam is built for Andy, and nothing
in the cockpit is much of a reach.

107-hp ULPower UL260iSA. That’s
the fuel-injected, higher-compression,
aerobatic version of the Belgian-built,
air-cooled, 4-cylinder, and it has served
him well.
Andy’s engine choice was based on
the experience of the U.K. Silence
Twister agent; he operates a two-ship
Twister aerobatic team. Both planes
employ ULPower engines and have run
well during several thousand hours of
hard aerobatic flying, says Andy.
There was one downside: Andy didn’t
like the cowling on the agent’s Twist-
ers, so he made his own. Amazingly, but
almost predictably, this added a year to
the build and likely more weight, but
Andy believes his cools the oil better.
The oil cooler is remote mounted and
has a cowl door. It’s worked “very well”
in extreme temperatures, from 86° F
(30° C) in Michigan to -4° F (-20° C)
cruising over Greenland. “The oil temps
stay right in the green.”
Before the cowling could be made,
Andy fabbed up cooling plenums for
the ULPower engine. Thus, he had the
firewall forward absolutely complete,
then built the cooling plenums, and
finally the cowling. The latter was made
in the usual tedious way by wrapping the
engine in plastic, cardboard, and foam,
followed by hours of cutting, rasping,
and sanding to get the shape he wanted.
Once the foam was shaped, it was
slathered in micro and resin, and after
curing, that was sanded glass smooth.
Months of priming and sanding fol-
lowed, then this male shape was waxed as
a releasing agent and the female mold laid
up over it. After “praying to the releasing
gods that it will release,” Andy pulled off
the first half mold—he built the cowling
as two pieces—then did the other side.
Once the two mold halves were finished,
he built the cowling inside it.
Extra fuel was a given in Andy’s build
thanks to his wanderlust. The stock

(Left) The vernier control on the cockpit’s left side is for elevator trim. Twin red power bus toggles are aft of the throttle, and the teal
handle is for the parking brake. (Right) Storage is what’s going on to the right in the cockpit. The pliers handle partially covers the
cowl flap control, the red knob is the canopy latch, and the headset jacks are self-evident at the lower right.

34 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

If you remember the Silence Twister as a retractable
gear airplane, it’s probably because we showed
that option in our 2005 coverage of the type. The
powder blue Twister based in Florida and also seen at AirVenture
last year is a retract as well. But the fixed gear version is lighter and a
touch faster, so folding the feet is pretty much an aesthetic decision.
tanks are twin 9-gallon wing units;
Andy added a 6+ gallon auxiliary tank
in the headrest. That tank is actually
a transfer tank only, as it drains into
the left wing tank. This means the CG
issues are compounded as the left wing
tank is forward of the CG, yet it must
be burned first to accept the headrest
tank’s contents. “It gets worse before it
gets better,” notes Andy, who goes on
to say that yes, the CG is definitely aft
when loaded for long legs, but it’s some-
thing he can handle as a pilot.
As for overall weight, Andy candidly
says he has no idea exactly how heavy
over the stated max gross he’s loaded
his Twister, but thinks it might have
been 286 pounds (130 kilograms).
“But as long as the CG is reasonably
OK, I’ll accept a reduced rate of climb,
and induced drag is only 5 percent of
drag, anyway.”
Fuel consumption by the ULPower
4-banger is just 4 gph—15 lph in Andy’s
metric terms. This is at 2750 rpm and
125 knots TAS, cruising anywhere
between 6000–8000 feet. That yields
an endurance of 6.5 hours, and as the
longest leg of the trans-Atlantic route is
540 nautical miles and took just 4 hours
and 5 minutes, Andy was assured a fairly
generous fuel reserve.
The Flight
Once his Twister was licensed and fly-
ing in 2016, Andy’s first go was potter-
ing through a local aerobatic contest.
But the AirVenture pilgrimage had
always been a goal, which Andy began the Greenland ice cap, and on to Can-
with rather involved research. “I did a ada does not involve immensely long
lot of reading ferry pilot’s stuff.” Andy legs. Yes, much of it is across forbidding
was determined to learn all he could water or ice, and there is an 800-mile
about the trans-Atlantic job and where span at one point, but it is a path rou-
it could go wrong. tinely traveled by light aircraft, so there
What he found was flying from Scot- is a well-developed course to follow
land to Iceland to Greenland, across and considerable experience to tap.
The Flight: Numbers and Highlights
“I’ve done pretty much all I set out to do on this flight,” wrote Andy after his North American
epic, and what a to-do list it was. Here’s a quick list of some of the highlights:
• Total flight time: 120.1 hours
• Hours of IFR: 3 hours (eastbound across Greenland)
• Nautical miles flown: 12,371 (does not include local flying)
• Longest leg: Iqaluit, Baffin Island to Schefferville, Canada, 541 n.m.
• Shortest leg: Bonneville to Wendover, UT, 5 n.m.
• Scariest terrain: Northern Canada (500 miles of forest)
• Hottest: 104° F (40° C), Bonneville Salt Flats
• Coldest: 39° F (4° C), Kangerlussuaq, Greenland
• Average fuel burn: 3.82 gph (14.4 lph)
• Air museums visited: Smithsonian (National Air and Space); Smithsonian (Udvar-Hazy Center);
Evergreen Aviation and Space (Spruce Goose), McMinnville, Oregon
• 10 days at AirVenture
• Flew in Homebuilders’ Parade at AirVenture
• Camped with Deborah and Richard VanTeuren, second Silence Twister builders in the U.S.
• Flew by Mt. Rushmore
• Landed at Bonneville Salt Flats
• Air-to-air photo session over Lake Tahoe
• Visited with Mike Friend, first Silence Twister builder in the U.S.
• Boeing factory tour, Paine Field, Seattle
• Flew over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
• Not Visited: New York City (friends there were visiting Europe!)
—T.W.
KITPLANES May 2018 35
 The dangerous challenge is the
weather, even in summer. North Atlan-
tic weather is often horrible for consid-
erable stretches, and good weather can
go bad seemingly instantly. Andy con-
cluded having no time constraints was
the largest safety factor he could con-
trol. He’d simply wait for large patches
of good weather.
Andy’s strongest argument was the
record of ferry pilots. “One in 300 ends
up dying. But, bear in mind, they fly
in the winter, and they fly tight sched-
ules because it costs money. But I had
a whole month to do it during the best
part of the year—late June, early July.
They are also flying aircraft they don’t
know,” and some of those planes are old,
so the equipment can be sketchy. Andy
believes, “What they are doing is vastly
more dangerous than what I was doing.
I know every part of my airplane inti-
mately, and I was giving myself time.”
Ultimately, flying the Atlantic “was
never a suicide mission…Of course,
there is an element of risk, but I
thought it was worth it. At the end of
the day, it’s the weather. You must have
the utmost respect for the weather. I’m
not going to be a ferry pilot…even if I
missed Oshkosh [it would have been
worth the trip].”
As it turned out, Andy enjoyed excel-
lent weather last summer for his north-
ern passages, at least until the return leg
over Greenland, when he needed to put
his instrument skills to use. Standouts
were flying into Kulusuk, where there
Charmingly speaking English, Andy says his Hercules propeller “has a clever urethane
leading edge; you can hit it with an axe” and not hurt it. “But there is a touch of rain
damage, more cosmetic than anything else.” The all-wood airscrew measures 58x53
inches for a good compromise between cruise and aerobatic performance and was
bought new during a mid-winter doldrums sale for “1100 quid…not crazy expensive.”
were icebergs and fog banks to dodge just a three-hour flight, but “by far the
on final approach, and crossing the most exhausting flying I’ve ever done. It
Greenland ice cap. was a whiteout with no sense of height.
Even the choice of crossing the ice cap There is no detail, just bright white. You
is controversial. “Most people don’t do have no idea of how high you are…you
that; they go south and around Green- are told how high to fly. Even so, with no
land, just fly down the coast. I don’t visual reference, you can’t see. Normally
know why they do that; they are expos- you aim at something, but there is noth-
ing themselves to more coastal fog and ing to aim at in the whiteout.
glaciers, and they don’t have any alterna- “I ended up just looking at the head-
tive…[there is] some naiveté there. This ing on the EFIS. The sun is beating
was the most stressful and tiring [leg], down, and I was [constantly] holding
and one of the shortest legs, too. If you my hand up to avoid sunburn. It was get-
had an autopilot, that would have taken ting hot in there.” Andy demonstrated
out 90 percent of it, but with no autopi- shading his eyes with one hand with his
lot [you just get on with it].” head bent uncomfortably down to avoid
The westbound ice cap crossing was the sun and glare—very uncomfortable.
a definite mixed bag. There were clear All the while, “Fuel was burning out
skies and a tailwind, and thus it was the front tank, so the CG was getting

First Anyway
Setting records was not on Andy McKee’s
mind when he conceived of flying his
Silence Twister to AirVenture, but we
believe he set some nonetheless:
• First Silence Twister to cross the Atlantic
• First ULPower engine to cross the Atlantic
• First Hercules propeller to cross
the Atlantic
• First New Zealand homebuilder to fly
the Atlantic
As any motorsports fan/pilot would want to do, Andy landed at the Bonneville Salt Flats
• Lowest hour pilot to cross the Atlantic to commune with the eerie spirit of the place. But the windless, 104° F (40° C), sun-reflecting
(350 hours at start) environment made this a less than five minute stop. Andy noted the surface wasn’t quite
—T.W. as smooth as he’d thought; something for winter rains to put right.

36 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

(Left) Looking relatively densely populated with three cruise ships and a town, Kangerlussauq, Greenland, beckons during Andy’s return
crossing. The daunting Greenland ice cap waits in the distance; next stop Kulusuk on Greenland’s east coast. (Right) Andy credits his
Twister’s inherent honeycomb and Kevlar insulation for keeping him warm over Greenland despite an OAT of -4° F (-20° C) and no cockpit
heater—at least while the sun was out. Certainly helping were his immersion suit and greenhouse effect of the bubble greenhouse canopy.
Andy did get chilled on the return flight over Greenland when the sun was behind a high cirrus layer, but still stayed warm, considering.

worse and worse, getting aft all the and banged it over center. This stressed the airplane up either way, but I think it
time. It was as if balancing a pencil on the hinges and ripped out the securing would float; the honeycomb would help,
your finger for three hours…I was shat- cable. Hospitable Canadians on the field lots of trapped air. I don’t want to find
tered after it all.” Andy was on oxygen, immediately helped fix the wounded out! I have enough firsts already; I don’t
“which helps, but it isn’t fresh air. It’s canopy. “It was resin and flock that had want to know if they float, either.”
not a stable aircraft anyway; it wants to been hurt,” so the repairs weren’t exten- During our AirVenture interview,
depart and have fun in the sky, and here sive, but still there were four days wait- Andy was anticipating Mt. Rushmore,
we are boring along.” ing for the resin to harden. “We did the Devil’s Peak, and the Bonneville Salt
Like Jerrie Mock before him, even hinges first, then the securing cable on Flats, plus visiting the first Twister
without a pressing schedule, Andy two separate days, and one day waiting builder in Seattle. And he did all those
did feel the tug of time whenever the for weather.” things, including landing on the Salt
weather was good during the cross- In Andy’s thinking, just as danger- Flats and seeing where the cars run for
ings. “You want to meet the people and ous as crossing the Atlantic was travers- speed. “…actually landing on the speed
sightsee, but if the weather is good, ing much of Canada. “It was flying for run. You could see the tire marks where
you go fly.” hours and hours…there is no sign man they wore it down. The surface was a
Having time to meet people wasn’t an has been there. Yeah, unreal. And the little bumpy, not concrete smooth; that
issue when Andy made Canada. While trees! There’s nothing but trees or water. kind of surprised me. There was no wind
talking to customs officers, the wind History says stalling in the trees is bet- at all, completely still and must have
lifted his Twister’s unlatched canopy ter than going in the water. You’ll smash been pushing 104° F (40 C). Flipping
hot! Didn’t stay still for long.” Then it
was off to Reno, Nevada, Northern
California, Seattle to visit with the first
Twister builder in North America, then
across Canada, and ultimately retracing
his flight across the North Atlantic and
home at Little Gransden Airfield, South
Cambridgeshire, U.K.
Andy reinforced his belief in careful
research before such an epic flight, espe-
cially the latest experiences. “Much of
the info out there is 15 years old, so it’s
best to get the latest thinking and pass it
Despite its diminutive size, Andy’s tangerine Twister drew a steady flow of the curious at along to others via the blog or whatever.”
AirVenture. He said everyone asked the same five questions—How fast? How far? etc.—
and he patiently answered them all. Two things stand out when seeing this Twister in the Somehow, we don’t think we’ve
composite: it sits surprisingly low to the ground, and the Great Britain G-FUUN registration heard the last of Andy McKee or his
didn’t get there by accident. Silence Twister. J

KITPLANES May 2018 37

 Biplane
Cross-Country
Tennessee to Connecticut in a Starduster SA-100. By Dana Hague

Newlon Field in Huntington, West Virginia,

is a beautiful little airport with a restaurant,
campground, and skydiving center.

38 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

Blame it on YouTube.
Sailors have an affliction they call
“bigger boat disease” or “one-foot-itis,”
and I was starting to feel the rumblings
of the aviator’s version. I had been flying
and enjoying my Fisher FP-404 biplane
[“Restoring a Stored Homebuilt,” Feb-
ruary 2017] for the past three years but
was starting to bump into its limita-
tions: low speed, modest climb rate,
and no aerobatic capability. I was sort
of keeping my eyes on prices for a Smith
Miniplane, Baby Lakes, or similar, when
a member of the Homebuilt Airplanes
Forum (www.homebuiltairplanes.com)
mentioned that his friend Jerry Carter
had a Starduster One for sale at a good
price. I was vaguely aware of the Star-
duster as one of numerous homebuilt
biplanes but never really looked at them;
there aren’t that many of the single seat-
ers around, and the two-place versions
are outside my budget. Anyway, some
research showed me that a Starduster
might be a good choice. Then I came
across some YouTube videos Jerry had
posted of him flying the plane a few
years earlier, and that was all it took. The
next day, with a serious face, I told one of
my flying buddies, “I did a very foolish
thing last night…I watched a video.” A
few days later, I was on an airline flight
to Memphis, Tennessee, armed with
my checkbook. After looking it over, I
became the proud new owner of a some-
what beat up (“A flyer, not a show plane,”
Jerry had warned me), but basically solid
Starduster SA-100.
Photos: Dana Hague
Built in 1982 by Richard A. Parks,
my new plane is powered by a Lycoming
O-290G, the converted GPU engine
common in those days. With only one
foot more wingspan than the Fisher but
three times the horsepower, it has double
the cruise speed and four times the rate
of climb (and, sadly, four times the fuel
consumption). It was damaged a couple
of times in the past; one logbook entry
describes a rebuild of the upper wing
and fin/rudder, along with redesigning
the brakes “to make them less sensitive.”
Not too hard to imagine what happened
there! But there was enough flying time
since the repairs that I wasn’t concerned.
There was a minor oil leak somewhere
that Jerry hadn’t managed to track
down; it was enough to be messy, but not
enough to be a big concern…yet.
Although I now owned the plane and
could have flown it right then and there, it
was so different from my Fisher (twice the
weight, twice the speed, and zero forward
visibility on the ground), I contented
myself at that point with only taxiing it
around for a while, as I had to leave soon
for my airline flight home. Jerry agreed to
let me leave the plane in his hangar for a
couple of months until I could pick it up.
It was still winter in the Northeast,
not a good time for a long, open-cockpit
cross-country. Disassembling the plane
and renting a truck was another option,
but the one-piece top wing meant a large
(expensive) truck, and it would have been
a long, tedious drive. So even though I
hadn’t made a long cross-country flight
Dana Hague relaxing at Newlon Field in
West Virginia, where the airport manager
found him and offered him a beer.
Equipment Carried
Camping Gear
• Hyke & Byke 32° down sleeping bag
• Outdoor Research bivy sack
• Therm-a-Rest NeoAir air mattress
• Marmot inflatable pillow
• Trangia-style alcohol stove
• Bottle of fuel for stove
• MSR Seagull cook pot
• Collapsible silicone cup (for coffee)
• Plastic spoon
• Paper cups (for oatmeal, saving cleanup)
Food
• Instant coffee
• Instant oatmeal and dried cranberries
• Bacon jerky
• One liter water (in baggage compartment)
• One pint water (pocket-size flask in cockpit)
Clothing
• One change of clothes
• Shorts and T-shirt
• Lightweight coveralls
• Leather jacket
Tools and Supplies
• Multitool
• 6-inch adjustable wrench
• Fuel tester with screwdriver
• Safety wire
• Tie wraps and stick-on anchors
• Electrical tape
• Engine oil and funnel
• After the first day, spray cleaner, paper
towels, 8-inch adjustable wrench
Electronics
• Nvidia Shield K1 8-inch tablet running
Avare on kneeboard
• Globalsat BT-359 Bluetooth GPS
• Garmin 196 GPS (came with plane,
never used)
• Smartphone running Avare as backup,
also never needed
• Phone/tablet chargers, cords, etc.
• External battery power pack for phone
or tablet
• Spare earbuds (headset)
• GoPro camera with mounting accessories
—D.H.
KITPLANES May 2018 39
in many years, I decided to fly the plane back to Connecticut
once the weather was suitable, camping out along the way. I
also hoped to get some time in a similar two-seater first, but
that proved easier said than done.
Another concern was hangar space at home; although I had
advertised it for some time, I wasn’t getting many bites on my
Fisher. I spent some time playing with paper-doll cutouts of the
two planes, trying to figure out how to maneuver them to share
the hangar, when the plane finally sold. Three days before my The baggage compartment was just large enough for all my gear.
scheduled departure for Memphis, I helped the buyer remove
the wings, pack it into a U-Haul truck, and take it away. the following weekend. It wasn’t a proper checkout; I was only
When my brother-in-law, Mike Baldwin, heard about my able to do three landings due to rain and low ceilings, but it
plans, he offered to fly me to Memphis in his RV-8, saving left me a lot more comfortable about my ability to handle the
me the hassle of doing it by airline. We waited on a weather heavier and faster plane. As the coming weather looked good,
window and in mid April set out for Tennessee. Leaving I flew to Memphis the next day by airline, as I didn’t want to
after lunch, we got as far as Lexington, Kentucky, where we ask Mike to take another two days flying me around the coun-
spent the night. Bad weather currently over Memphis was tryside. This required some repacking, as some things I had
forecast to move east and clear out overnight, leaving me a carried in the RV-8 could only go now as checked baggage or
decent shot to get home. In the morning, though, we found not at all. My packing list (see sidebar) was based on my best
the weather had stalled over central Tennessee and didn’t estimate of what would fit in my new plane’s baggage compart-
look as if it was going to clear out any time soon. So after ment, with measurements of the door opening size provided
spending half the morning looking at the forecasts, talking by Jerry. As it turned out, I judged it pretty well. Most of the
to flight service, and theorizing about how it would go, we camping gear I already had, but I bought a new, compact sleep-
agreed that it was best to abort the mission and return home, ing bag I wanted anyway and a small cook pot.
instead of continuing on to Memphis.
The delay actually proved fortuitous. When I got back
home, a message was waiting for me on the Biplane Forum
(www.biplaneforum.com) offering the opportunity to fly in a
Starduster Too not too far from home, which I arranged for

Day 1
In the morning Jerry picked me up at my hotel and drove me
to the airport, with a stop at a hardware store to buy alcohol
fuel for my camp stove. I spent some time looking the plane
over, installing the new fuel gauge I had brought with me, and
talking about the plane’s performance and speeds. Finally,
the moment of truth came, and I got in, taxied out, and took
off. After a bit of flying around, exploring the plane’s han-
dling over the Arkansas farm fields west of the Mississippi
River, I did a few landings. It was delightful in the air, and
my first message to a couple of friends after I landed was sim-
MEMPHIS, TN ply, “Wow!” As Jerry had warned, it was “a handful” on the
ground, very squirrely but not unmanageable. After taxiing
back in with a big grin on my face, I got ready for the trip, fill-
ing the gas tanks, packing my camping gear, and getting my
navigation gear set.

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 Day 1
Start: DeWitt Spain Airport, Memphis, TN
End: Taylor County Airport, Campbellsville, KY
Stop: Carroll County Airport, Huntingdon, TN
Miles: 304 statute miles
Time: 3 hours 25 minutes
The plane came with a Garmin 196, an old-school portable
GPS with a small monochrome display. I kept it for backup,
but for primary navigation I had an 8-inch Android tablet
running Avare mounted to a homemade kneeboard designed
specifically for the tablet. As the tablet on my knee, deep in a
metal-skinned cockpit, wouldn’t get a good signal, I added a
Bluetooth GPS receiver, which was Velcroed just behind the
windscreen. The setup worked beautifully when I tested it on
one last flight in the Fisher and greatly reduced the stress of fly-
ing an unfamiliar airplane over 1000 miles of unfamiliar ter-
ritory. Both the tablet and the GPS receiver were powered, or
so I thought, from a dual USB cigarette lighter adapter in the
socket that had been used for the Garmin.
I also had paper charts, printed from image files downloaded
from the FAA website and pieced together in strips covering my
route. After the first leg, I removed the unused Garmin from its
mount on the panel and stowed it in the baggage compartment.
The paper charts never got used either, though I always kept the
appropriate one accessible in the cockpit.
After grabbing a quick lunch, it was time to go. The first
leg would be short, only 110 miles to Carroll County Airport
(HZD) in Huntingdon, Tennessee, to get the feel of the plane
and check the fuel consumption. To avoid the distraction of
talking to ATC, I followed the Mississippi River north until
CAMPBELLSVILLE, KY
I was beyond the Class D for Millington-Memphis Airport,
then turned northeast on course.
This airplane is very different from my Fisher. Both are
open-cockpit biplanes, of course, but the FP-404 is only a little
heavier and faster than an ultralight. Part of it is that it’s faster
and much more solid, but the Starduster just has an “older”
feel. A thousand feet over the Tennessee farm country, it could
almost be 1927. The fact that I had only one seat and a modern
GPS on my knee was irrelevant; I couldn’t resist shouting over
the roar of the engine, “Step right up, folks! Only five dollars
for five minutes! Five minutes in the land of the clouds, guaran-
teed to be like nothing you’ve ever done before!”
Back in 2017, it became apparent that the tablet and GPS
were running on their internal batteries and not charging;
although it had worked with the Garmin’s plug, the old socket
was too deep for the new USB power adapter to make contact.
Not realizing the plane already had a cigarette lighter socket,
however, I had brought along a new one ready to wire in. The
new one proved to be shallower, so borrowing some tools at
Carroll County, I connected the new socket, tie wrapped it to a
fuselage tube, and now had power to the devices.
On the ramp in Memphis.
KITPLANES May 2018 41
This loose nut was the cause of all the mess. Ready to leave Campbellsville after a successful post-repair test flight.

The next leg was longer, 200 miles to Taylor County Air- the beef tips), then returned to the airport for a dreary night
port in Campbellsville, Kentucky (AAS), where Google Earth of sleeping on the concrete ramp under the beacon and bright
showed a restaurant nearby, and where I planned to spend the spotlights, while worrying whether a blown engine had ended
first night. Near the end of the flight, I noticed some oil smell, my trip almost as soon as it started.
but as the oil pressure was holding steady, and I already knew
there was a small leak, I didn’t think much of it. My main con- Day 2
cern was keeping the plane straight during the landing rollout. I woke with the sunrise, and after cooking coffee and oatmeal
I ran out of speed too high in the flare, resulting in a rather on my camp stove, I tried to find the problem. Except for oil
firm “arrival,” but I kept it straight, more or less, and resolved everywhere, nothing seemed obviously amiss, and it wasn’t
to carry a little more speed next time.
After shutting down at the gas pump and getting out of
the plane, though, I knew I had a serious problem—oil was
dribbling out of the engine cowling onto the ground, and the
lower wing, landing gear, and lower fuselage were covered
with oil. Uh-oh.
Upon opening the cowling, it was impossible to see where
the oil was coming from, as it was everywhere. It was 2½ quarts
down on the dipstick. Not knowing what else to do, I went
ahead and filled the fuel tank, added a quart of oil (all I had
with me), and taxied over to a tiedown spot on the deserted
airport. It was getting too dark to investigate further, so feeling
rather depressed, I walked the half mile to the Creek Side Res-
taurant for an inexpensive but nice dinner (I can recommend

leaking with the engine stopped, so leaving one side of the cowl
unlatched and the airplane securely tied down and chocked, I
started the engine, very carefully crept around between the
wing and whirling propeller, and lifted the cowl. It was then
CAMPBELLSVILLE, KY immediately obvious: Oil was pouring from a fitting on the
back of the engine where an oil-cooler hose connected, and I
could move the jam nut with my fingers. The one adjustable
wrench I had brought didn’t open far enough, but when peo-
ple started arriving later in the morning, I was able to borrow

42 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 Day 2
Start: Taylor County Airport, Campbellsville, KY
End: Robert Newlon Field, Huntington, WV
Stop: Stuart Powell Field, Danville, KY; Ashland
Regional Airport, Worthington, KY
Miles: 187 statute miles
Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes
a larger wrench and tighten the nut, which completely stopped
the leak. I now believe that fitting may have been the source
of the minor leak all along, and it must have completely let go
shortly before I landed since I only lost 2½ quarts and never
lost oil pressure.
After buying more oil and adding some, I took the airport
courtesy car (a retired police car) to the local auto parts store to
buy a bigger wrench, just in case it loosened again. I also bought
some spray cleaner and paper towels. After cleaning off as much of
the oil as I could, it was past noon before I was ready to continue.
After a quick flight once around the pattern and one more
look inside the engine compartment, I took off and flew a half
hour to Stuart Powell Field in Danville, Kentucky (DVK),
where I landed just to check again that I had no more oil issues.
I was also pleased with my OK crosswind wheel landing.
From there it was 130 miles to Ashland Regional (DWU) in
Worthington, Kentucky, where I refueled and took the cour-
tesy car (this time an old blue minivan) to the Golden Corral
Restaurant in town for a late lunch or early dinner. As I didn’t
want to spend another night sleeping on the pavement of a
county airport, I continued on. One of my possible overnight
stops was not far away at Hales Landing (2WV3), a private
strip in West Virginia, where my friend Dan Riffee from the
Homebuilt Airplanes forum lives, but I was unable to contact
him. Instead, I flew the easy 24 miles southeast to Robert New-
lon Field (I41) in Huntington, West Virginia, following the
Ohio River instead of navigating by GPS.
HUNTINGTON, WV
Newlon is a delightful camping spot.
Newlon turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. A
beautiful grass field alongside the Ohio River, it has a skydiving
center, a restaurant (unfortunately closed that day, but I already
knew that, which is why I ate in Ashland first), and a camp-
ground. The woman who met me said her name was Tina and
sure, I could camp out overnight. As it was a hot day, I asked if
I could park in the shade on the other side of the runway. She
called the airport manager to check, then relayed that I should
park by the fence on the other side where there was a path down
to the river. It was a delightful place to camp, and after walking
down to check out the river, I unpacked my camping gear and
rolled it out alongside the plane.
A week ago in Lexington, it was a control tower and long
concrete runways, and we parked the RV-8 next to a jet on
the ramp of the TAC Air FBO, which has a huge lobby like a
Hilton hotel. There were leather couches in the pilot lounge,
a fancy flight planning room, and a girl behind the desk who
called a hotel to have them send a shuttle to pick us up right
away, sir! There was even a Beech Staggerwing hanging from
the ceiling of the lobby, though I would have preferred to see
it parked on the ramp. But tonight at Newlon, it’s one old
biplane, not hanging from cables but parked in the shade along
a freshly mown grass runway, with a tired but content pilot
relaxing on top of his sleeping bag under the evening sky. This
is much more my style.
KITPLANES May 2018 43
 Foggy morning at Newlon.
As I lay there leaning against the wheel pant, two guys walked
over. One of them introduced himself as Carl, the airport man-
ager, and he asked if I’d like a cold beer. “I’d love a cold beer,” I
said. He handed it to me, then we talked for a bit before walk-
ing over to the skydiving center to hang out longer and drink a
few more beers. Skydivers are much the same kind of crazies as
the paramotor crowd I used to fly with, so I felt right at home.
I was even offered the opportunity to make a jump with them
the following afternoon. As something I’ve always wanted to
do but never got around to, I was sorely tempted, but I didn’t
want to wait around that long, so I regretfully declined. Even-
tually I wandered back to my plane and crawled into my sleep-
ing bag for a good night’s sleep.
Day 3
The next day dawned damp and foggy, with a heavy dew on
the grass and dripping from the wings. I lazed in my sleeping
bag for a while with my coffee, then finally got up and hung my
wet gear on the fence to dry while waiting for the fog to burn
off out of the river valley. When it did, I set out for Jackson
County Airport (I18) in Ravenswood, West Virginia, where
HUNTINGTON, WV
44 KITPLANES May 2018
I topped off my tank before heading to Hales Landing to see
Dan, who I’d finally gotten in touch with; he had been out
mowing grass when I called the day before.
Leaving Newlon, I made my only attempt to use a GoPro
camera on a forehead mount. As soon as I reached takeoff
speed, I could feel the camera trying to blow off my head, so I
removed and tucked it away. I originally intended to document
the entire trip with still photos as well as video, but other than a
few snapshots, it became more about enjoying the moment, not
being distracted by recording it, which was OK, too.
Hales Landing has an interesting final approach alongside
a mountain, and the runway edge markers are large pruned
Day 3
Start: Robert Newlon Field, Huntington, WV
End: Reigle Field, Palmyra, PA
Stop: Jackson County Airport, Ravenswood, WV;
Hales Landing Airport, Elizabeth, WV;
Greater Cumberland Regional Airport,
Cumberland, MD
Miles: 338 statute miles
Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes
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Camping gear hanging on the fence to dry.
shrubs, which were rather intimidating for a pilot still having
trouble landing his plane. After visiting for several hours and
looking over his beautiful “JMR Special” project, a single-seat
C-85 powered homebuilt of his own design, with a steel-tube
fuselage and geodetic wood wings, it was time to continue on.
Airborne again, the next stop was Greater Cumberland
Regional Airport (CBE) in Cumberland, Maryland. My radio
headset is a homemade rig using noise-isolating stereo earbuds
worn under my leather helmet with an adapter for the air-
craft radio and a separate boom microphone. Along the way,
I found I could hear the radio on only one side. The cause was
soon apparent; the cord had gotten pinched between the rud-
der cable and the pulley. I was unable to dislodge it carefully, so
reasoning that no radio was better than no rudder should it jam
worse, I pulled harder, which got it out of the pulley but sev-
ered the cord completely. There was no control tower to worry
about, though I would have liked to hear the AWOS to get the
winds. While circling above the pattern looking for the wind-
sock, I saw a Cirrus below me and followed him in—swerving
all over the (fortunately) wide runway on a downwind landing.
Perhaps Cirrus drivers don’t care about wind.
Departing with full tanks (and my spare earbuds), my next
stop was Reigle Field (58N) in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, just east
of Harrisburg. I had considered overnighting at Farmers Pride
(9N7), a grass field not far north of there, but there was, as far
PALMYRA, PA
Water dripping from my wings made
me appreciate my waterproof bivy sack.
as I knew, no food nearby, and I had been unable to get in touch
with a Biplane Forum member based there. Reigle supposedly
has a restaurant within walking distance.
Approaching Harrisburg, I ran into the first bad weather
of the trip. I had intended to fly over the Class D airspace for
Capital City and Harrisburg International, which topped out
at 2800 feet, before descending into Reigle, but there were
scattered clouds starting at 2500 feet. I climbed to go over
the cloud layer, which wasn’t very thick, but it looked like it
was going solid under me. Not wanting to get caught on top,
I turned around, dove under the clouds, and circled around
south of the city under the clouds in deteriorating visibility.
My GPS chose that moment to lose its signal (the only time
it happened), which made for a few anxious moments, but it
reacquired it quickly after being reset. Still, I was relieved to
finally find Reigle in the haze, where I made my worst landing
yet, coming in too high and fast, and landing downhill on the
short, narrow runway and rolling off the end into the grass. I
was being very cautious with the brakes, as I knew the plane
KITPLANES May 2018 45
Camping next to the plane at Reigle.
had been on its back once already, and it’s the first plane with
toe brakes I’ve flown in 30 years. Fortunately, I bounced to a
stop before rolling into the plowed field beyond, and no harm
was done except to my pride. I realized I was overcompensating
with too much speed to avoid dropping out of the flare again.
After refueling, I learned that the restaurant I had planned
to eat at had closed, but the airport owner drove me to the local
Domino’s Pizza, where I ate before walking the half mile back
to the airport. I then moved my plane away from the road to
the grass on the backside of the hangars for a more pleasant
campsite. Before settling in for the night, I wandered around
looking in the open hangars; there are some interesting planes
there. The evening gave me the chance to catch up online and
post updates for people who were following my progress.
Day 4
The next morning, the weather didn’t look good. Reigle
was fogged in, and even though the weather was forecast to
improve to marginal VFR, Flight Service was saying “VFR not
PALMYRA, PA
46 KITPLANES May 2018
The view from my sleeping bag waiting for water to boil for coffee.
recommended” along my route. By late morning the weather
had improved enough to at least have a look, so I took off and
flew the 13 miles to Farmers Pride, again under a low ceiling.
My landings had been consistently bad enough that I wanted
to spend some time practicing on that 3400 x 150-foot grass
strip. I got there and spent a half hour or so in the pattern, mak-
ing the best landings I had yet done in the plane, the tailwheel
kissing the grass an instant before the mains, but I still couldn’t
make sense of the airspeed. The plane stalls at 50 mph, which
I’d verified on my first flight, but I was touching down at an
indicated 60 or more and lifting off at 45 or less. Still, I was
starting to feel more comfortable in the plane. I then taxied
over to the hangars and shut down for a break.
One of the local airport bums was admiring my plane
and telling me about his Fly Baby when two people in black
suits, a man and a woman, walked purposefully up to us.
Unquestionably government, I wondered if they were FAA—I
didn’t think I had done anything wrong, but is one ever cer-
tain? They introduced themselves as Secret Service. Asking if
anybody was in the airport office, they seemed surprised that
everybody had gone to lunch and the airport was left unat-
tended. They explained that they were checking out all airports
in the area in advance of President Trump’s visit to Harrisburg
that weekend and making sure all local pilots were aware of the
associated monster TFR. I assured them I was aware of it and
planned to be long gone before it took effect. You know the
Secret Service stereotype from TV and movies? They were it,
and sure looked out of place on a grass field talking to me in
T-shirt and shorts and an old man next to an oily, old biplane.
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Safely home. The plane is visibly sitting one wing low, and a bit of the fabric on the landing gear is torn.

Chester, CT

Day 4
Start: Reigle Field, Palmyra, PA
End: Chester Airport, Chester, CT
Stop: Farmers Pride Airport, Fredricksburg, PA;
Slatington Airport, Slatington, PA
Miles: 229 statute miles
Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

By this time the weather was improving slightly. It was
still marginal VFR, but forecast to continue improving, and
I planned short hops. Leaving Farmers Pride, I set out the
50 miles to Slatington Airport (69N), northwest of Allen-
town/Bethlehem. The ceiling was still low, but sufficiently
above the ridges of the Alleghenies (and towers!). Thanks
to Avare, I had a good handle on exactly where I was at all
times. I don’t think I would have attempted the route in that
weather with only paper charts in an open cockpit. It wasn’t
hard to imagine the old airmail pilots flying over (and all too
often crashing into) these same ridges in their Jennies and de
Havilland biplanes along the New York-Chicago route with
its notoriously bad weather. If I had somehow lost the GPS
again, I would have turned southwest and followed the high-
way back to Farmers Pride or one of the other airports along
the way, or even a farm field if necessary, so I always had an
out. It also helped that I was getting into the “safety zone,”
where one is close enough to home to ethically call somebody
for a ride home if it becomes necessary to leave the airplane
somewhere for a few days.
As it turned out, I had no trouble; the weather did continue
to gradually improve, and while it was never great, I reached
Slatington with no trouble. The Appalachian Trail runs along
the 1000-foot-high ridge a mile and a half north of the airport,
and flying a tight pattern south of the ridge, I again came in
too high and fast on the first approach. I went around, making
an acceptable landing the next time.
The first thing you notice about Slatington is the dozens of
wrecked airplanes lining the field. Slatington is an airplane
junkyard, selling used airplane parts of all sorts. Fortunately, I
had arrived just as the man with the gas pump key was getting
ready to leave. Not needing any parts but wanting maximum
options in case of any weather-caused detours, I topped off my
tank again before taking off for the last leg home.
Still picking my way from airport to airport in case deterio-
rating weather made landing advisable, I crossed the Delaware
River into New Jersey and flew over Blairstown Airport, Aero-
flex-Andover Airport and Greenwood Lake Airport. Green-
wood Lake was familiar to me, though I didn’t land there this
time. From there my course was more east, north of the New

KITPLANES May 2018 47

York Class B. The visibility got a bit worse as I passed over the
Ramapo Mountains of Southern New York near where I grew
up; I couldn’t see Bear Mountain to the north or the Tappan
Zee Bridge to the south, though I knew exactly where they
were. It was still gloppy beyond the Hudson River into West-
chester, but getting into Connecticut it started to improve, and
I could see Long Island Sound as I flew a slight zig-zag course to
avoid the Westchester, Danbury, Bridgeport, and New Haven
Class D areas. By the time I passed New Haven, although
there were still scattered bits of low cloud at my altitude, they
were easily avoided, and I could see patches of sunlight on the
ground farther to the east. I was happy to finally touch down
at Chester (SNC), my home base, where friends were present to
critique my landing and admire my new plane.
Epilogue
As routine as it would be in a different aircraft, a long trip in an
unfamiliar old plane like this is always a risk. Some risks can be
mitigated by careful planning, but there are always unknowns.
I solicited advice from members of the Homebuilt Airplanes
and Biplane Forums, and spent so much time looking over the
route on aeronautical charts and satellite imagery that it was
almost familiar. Even so, I made no firm schedule and finalized
my route as I went along, allowing several extra days in case of
bad weather or other delays. Having camping gear meant that
I could land anywhere if necessary without having to worry
about cars or hotels to have a place to sleep. Even so, I was closer
to disaster than I realized until afterwards.
I was frustrated by my inability to land the plane well.
Reflecting on my observations at Farmers Pride, I suspected a
problem with the airspeed indicator. And more than one per-
son had noticed that the plane seemed to be sitting right wing
low in a head-on photograph, suggesting that weak bungees
on that side could be responsible for the plane’s poor ground
handling. After attending to some obligations out of town, I
returned to the airport a few days later to look at the airspeed
indicator and the bungees.
Checking the airspeed indicator with a manometer, the issue
turned out to be a partial blockage somewhere in the pitot line,
N1356W after cleaning off
the bugs and grime of the trip.
48 KITPLANES May 2018
Had this broken one landing
sooner, the adventure could
have become a nightmare.
resulting in a considerable lag in the indication. That went a
long way toward explaining my difficulty nailing an approach
speed and getting a consistent flare. It was easy enough to fix—
some compressed air and poom! Something shot out of the
pitot tube, after which it behaved correctly. I never even got to
looking at the bungees, though. Looking at the landing gear
leg, it was obvious something was wrong under the fabric. Cut-
ting and peeling the fabric back revealed a cracked and bent
landing gear leg, which would mess up the wheel alignment
and account for the poor ground handling. It was clear that it
had been cracked for a long time, hidden by the fabric, but no
doubt some of my less-than-graceful landings during the jour-
ney pushed it to the point where it was visibly bent.
The pleasant summer of flying I looked forward to didn’t hap-
pen. As the broken gear had obviously been repaired and altered
more than once before, I thought it best to build a new gear leg
from scratch. Furthermore, there was a new Starduster design
eliminating the weak spot, though it needed to be adapted to fit
my particular aircraft. Due to other obligations, designing and
building the new gear leg took four months, but it was finally
done, and the airplane’s ground handling is now much better.
Although I was disappointed that I couldn’t fly again until
the landing gear was rebuilt, I consider myself incredibly for-
tunate that it held until the plane was safely home. Having to
fix something like that hundreds of miles from home would
have turned an adventure into a nightmare. I’m also thankful
to have had the opportunity to make a journey of this nature,
with its challenges, sights, and great people I met along the way.
Who knows, maybe I’ll make a few YouTube videos. J
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 PLANE and SIMPLE
Coil Those Sheets!
If you are building an aircraft kit that
uses aluminum for its skin, there is lit-
tle doubt that you will have to handle
rather large, thin sheets during the life
of the build. These sheets may form the
surface of the wings, fuselage, or tail
structures, depending on the particular
design. This means those sheets can be
as long as ten feet and several feet wide.
Handling these as a lone builder can be
dangerous to you as well as the integ-
rity of the sheet. An unwanted kink or
dimple is surprisingly easy to form when
moving the sheet into position and will
ruin your day and wallet in no time.
Don’t ask how I know!
Usually the sheets are shipped from
the kit manufacturer in a completely flat
position, possibly on a pallet, separated
Photos: Jon Croke
by cardboard or paper wrapping. It is
always highly recommended to inspect
the individual sheets upon delivery to
your shop—and here begins the first han-
dling operation of these unwieldy objects.
(You will feel a little funny calling the kit
manufacturer six months down the road
about a damaged sheet if you choose not
to inspect them now!) While it is always
easier and safer to obtain a helper in lift-
ing and separating the sheets for inspec-
tion, the next decision is how to store
them until they are needed during the
build. Lay them flat on the floor or up
against the wall? Can you identify the left
top wing skin from the fuselage bottom
when they are flat on the floor in a stack?
One method I’ve used for storing
large sheet metal pieces safely is to
By Jon Croke
immediately roll them into a coil and
fasten them with a clamp so they do not
unwind. If you have predrilled skins, you
can even use a Cleco through available
holes to hold the ends in place. These
rolls are easily handled by a single per-
son without danger of kinks or bends.
They are easily unrolled on the table after
removing the clamp or Cleco. In addi-
tion, these rolls are easy to identify as
they patiently wait their turn until you
need them during construction. The roll
makes it easy to examine their unique
shapes and cutouts as you match them
to your plans. The coil form also prevents
damage during storage as they are hard to
step on, and if you bump into them, they
usually just wobble without a care. Coil
your sheets and worry a little less! J
KITPLANES May 2018 49

Epoxy and Fuel Resistance Tests, part 1:
Epoxy Basics
Although composite aircraft are
only a small subset of the homebuilt
market, almost all airplanes have a
composite cowl and fairings. Having
a basic understanding of epoxy should
prove useful sooner or later for most
builders, and besides it’s pretty inter-
esting stuff! This month we’ll discuss
some properties of epoxy resins, and
next time we’ll take a look at a test of
epoxy fuel resistance.
There are probably hundreds, if not
thousands, of adhesive systems used in
aerospace. These can be roughly divided
by application:
50 KITPLANES May 2018
54 bottles containing a
3x3x3 test matrix of epoxy
coupons. The winner will
be revealed in part 2.
By Eric Stewart
in wetting out) and are formulated
Application Example to have varying pot life ranging from
Laminating MGS 285 minutes to hours (or months, in the
Structural Hysol 9360 case of refrigerated prepregs, where the
epoxy is pre-impregnated into the cloth
High Temperature M-Bond 600 before delivery). Structural adhesives
PPG PS890 are formally defined as adhesives that
Chemical Resistant
(aka PRC/Pro-Seal) retain at least 1000 psi shear strength
Flexible Permatex RTV at 225° F. Since they are typically used
in secondary bonding of structural
Laminating adhesives (such as epoxy elements, structural adhesives usually
or vinylester resin) are used to wet out have greater flexibility as compared
layers of carbon, fiberglass, or Kev- to more brittle laminating resins.
lar reinforcement cloth. These resins Although there is no agreed upon defi-
are typically of low viscosity (to aid nition of “high temperature,” any
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(Left) Structural adhesive epoxy being applied to the SR-1 wing during closeout. (Right) This micro-measurements strain gauge for a
TECAT torque meter has been bonded to a Lycoming crankshaft with a high-temperature epoxy capable of withstanding the heat of a
hot engine compartment.
resin capable of continuous operation
above 250° F is essentially a high-temp
adhesive. Likewise, what constitutes
“chemical resistant” and “flexible” is
open to interpretation but otherwise
self-evident. The above examples are all
adhesives that I use in my shop.
It is beyond the scope of this article
to address all of the above adhesives.
Instead, we’ll take an in-depth look at
epoxies, since these are the predominant
adhesives used in aerospace and are likely
to be used in many homebuilt projects.
Epoxy Basics
Epoxy systems work by crosslinking
molecules. We use the word “system”
since epoxies have two components, a
resin and hardener(s), thus making them
a system. Often, one resin will have sev-
eral hardener options, which provide
differing pot life (time the epoxy is
usable before beginning to cure) and
mechanical properties.
(Left) Upper wing skin with an additional layer of resin-rich Primetex 284 at the fuel tank location. (Right) Close-up of the resin-rich
Primetex weave.
Photos: Eric Stewart
Crosslinking is what gives the adhe-
sive its mechanical properties, namely
strength and chemical resistance (both
temperature dependent). While most
epoxies for Experimental aircraft will
cure at room temperature (RT, gener-
ally defined as 77° F), this cure will
only see 80-90% of the molecules
crosslinked. This means that the avail-
able properties of the system have not
been fully realized. Heating the epoxy,
either during the initial cure (say, in an
oven or autoclave), or after the initial
cure (called a post cure), will increase
the percentage of crosslinking. The
longer and hotter (within limits) the
cure/post cure, the greater the propor-
tion of cross linking.
While the epoxies that homebuilders
use will cure fine at room temp, they
will all benefit from post curing. (We
will ignore prepregs [and by extension
autoclaves—see below], which typi-
cally require an elevated temperature
for processing, which achieves the same
result as a post cure for RT systems.)
Note that when studying the data
sheet for epoxy allowables (i.e., mechan-
ical properties like shear strength and
chemical resistance), you’ll notice that
some manufacturers describe the exact
post cure of coupons used to establish
those numbers. That makes sense, since
they want to show their product in the
best light possible. However, realize
that you will not attain similar results
unless you implement the same post
cure. If not, you’ll need to downgrade
your allowables accordingly.
The Role of Tg
One of the main parameters engineers
consider when choosing epoxy is the
glass transition (Tg) temperature of the
system. Tg is the temperature at which
epoxy transitions from a glassy state to a
soft, rubbery one. A related parameter is
the heat deflection temperature (HDT),
KITPLANES May 2018 51
Post curing can be done with a proper industrial oven (left) or a temporary insulating structure can be built around the object, in
this case, a wing (right). Hair dryers driven by a cheap PID temp controller maintained a temperature of 170° F, which is adequate for
most room temp cure epoxies. Post curing should preferably be done with the object in its mold. Post curing by placing an object in
direct sunlight is not recommended.
which indicates the temperature that a
part will begin to lose significant rigid-
ity. For engineers, this is perhaps the
more relevant parameter. Depending
on how Tg is measured, HDT may run
from between a few degrees to 30–50°
F lower than Tg. However, that is for
a sample of pure resin; the HDT of a
laminate (i.e., the resin plus a fiber rein-
forcement) will be significantly higher
than the Tg, due to the reinforcing
nature of the fibers.
A part which experiences a deforma-
tion (due to internal or external stresses)
at HDT will be permanently deformed
when allowed to cool. In addition,
depending on the magnitude of the
mechanical stress or temperature above
Tg to which a part is exposed, the epoxy
matrix itself may also be damaged with
concomitant reduction in part strength.
Tg typically runs approximately 40° F
in advance of the post cure temperature;
thus a system with a max Tg of 212° F,
for example, will need to be post cured
Laminating Resin L 285/Hardener 287
(˚F) (˚C) Tg3
230 110
212 100
194 90
176 80
158 70
140 60
122 50
0 5 10
Development of MGS Tg according to post cure temperature and duration.
52 KITPLANES May 2018
to at least 172° F or so for a specified
number of hours to achieve its max Tg.
An epoxy that has only seen a
room-temp cure will not be able to
go immediately to this high of a post
cure temperature, however, without
exceeding Tg and thus possibly warp-
ing parts. Post cure temps should there-
fore be ramped up and down at a rate
that allows the Tg to increase as fast or
faster than the increase in oven temp.
This ramp rate will be specified by the
manufacturer. If no spec is available, a
ramp rate of 2–5° F per minute, with a
2-hour dwell for each increment of 40°
F, should prove safe. In the above case
of an RT-cured part with a max Tg of
212° F, the RT (77° F) cure could be
followed by a stepped ramp of 2 hours
at 120° F, 2 hours at 160° F, 2 hours
at 180° F, and a symmetric ramp back
down to room temp.
Tg explains why most Rutan-style
Experimental composite aircraft are
painted white: They are typically built
Heat treatment 80˚C/176˚F
Heat treatment 60˚C/140˚F
Heat treatment 50˚C/122˚F
15 20 25
Time [h]
with RT epoxies that are not post cured
and as such have a relatively low Tg in the
range of 120–140° F. In fact, on a hot
day they are literally doing (for better or
worse) their post curing out on the ramp.
One problem associated with low or
no post cure is that epoxy (and vinylester
to an even greater degree) continues to
shrink over time due to continued cross-
linking. This is one way in which aircraft
with initially smooth surfaces can even-
tually show the underlying fabric pat-
tern or structure (called print through).
As the aircraft post cures in the heat of
the sun, the epoxy continues to densify.
Woven reinforcement fabrics stabilize
the epoxy in the x and y directions of
the surface plane, so shrinkage occurs
normal to the surface in the z direction,
resulting in print through that appears
as dimples. Polyester gel coats are par-
ticularly prone to this problem.
In contrast, if one looks at certain
molded kit airplanes such as the Lancair
Legacy, these kits use high-temp pre-
pregs (carbon fiber preimpregnated
with high Tg epoxy) that yield parts with
a much higher Tg. That allows these
airplanes to be painted darker colors
without worry that skin temps will get
anywhere near Tg.
While producing parts with higher Tg
and slightly higher strength, the disad-
vantage of prepregs is that these systems
tend to be significantly more expensive
and require curing/post curing in an
oven or autoclave, greatly increasing
manufacturing costs. An autoclave is a
combination pressure vessel and oven,
which allows heated vacuum bagging
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of parts at pressures above atmospheric,
typically in the range of 50–100-psi
and 250–350° F. As few homebuilders
have access to autoclaves, discussion of
autoclave prepregs is beyond the scope
of this article.
Which Epoxy to Choose?
While it might seem that you should
pick an epoxy system with as high a Tg
as possible, this is not necessarily the
case. To illustrate this fact, let’s con-
sider three epoxies, A, B and C. Epoxy
A (ProSet Lam 125 resin/229 hardener)
achieves a Tg of 157° F after two weeks at
room temp with no post cure. In com-
parison, Epoxy B (MGS 285 resin/287
hardener) achieves a Tg of 222° F after
a 24-hour post cure at 176° F. Without
post curing though, Epoxy B’s Tg is only
about 130° F. So if you don’t plan to post
cure, Epoxy A will probably provide bet-
ter properties, whereas if you can post
cure, Epoxy B will prove superior.
Epoxy C is a high-temperature epoxy
for use in autoclave prepregs. It has a Tg
of 300° F. It requires processing in an
oven or autoclave to realize its proper-
ties. If you are building an F-22, have
access to an autoclave and a very large
budget, Epoxy C might be your choice.
It has excellent high temperature and
chemical resistance properties, which
is important for the serviceability of a
jet fighter that may operate in extreme
environments. If you are building a
Long-EZ in your garage, then Epoxy
C is out of the question—it won’t even
cure at room temperature.
In summary, the primary benefits of
post curing are as follows:
• Improved mechanical properties,
notably shear strength and Tg
• Improved chemical (including fuel)
resistance
• Reduced print through
A Few Final Notes
As one might guess, the cure rate at
temperatures above Tg is faster than
the cure rate at temps below. Although
we noted above that post cure temps
should not ramp more quickly than
the advance in Tg, the exception to the
above rule of thumb is that heating
above Tg is OK as long as the part is held
in conformance with a mold by, say, a
caul plate or vacuum bag.
In contrast, if parts are demolded with
only a room temperature cure and the
epoxy system is one that is designed for
a post cure (for example MGS 285 resin
with 287 slow hardener), these parts
should be handled carefully until post
curing in order to avoid microcracking
of the still incompletely cured epoxy.
Most part shrinkage occurs in the
transition of the epoxy from a liquid to
a solid. That is why it’s important to get
a good initial cure with the part in the
mold, to avoid warping. As long as the
ramp rate is reasonable (and for thin lam-
inates, the Tg will advance rapidly), the Tg
will stay ahead of the part temperature.
That said, if possible, it’s always best to
post cure in the mold, or at least cure to
the highest possible temperature in the
mold before demolding for post cure.
For a given resin system (e.g., MGS
285), regardless of the hardener used
(e.g., MGS 285 fast, 286 medium, or 287
slow), the highest level post cure can be
Color Curve Sheet
240˚
230˚
220˚
210˚
200˚
190˚
Peak Surface Temperature (˚F)
180˚
178˚
170˚
160˚
150˚
140˚
130˚
120˚
110˚
100˚
90˚
80˚
70˚
30˚
Peak surface temperature versus ambient air temperature. (Courtesy of Soaring magazine)
used without fear of harming the system.
In other words, curing at temps above Tg
will not hurt the system and will result
in a faster cure, but will not change the
inherent chemistry that governs Tg.
That said, at RT testing of mechani-
cal strength, one would expect fully
cured 285/285 to be similarly as strong
as fully cured 285/287. But at elevated
temps this equivalency is lost as 285/285
approaches its Tg before 285/287
approaches its own. Note also that cur-
ing a low Tg system above its Tg will not
raise its nominal Tg —that parameter is
fixed by chemistry.
All of the above is a very abbreviated
and condensed description of epoxy
properties, and as such there are vari-
ous details and exceptions to the above
statements that have been omitted. Per
my usual caveat in these articles, do
your homework.
Next time we’ll apply the above con-
cepts to an experiment designed to
determine which of several popular
epoxy systems is most suitable for fabri-
cating fuel tanks. J
Black
Brown
Red & Green
Orange & Tan
Light Green
Purple & Blue
Light Blue & Aluminum
Yellow & Pink
White
95˚
40˚ 50˚ 60˚ 70˚ 80˚ 90˚ 100˚ 110˚
Ambient Air Temperature (˚F)
KITPLANES May 2018 53
 MAINTENANCE MATTERS
Engine Inspection and
Repair After a Prop Strike
As soon as someone has a prop strike,
the question arises, “Do I have to tear
down my engine?” Unfortunately, most
of the time the answer is yes. So, what is
a prop strike exactly? Intuitively, it is when
the propeller hits something. You may get
some different opinions from a survey of
your friends, but each major engine man-
ufacturer has a definition of a prop strike
that should be the beginning point of
your decision process if the dreaded event
occurs. Here is Lycoming’s definition:
A propeller strike includes:
• Any incident, whether or not the
engine is operating, where repair of
the propeller is necessary.
• Any incident during engine operation
where the propeller has impact on Surely no one would be tempted to straighten these badly bent blades, but even a
a solid object. This incident includes slight bend is a cause for a professional prop shop to get involved. Gear-up landings
propeller strikes against the ground. are another major cause of prop strikes in certificated airplanes but are less common
among Experimentals simply because most of them have fixed gear.
Although the propeller can continue
to turn, damage to the engine can Of course, as the owner of an Experi- serious damage. Some of that damage
occur, possibly with progression to mental airplane, you are not legally may not be visible until you have some-
engine failure. bound to these manufacturers’ service one really take a hard look at it. You may
• Sudden rpm drop on impact to water, recommendations, but you are still fix a bent fender, but there may also be
tall grass, or similar yielding medium responsible for maintaining your plane damaged suspension components that
where propeller damage does not in a condition safe for flight. You will also require closer examination to find them.
usually occur. have a lot of explaining to do to your That is the same with an airplane engine
Continental has a similar definition insurance company if you ignore a prop that suffers a prop strike. You may be
that is somewhat less wordy. Rotax has strike that subsequently leads to a claim. able to dress out the damage to the pro-
the briefest description: “A propeller The insurance company would much peller and make it look pretty good, but
strike is any incident while the engine is rather pay for the teardown and inspec- other problems may be buried inside
stationary or running which makes it nec- tion than the loss of your airplane and the engine that you can’t see without
essary to perform repairs on the propel- maybe you and your passengers later. taking a closer look.
ler.” Even though Rotax does not address Visualize what is happening inside an
an rpm reduction that does not damage Anatomy of a Prop Strike engine right before a prop strike. Fuel
the propeller, it seems prudent to at least Imagine your car rolling down the high- is being rapidly burned inside cylinders
consider such an incident to be a propel- way. If you suddenly run into some- where intense pressure drives pistons to
ler strike with one of their engines. thing, you will most likely sustain some turn the crankshaft. Pistons press down

Dave Prizio has been plying the skies of the L.A. basin and beyond since 1973. Born into a family

Dave Prizio
of builders, it was only natural that he would make his living as a contractor and spend his lei-
sure time building airplanes. He has so far completed three—a GlaStar, a Glasair Sportsman, and
a Texas Sport Cub—and is helping a friend build an RV-8. When he isn’t building something, he
shares his love of aviation with others by flying Young Eagles or volunteering as an EAA Techni-
cal Counselor. He is also an A&P mechanic, Designated Airworthiness Representative (DAR), and a
member of the EAA Homebuilt Aircraft Council.

54 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes


Any engine with movable counterweights must have these items carefully inspected
and the pins and bushings replaced after a prop strike. An undetected failure of these
caused a catastrophic engine failure in the author’s first plane. (Photo: Paul Dye)
on connecting rods through piston pins.
The rods convey that force to the crank-
shaft and then out to the propeller. The
crankshaft also turns the camshaft and
various accessory drive gears and the
oil pump. All of these happily spinning
and pushing parts can react poorly to
any effort to force them to slow down or
stop. Sometimes this results in an obvi-
ous failure, but sometimes, more insidi-
ously, it can cause a stress fracture that
will cause a failure later if it isn’t found
in time. All of the moving and support-
ing parts of the engine are vulnerable to
these stress fractures, even such things
as the magnetos. This is why the engine
must be torn down.
not need to come apart, but you are still
grounded after a prop strike until some
serious work has been done.
Certificated and SLSA aircraft are
legally bound to the Rotax factory
requirements, but Experimentals are not.
However, as stated before, it will be hard
to make the case that you maintained
your plane in a condition safe for opera-
tion if you do not follow these recommen-
dations and something goes wrong later.
Lycoming Engines
Lycoming deals with prop strikes in Ser-
vice Bulletin SB-533C. This service bulletin
is enforced on certificated aircraft owners
through FAA Airworthiness Directive AD
2004-10-14. Lycoming’s service bulletin
goes into great depth as to what needs to
be inspected and how. It also addresses
prop “strikes” that result in an engine
slowdown without damaging the propel-
ler such as might happen by hitting water
or tall grass. Essentially, anything that
causes a noticeable reduction in engine
rpm or causes more than minor damage
to the propeller calls for a teardown and
inspection. This is regardless of the run-
out on the crankshaft. Crankshaft run-
out over .004 inch requires major engine
work no matter what the cause, but that
is a separate issue. The popular, but erro-
neous, advice that there is no need to
take the engine apart if the crankshaft is
straight is just plain wrong.
Areas of particular vulnerability in the
Lycoming engine include the bolt that
holds the cam drive gear to the end of
the crankshaft and counterweight pins
and bushings in engines that have mov-
able counterweights. These items are
routinely replaced after a prop strike.
Continental Engines
Continental engines share the Lycom-
ing’s susceptibility to damaged counter-
weight components from a prop strike.
Accessory drive gears are also vulnerable

Rotax Engines
The exception to this general rule is the
Rotax 912-914 series of engines. They have
propeller speed reduction and clutch
systems that usually protect the engine
from prop strike damage, but does itself
require a teardown and inspection after
a prop strike. Rotax deals with this topic
in their maintenance manual for these
engines in Chapter 05-50-00, Section 1.
Besides disassembling the gearbox and
carefully inspecting it, the crankshaft
must be checked for out-of-roundness to
be sure that there is no more that .0031
inch of runout. If there is, the engine
must also come apart for inspection and
parts replacement. This is addressed in
the Rotax heavy maintenance manual
The bolt that holds on the gear that drives the camshaft and other accessory gears needs
in Chapter 72-00-00, Section 3.9. These to be replaced after a prop strike no matter what. The gears need to be magnetic particle
manuals are available online at the Rotax inspected to make sure they are not cracked. This engine is a dual-mag engine from the
website. Most of the time the engine will Lycoming engine school, so it lacks the second magneto drive gear found in most engines.

Photos: Dave Prizio KITPLANES May 2018 55

parts that demand close scrutiny after a
prop incident. Refer to Continental SB96-
11B for more information.
My first airplane, a Cessna 205, suf-
fered a catastrophic engine failure when
the counterweights let go about two
hours after a prop strike. This was back
some 40 years ago when knowledge of
the perils of prop strikes was much less
common. An A&P mechanic had checked
the runout on the prop after the strike
and declared the engine fit for flight. He
was hard to find afterwards when the
Even magnetos need to be checked out after a prop strike. The drive gears and impulse
airplane was towed back to the airport in
coupling are vulnerable to damage from a sudden engine stop.
pieces. Luckily, no one was injured in the
emergency landing. landing. It flew fine for years afterwards the difference between major and minor
with no apparent ill effects. damage. But just to recap, major damage
Field Experience This small sample size doesn’t prove is when there is a gouge that is ¼ inch
I don’t think there are any statistics on much, but it does suggest that not every deep or more in the edge of the prop,
how many engines fail after prop strikes prop strike causes major damage to the or when there is a scratch in the face of
or how many damaged parts are found in engine. On the other hand, one failure a blade that is more than 1/8 inch deep.
a post-prop-strike teardown. Many peo- out of five engines is enough to make me However, large areas of damage that are
ple who have prop strikes simply ignore reluctant to fly with a prop-strike engine less than that should be checked out,
them and hope for the best. Sometimes that hasn’t been thoroughly checked out. too. Bent blades are also a reason to send
that works out, and sometimes it does the propeller into the shop. Pounding a
not. In the four cases of prop strikes Propeller Damage bent prop back into shape yourself, even
where I knew the owners of the planes A prop strike will almost always result in if it is just a bent tip, is a really bad idea.
involved, two engines were torn down the need for a major repair or overhaul In all cases, the manufacturer’s rec-
and had no damaged internal parts. of the prop. This is not work that you can ommendations should be your guiding
One, the one mentioned above, had no do, but must be done by a factory autho- reference. With the advent of composite
teardown and failed shortly afterwards. rized repair facility. KITPLANES® has an propellers, not to mention the continued
The last one was a twin with Continental article [“Taking Care of Your Metal Prop”] existence of wood propellers, it is impor-
IO-470 engines that got two overhauled in the February 2015 issue that deals with tant to consult the most authoritative
props and no teardowns after a gear-up minor propeller repair and how to tell source when making your repair or over-
haul decision.

Preventing Prop Strikes

As an airplane builder, the most impor-
tant thing you can do to prevent a prop
strike is to make sure you have adequate
ground clearance between the tip of the
prop and the tarmac. An absolute mini-
mum of seven inches is required, but a
more realistic minimum of nine inches
is much safer. Selecting a prop that will
leave you with good ground clearance,
even at the cost of decreased climb per-
formance, is a necessary precaution.
If off-airport or rough-field work is in
your airplane’s future, it is a much better
idea to build a taildragger than a trike.
They have much better ground clearance
Bad landings such as the ground loop that produced this disaster are a leading cause of
prop strikes. The wood core construction of the MT prop probably helped to minimize (up to two feet), at least in the three-point
damage to the engine, which checked out fine after a teardown. The problem was getting position. Modified nose gear and larger
it to a shop from this remote location in British Columbia. tires can also increase ground clearance

56 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 engine advertised as a “prop-strike”
engine. These can be good deals if the
seller will guarantee that the case and
crank are still airworthy. Companies
such as Wentworth will stand behind
such a guarantee, but a private-party
seller may be hard to find when you
come looking for a refund after a crank
turns out to be cracked. The reputation
of the seller is vitally important with
these engines.
If you hope to collect on such a guar-
antee, it is very important that you have
Larger main tires and a modified nosewheel fork gave the author’s Sportsman an extra
the engine torn down and checked out
two inches of ground clearance. This reduced the risk of a prop strike on the many dirt
strips he has visited, such as this one at Coldfoot, Alaska. right away. That doesn’t mean you have
to do the expensive work of overhaul-
for a trike, but will likely take some extra other landing mishaps. Lastly, know ing it, but it does mean that the neces-
work not included in the standard kit. I where you are taxiing or landing. Hidden sary inspections should be conducted
made such changes to my trike Sports- obstructions can cause major damage, fairly soon after your purchase. It is not
man and managed to get 11 inches of but even crossing a dip head on, rather reasonable to expect a seller to stand
prop ground clearance. than at an angle, can cause the prop to behind an engine that has been in your
Besides good ground clearance, the grind into the pavement. possession for a year or two after he
next best thing you can do to prevent sold it. That said, such an engine may
a prop strike is to execute consistently Prop-Strike Engines prove to be a bargain if you intended to
good landings, since a great number of Value-conscious builders will some- overhaul it anyway. Just know what you
prop strikes result from ground loops or times be lured by the low price of an are getting into. J

KITPLANES May 2018 57

 HOME SHOP MACHINIST
Sharpening Bits and
Tip 1: Reader Larry Merk asked how I
Random Tips
sharpen drill bits. I use a Service R&D
model drill sharpener made in the 1970s.
The company, Service Precision Grind-
ing, is still in business and sells the same
basic machine, now called the TRD/
SRD Model 80-M. The present-day cost
is about $1000, plus accessories. That’s
a big investment for the typical home
shop, but if you come across a used
one on eBay, it would be a good option
because spare parts are still available.
There are other drill sharpeners you (Left) The author’s 1970s-era Service R&D drill sharpener. (Right) The flutes must be aligned
with the guide marks in the clamping chuck.
could buy, most notably the Drill Doctor
line by Darex. I’ve never used one, so I
can’t comment on how they work. Darex
also makes professional drill and tool
sharpeners, so you might look at those as
well, if only for reference.
No matter what method or jig you
use, the key to a good, sharp drill bit is
to grind both edges and the web so they
are even and centered. I grew up around
old-school (pre-CNC) machinists who
sharpened drill bits freehand. It can be
done, but it takes a deft touch. I remem-
The carriage guides the bit through the cup wheel at the correct angle and height. The
ber being shown how an improperly point and relief are automatically ground to the correct geometry. To sharpen the second
sharpened drill bit can make a “square” edge, simply flip the clamping chuck over and repeat.
hole or wander off-center and ruin a
part. When my dad saw the Service R&D
sharpeners demonstrated at the WESTEC
show in the early ’70s, he bought two of
them (one of which is now mine). There
were no more square holes after that!
Not everyone needs a drill sharp-
ener. Even if you’re drilling lots of holes,
it’s an either-or choice to resharpen or
replace. You can buy many dozens of
the best quality drill bits (USA-made
Dormer, Norseman, etc.) for the price of
a Drill Doctor. On the other hand, work- Web thinning can be done freehand or with the clamping chuck. Web thinning helps
ing with exotic materials can be very reduce the amount of drilling force and improves centering.

Bob Hadley
Bob Hadley is the R&D manager for a California-based consumer products company. He holds a
Sport Pilot certificate and a Light-Sport Repairman certificate with inspection authorization for
his Jabiru J250-SP.

58 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

tough on drill bits. I remember a story It makes a big difference. You simply compound. To maintain the compound,
from the early days of composite air- spread it out, sweep it up, and the floor simply sift or pick out any visible debris.
frames. Dull bits caused big problems has a nice shine to it. A little goes a long Other than that, you can reuse the stuff
on carbon fiber and titanium sandwich way. I work the hangar in sections, back almost indefinitely. A 20-pound bag sells
structures. So the drill was (excuse the to front, with about three pounds of for about 20 bucks at Home Depot.
pun) to resharpen them after every
use. (Look up U.S. Patents 4898503,
WO2004037472A1, US20080019787A1,
and US7665935B1 for some interesting
insights on drill bits for composites).
Tip 2: Here’s a quick tip for center-
ing adhesive-backed sanding discs:
Although it doesn’t hurt anything to be
a little off center, it sure is annoying!
After cleaning the platen of any sticky
residue, use a couple of spring clamps to
hold the new disc in position. Peel and
fold the backing from the half opposite
the clamps and stick it down. Remove
the clamps, peel the backing all the way
off, and stick the rest.
If your sander doesn’t have room for (Left) Clean any residue left behind by the previous disc. (Right) Center the new sanding
clamps, start by folding over about ¼ to 1/3 disc on the platen.
of the non-stick backing and, while keep-
ing the sticky part from sticking, line up the
unexposed portion of the disk to the edges
of the platen. Once centered, carefully
press the sticky part down and then peel
away the backing and adhere the full disc.
Tip 3: Over the years, I’ve tried out a
number of ways to keep my shop and
hangar floors tidy. At the hangar I’ve
gone through two vacuums, a blower,
a sweeper with spinning brushes, and
various brooms. Lately I’ve reverted to
the old shop class standby: floor sweep-
ing “compound.” Sweeping compounds
consist primarily of sawdust, sand, some
salt, mineral oil, and dye. Compound
helps capture dust and debris that float (Left) With the clamps maintaining the disc on center, peel and fold the backing. A crisp fold
over, around, and otherwise get missed helps prevent the disc from creeping out of position. (Right) Remove the clamps, then peel
by normal sweeping or vacuuming. and stick the rest of the disc.

Sweeping compound helps capture dust and debris that often gets missed by normal sweeping or vacuuming. Just spread and sweep.
That’s all it takes to get a nice, shiny floor.

Photos: Bob Hadley KITPLANES May 2018 59

 Tip 4: The final subject we’ll cover is
a great caliper accessory for measuring
the center-distance between holes.
Centering gauges on a caliper are a
quick and accurate way to measure the
center distance between holes. They
are especially useful on small holes and
holes with threads, where trying to mea-
sure edge to edge with the caliper jaws
can sometimes result in errors.
You can buy a precision set of “center
hole gauges” from Mitutoyo for about
$80, or you can make your own in one
easy afternoon for mere pennies and
some careful machine work. Just fol-
low the instructions in the drawing to
make the centering gauges shown in
the photos. J

Why spend $80 for a set of center hole gauges when you can make your own?

The calipers have to be zero’d before installing the centering Center measuring gauges allow highly accurate, direct-caliper
gauges. If you milled the jaw slots correctly, the “null” position will readings when measuring holes up to 3/8 inch.
be 0.375 between centers. Note the set screws to fix the gauges to
the caliper jaws.

60 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

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 CHECKPOINTS
Three Common
So here it is, January 1, 2018 as I write
Discrepancies
this, and by the time you read it, winter
most likely will be over, and all of the
revelry of bringing in another New Year
will have been long forgotten. Every
year I tell myself to write the New Year’s
column in August so it makes the Janu-
ary issue, but I have yet to be successful
at it. Some consolation comes from the
fact that many of you in the Northern
Hemisphere will still be cold and tucked
away inside during April, and perhaps
there is even a stray ornament from the
holidays left out on a shelf to remind
you of the new year.
I have never been one for New Year’s
resolutions, as they just seem like a fad
for a month. However, I am thinking that
some resolutions as they pertain to the
building of amateur-built aircraft might
not be such a bad idea. By now those of
you who have been reading my columns
over the years know I have a few special These were all discovered on different aircraft during the last three months of 2017. In
pet peeves that I continue to find when some cases you can see the jam nut was never tightened, as there is no scoring of the
inspecting airplanes. During the course paint. In a couple of cases the jam nut was never installed, one of which was on the
of the 10+ years I’ve been inspecting air- throttle linkage at the carburetor. Loose or missing jam nuts on spar surfaces can cause
cracking of the spar over time, as the load is not properly distributed.
planes, I’ve noticed that the same things
do tend to keep cropping up. Now I have directly over Clemson University and the moved on to the rest of the airplane, and
to tell you that I have had the opportu- stadium of the Tigers while en route. The as I continued around the airplane look-
nity to inspect some absolutely gor- builder was fairly young, perhaps mid- ing at the outstanding workmanship, I
geous specimens of aircraft that even I 30s, and the airplane was beautifully began thinking that perhaps I am going
drooled over. Yet, on even the best ones, painted in Clemson colors, with a tiger to see a perfect airplane today! In my own
I still found at least one of the three decal on the tail. Sure enough, he was mind, I even began rooting for him.
most common discrepancies. an engineering graduate from Clemson, I really like it when I see the use of
and his attention to detail was impec- torque seal on nuts, fasteners, and jam
Jam Nuts cable. The paperwork was flawless, and nuts, and I was seeing it everywhere on
The most recent one occurred while the engine compartment was a work of this airplane. Even the left elevator and
inspecting a nearly perfect RV-7A in North art. Even the engine was painted orange! rudder jam nuts were torque sealed. But
Carolina. I had a wonderfully smooth For the first time, I really couldn’t find any- then it happened. There on the right
morning flight up to the destination air- thing wrong anywhere firewall forward. elevator, the right jam nut was loose!
port and happened to notice that I passed So I kept looking. Still nothing. I finally How could it be? I almost wished I had a

Vic Syracuse
Vic is a Commercial Pilot, CFII with ASMEL/ASES ratings, an A&P, DAR, and EAA Technical Advi-
sor and Flight Counselor. Passionately involved in aviation for over 40 years, he has built 11
aircraft and logged over 8700 hours in 72 different kinds of aircraft. Vic volunteers as a Young
Eagle pilot and Angel Flight pilot. He chairs the EAA Homebuilt Council and is a member of
EAA’s Board of Directors. He also has his own sport aviation business called Base Leg Aviation.

62 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

Whenever the bolt is subject to rotation, a castellated nut and cotter key are required. All of these are wrong, and the rudder cables (left)
are a common mistake, as seen here. The rear spars of some airplanes, like the RV series (right), are subject to rotation, and the plans call
for a castellated nut and cotter key. On many of the ones I see, the proper drilled bolt is installed with a fiber nut!

wrench in my pocket so I could tighten it
and just move on. It was clear to me that
he had spent a lot of time on the details
to have a perfect airplane. We both
laughed, and I showed him that I didn’t
have a wrench in my hand to loosen it.
His reaction was not what I expected.
He said it was the reason I was there to
inspect his airplane and not someone
else. He wanted someone who paid as
much attention to detail as he did. Truth
be told, I still wonder if he left that jam
nut loose to see if I would find it.
The underlying question is this: What
is it about jam nuts that seem to give
builders so much trouble? The worst
example I ever discovered was on an
RV that had been flying for seven years,
and every single jam nut on the elevator
attach bearings was loose. In fact they
had never been tightened, as there was
paint underneath the nuts and no scor-
ing of the paint. Unfortunately, I don’t
think I’ve found a single airplane yet
without a loose jam nut. I’m thinking we
should start a movement, something
along the lines of “Just say no to loose
jam nuts!” Perhaps it will catch on, and
we can eradicate loose jam nuts in the
world of amateur built aircraft.
control linkages, where the bolt is cap-
turing two or more pieces that have
movement, a castellated nut and cotter
key are needed. Even the rear wing spars
of some airplanes have movement and
require a castellated nut. The best thing
to do is to refer to the plans for the cor-
rect fastener. I’ve come to the conclusion
that many of the mistakes having to do
with using incorrect fasteners can be
attributed to the final assembly of the air-
craft taking place at the airport. Usually,
most of the construction has been done
at home, and a lot of temporary fasten-
ers were used during the initial construc-
tion and fitting process. By the time it’s
moved to the airport, there can be a false
sense of knowledge regarding the proper
fastener, and many times the plans are
forgotten at home during the move.
I recommend that once the airplane
is moved to the hangar and final assem-
bly of the project has begun, every step
should be worked to completion with
reference to the plans. It’s the only way
to ensure that it is assembled properly.
By the way, all the pictures of loose/
missing jam nuts in this column were
from inspections during the last three
months of 2017.
Paperwork
Common discrepancy number 3 has to
do with paperwork, and there seems to
be two areas of misunderstanding here.
The first one has to do with the relation-
ship between the airworthiness certifi-
cate and operating limitations, along with
certain entries that are required to be in
the aircraft logbook. First, the operating
limitations are a part of the airworthiness
certificate forever! In at least 10 airplanes
I inspected last year, the operating limita-
tions were nowhere to be found. In one
case even the airworthiness certificate
was nowhere to be found.
There is also an important statement
in the operating limitations that needs
to be entered into the aircraft logbook
at the completion of Phase I, prior to

Incorrect Fasteners
Discrepancy number 2 has to do with
fiber nuts versus castellated nuts and
where they are acceptable. The rule
of thumb is that if the bolt is subject to
rotation, it requires a castellated nut and
cotter key. Bolts that go through rod
end bearings, such as on flight controls,
do not require a castellated nut, as the
Always refer to your operating limitations for the verbiage of the required Phase I
bolt captures the bearing and the bear- completion logbook entry. This one is not acceptable by any means. During the period
ing carries the rotational load. However, in which this entry was made, the FAA order specifically stated the required wording,
on things like rudder cables and some some of which required specific speeds such as VX, VY, and VSO to be documented.

Photos: Vic Syracuse KITPLANES May 2018 63

carrying any passengers or operating
outside of the Phase I test area. That
statement includes an entry for certain
speeds obtained during testing. Just
making an entry that says “Phase I com-
pleted” is not acceptable. Yes, I have
seen that more than once, and in the
worst case I inspected an airplane that
had been flying for seven years across
three different owners with no Phase I
signoff in the logbooks.
The second part of the paperwork
issues that I see has to do with weight
and balance. While all pilots suppos-
edly learned to do a W&B for aircraft
when they were learning to fly, it can
be a little intimidating to create a W&B
from scratch on a new airplane. It’s not
an exercise that anyone was trained on,
and it can be a little dangerous as well,
seeing as the aircraft has to be jacked up
and then set on scales in a level attitude.
It is then that the fun begins, dropping
plumb bobs and taking various measure-
ments to determine the CG of the empty
aircraft. This is where I find some build-
ers have a problem, and in some cases
have made mistakes that can adversely
affect the available CG range and even
the flight characteristics of the airplane.
Dropping a plumb bob at various points and taking precise measurements will ensure an
accurate empty W&B. The use of painter’s tape on the floor allows for marking the plumb
bob drop points, then move the aircraft to take all of the measurements needed for
calculation. It’s much safer than working underneath an airplane on scales.
64 KITPLANES May 2018
Jacking and leveling the airplane on scales can be dangerous. It should be done in a closed-
door environment with some help. Ensure the wheels are chocked once it is up on the scales.
Many, but not all, airplanes will not be
within the manufacturer’s specified CG
range when they are weighed empty.
That is perfectly OK! We only care about
the CG range when we load and fly the
airplane. Let me repeat that: We only care
about the CG range when we load and
fly the airplane. I have seen more than
one builder add weight to the empty
aircraft to bring it within CG, and in one
case almost 80 pounds was added aft of
the baggage compartment! That could
have pretty serious consequences if not
caught. I recommend new builders get
help when doing the W&B portion, and
if your aircraft is substantially different
than the manufacturer’s aircraft, stop
and ask why before making any changes.
It could be your measurements, or some-
thing as simple as not understanding
CG calculations. Installing 80 pounds aft
of the baggage compartment will most
likely take a lot of fun out of flying!
I do enjoy sharing my discoveries with
you. It’s very rewarding when I hear back
from someone that they caught some-
thing on their airplane due to something
I wrote about. Even this week, I traded
emails with someone on a separate topic,
and in passing they mentioned that they
discovered something on their condition
inspection as a result of one of my col-
umns. Kinda makes it all worthwhile.
So, while I mentioned I don’t believe
in New Year’s resolutions, I do strive to
improve. For this year I’ve got two things
I am going to work on: I am going to get
my inspection authorization (IA), as I like
to continue to learn. Second, the wind-
shield on my RV-10 is severely crazing,
and since we are planning to go back to
Alaska this summer, I need to replace it. I
am not looking forward to doing it, but I
committed to Carol that I would. No sense
flying in all of that beautiful scenery try-
ing to look through a crazed windshield.
It definitely would affect the fun factor. J
www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes
 The
Creative Homebuilder
Light-Duty Control Cables
The Creative Homebuilder says that
making light-duty control cables is one
of his favorite projects because of the
simplicity and usefulness of the cables.
He’s also found a way to improve the
basic design.
Typical Bowden cables have a rigid,
straight section of tube attached to the
spiral cable housing at the knob end. The
tube’s primary purpose is to support the
flange and nut that secure the cable to the
airframe. The problem with this 3-inch
(or longer) tube is that redirection of the
cable is not possible within the straight
Light-duty wire control Bowden cable
materials.
Close-up of the constituent parts. When
finished and installed, the holes for the
socket-head Allen screws will be counter-
bored so the heads will be flush with the
top of the clamp.
section of tubing. This restriction can
reduce the opportunities for locating the
wire control. Without the freedom to
begin the “bending” of the cable imme-
diately beyond the installation clamp,
most Bowden cables will be mounted
horizontally because that direction pro-
vides the most clearance needed for the
bending to take place after the housing
exits the mounting sleeve.
The Creative Homebuilder’s system uses
a simple two-piece clamp that mounts to
a flat surface and can be placed as close
to the knob end as needed. What that
means is that the bending or rerouting of
the control cable can begin as soon as the
housing exits the clamp. With the extra
3 inches (or more) of bending opportu-
nity, the cable can be mounted in almost
any orientation—horizontal, vertical, or
A typical installation from the Creative
Homebuilder’s Rocket showing the
convenience of being able to mount the
cable in a vertical position with the bend
or redirection starting immediately after
the housing exits the split clamp. The cable
on the left controls fresh air to the forward
cockpit area, and the cable on the right
links to the oil cooler bypass door. Very
little space is needed for these two
functions when using this system. Note
that the system utilizes 0.055-inch core
wire and mating spiral housing, and is
effective for light-duty services only.
By KITPLANES® Staff
anywhere in between. This benefit allows
more efficient use of space that can be
hard to come by later in the build.
The process begins with buying blank
core wire and spiral housing from Aircraft
Spruce or a similar vendor. The Creative
Homebuilder then swages or silver brazes
a 10-32NF x 5/8 threaded rod at one end.
A knob from McMaster-Carr is attached
to it using red Loctite. The standard two-
piece, split clamp is made from bar stock
aluminum and provides just enough force
to hold the housing firmly and attach to
whatever support structure is available.
When he wants a more “tricked-out”
look, he sends them out to be anodized. J
The Creative Homebuilder plans a fire sup-
pression system in his current build and is
installing it with a light-duty wire control.
The wire for the fire suppression system
makes a couple of bends that would be
awkward for a conventional Bowden cable.
KITPLANES May 2018 65
 Electric motors, major repairs, combining parts
from several kits, using completed wings.
Question: I am considering using
an electric motor and batteries on a
well-known kit instead of the Rotax
engine specified by the designer.
What kind of FAA-related chal-
lenges should I expect when I apply
for an airworthiness certificate, and
will I be able to find a DAR willing
to sign off on it?
Answer: If the aircraft is to be certifi-
cated as Experimental/Amateur-Built,
there are no requirements as to what
type of engine is used. Any DAR should
not have a problem with an electrical
powerplant. I’m not aware of any aircraft
kit on the “FAA approved kit list” that
uses an electric motor, so the applicant
will have to submit the “Amateur-Built
Fabrication and Assembly Checklist
(2011)” to show 51% qualification. You
might also keep in mind that this air-
craft will not be LSA compliant, so it
cannot be flown by a sport pilot.
Question: I hope to get my RV
back in the air soon after re-skin-
ning an elevator and replacing the
the engine mount due to cracks.
Do these qualify as a “major repair
or alteration” and put me back in
66 KITPLANES May 2018
Phase I testing? I suspect just the
elevator re-skinning is enough to
do that.
Answer: Actually, your op lims should
not mention anything about major
repairs; only major “changes.” Repairs
do not require a return to Phase I. Of
course, you should do a proper “check
flight,” as with any repair, but there is no
legal responsibility to return to Phase I.
Question: I purchased a kit that
has changed owners several times
and has parts from several other
kits to make it complete. The com-
pany that originally produced it is
no longer in business, and I have
no way of contacting the previ-
ous owners. Each owner did some
work—in my estimate, it’s about
15–20% complete. Besides my
builder’s log and photos, what
paperwork will I need to have for
the DAR and FAA registration?
Answer: You will need to submit a
statement of the above facts as you know
them. If the project is actually at the
15–20% point, you should still have no
problem showing 51% total. Depending
on the DAR, you will probably be asked
By Mel Asberry
to submit the “Amateur-Built Fabrica-
tion and Assembly Checklist (2011)” to
show 51% qualification, even if the kit is
on the approved kit list.
Question: If I buy complete wings
that came from another damaged
airplane to use on my kit, will that
count against my “major portion”
or 51% rule? At what point can I no
longer obtain a repairman’s certifi-
cate or even register it as an E/A-B?
Answer: If you can show proof that
those wings are 51% amateur built
(difficult at best), then they will count
toward the 51% rule. How do you know
that those wings were not professionally
built? Can you prove this?
The qualifications for the repair-
man certificate actually have noth-
ing to do with the 51% rule. This is a
major misconception. To qualify for
the repairman certificate, you must be
listed as a primary builder and show
that you can competently conduct the
condition inspection. J
Please send your questions for DAR
Asberry to editorial@kitplanes.com with
“Ask the DAR” in the subject line.
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 AERO ’LECTRICS
This will be a first for me. Since I started
writing monthly columns in 1977, I have
never written about a commercially
available product. Parts? Sure, lots of arti-
cles about transistors, integrated circuits,
and every now and again a computer
program, but never before a product. It
took a real whizbang of a device to make
me break that mold.
But when a $40 product1 from Har-
bor Freight saves me a $300 battery, it
is worth writing about. The problem is
that I can only write about how it works,
not why it works. The “why” comes from
chemistry, and while I have quite a few
college credits in chem, I make abso-
lutely no claim to completely under-
stand how a couple of lumps of lead in
a sulfuric acid2 solution does the batting
in the battery box.
Having made that caveat, let me con-
fess to having written a battery desulfa-
tion column [“The Battery Sulfate Buster”]
for KITPLANES® in April 2002, and that
The Harbor Freight battery charger hooked up to the dead Concorde battery out of my
’58 Cessna 182.
Jim Weir
72 KITPLANES May 2018
Harbor Freight
Leads the Charge!
design worked…sort of. Since my battery
chemistry wasn’t any better 15 years ago
than it is now, it was strictly by trial, error,
and doing basic “research,” i.e., stealing
ideas and thoughts from others who had
written about desulfation in print3.
I will tell you that I just about scared
the pants off of myself going back into
the archives to see what I wrote way back
in 2002. I related a story about my 1960
high school days and a dead sulfated bat-
tery in a ’51 Chevy in the San Diego local
lovers’ lane at 2 a.m. with my high school
sweetheart. Little did I know that in 2012,
that sweetheart and I would cross paths
once more, with a resultant marriage to
her a year later. Scary.
But I digress. When it came time to
test the ADS-B in the faithful old ’58
Cessna (and get that $500 rebate from
the Feds), the prop would not turn over.
It seemed that I’d be buying a new $300
battery to get the engine started and
earn that rebate until I ran across an ad
is the chief avioniker at RST Engineering. He answers avionics questions in the internet newsgroup
www.pilotsofamerica.com–Maintenance. His technical advisor, Cyndi Weir, got her Masters
degree in English and Journalism and keeps Jim on the straight and narrow. Check out their
website at www.rst-engr.com/kitplanes for previous articles and supplements.
Battery sulfation caused two young lovers
(me and my future wife Cyndi) to become
stranded on a remote lovers’ lane at 2 a.m.
in 1960. We called Cyndi’s father, who
came to the rescue with jumper cables to
jumpstart my ’51 Chevy.
for a Harbor Freight battery charger. Not
just any charger, mind you, but one that
has a “rejuvenator” feature built into it.
Sure, sure, just another variation on
“sulfate busters” that juice the battery
up for a day or two and then let it go flat
again. Not so this time. This time, some-
body really got it right, and say what you
wish about HF, this sucker works. I tried the
old “full-discharge, recharge, discharge,
recharge…” with a regular old battery
1
The actual “list” price on the Harbor Freight website is
$50. However, I’ve never paid list price at HF in my life.
Every month or so, their latest flyer comes in the mail,
and it generally has a 20%-off coupon for anything in
the store...including this charger. That makes the price
$40, which is what I paid for it. Aren’t on the HF mailing
list? There’s a fellow who keeps a list of the HF coupons
at http://struggleville.net/category/harbor-freight,
and you can print out nearly any coupon you wish.
2
Those of you reading the archives 10 years from now
will marvel at how we managed to survive with such
things as lead-acid batteries when lithium-unobta-
nium batteries are so superior, just like I wonder how
my progenitors got along with vacuum tubes when
transistors are so easy to make.
3
Using another person’s work as a graduate student is
research. Using it as an undergrad is plagiarism.
www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

The oscilloscope presentation of the square
wave that brings the battery up from deep
discharge. The oscilloscope is set to 2 volts
per division on the vertical, so you can see
the square wave going from 10 to 11.5 volts
to “shock charge” the battery.
charger, but no soap. I couldn’t get it to
hold a charge but for about 6 hours, and
then it was back to not wanting to turn
the prop over.
Four cycles of discharge-rejuvinate
with the HF #63299 did the trick. That
battery has been tested half a dozen
times over the last couple of weeks and
it fires right up, just like it did when it was
new—14 years ago.
So, the how? The rejuvenate function
starts off with a square wave that stabi-
lizes between 10 and 15 volts at about
1 wave per second. If I were a guessing
person, my guess would be that the
internal microprocessor in the charger is
looking to see how much current flows
during the individual data points on the
wave and thus gains some sort of indi-
cation as to whether or not the battery
contains sufficient capacity to be suc-
cessfully rejuvenated. But that is just a
guess, nothing more.
After about 10 minutes of this sort of
square, sort of sawtooth wave, the main
Once the battery voltage gets to about
12 volts, the rejuvinator starts whapping
the battery with 12- to 16-volt pulses to
break up the sulfation. It’s an interesting
design, one that I’ve never seen before.
Photos: Jim Weir
Learning More About the
Harbor Freight Charger
When I wrote the first part of this column on
the Harbor Freight battery charger, I focused
on the “rejuvinate” function. It was only by
random chance that I happened to leave the
setup going while I was writing the column.
Much to my surprise, I was contemplating
how to disassemble the test setup when the
oscilloscope “glitched.”
I thought perhaps I had jiggled the scope
probes, but it started glitching again about
two seconds later. This was no fluke. It had
entered the “auto” mode, where I thought it
kept a trickle charge on the battery after it
had rejuvenated.
Not so. The auto mode, which is intended
to keep the battery charged between uses,
isn’t a simple trickle charger. It actually follows
the Concorde (and other AGM manufacturers)
regimen that recommends a pulse up to the
maximum voltage that the battery can take,
called the “initiation” mode. Next is a float volt-
age, then a slow self-discharge down to a nor-
mal lead-acid resting mode. This cycle slowly
repeats to keep the battery at full capacity.
Lo and behold, this little jewel has been
programmed with the internal microprocessor
to be smarter than a simple trickle charger. The
whole charge-discharge cycle takes about half
an hour, which is why I didn’t see it on the first
go-around. I mean, looking at the face of an
oscilloscope to see something that takes a frac-
tion of a second every 30 minutes is only slightly
more interesting than watching paint dry.
Here is what is happening: First we start
off with a battery that has self-discharged
to about 12.8 volts. At that magic spot the
This image was captured about 5 minutes
after the first image. About 3 minutes into
the scan, the 13.5-volt trickle current goes
away, and the battery begins a long, slow
decrease to the 12.8-volt point.
Starting on the left, the battery is just a little
above 12.8 volts. When it hits 12.8 volts at a
little before the 5-minute point, the heavy
charge takes it up to 14 volts or so. It takes a
second or two to go back to about 13 volts,
and then it goes back up to 13.5 volts, where
it stays for the remainder of the trace.
glitch I saw was the pulse taking the battery
at about 2 amps up to 14.2 volts, which takes
a little less than a second. Then the charger
lets the battery self-discharge to somewhere
on the order of 13.5 volts and keeps it there
with a relatively low trickle current of about
20–30 milliamperes. After 15 minutes or
so of this, the trickle current is removed,
and the battery is allowed to self-discharge
to 12.8 volts. This takes about another 15
minutes. Then the magic pulse comes along
to drive the battery up to 14.2 volts again,
and we repeat the cycle every 30 minutes
(shower, lather, rinse, repeat…) so long as
you leave the charger connected.
I have not had the opportunity to check this
charger in the gel or flooded mode, but I sus-
pect that it is “smart” on those modes as well.
—J.W.
This image picks up where the second
image leaves off. About 9 minutes into the
scan, the battery gets to the 12.8-volt point,
the charger boosts it up to the 14-volt area,
and the whole process starts all over again.
KITPLANES May 2018 73
 The HF battery charger confirming that it was using the AGM (Advanced Glass Mat)
battery regimen for this battery.
rejuvenation effort begins. This phase is
a relatively constant current charge for
about 95% of the time and a sharp posi-
tive pulse going from whatever battery
voltage the battery is charged to, and
then a very sharp narrow pulse going up
to about 16 volts, ten milliseconds wide,
one time a second. This is in sharp con-
trast to most “desulfators” that put out
a whopping 40- to 50-volt pulses. Once
again guessing, I’m thinking that who-
ever designed this charger found that
more pulses of lower voltage fewer times
a second for a longer time does a better
job of busting the sulfate crud that accu-
mulates on a discharged battery and
possibly (again, remember I’m guessing)
somehow dissolves the lead sulfate back
into the sulfuric battery acid.
But wait, there’s more: For both reju-
venation and normal charging, there are
three choices to be made. This device
can do separate programs for regular
flooded plate, gel-cell, and AGM batter-
ies, and is fine-tuned to the differences in
these three common technologies.
Battery charging is a science in and
of itself. Lead-acid batteries (be they
flooded, gelled, or matted) go through
a three-part process in the charging
regimen to maximize life. In general,
you charge a battery to about 80% of
capacity with a constant current for 3 to
6 hours until it gets to about 14.1 volts.
Then you apply a top-off constant volt-
age until the charging current goes to
some very low number around 5% of
74 KITPLANES May 2018
the amp-hour rating (1.75 amps for the
common 35-amp-hour aircraft battery)
for the remaining 20% of rated current.
Finally you apply a continuous float volt-
age somewhere around 13.5 volts that
simply replaces the leakage current that
all batteries have.
It sounds so simple, and yet there are
enough differences in the three battery
technologies that this “around” voltage
of which I speak varies just enough that it
is necessary to make a charger with sepa-
rate processes for each of the three. In
the sub-$50 range, this HF charger is the
only one I’ve seen that takes these three
different technologies into account.
Not only that, the numbers I gave you
above are accurate at 25° C (77° F), but
higher temperatures mean a lower charg-
ing voltage, and lower temperatures
require a higher voltage (approximately 3
millivolts per degree C in both directions).
Again, these folks thought this charger
through, and it has a “winter” mode that
adjusts for colder temperatures.
Finally, you have your choice of regu-
lar old charge current. Two amps of
trickle charge, 8 amps of quick charge,
and 15 amps of boost charge. Each one
reverts to the “float” voltage/current
mentioned above when the battery is
fully charged.
And why did I need this battery to start
the airplane again? Ah, yes, the rebate
flight on the new ADS-B Out box. More
about that next month. Much more. Until
then…Stay tuned… J
www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes
 WIND TUNNEL
Design Process, Part 6:

Last month, we started to look at the
way the airports an airplane is expected
to operate from affect the design. The
need to get into and out of these sites
safely will often drive the design and
cause it to differ significantly from a
configuration optimized for the up-and-
away part of the mission. We began with
a look at the effects of runway length.
We now turn our attention to another
characteristic of the airport that must be
taken into account.
Obstacles
Not all airports are surrounded by flat,
featureless terrain. At most airports,
there are obstacles off at least one end of
the runway.
To land, the airplane must first clear
the obstacles off the approach end of the
runway and then descend to land. The
slope of the approach is often defined by
obstacle clearance.
When taking off, the airplane must be
Obstacles
able to climb over the obstacles off the
departure end of the runway.
Obstacles can be as small as an airport
boundary fence or much higher objects
like walls, trees, buildings, or terrain.
For certification purposes a “standard”
obstacle is taken to be 50 feet high, and
takeoff and landing distances are nor-
mally quoted for trajectories that clear
this standard obstacle.
Takeoff and Climb
After liftoff, the airplane must climb
away without hitting any obstacles.
The initial obstacle-clearance climb
segment is different than the normal
up-and-away climb. For the latter, we
normally think in terms of rate of climb.
What matters is how quickly the air-
plane can gain altitude.
For obstacle clearance, what matters
is the angle of climb or the gradient of
the flight path. What we care about is
not how long it takes to get to altitude,
but how far over the ground the airplane
travels for each foot of altitude gained.
Accordingly, both the vertical speed
(rate of climb) and the horizontal speed
(true airspeed) matter. For a given rate
of climb, the faster the airplane flies, the
flatter the flight-path angle and the lon-
ger over-the-ground distance it will take
to get to a given altitude.
Figure 1 shows the effect of airspeed
on angle of climb for an airplane climb-
ing at 500 feet per minute. At 30 knots,
which might be typical of an ultralight,
the climb angle is about 91/2 degrees.
By the time we are out to the 70 knots
typical of a Cessna 150, the same rate of
climb gives a 4-degree flight path slope.
For faster airplanes, the climb angle
decreases further, with 90 knots giving a
3-degree flight-path angle and 100 knots
yielding only about 2.8 degrees.

STOL airplanes like the Zenith CH 750 Super

Duty typically feature large, effective flaps and
also have high power-to-weight ratios.

Barnaby Wainfan
is a Technical Fellow for Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Design organization. A private
pilot with single engine and glider ratings, Barnaby has been involved in the design of
unconventional airplanes including canards, joined wings, flying wings, and some too
strange to fall into any known category.

KITPLANES May 2018 75

 The effect of this phenomenon on
ground distance to clear a 50-foot obsta-
cle is shown in Figure 2. Our 30-knot
ultralight clears the 50-foot obstacle 303
feet downrange from liftoff. The 70-knot
C-150 takes 708 feet to clear, and an air-
plane that climbs 500 feet per minute
at 100 knots takes just over 1000 feet of
horizontal distance to get to 50 feet.
This phenomenon has several interest-
ing implications. The best angle of climb
speed (Vx) for a given aircraft is always
slower than the best rate of climb speed
(Vy ). Reducing speed somewhat from Vy
to Vx reduces rate of climb, but the reduc-
tion in over-the-ground speed increases
the flight-path angle.
For short-field operations over obsta-
cles, it is desirable to climb at a low
airspeed. Notice in our example that
the ultralight took less than half the
distance to clear the obstacle than the
Cessna 150 even though they are both
climbing at the same rate in feet per
minute. For the designer, this means
that a need to clear obstacles in a short
distance will tend to drive the airplane
toward lower wing loading than would
otherwise be optimal.
The advantage of flying slowly in an
obstacle-clearance climb may also drive
the design of the flaps. Using some flap
deflection to increase the maximum lift
Figure 2: As airspeed increases, more distance is needed to clear a 50-foot obstacle.
76 KITPLANES May 2018
Figure 1: For a given rate of climb, as airspeed increases, angle of climb decreases.
coefficient of the wing will allow the air-
plane to fly slower while preserving an
acceptable margin from the stall. The
tricky part for the designer is that flaps
also produce significant drag. The extra
drag of the flaps reduces the excess
power available and therefore reduces
rate of climb. If the flap drag is too high,
the reduction in rate of climb overpow-
ers the reduction in climb airspeed, and
obstacle clearance distance is increased
rather than decreased.
This dichotomy is why dedicated STOL
airplanes typically feature large, effec-
tive flaps and also have high power-to-
weight ratios; the extra engine power
is needed to overcome the drag of the
extended flaps.
For less extreme airplanes, using flaps
that are reasonably low drag at small (15
degrees or less) deflections can often
provide a useful reduction in distance to
clear an obstacle. Even for such relatively
efficient flap systems, the flap drag is sig-
nificant, so this approach is not typically
effective for lower-powered airplanes.
Climb angle or climb gradient can also
be an issue for multi-engine airplanes.
Multi-engine airplanes typically are
aimed at the higher performance regime,
and accordingly tend to have relatively
high climb airspeeds. With one engine
inoperative (OEI), the combination of the
reduced rate of climb due to the loss of
power and the high climb airspeed tends
to make the climb angle quite flat and
greatly increase the distance required
to climb over an obstacle.
U.S. certification regulations for trans-
port airplanes (FAR Part 25) include mini-
mum climb gradient requirements as
well as minimum rate of climb require-
ments. This climb gradient requirement
can end up sizing the engines so the
airplane has sufficient thrust to main-
tain an acceptable climb angle. In some
www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes
cases, it may also dictate the number of lauded for their cruise performance, but much flap drag is acceptable. In the
engines. Regulations apply to a situation were considered to be difficult and dan- initial stages of a missed approach, the
with one engine out. The more engines gerous to land because of the flat glide pilot cannot retract the flaps suddenly
the airplane has, the smaller the percent- and high approach speeds that resulted to reduce drag because the loss of lift
age of total thrust that is lost due to the from trying to fly approach slopes more will stall the airplane. Because of this,
failure of a single engine. In some cases, typical of higher-drag biplanes. the airplane must have enough power
a twin will have to be so overpowered to The solution to this problem is to pro- to arrest the sink rate and establish a
meet climb gradient requirements that it vide variable geometry that allows the positive rate of climb with the flaps
becomes too inefficient in cruise. Going pilot to increase drag and steepen the still in the approach/landing position.
to three or four engines allows the air- approach. The most common device for Only after the climb has been estab-
plane to have a lower thrust-to-weight doing this is a set of high-lift flaps. On most lished and airspeed increases some-
ratio with all engines operating and still flap systems, the last 10 to 20 degrees of what can the flaps be progressively
meet OEI climb requirements. deflection (depending on max deflection) retracted to clean up the airplane for
have very little effect at increasing maxi- best climb performance.
Approach and Landing mum lift, but add a lot of drag, which As we saw for takeoff, this means
On approach, the airplane must clear the steepens the landing approach. that airplanes intended for STOL oper-
obstacle and then descend to the ground The right size and maximum deflec- ations will typically combine large,
to land. As with the obstacle-clearance tion of the flap system is a trade between effective flap systems with high power-
climb after takeoff, what matters is the the need to add lift and drag to the air- to-weight ratios.
slope of the flight path, not the time rate plane for landing approach, the weight The need to take off and land over an
of change of altitude. and complexity of the flap system itself, obstacle has major effects on the con-
Unlike with climb, airspeed does and the need to be able to execute a figuration of the airplane, as we have just
not play a primary role in determining successful missed approach. seen. Next month, we will look at how
approach slope. What matters instead is The ability to go around after a missed the characteristics of the runway surface
the effective lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) of the approach is a major determinant of how itself affect the design. J
airplane. In order to decrease the distance
between the obstacle and the touchdown
point, we need to steepen the approach
by reducing the L/D of the airplane.
Some relatively simple low-perfor-
mance airplanes have steep enough
glides that they do not need any addi-
tional drag device to have an accept-
ably steep approach slope. Open-frame
ultralights, for example, can approach
quite steeply because they have rela-
tively high parasite drag. Accordingly,
by flying a little faster than best L/D air-
speed, they can essentially dive at the
ground without overspeeding. Some-
what lower-drag airplanes may still
avoid the need for extra drag devices
by using a sideslip maneuver to increase
...and leave your engine
drag and steepen the approach. monitoring to EIS.
Once an airplane is clean enough to Trusted with everything from 2-strokes
have decent cross-country performance, to turbines for over two decades.
its clean-configuration glide slope is flat
enough that it requires a long distance
between an obstacle and touchdown.
This characteristic was often cited as a dis- FLY IT
advantage of the cantilever monoplane like you stole it...
configuration in the pre-WW-II era, when
the competition between the biplane
and the monoplane was still underway. www.grtavionics.com • (616) 245-7700
Some early monoplane designs were Proud sponsor of Tiger Airshows and airplane “thief” extraordinaire, Hotwire Harry!

KITPLANES May 2018 77

 REAR COCKPIT

“Hello darkness my old friend” may

have kept Simon & Garfunkel in fresh
sandals, but if my mole-like shop experi-
ences are any clue, it sure is a lousy theme
for plane builders and maintainers. It’s
also a condition aggravated by advanc-
ing years. Although I may have plateaued
mentally at 16, physically my dark adap-
tation gently but persistently suggests
my orbs may be well past 40. That or I’ll
have to come up with another reason for
tripping over the air hose last week.
Lack of light is a persistent workshop
theme, so much so that once descended
below the heroic Taj Mahal level of per-
sonal work spaces, darkness is essentially
emblematic of the breed. Admittedly I’ve
been in only a few dedicated aviation
workshops ranging from Piper’s Vero
Beach plant to a few repurposed home
garages and the ubiquitous tin-shed
hangars, but I’ve haunted a couple hun-
dred automotive shops. There are detail
differences in what typically transpires
inside these workplaces, but in their
need for something more than a jar of
fireflies suspended from the rafters, they
might as well be identical.
Yet, experience shows most shops need
to import more fireflies. In the recently
departed incandescent and fluorescent
age, such lumen parsimoniousness could
at least be partially credited to the high
cost of electricity, plus in ye olde times
fixtures and bulbs were frequent costs as
well. Beady-eyed accountants and their
thug squads of efficiency experts no doubt
got hives when faced with lighting a quar-
ter million square feet of factory, and lord
knows my dad could summon the thun-
der and invoke the lightning should he
discover the oven lamp on duty without
On Electric Light
Tom eyeballs the bungees one fine winter’s eve. Compared to just a flashlight, the 4-foot
fluorescent fixture provides ample, shadowless task lighting.
a human in attendance. But in this age of
electron-sipping LEDs sourced from price-
slashing big box stores, fiscal conservancy
is more tertiary than ever when calculating
the cost-benefit ratio of illuminating the
average 500-square-foot shop.
And the benefits of workplace illu-
mination were well documented by lab
coat and clipboard types about when
Noah went boating. The results are irre-
futable: Within reason more light means
more productivity, better worker satis-
faction, and increased safety—and the
more natural daylight, the better. But
somehow so many of us don’t get it,
toiling in the sort of dimness people of
mediocre attractiveness prefer when
courting, or squinting into a combina-
tion of darkness and glare guaranteed to
produce a headache.
As usual, the experts don’t fully agree,
but according to the professional light-
ning bugs, there are at least three cat-
egories of lighting involved in human
habitations: general, task, and accent.
The first of these is the obvious wide
area light most shops rely on exclusively
via a few hoary fluorescents buzzing in
the overhead, while task lighting is illumi-
nation concentrated over a smaller area,
most naturally the workbench, but this
could also be that portable light stand
used to accurately assay areas insuffi-
ciently sanded while re-ragging wings, for
example. Accent lighting is an emotional
tool designed to attract attention and set
a mood, and while you might scoff at the
idea of up-lighting the potted palm you
screen the air compressor behind, if you
have a neon beer sign in your man-cave
airplane factory, you’ve got accent lighting.
The experts also say daylight is the
ideal general shop light, although there
are several obvious difficulties getting
enough of that evenly spread in a han-
gar, and typically most shop lighting sins
are simply not enough general lighting
and definitely not enough task lighting.
That’s why you’re always holding the
flashlight in your teeth.

Tom Wilson
Pumping avgas and waxing flight school airplanes got Tom into general aviation in 1973, but
the lure of racing cars and motorcycles sent him down a motor journalism career heavy on
engines and racing. Today he still writes for peanuts and flies for fun.

78 KITPLANES May 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

 Actually, my obsession with lighting
may be somewhat regional. As a South-
ern Californian, endless sunny skies are
something of a birthright—a bunch of
Chamber of Commerce hooey, really, but
compared to Buffalo, it is pretty mild—
and so traditional SoCal workshops tend
to be smaller because it’s assumed work
can spread outside, poorly insulated if
at all, shaded from the burning sun via
overhangs and possibly by small, heav-
ily inset windows, and ultimately still
dependent on open garage or hangar
doors for illumination, as it’s assumed
such portals will be perpetually open.
Some, in fact are. Thus, the illumination
is often glary, one sided, insufficient
and variable with the time of day, not to
mention what happens at night. In fact,
Midwest and rust belt shops are often far
advanced over their Sunbelt compatriots
simply because long winters and humid-
ity demand it. Such two-season hobby
conditions—fly it in summer, work on it
in winter—mean beautifully maintained
cars and airplanes are a heartland staple,
while the coastal iron often features a
few more “inop” instrument blanks than
expected in sporting machinery.
So, what’s to do about all this? Put up
more (modern) lights, if you can. We’re
not allowed such things in our rented
hangars—no one owns hangars around
here, and you farmers with the private
airstrip and hangar tucked in the north
forty are envied beyond telling—but for
those in control of their lighting destiny,
you can’t have too many. And if you’ve
been away for a while, the old T12 fluores-
cent has been legislatively sacrificed to a
more efficient future; it’s all T8 or smaller
bulbs these days. Likewise, those buzzing,
don’t-work-when-cold magnetic ballasts
in legacy fluorescents are no longer man-
ufactured, so if you have some vintage
lighting dying in your plane-making place,
it’s best to budget for new fixtures and
LED “bulbs.” Or, if you’re brimming with
handymanitis after squeezing all those
rivets, the old fixtures can be upgraded
with electronic ballasts—drivers, actu-
ally—to allow switching to T8 LED “bulbs.”
I shan’t be so daft as to attempt specific
lighting advice, but at least from obser-
vation, I must say those shops with light
from two opposing sides are far superior
to working in the average cave. The pass-
ing breeze can be nice, too. Of course,
much of the time man-made lighting is
the only thing. Hanging fixtures to evenly
light the entire shop and using switches
to allow partial lighting zones is often
the basis of good illumination and thus
fine airplanes. From there a series of task
lights over the bench, toolbox, and larger
shop tools is on my wish list. Finally, por-
table light stands can make specific jobs
such as cutting the bungees and not the
fuel line more successful.
Naturally I have few of these things in
my own hangar where if I’m not building,
I’m at least maintaining one each Experi-
mental string bag and certified tomato
can. Useful expedients are a 4-foot fluo-
rescent slid around the floor pointing
upwards as if it were the world’s largest
drop light, along with a quiver of flash-
lights. I wish you better. J

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Photos: Tom Wilson KITPLANES May 2018 79

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