Kitplanes 0318 PDF

NEXRAD: How to Use it Correctly
KITPLANES MARCH 2018 Durand Mark V • NEXRAD • Speed Mods • Homebuilt Accidents • EFII System 32 • Battery Problems • Xenos Spars • T3 Tailwheel • Flanged Composite Parts
Low-Cost Speed Mods MARCH 2018

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Homebuilt Accidents In the Shop:

• Battery Problems
Comparing the Rates • Drilling in Tight Places
• Building Xenos Spars
EFII System 32
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CONTENTS
March 2018 | Volume 35, Number 3
Flight Review
6 Durand Reinstatement: Planning a kit for the unique
Mark V negative-stagger biplane. By Scott M. Spangler.
Builder Spotlight
16 NEXRAD for Kit Aircraft Drivers: A tremendous
safety tool for wise, cautious pilots. By Myron Nelson.
22 Effect of Fairings on Speed: Reducing drag is an
economical way to go faster. By Nigel Speedy.
26 Tricked-Out Tailwheel: T3 suspension system eliminates
relaunches when touchdowns are a bit too firm. By Paul Dye.
30 Homebuilt Accidents—Comparing the Rates:
16 A true head-to-head comparison with production aircraft is difficult
to achieve. By Ron Wanttaja.
34 Under New Management: EFII’s all-new electronic
engine control system for Lycomings. By Tom Wilson.
41 Pioneer Mechanics in Aviation : A book by Giacinta
Bradley Koontz. Reviewed by Bob Hadley.
42 Spars—The Heart of the Wing: Laying out the spar,
part 2. By Paul Dye.
48 Rapid Prototyping and Experimental Design:
Sandwich panels, part 5—a simple, accurate method for molding
flanged parts. By Eric Stewart.
66 Completions: Builders share their successes.
72 Ask the DAR: Repairman certificate eligibility, ELSA mods,
flying at civil twilight, fuel cap engraving. By Mel Asberry.
Shop Talk
53
The Creative Homebuilder: Make your own air-flow
speed control. By KITPLANES® Staff.
54
Plane and Simple: Drilling in tight places. By Jon Croke.
56
Maintenance Matters: Three battery problems lead to
accidents. By Dave Prizio.
60
Home Shop Machinist: Spline-al tap. By Bob Hadley.
76
Aero ’Lectrics: Spread those sheets. By Jim Weir.
79
Unairworthy: Throttle interference. By Vic Syracuse.
Shop Tip
55 Magnet Clamps: By David Paule.
6 Designer’s Notebook
73
Wind Tunnel: Design process, part 4—more about speed.
By Barnaby Wainfan.
Exploring
2 Editor’s Log: Perspective. By Paul Dye.
63 Checkpoints: Last action taken. By Vic Syracuse.
78 Rear Cockpit: Layoffs, I’ve had a few. By Tom Wilson.
Kit Bits
4 Letters
67 List of Advertisers
68 Builders’ Marketplace
80 Kit StufF: Drawing on experience. By cartoonist Robrucha.
42 On the Cover: Durand Mark V staggerwing photographed by Richard VanderMeulen.
For subscription information, contact KITPLANES®
at 800/622-1065 or visit www.kitplanes.com/cs.
KITPLANES March 2018 1
EDITOR’s LOG
There’s nothing like an airplane

Perspective in the trees and rocks. Hiking out
to give you a better perspective after an off-airport landing might
of the world—the big picture, so not be the wisest thing to do, so
to speak. I thought of this recently long as you are reasonably certain
while listening to a new audio book that someone knows where you
on the Donner party, the group of are. Standard 121.5 ELT? I wouldn’t
emigrants who got themselves count on it. Even if it works, I
stuck in the Sierra Nevada winter have known of search efforts that
of 1846. They were actually early in couldn’t find one before the bat-
the westward migration, and were teries ran out. Far better to carry
among the first on the route across a GPS-enabled personal locator
the Great Salt Lake and Desert. To beacon; it will bring searchers right
be honest, they made just about down on top of your position.
every bad decision they possibly Lesson number two from the
could, which brought them to Donner party has to do with think-
what is now the town of Truckee, ing about all available options.
California (on the shores of today’s If you look at pictures, the road
Donner Lake), just as the worst west was perilous—as I men-
winter they had ever seen closed tioned, granite escarpments and
in on them. cliffs that today are a huge draw
Imagine being stuck in a white- for rock climbers from all over
out that lasted for days and built the area. On the weekend, you
snow depths of 12 to 20 feet. Ahead Looking west toward California’s Donner Lake. During can’t find a place to park for all the
the winter of 1846–47, the Donner party camped on
of you, the valley ends in granite climbers. And once you cross the
the east shore (foreground) at what is now known as
escarpments that would be difficult Donner Memorial State Park. (Photo: Paul Dye) pass, it is downhill to the pleasant
to climb alone—much less having Central Valley of California. But if
to bring wagons and oxen along. It was a the summit of the pass. The emaciated you pick the wrong drainage to follow,
brutal place that winter, and the trials and settlers who attempted to hike out to you are in an inescapable canyon wil-
tribulations they went through fill many the west after a month of being stranded derness that will stop all forward prog-
volumes. That nearly half the party sur- took two days just to cross the lake, and ress and not leave a place to climb out.
vived to be rescued is amazing. then two more days to climb the gran- This is exactly what happened to the
What I find most interesting about ite. What we can cross in minutes was a desperate settlers of the Donner party.
this—and why aviation comes into it— lifetime for them. And the amazing thing Their relentless effort was directed
is seeing it all from the air. On a recent about seeing it from the air is that it sim- westward, always westward.
November morning, it took me about ply doesn’t look that hard. Yet to the east, it was a fairly gentle
eight minutes to fly from the lowlands That brings us to lesson number one descent along a trail they had already
to the east (Truckee Meadows, better for those flying over hostile terrain: The used down into the Truckee Meadows of
known today as the City of Reno) to Don- world looks small from up in the air—but what is now Nevada. While winter there
ner Lake, and two minutes more to reach it gets immensely larger if you are down is certainly a bit chilly, and they’d still face
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 March 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes

the task of building shelter, there was have turned around (it’s that “slow but we’d also run out of service ceiling—
game aplenty and a much better chance boiling frog” thing—we suddenly find and had to make the decision to retreat
of survival. But they never even seemed ourselves in a place we wouldn’t be if back to where we started (200 miles
to consider the option of turning around we knew how bad it was going to get). distant) because there were no other air-
and retreating until spring. Instead, as We figure it’s been bad, but we can ports along the way. It was a tough call—
those who have heard the term “Don- tough it out for a little longer. And sud- but the right one, in the end.
ner party” know, some of them ended denly, we’re trapped—in the cloud, low When you find yourself in a situation
up resorting to cannibalism to survive. to the ground, and not certain where where you’d rather not be, it’s impor-
Pretty desperate measure to avoid back- there might be towers or rocks. The tant to look at all your options—ahead,
ing up or turning around. But keep in right thing to do is turn around—but behind, and to the sides. No destination
mind, they had just crossed a vast wilder- we know it was bad back there, and we is so important that you should take the
ness, filled with wild beasts and “danger- don’t want to face that again! Just a little chance of dying to get there. Live to
ous savages” (despite the fact that the farther, and we know our destination fly another day, another year, another
Native Americans had actually helped will be in sight. The lure of the destina- decade. Most importantly, turn around
them at times as they crossed the conti- tion is strong, and it has killed many a early. Don’t let yourself get trapped
nent). To them, turning back meant div- pilot—and their trusting passengers. where it’s bad and appears to be better
ing back into a great unknown—with I once made a flight over the moun- ahead, but really isn’t. It is so easy to get
the prospect of western civilization just tains where my departure point and des- sucked into a situation where no good
50 miles ahead. tination were clear, but broken layers of options exist. It must be, because it keeps
Have you figured out why I bring this cloud persisted in between. The terrain on happening to good people who must
up yet? Aviation can often present us was too high to reasonably file IFR, so we have just let their guard down for one
with the same situation. We’ve strug- set out and had a good time on top, with reason or another.
gled through weather that is closing breaks in the clouds below most of the Don’t be afraid to turn around and let
in on us, and there are just a few more way. But the clouds kept climbing and so some ground go, or—like the Donner
miles to go to our destination. We’ve did we. It finally got to the point where party—you’ll be trapped in a valley of
already pushed on when we should we were 50 miles from our destination— your own poor decision-making. J

LETTERS
EDITORIAL
Editor in Chief Paul Dye Coming Back indicator is not damaged, but it is not
[email protected] I really appreciated LeRoy Cook’s article checked or required to be checked. OK,
Executive Editor Mark Schrimmer on returning to the cockpit after a long you can hit the “delete” button now.
Art Direction Dan Maher break [“Coming Back,” January 2018]. A Thanks for listening.
Editorial Director Paul Bertorelli few years ago I came back after seven years Jim Averett
Contributing Editors Larry Anglisano, Marc Ausman, of not flying for various reasons. After
LeRoy Cook, Jon Croke,
Robert Hadley, Dan Horton, about three hours in a 172, I evidently Yeah Jim, it’s picky. Correct, but picky.
Louise Hose, Amy Laboda, scared the instructor bad enough to clear However, sometimes I get in the mood to
Dave Martin, Sid Mayeux,
David Paule, Dave Prizio, me. Not long after that, I purchased a be picky, too. For example, it’s a condition
Ken Scott, Elliot Seguin, very nice Tri-Pacer. A friend went with inspection, not a conditional inspection.
Dick Starks, Eric Stewart, me to pick it up (only about an hour-and- There’s nothing conditional about it. Then
Vic Syracuse, Barnaby Wainfan,
Jim Weir, Tom Wilson. a-half flight home from Detroit). He flew I get a beer and relax on the porch!—Ed.
Web Editor Omar Filipovic most of the way while I just got used to
Cartoonist Robrucha being up again. I took it in for the land- Lithium Batteries
ADVERTISING ing at Y70 (Ionia County, Michigan) Many thanks to Jared Yates for writing
Sr. Advertising Manager Chuck Preston and really did it right. It took a good 30 a clear and concise article on the EarthX
805/382-3363 hours for me to feel back at home in the batteries. [“Understanding Lithium
[email protected]
air, even with several hundred hours and Batteries,” December 2017] Great job!
BUSINESS OFFICE many types of birds in my log—instru- Ken Ryan
Belvoir Media Group, LLC
535 Connecticut Avenue ment rated and all. I now own a Cygnet
Norwalk, CT 06854-1713 SF2A and only have 15 hours or so in it. Lithium batteries are a source of emo-
EDITORIAL OFFICE Almost feels like starting again, but it is a tional angst for many. We thought that
535 Connecticut Avenue gentle thing, and we are getting to know clearing the air by focusing on the pros
Norwalk, CT 06854-1713 each other…carefully. and cons of LiFePO4 batteries would
[email protected]
Doran Jaffas bring some real data to the discussion.
CIRCULATION We’re glad that you found it useful.—Ed.
Circulation Manager Laura McMann Picky, Picky, Picky!
SUBSCRIPTION DEPARTMENT I realize this is very picky but I guess it More From Dave Anders
800/622-1065 is a pet peeve of mine. In Dave Prizio’s Just ran across a spreadsheet I did years ago
www.kitplanes.com/cs excellent article [“Getting Your Plane that covers changes in performance for my
P.O. Box 8535, Big Sandy, TX 75755-8535
For Canada: PO Box 328, Norwich, Ontario N0J 1P0 Ready for the DAR,” October 2017], he RV-4 from 1993 to 2000. All data is from
mentions that “a pitot/static certifica- races, primarily the Sun 100 Air Race. I
REPRINTS FOR PUBLICATION
AND WEB POSTING AVAILABLE tion is not required unless you plan to fly don’t know if this would be of interest to
Minimum Order: 500 IFR.” I find no mention of a pitot check your readers, but feel free to share it.
Contact Jennifer Jimolka, 203/857-3144 in Part 91 of the FARs. The required Dave anders
certification for IFR in 91.411 is for the
Change of address? static system and has nothing to do with Thanks, Dave! We posted the spreadsheet
Missing issue? the pitot system. I think many pilots at www.kitplanes.com/anders-RV4.
Subscription Question?
believe that when they get 91.411 certifi- For more about reducing drag and going
Visit www.kitplanes.com/cs. cation, the airspeed (pitot system) is also faster, see Dave’s articles in the March,
Or call 800/622-1065 checked. Of course, this is not the case. September, and October 2017 issues of
from the U.S. and Canada.
During the test, the pitot is connected KITPLANES®. Also see Nigel Speedy’s
Foreign 903/636-1112 or fax to the test equipment so the airspeed story on page 22 in this issue.—Ed. J
203/857-3100.
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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Durand
Reinstatement
Planning a kit for the unique
Mark V negative-stagger biplane. By Scott M. Spangler
Instead of a tailwheel, it sits on tricycle landing gear. Its Swatosh acquired the airplane, all 92 sheets of the original
biplane wings are set backwards in a negative stagger. There plans, and the rights to the airplane from Jim Durand in 2013,
are full-span flaps on the upper and lower wings, and spoilers three years after his father passed away at 96.
instead of ailerons. And the large canopy slides forward. The Swatosh first saw the airplane in a storage unit in Balsam
Durand Mark V is unlike any other airplane seen since its Lake, Wisconsin, just across the St. Croix River from his home
designer, William H. Durand, introduced it at EAA Oshkosh in Stillwater, Minnesota. Even in its dismembered state, the
in 1978. Nearly 40 years later, it caught the eye of homebuilt design captured Swatosh’s heart, “like that 1940 Ford you see
flight line passersby at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017 when going down the street when you’re a kid.”
Durand Industries LLC reinstated its existence with plans and When he acquired the airplane, Swatosh didn’t think about
the ultimate goal of a kit. selling plans and producing a kit until he learned more about
The company is recreating Durand’s fifth design in Solid- the designer, whom he reverently refers to as “William.” By
Works, said Jim Swatosh. The 3D CAD files are the first step 1987, Durand had sold 75 sets of plans; that number grew to 91
in turning the scratch-built design into a kit. There is no hard in 1998. As near as Swatosh can tell, approximately 12 Mark Vs
timeline to this goal, but plans are available now. were built, including five confirmed flyers. Swatosh owns two
Swatosh learned about the airplane during the resolution of of them, Durand’s prototype, and another, built in Canada,
a business issue unrelated to it. Without going into the details, which flew on floats.
Photos: Richard VanderMeulen and Scott Spangler KITPLANES March 2018 7

Built in 1978, government surplus instruments fill the Mark V’s Jim Swatosh demonstrates the forward-sliding canopy and
panel. The brake lever extends below the throttle quadrant. unobstructed ease of stepping into the cockpit.
What he most admires about the recreate missing parts, like the left sta- A Practical Airplane
Mark V is that “everything is designed; bilator, and reassemble an Experimen- for the Amateur Builder
it wasn’t thrown together,” said Swa- tal/Amateur-Built aircraft. Nick Jilek is That is how Durand summarized his
tosh, an appreciation born of his career now the airplane’s mechanic and pilot. clean-sheet design. Its mission is “day
in business and manufacturing. Beyond Working from his hangar at Wiscon- VFR pleasure flying with lots of visibil-
that, “my history has been restoring old sin’s New Richmond Regional Airport, ity,” and a panel with room for avionics
things,” he explained. “I’ve restored a lot also across the river from Stillwater, and (large government surplus) instru-
of century-old homes; the Durand is a Jilek made his first homebuilt test flight ments necessary for occasional IFR fly-
different sort of restoration.” in 1982 and “averages 350 hours a year ing. Instead of making builder-pilots and
The Mark V has also reinvigorated in everything from a Mooney Mite to their passengers adapt themselves to the
Swatosh’s aviation aspirations. In 1978, the [twin turboprop] Merlin.” airplane, he adapted the airplane to their
he was a student pilot who’d soloed and It was chance that introduced Swa- needs through a “unique but purposeful
logged 20 hours of dual. Life postponed tosh and the Mark V, but it’s a good kit combination of old and new—negative
his private pilot certificate, which he is candidate because Durand designed it stagger cabin biplane with modern full-
once again pursuing. specifically for the scratch builder. He span flaps, spoilers, stabilator, forward-
His initial efforts to reunite the explained this in detail in three EAA sliding canopy, tricycle landing gear, and
Durand’s parts revealed that not all air- Sport Aviation articles in 1978-79, which all-metal construction.”
frame and powerplant mechanics have are on the Durand Industries website, With the negative stagger and a can-
the knowledge and skills necessary to www.DurandMarkV.com. opy that rolls forward smoothly on the
The Durand Mark V outside Nick Jilek’s

hangar at Wisconsin’s New Richmond
Regional Airport.

With the brake lever extending below, the throttle quadrant When stepping on a rudder pedal, the “inactive” pedal moves
holds the parking brake, throttle, and mixture. only slightly in the opposite direction.
drawer rails of an office filing cabinet, with the horizon when the airplane is a rudder pedal. So in the Mark V, full
pilots and passengers can step effort- in the correct attitude for a minimum deflection of the “active” pedal causes
lessly into the 44-inch wide cockpit speed touchdown.” the “inactive” pedal to move aft only
without bending or folding their bodies, Still, like many homebuilts, the Mark slightly. With dual sticks, all of the other
bumping their heads, or leaving a muddy V embodies its designer’s personal pre- controls are conventional. Along the
footprint on a seat cushion. (Replacing dilections. “I suppose that most pilots bottom edge of the panel, spring-loaded
the missing steps that extend forward of would prefer toe brakes” (and Jilek leads map pockets double as padded knee pro-
the leading edge is on Jilek’s to-do list.) that list). But Durand wrote that he too tectors, and the four-position flap handle
“I have rated gentle flying characteris- often rode them unintentionally, so the and trim lever are between the seats. The
tics, short-field capability, personal com- Mark V has a brake lever. Connected to trim lever controls the stabilator’s anti-
fort, cross-country usefulness, occupant a single master cylinder, the lever extends servo tabs. “Its position indicates the
safety, and structural simplicity more below the center quadrant that is home amount of trim…and [it] acts as a minia-
important than extremely light weight, to the parking brake lock, throttle, mixture control stick,” Durand wrote.” Jilek
high cruising speed, or other strictly ture, and carb heat. A steerable nosewheel seconds this.
competitive numbers,” wrote Durand. guides the way, and all three gear legs are Given its canopy, ventilation is cru-
He designed visual references into the sawn from thick Scotchply, a 3M compos- cial. Bilateral plenums supply temper-
airplane. The forward-sloping cowl ite material used for the same purpose ature-controlled air to the sidewall
parallels the ground line between the on Grumman American two-seaters. vents. A diverter sends defrosting air to
tailskid and main gear. For an average- Durand also did not like bending an the windshield. The cabin airflow exit
height pilot, “this flat surface will align ankle backwards when he pushed on control is in the overhead console with
Cutaway view of the Durand Mark V.

(Left) The overhead console is home to the radio speaker, panel and cockpit lights, and the knob that controls the amount of air that leaves
the cockpit. (Right) The overhead cam latch that secures the canopy has a second notch to provide additional ventilation during taxi.
a speaker and cabin and panel lights. A solution to the problems associated with lift contribution from a 50-50 situation
second detent on the canopy’s overhead airplane design.” to about a 53-47 basis, with the lower
locking cam latch holds it open a bit for In addition to easy entry, the nega- wing being slightly more effective.”
increased taxi ventilation. tive stagger contributed some “desir- When the angle of attack approaches
able aerodynamic characteristics [such the stall, Durand wrote, the airplane
Designed for Garage Construction as] inherent flare-out at touchdown, does not rely on one wing for all of its
When designing a homebuilt, Durand flaps that don’t require a trim change, lift. The lower wing stalls a few degrees
wrote, designers must consider the range and excellent anti-stall properties.” before the upper. In this situation, the
of possible builder-pilots and their shops. Those full-span flaps were important to upper wing becomes more effective;
“His flying experience may be limited, Durand. “Since the airplane was going being “behind the CG, its lift causes a
and his experience as an airplane builder, to be based and test flown at my back- nose-down pitch while working at or
nil. Everything considered, the [pulled]- yard grass strip, Durand Sky Ranch, near its maximum lift coefficient.”
riveted all-metal biplane seemed to short-field capability was a must.” This not only reduces the altitude
offer the right combination of compact Explaining the negative-stagger aero- lost in stall recoveries, it delivers an
dimensions, general wing area, and sim- dynamics, Durand noted that the lower “inherent advantage” on landing.
ple, clean, odor-free construction result- wing is ahead of the CG and the upper Approaching the runway, ground effect
ing in a really durable machine.” wing is behind it. While both wings acts on the forward lower wing, gradu-
Members of EAA Chapter 80, which have the same span, chord, and angle of ally increasing its lift. Acting ahead of
Durand helped found in Omaha, incidence, “the actual angle of attack is the CG, “it gently raises the nose for
Nebraska, built the prototype on a different [because] the trailing wing is what might be termed an automatic
“4x8-foot plywood table in a 14x18- working somewhat in the downwash flare requiring little, if any, help from
foot shop that also included a work- of the leading wing. This changes the the pilot.”
bench, drill press, stove, and our local
EAA chapter library.” Builders will
need more room for final assembly, a
bending brake, and a welding kit for
the control fittings, engine mount, and
exhaust system.
With the negative-stagger biplane’s
24-foot-6-inch wingspan and 36-inch
wing chord limiting the travel of its cen-
ter of pressure, Durand wrote that the
Mark V’s shorter, lighter, less expensive
20-foot-3-inch fuselage does not sacri-
fice stability. Investing nearly four years
designing it, “stress analysis and weight
and balance calculation paralleled the
continual modification of the layout
to achieve the simplest and most direct There are separate heat and airflow controls for each seat.

Durand Mark V
Plans price (92 prints) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $350.00
Estimated scratch-building time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3000 hours
Estimated completed price
(firewall back) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $28,000–$35,000
Known number flying (at press time) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Powerplant . . . . . . . . . . Lycoming O-320, 150 hp @ 2700 rpm
Propeller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fixed pitch
AIRFRAME
Wingspan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 ft 6 in
Wing area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 sq ft
Fuel capacity (without optional wing tanks) . . . 24.5 gal
The right spoiler in full deflection. The control surface behind it is a full-span flap. Maximum gross weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1840 lb
Typical empty weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1210 lb
Upper and lower full-span flaps not easy access for maintenance and servic- Typical useful load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630 lb
only slow landing speed (and landing, and a quick but thorough preflight Full-fuel payload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483 lb
ing distance), they eliminate the need inspection. He mounted the battery, Seating capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
for trim changes often necessary when for example, in a swing-out box in the Cabin width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 in
extending partial-span flaps, which tail cone, so builders can service it out- Baggage capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 lb
change the wing’s center of pressure. The side the airframe and not have to worry
Mark V proportions “the lift of the two about a prop strike when jump-starting PERFORMANCE
staggered wings in the flaps-down mode the airplane in cold weather. At the other Cruise speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 mph
so that their composition center of pres- end, to change oil without removing the Maximum rate of climb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1200 fpm
sure does not move rearward.” Durand cowling, there’s an opening aligned with Takeoff distance (grass field) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550 ft
did this with different full-flap deflec- the sump quick drain. Landing distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 ft
tions, 40 degrees on the upper and 45 Service ceiling (estimated) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 ft
degrees below. Three Subassemblies Specifications and pricing provided by the manufacturer.
Full-span flaps made spoilers as the The Mark V fuselage is composed of
only roll option. The simple flap is 4.75 three subassemblies: the cockpit, the bottom skin join with keel channels to
inches wide, 69.5 inches long, and hinged baggage area and cabane, and the tail create a box beam that runs the length
at the leading edge. Operating individu- cone. Durand compared the cabin of the cockpit and provides attachments
ally, full deflection is 40 degrees. assembly to framing a house, with “a for the lower engine mount, nosewheel,
Building the prototype “tested the center girder, floor joists, and wall studs and Delrin control bearing.
plans and revealed dimensional errors, [2.5-inch channels drilled for wiring], The wing employs a two-piece spar
inadvertent omissions, and related and a top plate.” For occupant protec- comprised of 0.050-inch material bent
improvements.” Given his “I’d rather be tion and structural stiffness, the cockpit into modified J-sections joined by pulled
flying preferences,” Durand focused on is skinned inside and out. The floor and rivets. Builders can fabricate each spar
Durand’s First Four

William H. Durand designed and built his first airplane in 1934. The 20-year-old soloed the
single-seat, spruce-and-muslin, high-wing glider after 4.5 hours of dual in a Waco. It served
the Omaha Aero Club for three seasons before a windstorm dismembered it.
An engineering student at the University of Omaha, as a self-education project, Durand
designed the A-45 in 1936–38 to CAA airworthiness requirements. He built the tube-and-rag
two-seater, powered by a 45-hp Szekely radial, in 1940. He later traded it for his first car.
Founding the University of Omaha’s aeronautics department, Durand taught aerodynam-
ics, aircraft drafting, woodworking, welding, and engines. Named for its Continental engine,
he designed the C-40 in 1942, and his students built the single-seater’s tube fuselage and
cantilever wood wing.
Durand designed the X-85 in anticipation of the post WW-II boom in general aviation.
Sitting on tricycle gear, a Continental C-85 pushed the low-wing, all-metal, side-by-side two-
The trim lever and flap handle are in the seater. The airplane was stillborn in the late 1940s, when the boom went bust.
console between the seats. —S.M.S.

The open cowl doors provide easy access to the Lycoming O-320. Like the nosewheel, the main wheels are bolted to the Scotchply
gear legs. Also visible is the glasspack muffler.
in its full 10-foot length or in shorter in place prior to their incorporation into legs bolted to a steel carry through that
sections using the low-stress splices indi- the structure.” absorbs all the bending stresses. Alu-
cated in the plans. The rear spar and flap To make subassembly alignment easy, minum saddles mate this chassis and
spar are formed of 0.040-inch stock. The the fuselage bottom is flat from the the fuselage. An automotive glasspack
0.032-inch leading-edge channels are tailpost to the firewall. The prototype’s muffler is located between the main
nonstructural; they align the nose ribs builders aligned the tail cone and for- gear legs to mute the roar of the 150-hp
during assembly. Since all four wings ward fuselage on a one-piece aluminum Lycoming O-320.
are the same, builders need only one rib ladder supported by two sawhorses. Scratch building is the first of three
form block. Except for the lower wing They adjusted the subassembly align- options for building the Durand Mark
walkways, the wings are skinned with ment until the canopy rails were even. V. The plans include hardware and mate-
0.020-inch Alclad. The canopy looks like blown Plexiglas, rial lists and diagrams for getting the
Builders fabricate the tail cone from but it is 1/8-inch Lexan cut and bent cold. greatest number of parts out of 4x12-
the bottom skin up. They mount the A tough, pliable polycarbonate, Lexan foot sheets of metal. As the SolidWorks
bulkheads to this skin, which eliminates costs more than Plexiglas, Durand CAD effort continues, Durand Indus-
the need for an assembly fixture. Only wrote, “but you don’t have to build or tries will incrementally offer complex
straight bends form the parts of this borrow an oven to heat it before bend- and welded parts, and then kits, said
stressed-skin structure. Except for the ing.” The canopy frame holds it in place, Swatosh. “I just found a company that
back channel that runs across the top of and its curvature produces a rigid surface makes rotationally molded polyethylene
the bulkheads, primarily as an assembly that eliminates the need for corner posts fuel tanks.” Made of welded aluminum,
convenience, there are no longerons or that would block the occupants’ view. “the Durand fuel tank is a work of art,
stringers, “only skin stiffeners between The main landing gear is essentially but it takes time to build, and I want to
the frame locations, which are riveted an independent chassis, with Scotchply give builders options.”

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Flying the Durand Mark V
Modern kit aircraft are, for the most part, thoroughly developed, well- sporty with the flaps extended, so the Durand team had decided to fly
behaved machines. We’ve learned a lot over the years that has helped it without flaps until that was sorted out. That meant higher takeoff
designers improve their manners to the point that they can behave and landing speeds, but nothing out of the realm of the ordinary, 80
reasonably well in mixed company (mixed being a variety of pilot skill knots being the preferred number on final. With roll control provided
levels). There are very high-performance machines that have significant by spoilers and pitch inputs handled by a stabilator, it is unusual, but
quirks because of what they are, and those quirks are accepted in order not outside of accepted practices.
to make the plane as fast as possible, or something that can win at The owner’s demo pilot at AirVenture offered to fly along with me
unlimited aerobatics—but the average pilot’s average airplane should (the owner not being licensed). Since the takeoff and landing charac-
generally meet the handling requirements of the accepted norm. teristics were (as mentioned) a little tricky, I let him do those phases
This isn’t really true of older designs that are beginning to look of flight. As we climbed away from Oshkosh on a beautiful morning,
downright ancient when you consider that more than a generation surrounded by airplanes departing the annual EAA convention, I took
has passed since they were conceived. The Durand is this kind of the controls and immediately realized that the pitch channel was
aircraft, an interesting concept combining old biplane technology quite unusual.
with newer construction techniques to produce an airplane that Without a lot of backup data for this acquired plane, there isn’t a
was intended to be stall proof in the time of Rutan’s work doing the consensus on the actual CG range, but it felt like it was loaded a bit
same thing with canards. There are estimated to be about 12 Durand aft. The airplane was statically neutral in pitch, with very light forces.
Mark Vs built and two more currently under construction, but no one Dynamically, it felt as if an oscillation wanted to develop in pitch with
knows how many might be flying today. Two of them are now owned increasing speed, so we limited ourselves to a point where it seemed
by Durand Industries LLC, although one is currently disassembled. comfortable (100 knots) and performed the rest of our mission (a
The particular aircraft we flew was built in the 1970s and spent photo flight) at that speed or below. Adding power tended to create a
decades in storage before being purchased in an estate sale by the bit of a porpoise since it meant we sped up into the dynamic range, so
current owners. It was, they report, in good shape, but was missing formation flying was tricky.
one half of the stabilator, which they replaced using the plans set It had been a long time since I had flown an aircraft with spoilers for
they had acquired. roll control, so I was curious about what to expect. It turned out that
the airplane was controllable, but the stick had an unusual feel. There
First Flight Review was a narrow dead band in the center, and as you pushed to add a roll
With the Durand Mark V repaired and back in the air, I was invited to input in either direction, nothing happened until you pushed just a
fly it. During the preflight briefing, I learned that things got a little little bit harder than you expected—and then the spoiler popped up

to enact your desire to roll. The effect was that there was a detent of
some sort, making it hard to add a smooth input in either direction.
The rudder, on the other hand, has a smooth, natural control feeling
like any rudder on any airplane. Trying to coordinate it with the
somewhat ratchety roll control was the only unusual bit about that
channel. But adding rudder alone, as is often done in formation, made
the airplane want to roll, demanding stick input which exhibited that
detent feel. Needless to say, it took some attention.
Our concern was primarily with what seemed like stabilator
instability, and the fact that the motion was oscillatory with increasing
amplitude really caught our attention, this being a good description
of the onset of flutter. After this flight, we huddled with the Durand
team and were told that when they found the airplane, it was missing of what feels like instability, it stops accelerating away—a very odd
the left stabilator. A new one was fabricated and installed, but further control feel. While manageable, it is certainly not very desirable, and
investigation showed that the bolt holes in the torque tube were wal- the folks at Durand seem to understand this. Rather than try to deal
lowed out, and the control surface was able to move on the tube. Any with a landing immediately after takeoff with the odd control feel,
loss of stiffness in this fashion could easily lead to a flutter situation, so we elected to climb out and evaluate the airplane with some altitude
we excused ourselves from further flying at the show and said we’d be underneath us before returning to earth.
happy to fly the airplane again once this was addressed. After a few minutes of “getting the feel,” we had adapted enough
for some slow flight, and some nibbles at power-off stalls. Here we
Second Flight Review learned that the odd pitch forces were related in some way to the prop
It was a beautiful bright fall day in western Wisconsin when we next wash, for when we pulled the power back, the unpleasant pitch forces
saw the Durand and checked out the repairs, which had been done in reverted to a much more normal feel. Essentially, in gliding flight, the
the ensuing months. We again climbed into the plane for an evalua- airplane behaved as you’d expect for a typical light plane. After our
tion flight. In addition to the stabilator torque tube repair, the team flight, we noted that the stabilator panels on each side are almost
had also rerigged the spoilers for more symmetrical deployment, an square—short span, large chord—and it might be that they need to
issue they had found that we had not observed. add more span to add stabilator surface outside of the slipstream. One
The prototype aircraft has a comfortable cockpit, with good hypothesis is that with the current axis of rotation (about the torque
visibility out of the frameless forward-sliding canopy. With the upper tube), there is enough surface area ahead that when you move the
wing mounted aft of the cockpit, it was almost like flying in a bubble stabilator, the prop wash “grabs” the leading edge and attempts to
canopy—especially since we seem to be able to swivel the head less move the surface in the direction you are going, but with more force
with age. The panel is, as you’d expect from a 1970s aircraft, a bit than is appropriate.
antiquated, with a large four-inch attitude indicator that sounded Regardless of the causes, Durand LLC told us that they will be hiring
like a turbine engine spooling up. All of the basic controls are there, outside aerodynamic consultants to evaluate the problem and come
and the throttle is mounted to a quadrant to give a little more of a up with a solution to make the airplane handle more like what the
big-airplane feel. The trim is actuated by a lever, as are the flaps. typical pilot is used to. This is an excellent attitude, and a very good
As was common in many earlier aircraft, the plane is equipped with idea, since the current characteristics could catch an unsuspecting,
a single hand brake instead of differential toe (or heel) brakes, but the inexperienced pilot very much unaware—which brings us back to
nosewheel steering proved adequate for control on the ground. It is a where we started. In the earlier days of homebuilding, just getting an
bit heavy, but manageable, and we found our way to takeoff position airplane finished was a monumental achievement. If it flew, that was
without any trouble. even better. If there were deficiencies in the handling qualities, the
We elected to keep the flaps up for takeoff, and as speed built, the pilot generally adapted to the airplane, rather than going to the work
airplane flew off the ground in essentially level attitude, with little of finding and fixing the issues. Modern kit (and plansbuilt) aircraft
rotation. As we pitched for climb, we once again felt the odd pitch are generally much more mature, having been designed, built, and
forces, which I’d describe as similar to those of the spoiler—with a bit tested for a wider and larger audience. Poor handling qualities mean
of a detent near the middle and very light to negative forces once you no sales. That’s important to remember when you get the chance to
moved the control a fraction. This feel can lead very easily to a pilot fly an earlier design.
induced oscillation. Imagine an inverted bowl with a marble balanced Can the Durand be made better? Without a doubt, the answer is yes,
on top. Obviously, this is unstable, since if you disturb the ball, it will and the company now selling the plans is committed to making the
roll with increasing speed off the bowl. Now put a dimple in the top of airplane safe and well behaved. We’ll be happy to give it another flight
the bowl. This will make the marble somewhat stable right at the top, when they get done, and we’ll report back—hopefully with a fine-
but once you apply a disturbing force, it will again accelerate down flying, unique aircraft that will turn heads wherever it goes. J
the side of the bowl. The Durand feels like this, but after a few degrees —Paul Dye

NEXRAD
For Kit Aircraft Drivers
Free access to weather information can be a

tremendous safety tool for wise, cautious pilots.
By Myron Nelson
Since before a lot of us were born, airliners have been using

onboard weather radar to avoid dangerous storms and turbulence.
The early units, while marvels for their times, were bulky, heavy, and
expensive. They countered their nascent reception and interpreta-
tion abilities with massive wattage output, the axiom being that it
was vital to turn off the system before taxiing into the gate if the poor
marshaller ever wanted to be able to have children. The displays of
the early units were monochromatic with very poor resolution.
As the technology improved from vacuum tubes to transistors to
integrated circuits and beyond, the features improved, and the need
for brute wattage output dropped dramatically. The bulk and size
of the units shrank accordingly, allowing corporate-level aircraft
to enjoy the benefits of weather detection. The systems eventually
became a common albeit expensive addition for many light twins.
The expense, plus the fact that there had to be a place for an antenna
(the larger in circumference the better), left most of the single-engine
market out of the game. There were a few wing pod models installed
on Cessna Centurions and Piper Malibus, but I would hate to imag- Airliner weather return of precipitation near Mt. Hood,
ine what those units originally cost for the benefit they provided. Oregon (main image).

(Left) Weather and restricted areas near Lincoln, Nebraska, and Topeka, Kansas, while returning home from AirVenture. (Right) The same
information viewed from a different perspective.
Enter NEXRAD to aircraft that have the proper ADS-B I have always loved observing weather.
Several years ago, as ground-based radar In equipment installed. Now even Light I find it to be awe inspiring, even spiri-
technology improved, the federal gov- Sport Aircraft can have technology that tual at times. Being immersed into the
ernment embarked on a program of not so long ago, even the big-iron boys amazing atmosphere is one of the rea-
covering the bulk of the country with used to dream about. sons I chose my vocation and my avoca-
a network of state-of-the-art weather In a reversal of the historical technol- tion. Having said that, I have learned to
radar stations. Today there are 176 sta- ogy trickle down from military to airline respect the immense power of Mother
tions in place with relatively few cov- to general aviation, NEXRAD, now Nature. I have no desire to convert my
erage gaps (mostly at lower levels near common in newly minted Experimental kit aircraft back into parts, nor one of the
mountainous terrain). Other than the aircraft, is just making its way into airline Boeings I fly for a living, for that matter.
obvious benefit to aviation and maritime cockpits as a complement to onboard
operations, one of the primary goals was radar. We get it mostly through our new What Can NEXRAD Do?
to improve dangerous weather advisories EFBs (electronic flight bags), which are Now that any kit aircraft driver can have
to whole communities, especially for tor- nothing more than iPads stuffed with access to NEXRAD, how can we use it
nadic and hurricane type events where all the manuals and charts we used to to our benefit? The goal of all weather
every additional minute of early warning carry in those backbreaking (but cool detection systems is to keep airplanes
is critical and can literally save lives. looking) leather Jepp bags. Comparing and their occupants safe and sound. One
Using today’s information super- the two types of weather depiction, the important fact that must be understood
highway, the data is continually gath- information is complementary, but dif- at the onset is that radar cannot detect
ered from all of the reporting sites into ferent. The goals, however, are the same. turbulence. Like a smoke detector that
a central site where it is combined with Air traffic controllers also now have a portends fire by the presence of smoke,
other forms of data such as satellite version of NEXRAD at most of their radar (I’ll use the term interchangeably
data and ground activity reports and terminals, which is a massive upgrade to for ship radar and NEXRAD) can only,
dumped into a Cray research-level com- the nearly worthless weather data they at best, indicate where turbulence is likely
puter to cook up the graphical depic- had available previously. versus unlikely. It isn’t an absolute science
tions that we see today.
As NEXRAD was further developed,
tweaked, and improved, it started to be
more widely disseminated to the point
where today it is available for free via
several vendors on just about any smart
device, as well as modern EFIS screens
that have become mainstream, espe-
cially in the kit aircraft world. This is
another area where our Experimentals
are far advanced (and privileged) over
our certified brethren. The costs of their
equivalent systems can often exceed the
costs of our complete aircraft.
As most readers already know,
NEXRAD is also transmitted for free Downpour rain shaft illuminated by setting sun.
Photos: Myron Nelson KITPLANES March 2018 17

when it comes to airborne hazards. All
experienced pilots have been hammered
in perfectly clear air and flown through
the deepest, darkest deluges with nary a
burble. Often the most hazardous spot
connected to a particular storm is in clear
air adjacent to a storm rather than within
its “painted” depiction.
It’s All About Water and Lift

What weather radar detects and depicts
is water—rain, wet snow, wet hail. In
contrast, everyday clouds, fog, choppy
clear air, etc. do not paint returns, as
those elements don’t bounce the signal
back to the antenna like water does.
Atmospheric water in its own right isn’t Classic weather line with airliner arrival and departure “hole” near moderately busy airport.
necessarily hazardous, but H2O is the
key ingredient for what is hazardous. beautiful to watch from the flight levels, same area. In theory, the ride quality
Remember that insomnia-curing avia- the mushrooming towers can rise at a over, under, or within a patch of green
tion weather manual that most of us read higher vertical rate per minute than most shouldn’t be any worse than the prevail-
back in the day? The nasty brew starts light aircraft can climb, often spawning ing atmospheric conditions would have
when humid air encounters some kind of offspring along the way. The lifting pro- provided absent the painted return.
action that causes the moist mass to start cess is called convection, as in the “con- Being within green returns, however,
to lift, and then science takes over in a vective sigmets” and the like that serve will most likely mean being IMC (in
fascinating way. The lifting action can be to warn us. Not all CBs become TSs, but instrument conditions), which is a haz-
from a windy slope, a moving front, the every TS started out as a CB. ard in its own right depending upon the
effects of the hot sun baking the fruited capabilities of the airplane and the pilot.
plains, or even one of those ubiquitous Green, Yellow, Red Green at the very least means moisture
“acts of God” buried in the fine print of The basic colors of NEXRAD and laden clouds that can also present icing
our insurance policies. As the air mass onboard radar are built upon the sema- conditions. (See best practices to follow).
rises, the gasses expand, condensing the phore trio of green, yellow, and red. Differ- Yellow means heavy precipitation
moisture into visible cloud mass and ent vendors have developed further shades and a high likelihood of turbulence.
concurrently releasing latent heat, which of the classic three and even a new shade of Yellow is usually the least common color
naturally rises and in turn fuels further blue for (calculated) snow, but for simplic- painted overall and often exists in a nar-
lifting until the process can become dan- ity’s sakes we’ll stick to the basic three. row band separating red from green.
gerously self sustaining and accelerating. Green shows that something is trig- Airline pilots don’t ever plan on travers-
In weather reporting, the moist clouds gering a return, but that it shouldn’t be ing through yellow returns, although most
with sufficient lifting action become CBs hazardous. From experience of com- have on occasions when the only alterna-
(cumulonimbus), then TCUs (towering paring the two side by side, NEXRAD tives were worse. Passengers and flight
cumulus), then TSs (thunderstorms) in paints a lot more green over a given attendants have been seriously injured
weather shorthand. In a process that is area than does airborne radar over the flying through areas depicted in yellow.
General aviation aircraft have no business
flying in or around yellow radar returns.
Oh Hail No!
Red is where the demon lives. Pierce the
side of red and flutter out the bottom.
A Midwest country bumper painting
red has as much kinetic energy within as a
nuclear device. There are massive columns
of angry air, rain, and likely hailstones
that are all soaring skyward and/or even
This is a growing “CB” busting up through
the stratus layer.

Stay away from areas of painted returns that show tight (narrow) gradients between the Artifact or false positive returns sometimes
colors. Those are indicative of shear zones. Also avoid the classic “hook” area. happen with NEXRAD. These small, smooth
shapes with no contours or color shad-
larger columns of angrier air, heavier rain as the color tones are more translucent ing are random odd weather returns that
drops and larger hailstones plummeting for weather, and the respective return actually aren’t significant at all, just normal
puffy clouds.
to earth at terminal velocity. The shear shapes and textures become more rec-
zones of air masses moving in different ognizable with experience. You can also and absolutely avoid severe (red) by
directions can spur lightning, tornadoes, toggle the respective layers off and on to twenty miles, especially at the freezing
severe turbulence, and can literally break compare and separate the two. level and above. The reason for the buf-
an aircraft into pieces. The sheer volume Some displays have indications for fer zones is that turbulence and even
of water in such behemoths has hydro- the tops of storms. The higher the tops hail can exist in clear air in the vicinity
locked jet engines to the point were the of the storms, the more meteorological of nasty storms. Airliners have a mission
laws of physics get angry, and the turn- violence inherent within. There is wis- to get where they need to go. Most of us
ing gear ejects itself aft, leaving nothing dom in treating red weather returns as build our kit aircraft just for the pleasure
but empty cowlings with a few wires and if they were red terrain returns—pen- of flying and have the luxury of time to
hoses flapping in the wind. etrating either will pretty much have be able to give storms a wide berth or
Airborne hail can fracture wind- the same result. even elect to fly on a different day.
screens or turn them opaque. It can also • One big advantage that NEXRAD • Give special clearance to areas of
severely damage and distort airfoil lead- has over onboard radar is that if your painted returns that show tight (nar-
ing edges, destroy antennas, etc. system supports CONUS displays, row) gradients between the colors.
The best way to tangle with red you can scroll to anywhere where Those are indicative of shear zones.
returns is in a simulator, but even there, weather is painting and gain practice Another danger sign is a depiction of
if the sim is good, it can knock itself off in observing and interpreting the “hooks” (see photo on above). Give that
its own control loading and even dam- results from a safe distance. quadrant an extra wide clearance.
age its hydraulics just trying to be accu- • Airline procedures are to try to avoid • Be aware of the OAT (outside air
rate in its re-creation of the mayhem. moderate (yellow) returns by five miles temperature). The worst areas for
Red rhymes with dead. Enough said.
Best Practices
• Now that most EFIS systems display
both weather and terrain, become com-
fortable distinguishing between the
two since they both use the core green,
yellow, and red color schemes and often
overlap, which might be confusing to
the inexperienced. With practice it
becomes intuitive to separate the two,
Cumulonimbus (CB) clouds growing in a
frontal line.

(Left) Massive weather area that is very wet but with little convective activity. (Right) One of the dangers of convective activity can be
localized icing conditions.
hazardous conditions are near the • Be aware of your screen range and Maneuvering underneath a storm
freezing level and colder. Rapidly ris- switch it around often. Sometimes a cloud layer is often a gauntlet of rain
ing water droplets can freeze an outer decision on the best way to deviate shafts and lightning bolts.
shell around a super-chilled, but still your course around weather buildups • Maneuvering underneath stormy areas
liquid or slushy, center. When these looks much different at a longer range is not for the inexperienced. There will
super-chilled droplets get burst by the than a shorter one and vice versa. often be a mixture of shafts of rain,
impact of an invasive aircraft structure, • Being below dangerous weather can be along with “curtains” of lighter rain,
they splatter and then freeze, covering as hazardous or worse than being abeam. both of which should paint to varying
the aircraft in thick, heavy ice that can Storm clouds appear dark because their degrees on your NEXRAD display.
accumulate at an alarming rate. moisture content blocks out light. A However, your Mark One eyeballs
• Be aware of the winds aloft. It is gener- scalloped appearance at the base of a are an important safety tool as well.
ally more hazardous on the downwind dark cloud is evidence of very turbulent Storms that have nearly dissipated
side of a storm than on the upwind conditions. Dangerous storms can be themselves out will often have linger-
side. The “anvil” that often appears single entities that are easy to deviate ing remnants of light rain. In daytime,
above a mature storm will point around or, more often, exist in packs or a curtain of light rain should still allow
downwind and can extend for long frontal lines that can exist for hundreds visibility of the horizon beyond it.
distances. Do not fly under an anvil. of miles with dozens of clustered cells. But be prepared for that forward vis-
ibility to drop considerably when you
penetrate the precipitation, simply for
the obscuration on your windshield,
which will clear back up when (if) you
exit on the other side.
All bets are off at night. Shafts of
heavy rain are as dangerous as the
thunderclappers that produce them
and are to be avoided just as judi-
ciously. Downpours with rings of dust
or visible debris roiling on the ground
around them are signs of microbursts
and can be lethal even to airliners.
• Lightning can occur below, abeam,
within, and (rarely) even above thun-
derstorms. Strikes most often occur
in clear air abeam or below the storm,
sometimes miles from the mother
Classic convective contouring depiction. storm. Some NEXRAD vendors have

Use NEXRAD Wisely
For aircraft that already have airborne
radar, NEXRAD is a complement,
not a replacement. The compilation
and dissemination process to get the
NEXRAD data to our screens is always
improving, but it is at best minutes old
in weather that takes mere seconds to
change. It is a handy tool for longer-
range planning and not intended for
close-order maneuvering.
Having the opportunity to have
free access to NEXRAD information
in our cockpits can be a tremendous
safety tool for the wise and cautious.
Unfortunately, it can also be pixelated
courage to the foolhardy. Mother
Large weather area outlining the position of the center of the low pressure area. Nature is marvelous to observe from a
safe distance, but she always has a few
additional lightning depictions in are commonly brownish with one or tricks up her sleeve and loves to get the
their displays, but nothing can pre- more dime-sized marks and often a last laugh.
dict where lightning will appear in the few more BB-sized ones. When I got my ADS-B module
future. The safest position is to simply Other common occurrences associ- installed in my RV-10, I couldn’t wait
steer well clear, as in the next state over. ated with lightning strikes are electronic to try it out. When a line of thunder-
Airliners are built to withstand “queertrons” that show up hours or days storms was rolling across our area, I
lightning strikes, but light aircraft after a strike that cause failures or anom- immediately headed for the airport,
and their systems, not so much. If alies in systems or components that at pushed open the hangar doors, fired
your airplane is struck by lightning first inspection appeared to work fine. everything up, and soon marveled at
in the air, you’ll know it. I’ve been Looking over a ramp of several airliners, how the screen depiction correlated to
struck three times in my airline it is not uncommon to see one or more what I was viewing from the cockpit...
career, and I remember each one viv- with fresh daps of paint along the top Then the hail started, and I was very
idly. There can be a bang like a fast- of the fuselage, often in an arcing line. glad that my airplane and I were still
ball thrown at the airplane. If the Pretty much every airliner gets zapped a safe under the protective roof of the
strike is within your field of vision, time or two in its career. hangar—that’s unquestionably the best
there will be both a flash and a shower These are all good reasons to give a place to be when convective activity is
of sparks, and you can be temporarily wide berth to convective activity. in the vicinity. J
flash blinded, especially right at the
central focus of your eyes as the vision
slowly returns from the periphery in.
Depending upon where your fresh
air intake is, you can even smell the
“breath of God” ozone smell that is
quite unique.
Lightning strikes can melt alu-
minum and delaminate composite
material. I’ve seen a rivet head that
melted and flowed back a quarter
inch before solidifying again. I’ve
also seen a softball-sized bubble
formed on the inside of a composite
nosecone. If you take a strike, land
as soon as practical and have the
airplane and all systems inspected
by an expert. There will be entry
point(s) and exit marks. The marks Funnel cloud over OSH during AirVenture 2014.

Effect of Fairings on
Speed
Compared to the high cost of horsepower, reducing

drag is a much less expensive way to go faster.
By Nigel Speedy
The tests in this article were prompted do, the broken fairing sat under the weight of 1540 pounds and a CG of
by several events. Last summer at workbench for a couple of years. Dis- 79.7 inches (forward). Each flight lasted
Oshkosh, I was chatting with Paul Dye mayed by the cost of more horsepower, it around half an hour and used approxi-
about the effects of aerodynamic fair- seemed like a good time to quantify the mately five gallons of fuel. Every test
ings. Not long after this, I was impressed effects of drag reduction. So a little epoxy point was conducted with wide-open
by the incremental gains that Dave and paint later, the tailwheel fairing was throttle and 2500 rpm. I began each
Anders achieved in his RV-4 and wrote ready for testing. configuration test with mixture full
about in KITPLANES® (see “Put- rich, then leaned in approximately one-
ting the Experiment in Experimental,” Test Method and Conditions gallon-per-hour increments until the
March 2017 and “So You’d Like to Go For these tests, I flew a series of sorties onset of engine roughness (~75° F LOP).
Faster,” September and October 2017). in different configurations that I hoped I began the experiment by taking
But really, it goes back to an embar- would reduce drag. Each flight was con- off the wheelpants, gear-leg-to-fuselage
rassing moment early in my Phase I test- ducted at 10,000 feet pressure altitude. intersection fairings, and fuel drain fair-
ing. Misjudging the length of the RV-8 as Outside air temperature (OAT) at this ings to achieve a practical minimum
I swung it around for a runup, I dropped altitude only varied slightly from +37° F fairing configuration on my RV-8. From
the tailwheel off the edge of the asphalt, to +41° F (+3°C to +5°C ) across all the there I added the wheelpants and gear-
damaging the tailwheel fairing. With flights. I started each flight with 30 gal- leg-to-fuselage fairings, which is prob-
seemingly more important things to lons of fuel, which resulted in a takeoff ably how most folks fly their RVs. My

(Left) Cowling and dipstick access door sealed with vinyl tape. (Center) Fuel drain fairings didn’t improve top speed, but they did improve
the aesthetics. (Right) Gap seal tape between the rudder and vertical stabilizer didn’t stay attached above 180 KTAS.
aircraft has the Grove airfoil-section number 4489) and then the leading edge tiedown bolt holes were covered. The
landing gear, so the gear leg fairings are of the tape was covered with 19-mil- ends of the ailerons, outboard ends
just between the top of the gear legs and limeter PVC Safety tape (stock num- of the flaps, and the ends of the eleva-
the fuselage. Next, I added Van’s tail- ber 4396). In addition, I taped over tors were taped over to make them
wheel fairing. Fuel drain and fuel vent the bottom surface of the flap hinge. flush. On an RV-8, the ends of these
fairings from JD Air (www.jdair.com) Last of all, I expended a 36-yard roll control surfaces are concave where the
came next. of 2-inch-wide 3M red 471 vinyl tape. outboard rib is attached. The rest of
I purchased some 38-millimeter Mylar Axel Alvarez (energetic RV-4 pilot & the roll went on the seam between the
gap seal tape (stock number 4441) from Reno Racer #87) provided tips and upper and lower cowl, dipstick access
Wings & Wheels (www.wingsandwheels. photos of what to tape up. I started door, and baggage bay door perimeters.
com) and added it to both sides of the ele- with the intersections between all fair-
vator and rudder gaps. The gap seal tape ings and the aircraft structure. Also Results
was attached with the recommended taped over were the two NACA air Flight #1: With all the fairings off, I
16-millimeter double-sided tape (stock inlets for cabin ventilation. The wing was able to get a baseline that I could
(Left) Concave ends of the horizontal stabilizer and elevators were sealed with vinyl tape. A better approach might be to seal these
areas with small fairings during construction. (Right) Van’s tailwheel fairing added 1 knot of speed.
(Left) Red vinyl tape applied to the outboard end of the aileron and the wingtip. (Center) Vinyl tape added to the landing-gear-to-fuselage
fairing. (Right) Still more tape was used between the wheelpant and Grove airfoil-section landing gear leg.
Photos: Nigel Speedy KITPLANES March 2018 23

Summary of Test Results
Fairing Change in Maximum Speed Increase in Rated Horsepower Comments
Required to Achieve Same Change
None Baseline
Wheelpants and landing gear +10 knots TAS +18% (36 hp) Too big a gain to ignore
to fuselage fairings
Tailwheel fairing +1 knot TAS + 2% (4 hp) Worth the small price
Fuel vent and drain fairings No discernible change No discernible change Worth it for the looks
Cheap and good for race day, not

Vinyl tape +1 knot TAS +2% (4 hp) a practical long-term solution
Wheelpants and landing gear to fuselage fairings had the biggest impact on speed, but even small increases can make a measurable difference.
compare future results to. At the best relatively low cost, light weight, and has the potential to reduce drag, it was
power mixture, the plane maxed out at better aesthetics, I think the tailwheel not able to stay attached long enough
177 knots TAS. fairing is worth the effort. to be useful. Perhaps on a lower-speed
Flight #2: The addition of wheel- Flight #4: The addition of fuel drain aircraft it would be worth a try. I was
pants and the landing gear to fuselage and fuel vent fairings did not make a a little disappointed as modern high-
intersections fairings resulted in a big measurable change to the top speed. performance gliders have relatively high
jump in top speed, up to 187 knots They certainly add a nice finished look VNE speeds.
TAS, an improvement of 10 knots. On to the plane though, so they will stay. Flight #6: The roll of vinyl tape
an RV, the speed gain with wheel fair- Flight #5: The flight with glider gap- increased the top speed up to a maxi-
ings is pretty compelling, although I seal tape on the rudder and elevator was mum of 189 knots TAS, a further
don’t remember the job as being much a bust. As the plane accelerated through 1-knot increase. Not bad for just $29.36
fun during construction. 180 knots TAS, there was a slight buzz- on Amazon.com and an hour to slap it
Flight #3: By replacing the repaired ing for a couple of seconds, then it was on. I can see why racers use it, but it is
tailwheel fairing, top speed edged up gone. Luckily I prepared for this eventu- not really a good look or that practical
just a little to 188 knots TAS, a small ality by writing “Property of USAF” on for more than a couple of flights. I think
increase of only 1 knot. Given the each piece. So even if glider gap-seal tape if I were still building, making small
fairings to cover the concave ends of the
control surfaces would be worthwhile.
While I have looked at the change in
drag through its effect on top speed, you
can also look at how much power it would
take to make the same increase. Under
the conditions tested, my Dynon Sky-
View EFIS calculated the engine power
to be 64% of maximum. Let’s assume
my trusty Lycoming is rated at 200
horsepower. Under the test conditions,
it would have been producing 128 horse-
power. Also useful to know is that power
required is proportional to speed cubed.
To achieve the same speed increase that
was gained with all the fairings and tape
by brute force would require an addi-
tional 22% or an increase in rated power
of 44 horsepower. Of the two methods,
fairings are by far the cheapest, most effi-
Reducing drag by adding fairings increased speed without increasing fuel burn. cient, and elegant way to gain speed.

Safety
One hazard of conducting a test such as
this is that you could unbalance the con-
trol surfaces, which could result in flutter.
• If you modify the control surfaces
after construction, make sure they are
still mass balanced prior to flight.
• Fairing over the ends of control sur-
faces is probably best done during
construction and prior to painting so
that these changes can be accounted
for when mass balancing the surface.
Conclusions
Wheelpants and intersection fairings
made a significant change. Unless you
operate your RV from a rough strip,
I can’t think of a good reason not to
install wheel fairings. Although Van’s
makes no specific claim about their tail-
wheel fairing, my plane gained 1 knot of
top speed with it fitted, and it does look
better. It’s worth the weight and cost in
my opinion. Gap-seal tape was not able
to stay attached above 180 KTAS, but
might prove useful on a slightly slower
aircraft. The fuel drain fairings did not
improve the top speed, but they cer-
tainly improve the aesthetics. Using a
roll of vinyl tape over gaps was cheap
and resulted in a 1-knot speed increase,
but is not a realistic long-term solution.
Taking the time to fair all intersec-
tions and reduce gaps between control
surfaces may seem onerous during con-
struction, but the cumulative effect of
many small improvements can be mea-
sured and is much cheaper than trying
to add more power. J
Nigel Speedy
Nigel Speedy learned to fly

helicopters with the
Australian Army and is a
graduate of the U.S. Naval
Test Pilot School. He
currently instructs at the
National Test Pilot School in
Mojave, California. Nigel
enjoys flying his Van’s RV-8
and the freedom of E/A-B
to experiment.

Tricked-Out
Tailwheel
T3 suspension system eliminates relaunches
when touchdowns are a bit too firm. By Paul Dye
Most pilots who have flown tailwheel Unfortunately, the effect of releas-
aircraft are familiar with the tailwheel ing that energy by going back to neutral
spring—a stinger of springy steel, or accelerates the tailwheel, and spring steel,
a set of leaf springs harvested from an being fairly quick, is going to overshoot
old car suspension that joins the tail- its neutral position. Then when it gets
wheel yoke to the rear of the fuselage. all the way out in the other direction, it
For those pilots and builders who never is going to head back—and the process
studied physics or engineering, a spring continues. Think about the old Wile
by itself is an interesting suspension E. Coyote of Road Runner chase fame.
choice: As you compress it, there is what Every time he thought a spring or rubber
amounts to energy storage going on. band catapult was a good idea, it wasn’t.
When the end of the stroke is released, What is missing in the standard tail-
this stored energy wants to escape, and wheel spring is a damper: something to
the only way it can do that is by bending dissipate the energy being stored and to
back toward its neutral position. So far, slow down the acceleration that comes The original tailwheel spring on the Dream
so good…right? We want the tailwheel from a pure spring. In your car, you Tundra was a standard three-leaf spring
spring to absorb energy. have springs—but you also have shock with no damping.

T3 suspensions only come in black, but occasionally Dan Dufault, The basic parts that go into a T3: the central shank, two side plates,
creator of the T3, has fun custom painting one like this. mounting brackets, coil-over shocks, and assorted bolts.
absorbers—and that is what keeps models are machined from billet alumi- original tailwheel spring clamps and
you from bouncing down the road. In num, and we had to revise our installa- the spring itself.
your tailwheel airplane, the effect of tion with a billet aluminum front hinge Our original, factory-supplied con-
a pure spring at the back end is to set point when the original steel weldment figuration had a geometry that created
up a potential hobbyhorse motion, a began to bend. Overall, as the construc- quite a bit of rake in the tailwheel pivot
pitch oscillation that can easily lead to tion has evolved, it has become sturdier axis. This contributed to very heavy
a PIO (pilot-induced oscillation) or a and lighter as materials have changed. steering on the ground. The T3 geom-
prop strike. So why don’t we use shock etry, using the same Alaskan Bush-
absorbers (dampers) on the tailwheel? Installation wheel yoke, stands the steering axis
Dan Dufault, founder and creator of We can only talk to installation on the up much more vertically, making the
the T3 tailwheel suspension, asked just Tundra, but all in all, it was straight- airplane feel like it has gained power
this question, and his answer was simple: forward. We provided T3 with the steering. While this did tend to add a
He saw no reason not to give it a try. The dimensions of our three mounting little bit of a shimmy problem on some
result is the T3 suspension, sized in vari- points—the single bolt in the center up landings, we have been able to tune the
ous configurations to handle airplanes front and the two side bolts in the rear. angle with a wedge—and that made
from LSAs up through Super Cubs and The mount came drilled for these loca- the shimmy disappear.
on to larger four-seat aircraft. We have tions and bolt sizes. Then it was simply Because it is always going to be hard
now flown it on a 180-hp Kitfox and a matter of gaining access to the inside to predict bolt lengths with a new
have been using one provided by T3 on of the fuselage (through convenient device like the T3, don’t be surprised
our much heavier (2550-pound gross inspection holes) and removing the if you need to lengthen your original
weight) Tundra for several months and
quite a few landings—both in the back-
country and on pavement.
Design
The T3 consists of a single or pair
(depending on aircraft size and weight)
of coil-over shock absorbers and springs.
The springs are adjustable for length and
tension, and there is a damping control
on the shocks. The central tongue is
hinged to an anchor bolt at the front, and
also bolts to the side plates of the mount.
A standard tailwheel yoke mounts to the
back of the tongue, and the shocks attach
to take up the load. In the case of the
early model we received for the Tundra, Installing the T3 on the Tundra started with disconnecting the chains and removing the three
all of the pieces were welded steel. Newer bolts that secure the springs to the fuselage.
Photos: Paul Dye and courtesy of Dan Dufault KITPLANES March 2018 27
(Left) The T3, seen here in a top view, attaches using one forward bolt (left) and two bolts on either side in the rear. Because of fuselage
curvature, we machined an adapter plate to allow clearance from the T3 side plates and sandwiched it in between. (Right) Fitting the T3
to the three fuselage bolts required putting the fuselage up on a padded sawhorse.
bolts and wait for them to show up hardware in various lengths on hand— Flying the T3
from your favorite hardware supplier. that would get a little excessive! Alas, for all of the coolness factor of
It’s sort of like opening a present on In addition to adjusting bolt lengths, having those dirt-bike springs and
Christmas morning and finding that you’ll probably have to play with tail- shocks hanging out, you’re just not
you have to run out and buy batter- wheel chains or links as well. With dif- going to notice much, if anything, while
ies, but there really isn’t much of a way ferent geometries, you’ll find more or you’re flying—at least until someone
around it. While I like to say I have less sag. But once you get everything set comes alongside and takes some pic-
a pretty good stock of AN hardware up the way you like it, you’ll be ready to tures. Takeoff performance is going to
in my hangar, I don’t keep AN6 or 7 go try some landings. be similar. Most bush planes we know
Dan Dufault, Creator of the T3

We asked Dan Dufault, creator of the T3 Suspension, a few questions facility. I continue to work with Airframes Alaska to custom fit new
about how he developed the system and how it is being marketed model aircraft.
today. Here are a few of his answers. KP: How many units are out in the field now?
KP: What prompted you to design the T3? DD: To date Airframes Alaska and Supercubs North have shipped
DD: I was looking for a way to finance a new BMW adventure motorcycle! nearly 400 suspensions to aircraft owners all over the world.
Seriously, I had been building STOL planes for the contest in Valdez, KP: How can readers get one? Who is selling them?
Alaska, and during the winter of 2015, I realized the importance of hav- DD: Airframes Alaska manufacturers and sells the T3 suspension.
ing a suspension not only for the main gear, but the also the tailwheel. Also Aircraft Spruce just announced they are carrying the suspension.
Lots of us were welding systems into the fuselage, but no one was So cool—having them carry it is like getting your picture on the cover
building a direct-replacement, bolt-on suspension system. of Rolling Stone! We also have dealers like Legend Cub, Kitfox, and
I wanted it to be light, durable, and direct replacement. So I built Rocky Mountain Kitplanes.
several prototypes and came up with one that I believed would work KP: What models are available?
well. I put it on my Experimental Super Cub and began testing it. The DD: Airframes Alaska has a list of suspensions in production. The
first flight was so exciting! I taxied around a bit and then took off and list is growing each month. Most any tailwheel aircraft originally
made several landings. It felt so different. equipped with leaf springs is adaptable.
Soon after those first flights and some tweaking for tailwheel KP: Do you have a price list?
alignment and geometry, I was calling some of my bush-pilot DD: Airframes Alaska has the price list on their website. Most
friends and asking them to try it. Jay Stanford, Phil Whittmore, single-shock models are $675. The dual-shock super-heavy-duty
Jason Sneed, and Mike Creek all provided me with a great deal of version is $875.
information and comments. KP: Do you have a list of aircraft they fit without modification?
The suspension has evolved several times to its newest version that Or are the installations all a little custom?
Airframes Alaska is building. I was so fortunate to have joined efforts DD: Most aircraft equipped with a T3 suspension required no
with them. Heather Montgomery, CEO; Abe Harman, mechanical engi- airframe modification. Simply remove the tail leaf springs and install
neer; along with the entire Airframes Alaska staff, have been fantastic the T3 suspension.
to work with. They are truly a world-class aviation manufacturing —P.D.

of are off the tailwheel pretty early in
the roll, and once it’s airborne, you’re
just not going to feel it.
It’s on landing that you’re going to
notice a difference. I’d describe it best
as a “squish” when you touch down on
the tailwheel. The shock of touchdown
is slowly absorbed, with no tendency
to be relaunched if that touchdown is
a bit firm. What this means is that you
can easily go for the slow, three-pointer,
smash the tailwheel down first, then let
the mains come down, with little extra
worry of the dreaded springy-tailwheel
porpoise. If you have flown with low-
pressure Tundra-style main gear, you
know that you get a nice cushioning
effect on touchdown—the T3 gives a The newest version of the T3 installed on a Glasair Sportsman. (Photo: Craig Ellison)
similar effect for the tail.
has enlisted the power of Airframes the products that will be reliable in the
Worth a Try Alaska to produce and market the T3. future as a result.
The T3 is fairly new, although there Known for their Alaskan Bushwheels Our current configuration appears to
are quite a few already in the field. and many other products and services be stable for our heavy Tundra. I expect
Our test unit went through a couple that serve the backcountry pilot, Air- that others are getting good results and
of minor mods to make it more rugged frames Alaska is a perfect partner for long life out of theirs, so if you’re looking
and reliable, and I expect that this will bringing this new technology to the wid- to trick out your tailwheel, you might
continue as more time is accumulated est number of owners and pilots. look into ditching the old-fashioned
on the fleet. All new technologies have While we’d all love a fully engineered spring and giving the T3 a test. J
bugs here and there, but Dufault seems product that works perfectly and reli-
serious about fixing those found by the ably right out of the box, that is not For More information go to the Air-
growing number of pilots using the sus- what Experimental aviation is about. frames Alaska website at: http://tinyurl.
pension on their own planes. Dufault We put up with a few bugs to enhance com/t3tailwheel.
The red knobs adjust the rate of transfer,

allowing a fast or slow rebound. Spring ten- Each T3 is customized for the aircraft on which it will be installed. All T3s are currently for
sion can also be adjusted and fine tuned. Experimental use only, but Airframes Alaska has a growing applications list.

Homebuilt Accidents:
Comparing the Rates
A true head-to-head comparison with
production aircraft is difficult to achieve. By Ron Wanttaja
It seems like homebuilding can’t catch Homebuilt Accident Rate period (1998 through 2015) rather than
a break. For this leadoff article, let’s look at how just one year, and using the number of
The average U.S. citizen is convinced the E/A-B accident rate compares to the active aircraft as of January 1, 2017. We’re
that the Cessnas, Pipers, and Beeches overall GA rate—and to some common shooting for a relative comparison of
general aviation (GA) pilots fly are production aircraft types. accident rates, not for any particular year.
amazingly hazardous. And, it seems, Computing the accident rates is For the calculation, we need to know
many of the pilots of those same GA air- pretty straightforward. Take the num- how many aircraft are actively flying.
craft look upon Experimental/Amateur- ber of accidents and divide by the num- This is computed using a combination
Built aircraft as death traps. Various ber of active aircraft, and multiply by the of the FAA registration database and
reports have claimed that the E/A-B rate average number of hours flown. the FAA’s estimate of what percentage
is four to seven times higher than that of However, I’m adding a slight twist. of those aircraft are active. This comes
production airplanes. The usual method uses the number of from the annual FAA General Aviation
But—is it really that bad? How pre- accidents in a year and the number of Survey, which also provides an estimate
cise are the estimates? What are the aircraft registered in that year. of the average annual flying time.
factors that drive our rates higher than The problem is that the number of With this data, we can now com-
production aircraft? What are the major accidents can vary significantly from pute the accidents per 100,000 hours
causes in accidents affecting specific year to year. Thus the results vary, mak- of flight. Figure 1 shows the results,
homebuilt types? ing it harder to draw conclusions. and it’s not pretty. Using this method,
In the next several months, we’re going Instead, my analysis uses the aver- the homebuilt accident rate is about 2.5
to take an in-depth look at these issues. age number of accidents over an 18-year times that of the overall rate, and four

times higher than common GA aircraft
like the Cessna 172.
All is not lost, however. There are
some problems with the data commonly
used as input to this analysis.
Non-Homebuilt Accidents
Counted as Homebuilts
How many homebuilts have crashed? A
lot fewer than the NTSB database will
lead you to believe.
Their database includes a flag labeled
“Homebuilt.” The online implementa-
tion of this is a pull-down selection
labeled, “Amateur-Built.”
The problem is, the flag is unreliable
as far as indicating the certification
status of accident airplanes. Certi-
fied Light Sport Aircraft, unregistered Figure 1: Accident rates using traditional methods.
ultralights, Experimental Exhibition
airshow aircraft, and even Boeing airlin- that shows each aircraft’s certification in homebuilts, but are not included in any
ers are incorrectly tagged as Amateur- a series of numbers and letters. The first counts of E/A-B aircraft.
Built. Foreign-registered homebuilts are number shows the overall certification I have a friend who completed an
there, too, but they weren’t necessarily category of the aircraft: “1” for Standard, RV-6 back in the ’80s. His plane has
built to U.S. E/A-B rules. “2” for Limited, “3” for Restricted, “4” been flying for almost 30 years, yet it
Figure 2 illustrates this issue using for Special, and so on. Additional char- has a blank under “Airworthiness” and
NTSB data from 2014. Out of 225 acters are added to show sub-categories isn’t counted as a homebuilt. The plane
aircraft tagged as “Homebuilt” in the within the overall ones. For instance, is also in the NTSB database for a minor
NTSB database, 47 weren’t U.S.-certi- homebuilts are recorded as “42”…“4” accident. So it counts as a homebuilt for
fied Amateur-Built aircraft. for Special and “2” for Experimental/ accident purposes, but isn’t included in
Works both ways, of course. Seven Amateur-Built. the overall fleet size computation.
aircraft in 2014 were homebuilts, but Simple enough, really. Count the num- Aren’t there other types of planes in
not identified as such. ber of cases where “42” appears in the col- the “phantom” list? Sure! But no one
umn, and you should have the number of counts the number of Cessnas or Pipers
“Phantom” Homebuilts Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft. by airworthiness type.
How do we know how many homebuilts But more than 25,000 aircraft regis- These “phantom” homebuilts should
there are? The FAA registration data- tered in the U.S. don’t have an entry in be included when determining the over-
base has an “Airworthiness” column this column. More than 6000 are obvious all fleet size. As shown in Figure 3, that
Figure 2: Almost a quarter of the “homebuilt” accidents in Figure 3: Almost 25% of the homebuilts in the U.S. are not counted.
2014 were not Experimental/Amateur-Built Aircraft. This inflates the E/A-B accident rate.
Photos: Ron Wanttaja and Paul Dye KITPLANES March 2018 31

This RV-6 was given an airworthiness certificate
nearly 30 years ago, but FAA records do not list it as
an Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft.
means that the total number of active Every year, the FAA sends out ques- single-engine piston airplanes are
homebuilts is almost 25% higher than tionnaires to a subset of registered business/instruction/commercial fly-
the “official” tally. aircraft owners and generates a set of ing, compared to just 13% of the E/A-B
estimates of various use factors. The cat- hours. A fair comparison would pit the
The Problem with egories are broad; there’s a single-engine homebuilts against production aircraft
Flight Time Estimates reciprocating category and one for flown solely for recreation—but there’s
If we’re comparing accident rates on the Experimental/Amateur-Built. no way to do this. A man who flies a
basis of flight hours, we need an esti- The 2015 Survey said that homebuilts 172 for recreational use, then sells it and
mate of the annual flight time for each fly about 47 hours a year. The estimate buys a Van’s RV-7, is not likely to fly half
type of aircraft. As mentioned, this data for the piston-powered single-engine as much. Yet that’s the conclusion one
is included in the annual FAA General fleet is almost twice that, about 87 draws from the FAA Survey data.
Aviation Survey. hours per year. Type of use affects the results in
Right there is where most of the other ways, too. A commercially flown
“high homebuilt accident rate” story aircraft is inspected more often (both
Do You Own is coming from. Even if the number of annual and 100-hour inspections),
a “Phantom” accidents is close to that of production

airplanes, the lower hours estimate for
and a privately operated aircraft may
be exposed to more non-professional
Homebuilt? homebuilts will produce an hourly acci-
dent rate twice as high.
(i.e., owner) maintenance. In addition,
inactivity is hard on aircraft engines; a
As mentioned in the main article, roughly But according to the FAA Survey, trainer that flies 200 hours per month
25% of the Experimental/Amateur-Built the majority of the hours (55%) for will probably show fewer problems
aircraft in the U.S. aren’t recognized as such
in official FAA records. This is especially a
factor when the accident rate is computed.
How can you tell if your homebuilt
is “phantom”? Go to www.faa.gov, and
enter your N-Number in the “Look Up
N-Number” block. You’ll see the regis-
tration entry for your airplane.
Under “Airworthiness,” look at the
“Classification” and “Category” blocks.
They should say, “Experimental” and
“Amateur-Built,” respectively. If they
say “Unknown” or “None,” you’ve got a
phantom homebuilt.
Note that it doesn’t affect the legality
of your aircraft. It’s a paperwork glitch at
the FAA; as long as you have an airworthi-
ness certificate, your airplane is legal.
—R.W. Figure 4: Average annual fleet accident rate.

If one believes the FAA survey results, the owner of
this Lancair IV flies only half as much as the owner
of a Cessna 210. (Photo: Courtesy of Lancair International)
than a five-hours-per-month Starduster Reality maintained, and often designed by ama-

or Aeronca Champ. The same holds for In reality, the actual accident rate is teurs. A higher accident rate is inescap-
pilots, as well. going to fall somewhere between the able. About 6% of homebuilt accidents
The issue is comparing comparable 12% and 45% of the overall GA rate. involve first flights, and 20% of them
use, and the FAA Survey results just More of the “phantom” homebuilts occur during the first 40 hours—obvi-
don’t provide a reliable answer. are probably inactive—though a far ously a hazard that’s not a factor with
lower number now, when the owners production-type airplanes.
The Fleet Annual Accident Rate have to renew their registration every In our next installment, we’ll do a
What happens when we ignore the three years. head-to-head comparison of accident
annual flight time estimates? We can cal- Even so, this isn’t probably so bad. causes between homebuilts and general
culate the average annual “fleet accident Homebuilt aircraft are built, flown, aviation aircraft. J
rate” from the rest of the data. This is the
percentage of the number of aircraft of a
given type that have an accident during a
given year, irrespective of their use. It’s a
simple computation, using just the num-
ber of aircraft (corrected by the “active
aircraft” percentage of the GA Survey
results) vs. the number of accidents.
Again, let’s use the average number
of accidents over an 18-year period
(1998 through 2015). We’ll divide it by
the number of aircraft registered as of
December 31, 2015.
Figure 4 shows the result for both
homebuilts and several common pro-
duction aircraft types. The overall U.S.
rate, using the raw FAA and NTSB data,
is about 0.81%, compared to 1.17% for
homebuilts—about 45% higher.
But as discussed earlier, there are
problems with both the FAA registra-
tion data and the number of E/A-B
accidents per the NTSB. If we include
only actual E/A-B accidents as dis-
cussed earlier, and include the “phan-
tom” homebuilts, the homebuilt fleet
rate drops to 0.90%. That’s just 12%
higher than average, and actually less
than some production types.

Under New
Management
An inside
look at EFII’s all-new
electronic engine control
system for Experimental Lycomings.
By Tom Wilson
As first reported in Newsline on the systems are scheduled for sale in April to install, and far easier to upgrade than
KITPLANES® website (https://tinyurl. 2018, with install kits available now. the legacy unit. It also offers EFII total
com/EFII32), California-based EFII Beginning in 2007, EFII sold a basic control over manufacturing.
debuted an all-new electronic engine electronic engine management system. Called System32 after its 32-bit RISC
management system for Experimental Assembling ignition and fuel system processor, EFII says the new system has
Lycoming-based engines last September. components from the aftermarket, Can- at least 50 times the processing power
Shown at the National Championship ada-based SDS, as well as their own sup- of EFII’s previous system. The extra
Air Races in Reno, Nevada, the new porting hardware, the legacy EFII system capability comes from the more mod-
hardware and software is a major advance has been fitted to over 400 aircraft. ern processor, a unit that also offers
in engine management sophistication But now Robert Paisley, owner of the channels and processing power
and tunability for our kind of airplanes. EFII, has delivered an entirely new digital to optionally control boost pressure,
As we went to press, ignition-only ver- engine management system that is 100% ADI flow, up to three oxygen sensors,
sions of the new system were expected designed and manufactured by EFII. It is TECAT torque sensing, and real-time
to be released in January 2018. Full much more capable and accurate, easier telemetry. System32 does not control

(Left) Robert Paisley checks the function of a System32 ECU on its dedicated test stand. (Right) Like the rest of the system, the all-new
System32 ECU was designed and is built by EFII. Paisley noted when asked about the circuit board, “We’re lucky to live near LA, one of
the world’s technology centers,” where the board is built by specialists. Likewise, the ECU’s software was developed by Paisley and two
consulting engineers he’s worked with for years.
constant-speed propellers, but it can This last feature will likely be rarely also includes ignition timing retards for
operate up to 12-cylinder engines. needed by average users, but does give excessive over-square engine operation
The optional capability is great for instant adaptability to each specific the previous system did not have.
tinkerers, racers, and development engi- installation, special conditions, or
neers, but for average Joes, System32’s equipment changes such as an engine System Description
brainpower is put to most practical use overhaul, cold air intake, and so on. Before moving into aviation Paisley
by running its 3-dimensional rather Furthermore, this adjustment knob earned an electrical engineering degree
than the old 2D fuel and spark maps. In has tremendous authority, much as a and had a long, successful run building
other words, the data points System32 manual mixture control does. EFII’s electronic ignitions and other controls
uses to select the fuel and spark events legacy engine management had a similar for a broad array of ground vehicles.
are more nuanced for easier starting feature that allowed -50 to +50% values, There was an emphasis on motorcycles,
over a wider range of environmental and and Paisley is doing the same with Sys- including drag race bikes, a discipline
engine conditions, plus smoother run- tem32. Besides offering deep tuning, the he competed in personally. Along the
ning and transitions such as quickly add- big adjustment range is a hedge should way he realized engine management
ing throttle for takeoff, climb, or acro. a sensor go bad and result in dramati- systems should have all necessary capa-
Naturally, System32 employs a fully cally rich or lean mixtures. In that case bilities, but always with simplicity and
redundant dual ECU layout, so if one the pilot could simply turn the knob and
computer fails, the other can take over restore a running mixture to the engine.
by flipping a switch. Just as basically, Sys- Speaking of a wide dynamic range,
tem32 eliminates the mixture control in System32 software is written to support
the cockpit. The software automatically everything from fuel misers to rip-snort-
chooses the best air/fuel ratio for the ing race systems. If you bolt twin tur-
amount of air the engine is ingesting, plus bos onto your O-290 GPU conversion,
there is a fuel trim knob that further trims System32 won’t need reprogramming
the fuel delivery should the pilot so desire. to keep up. Its increased sophistication
One end of the ECU contains the SD card

slot and four LED annunciator lamps, so
access to this side of the ECU is desirable as
mounted in the airframe. This is especially
so in ignition-only installations as this card
slot is the only access to the system. In full
Connector plug-ins are all located on one edge of the fuel-and-spark installations, the cockpit
System32 ECU box. With no directional requirement by the ECU, display offers an SD card slot that makes
the blue boxes can be installed in any convenient orientation in the airplane. these on the ECUs redundant.
Photos: Tom Wilson KITPLANES March 2018 35

That’s a Garmin G5 at left and the new System32 display at right. The System32 uses the Designed to fit in a standard 31/8-inch
identical screen as the Garmin, so the days of apologetic, science-fair-quality engine instrument panel opening, the System32
management interfaces has been replaced by a modern display that blends perfectly display takes up little panel room, either
with other Garmin electronics. The SD card slot on the System32 display is front and in front or back.
center for easy access; all system upgrades can be done through this slot.
robustness in mind. It’s fairly easy to quit, and you’ll definitely notice that! than fuel, plus the engine is trying to
over-feature electronics, adding com- Simply switching to the other ECU accelerate under a load. Without the
plication and failure points in exchange using a switch on the instrument extra shot of go juice, the engine would
for gee-whiz features of questionable panel restores injector function so the momentarily lean out.
usefulness. The fewer gizmos in the flight can continue to an airport on The System32 engine temperature
loop, the fewer gizmos there are to fail. one ignition system. sensor is there to identify a cold engine,
Applied to System32, this means As for the throttle position and and thus a little extra fuel for sufficient
it’s a competent engine manager, but engine temperature sensors, the TPS atomization and smooth running is
one working within the realities of simply identifies rapid throttle openings needed. With System32 the temp sen-
Lycoming engines and not concerned to act as an electronic accelerator pump. sor screws into the 1/8-inch pipe threads
with anything more than unfailingly That is, a little extra fuel is needed where the mechanical fuel injector noz-
getting the right amount of fuel and immediately when the throttle is enthu- zles would otherwise be. There is only
spark into the combustion chamber siastically opened because air is lighter one engine temp sensor per installation.
at the right time. Thus, System32 is a
batch-fire (all injectors fire simultane-
ously), speed density design (no mass air
sensor). It uses two identical computers
(Engine Control Units), two crankshaft
triggers, two intake air temperature
(IAT) sensors, two manifold absolute
pressure (MAP) sensors, a throttle posi-
tion sensor (TPS) and an engine tem-
perature sensor. Two ignition coil packs
are used, each controlled by one of the
two computers. The only major single-
point in the system is the fuel injectors;
there is one injector per cylinder, and all
injectors are fired by one of the ECUs.
So configured, should the ECU not EFII supplied us with two screens the System32 display can show. Most of this is self-
operating the injectors fail, the result explanatory, and there’s plenty more information not shown here, but the vertical scale
will be one-half of the spark plugs will with yellow and green bands is especially nifty. It is the air/fuel ratio display with the
quit firing—an almost imperceptible red bug identifying the current A/F ratio and the green and yellow bands denoting the
condition given the powerful induc- ideal and usable ranges of A/F ratio, which the pilot can dial-in via the display’s knob
in real time. These ranges vary depending on engine load. Other red bugs show which
tive ignition. If the failed ECU was ECU is controlling fuel delivery—spark duties are always split between both ECUs. There
operating the injectors, then all the are some engine monitor values shown here, but a complete engine geek would still
injectors and half the spark plugs will enjoy a multi-probe EGT/CHT monitor for pinpointing errant cylinders.

Wanting a much sturdier and more accurately One goal of the new crank trigger mount was to present the crank triggers to the
mounted crank trigger, EFII whittles out this billet Lycoming flywheel in a curve conforming to the flywheel as shown. This fits the triggers
aluminum dual trigger and mount for Lycoming closer to the flywheel and allows a more precise trigger signal. Because System32 does
cases and flywheels. Both triggers are located not use a camshaft position sensor (less cost, no real mounting place on a Lycoming)
under the dark strip in the center of the sensor. or multi-point flywheel magnets, the system does not support hand propping.
A more major System32 evolution rpm for fuel or spark value look-up. This own manifold pressure curve. This is the
over the legacy system is in the soft- simplified mapping was forced by the essence of 3D mapping and is similar to
ware. Both systems are simple look-up limitations of the 8-bit microprocessor how any modern car computer functions.
designs, where information comes in to of the legacy ECU. This is why System32 is based around
the ECU, which then plugs those values In System32 the fuel and spark tables the entirely new high-speed processor.
into either a fuel table or spark table to have a full range of rpm and manifold Of course, there are complicating
arrive at the amount of fuel and spark pressure points mapped, and as the details, but not many. When you think
timing to command. The difference is manifold pressure changes with throttle about it, the ECU is inferring the air
in the tables. In the legacy system there position and altitude, there are corre- mass entering the engine because it
is a simplified scheme that applies the sponding changes in the fuel and spark knows the engine displacement, how
same manifold pressure curve to every delivery. Essentially, every rpm has its fast the engine is operating, and what
Open Philosophy
Engine management makers subscribe to one of two philosophies that are super- or turbocharged typically receive minimal boost.
when it comes to customer access to software: either sequester it from This keeps cylinder pressures relatively low, thus preserving a useful
the customer or give them full access. Most manufacturers and their detonation margin. Truly supercharged engines—think 45 inches of
lawyers figure engine tuning is too complex, too poorly understood, manifold pressure and climbing—with elevated cylinder pressures
and too potentially dangerous to the engines being controlled to are far more on the edge. Where an NA or turbonormalized engine may
give the simpletons buying the stuff any ability to alter the software nibble into light detonation without damage, a boosted engine races
controlling fuel and spark delivery. to destruction. Think of the difference between lighting a log with a
Other makers believe most of their customers combine enough match versus a pan of gasoline.
native intelligence, engine tuning, and computer experience, along Another big safety factor is 100LL fuel. It boasts a high anti-knock
with a healthy conservatism when it comes to tuning their engines to index and plays a big part in the relatively high detonation margin
avoid dramatic outcomes. enjoyed by today’s typical aircraft engines. Hopefully whatever even-
Robert Paisley is of the second mindset and therefore has made tually replaces 100LL is just as knock resistant.
System32 software an open book to the consumer. The “tune” can Thirdly, aircraft engines are expensive. Even aggressive hot
be downloaded via the SD card slots to a computer, then opened and rodders don’t enjoy the time and money wasted changing cylinders
manipulated in Excel software. Tunes can also be shared among users; and pistons should they “rattle” the engine. That keeps wild thinking
EFII can easily send updated software to customers. just thinking.
Honestly, after decades of watching auto enthusiasts scatter V-8s And finally, when an aircraft engine cracks a cylinder just below the
with overly aggressive or ignorant tunes, this seems generous to us as head or, better yet, blows it off the engine case, the guy in the plane is
there are truly dangerous pitfalls (detonation) when monkeying with in for a bad day and none of us wants to be that guy. And that’s what
engine management tunes. keeps most of us from turning the knobs too far or tinkering with what
That said, there are some guardian angels watching aviation tuners. we don’t fully understand
For starters, most aircraft engines are naturally aspirated, and those —T.W.

Worth It? Stronger harness connectors were on the System32 wish list, and these round bulkhead
fittings—one for fuel, one for ignition—fill the bill nicely. The side with the square flange
fits behind the firewall, leaving a clean round plug on the engine side.
By now the pluses and minuses of electronic
engine control over two magnetos and a car- the manifold pressure is. But it is bet- fixed-pitch propellers where it’s possible
buretor—and to a lesser extent mechanical ter to further refine this inference by to run the engine over square—more
fuel injection—are fairly well known, but it’s knowing what the intake air tempera- manifold pressure than rpm—during
a list always worth reviewing. ture is (correcting for density altitude, takeoff or full-throttle climbs. “With
Much easier cold and hot (especially) you might say). Thus the IAT sensor System32 we have a different manifold
starting is a digital engine management is added. The computer uses the IAT pressure retard curve for every rpm
plus, as is smoother idling and greatly signal as a correction factor, modifying point,” says Paisley. “If you start get-
reduced pilot workload (no need to jockey the fuel injector duty cycle by whatever ting over square, System32 retards the
the mixture control). With a computer con- percentage the IAT table says to. This ignition timing to avoid detonation. At
stantly managing the air/fuel mixture, the correction is fairly small, so much so the 2700 rpm you can bring in the ignition
average pilot could see some fuel economy engine would run without it; but it runs timing more aggressively because you
benefits, but it’s the advanced ignition better with it. won’t run over square. At 2350 rpm for
timing at altitude that really saves the gas. Practically speaking, the increased example, we can retard the timing if the
Much depends on where and how you fly, attention to manifold pressure in Sys- engine enters an over-square condition,
but EFII figures on burning 1 gph less on tem32 software reduces engine load and we can prevent detonation. This is a
4-cylinders and 1.5 gph less with sixes. (mainly by retarding the ignition tim- problem that can occur with fixed-pitch
Altitude is also where the largest power ing) in dangerous corners of the engine’s props in climb or with constant-speed
gains are made, with sea level takeoff operating range. This shows most with props when descending. This is already
power typically gaining little, as in not
enough to feel. That’s because low-altitude
power is where traditional magnetos and
carbs are tuned for.
There are no magnetos, carburetors, or fuel
servos to overhaul, and the automotive spark
plugs are far less expensive and make more
sense to replace than spend time cleaning.
As for initial cost, yes, it makes little fiscal
sense to replace good-running, mid-time
magnetos or mechanical fuel injection, but
if it’s time for magneto overhaul, stepping
up to e-management is a big step closer.
And if you’re building a new airplane, digital
engine control can cost less than obtaining
conventional systems. This is especially true
if the airframe already sports the required
robust electrical and grounding systems
System32 uses new wiring that’s more robust and user friendly than before. The three
demanded by e-engine management and System32 harnesses are built by EFII at their Cable Airport (KCCB) facility in Upland,
glass instrument panels. California, using unique, mistake-proof terminal ends, Tefzel insulated wire, and round,
—T.W. multi-pin bulkhead fittings.

All System32 fuel injector and ignition wires are fitted with fusible Yes, those are computer industry DB connectors, and they are
links to protect the other injectors or coils in the harness. Here a in the System32 harness to provide back compatibility with the
harness has been cut open to reveal one of the small green fusible legacy EFII management system. They transmit various sensor
links. Because it’s at the end of the harness on the engine side of data and will likely be replaced by circular connectors once
the firewall, it is easy enough to replace a blown fusible link once all beta testing is complete and the market for legacy system
the cause has been rectified. upgrades has been fulfilled.
in the software and is one of the main oxygen sensor input to further refine to protect. Yet EFII has accommodated
benefits of 3D mapping.” the amount of fuel delivered, a neces- oxygen sensors in its systems, including
Finally, there is a “return-to-base” sary step to protect the finicky catalytic System32, but strictly for pilot informa-
mode for the rare chance both MAP sen- converters that can only operate in a tion. With oxygen sensors the air/fuel
sors, or a combination of other casualties, narrow air/fuel mixture range. Such ratio can be shown on the cockpit display,
occur. Then the software would rely on post-combustion information requires so the pilot has an immediate view of the
an electronic barometric pressure sensor more computations by the computer, as air/fuel ratio being supplied, rather then
in the ECU and the TPS signal to nicely you may imagine. inferring it from EGT readings. But it’s
approximate a workable fuel volume. This operating mode is called closed worth noting the oxygen sensor input is
loop, as opposed to open loop, where the simply passed to the cockpit display and
Flying Open Loop oxygen sensor input is ignored (during doesn’t modify fuel delivery.
The car that takes you to the airport has cold starts before the cats have warmed Finally, EFII is not a dealer for, and
oxygen sensors sniffing the percent of up, for example) or in a system where does not carry, oxygen sensors. Instead,
oxygen in the exhaust stream to accu- there are no oxygen sensors. they recommend purchasing “ox” sen-
rately assess the actual air/fuel ratio the System32 is open loop by design sors from PLX Devices. This eliminates
engine is operating at. The ECU uses because there are no catalytic converters the price markup necessary should EFII
(Left) EFII is using the same Bosch fuel injectors as in their legacy management system but has developed this new, more compact fuel
rail arrangement. (Right) Key to the new fuel injector installation is the injectors have been moved from the intake tube and into the
Lycoming cylinder’s primer port. This saves having to weld bungs onto the intake runners and gives a straighter shot of fuel toward the
cylinder. It’s also more compact packaging on the engine.

These representatives of the ignition side of System32 have changed little since the legacy Robert Paisley and Lylah Bradford are EFII.
system. They are a two-coil coil pack, automotive style NGK Iridium spark plug with brass Robert is the technical guru while Lylah
adapter, MAP sensors, and the ignition leads. Two coil packs are required; EFII fits them is key to production. If you have an EFII
with a flat aluminum mounting plate to aid installation under the cowling. wiring harness—among many other EFII
parts—Lylah built it.
be a PLX Devices dealer, along with that keeping the ECUs separate allows
the associated shipping, stocking, and easier troubleshooting. If an ECU is sus- wiring, Paisley expects most customers
financing headaches. EFII maintains pected, it is easy to disconnect or replace will update to the new wiring harness to
the same relationship with Andair for it, something not so easy to do if both gain the new bulkhead connectors and
fuel valves, too. computers share one box. built-in fusible link protection among
The cockpit controller is especially full other things.
The New Hardware of promise thanks to a screen identical System32 is priced identically to the
System32 is built around five new major to Garmin hardware and ultra-easy sys- legacy system, at least initially. That
components: the ECU, cockpit control- tem initial setup and in-flight trimming older system has ceased production, but
ler, wiring harness, crank trigger, and of ignition timing or fuel mixture. Tak- will “absolutely” be supported by EFII.
fuel injector mounting. ing up very little space fore-and-aft in a System32 is offered only as a dual
Each System32 uses two of the blue standard 31/8-inch round panel opening, ECU system, so there are two blue boxes
ECU boxes. Both ECUs could be the shallow new controller displays alarm per System32 installation, and it’s a com-
housed in a single box, but Paisley notes and annunciator functions for ECU plete kit. All sensors, wiring, injectors,
power, fuel pump power, two battery and their plumbing, coil packs, ignition
You Are A Tuner. voltages, plus an air/fuel ratio graphic dis-

play, and offers easy updateability via an
harness, spark plugs, cockpit controller,
crank trigger, and associated mounts
Really. SD card port. Access to the entire system
is thus immediately in front of the pilot,
and hardware are included. Pricing for a
complete fuel and spark 4-cylinder Sys-
One major innovation of System32 is its and should upgrades be necessary, they’re tem32 is $6,195. A 6-cylinder complete
simple initial setup. Before the system’s equally accessible via the SD card reader. system is $7,695.
first operation, the installer is prompted Because the System32 components The ignition-only derivative of Sys-
to enter the engine’s displacement and plug into existing EFII wiring harnesses, tem32 is available at $2,750 for the
compression ratio. These two factors customers already running EFII’s legacy 4-cyl ignition and $3,395 for the 6-cyl
determine the engine’s horsepower, at system can update to System32 without ignition. Like the complete systems, the
least to the first magnitude, and thus tell rewiring their airframes if desired. This ignitions are 2-box ECU installations.
System32 what it is managing. The engine backwards compatibility is also giv- Finally, we’ll close by noting as with
will then run well enough to fly, and if finer ing EFII the needed beta testing of the any digital engine management system,
tuning is needed, this is both easily seen new ECU. The new ECU will first fly the airframe it’s going into must be
and accomplished via the cockpit display. by replacing the existing ECU on EFII electrically sound. The ground circuit,
Much more advanced tuning is possible legacy systems, followed by the new dis- battery(ies) and charging system(s), and
with System32, but this simple setup is all play, injectors, and so on. bus design must be top notch because as
most normal installations will likely need. While existing EFII customers could with all electronics, System32 depends
—T.W. install System32 using their existing on a steady flow of electrons. J

Book Review
Pioneer
Mechanics
in Aviation
Giacinta Bradley Koontz
looks at the history of early
and notable A&P mechanics. By Bob Hadley
When non-flying friends ask me what My research led me to a Harriet Qui- your plane has a Sensenich propeller,
books I’ve read lately, I mention Pioneer mby website and book by aviation writer for example, or a Pratt & Whitney
Mechanics in Aviation. I always get a and historian Giacinta Bradley Koontz. engine, you’ll probably jump right to
double take with that answer because In addition to the Quimby book, she those chapters.
most people expect Harry Potter, Twi- had just completed two other books: The Each of the 20-some pioneer mechan-
light, or some other pop culture book du Original Grand Canyon Airport and, the ics featured by Koontz has an amazing
jour. But if you know me and my EAA subject of my review, Pioneer Mechanics story, and she does justice to all. The
mates at Chapter 494, Pioneer Mechan- in Aviation. The topics looked interest- reader will discover what these indi-
ics in Aviation is our cup of tea any day. ing, so I bought all three. When they viduals did to attain their status and the
I discovered this book by accident. arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find enduring family connections that persist
A while back, I was looking up info on them autographed and personalized! to this day. The book also talks about the
America’s original aviation sweetheart Koontz’s bio is really interesting. Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to
(before Amelia), Harriet Quimby. Har- She’s been an aviation writer a long Aviation in Burbank, California. More
riet was the first American woman to time, but I had never heard of her than a dozen historic figures of avia-
earn a pilot’s license, a feat for which she because she has mostly written for tion are buried there, including Wright
was deservedly honored on a U.S. post- trade journals such as Aircraft Main- brothers’ mechanic Charles Taylor and
age stamp in 1991. I was going through tenance Technician and Director of Winfield Bertrum “Bert” Kinner, two
my wife’s stamp collection looking for Maintenance. Her columns generally of the featured inventor/mechanics pro-
aviation-themed stamps when I saw the focused on notable, but largely unsung, filed in the book.
Harriet Quimby stamp. “Hey! That’s the heroes of early aviation including many Pioneer Mechanics in Aviation deserves
same last name as Roger (my neighbor).” pioneer-era mechanics, of which many to be in every collection of aviation
I asked Roger if he’d ever heard of her eventually became important boom- books (as do the other Koontz books).
and he said, “According to family lore, era engineers and designers. Pioneer As for the Quimby family history?
we might be related.” But, he conceded, Mechanics in Aviation is a compilation Roger’s still not sure. Harriet Quimby
no one knew for sure. of some of Giacinta’s previously pub- died in 1912 at age 37 after falling out
I had to find out! How exciting lished articles. of her Blériot monoplane. She was never
would that be? To live across the street The book is organized with every married and had no children. So if he’s
from a direct descendant of a bona-fide profile as a chapter, so you don’t have related, it’s by way of some other branch
aviation pioneer! to read it in any particular order. If of the family. J

Spars The Heart
of the Wing
Part 2:
Laying out the spar.
By Paul Dye
We’re looking at spars, the heart of our get, with a built-up metal spar, ribs, and fasteners (bolts and Clecoes) and the
wings. In our last installment, we took skin. Yes, the Xenos wing is much lon- actual final assembly. This month, we’ll
a look at them theoretically, describing ger than most, but that is just a matter of go over the process of fitting together the
the various parts and how they work design scaling. It is not aerobatic, but the components and drilling all holes in their
together to provide the primary load- length of the spar makes the root section proper locations and to final size. The
carrying member of the wing, reacting fairly hefty—heavier, in fact, than many Xenos spar can be bought as a kit, you
to loads in the direction of the lift vec- short-winged aerobatic spars. can (theoretically) build it from plans, or
tor. This month, we’ll begin to construct Building a metal spar can be broken you can buy a completed set of spars from
the spar for a Xenos motorglider. It’s an into two parts: assembling and drilling Sonex LLC for an extra $4,000. That
all-metal wing that is as typical as they all of the components using temporary sounds like a lot of money, and it is—but

in this section are part of the spar, with
the ribs being attached as lap joints later
on in the build process. There are seven
pairs of these little flanges on each spar
(one fore and one aft in each pair), and
they are mostly unique to their station,
so you have to label things and make
sure they go in the right place. Keep a
bunch of Sharpies on the workbench
and use them liberally to label parts.
Mark things “fore,” “aft,” “inboard,”
and “outboard.”
Oh—you’ll be drilling some holes
now, others later, and some to different
The wingspan of the Xenos all-metal wing is just over 39 feet. (Photo: Courtesy of Sonex Aircraft)
sizes, so label liberally. Acetone will take
all the markings off when you’re done.
I would bet that unless you build a few to tip, making for some very complex I also like to keep blue painter’s tape
of them, the number of hours you’ll put shapes. The webs actually get in the way handy to cover prepunched holes that
in will surprise you. You might find that during much of the build because of are not to be up-drilled until later.
you’re working for a couple of bucks an their shape, and we found that it was far It really helps to have a workbench
hour. But building is what we’re about, easier to assemble as much of the web as long enough to lay the spar out from end
and the accomplishment you feel when possible and insert the caps for drilling to end, with no overhang on the ends or
you’re done is significant! near the end of the stack-up. sides. Having room to lay out parts par-
Because of the thick web near the allel is important, too, so having a table
What’s Included? root, and considering that many build- wide enough to do this will really keep
The kit parts include extruded and ers buy spars that are completed and things organized. With spars about 25
shaped top and bottom cap sec- don’t have the tools to drive -5 (5/32- feet long, this makes for a pretty big
tions, a large roll of web material (all inch) rivets, the flanges that attach ribs table! We actually extended our big
prepunched), some thick spar web sec-
tions (precut and prepunched), and
a number of components you have to
build from extruded aluminum angle
and some sheet metal. Building any
Sonex aircraft requires that you fabri-
cate a lot of parts required for major
assemblies, and I find it quite satisfying
to make the clips, brackets, and other
small bits from the drawings. We’ll start
the assembly process here with all of the
small components already built, which
still leaves a huge amount of fabrication
to be done during assembly.
The roll of spar web material consists of
6061 T-6 sheets, all cut to approximately
6 inches wide and varying in length. The
thick spar web sections are used near the
root end and stack up to create a web
approximately ¾ inch thick. The cap
extrusions are roughly “T” shaped, with
the leg of the “T” to be inserted in slots
made up of stacking the web sections.
The top of the “T” actually slopes down
Liberal use of Sharpies ensured that correct flanges (in this case, ones labeled “J”) were
on the upper spar cap (or up on the lower placed and attached at the correct sites. Marking and covering some areas with blue
cap) toward the center of the wing. The painter’s tape made sure that holes weren’t up-drilled prematurely and that the correct
caps also taper continuously from root drill bit was used.
Photos: Paul Dye KITPLANES March 2018 43

Frequent and repeated consultation with
the drawings proved necessary to ensure
proper stacking of the various web layers.
As the right and left sides were notably
different, builders also have to make sure
they consult the correct drawings.
workbench using some old wooden

doors with 2x4-inch framing to cre-
ate supports. Having a surface that you
can drill and Cleco straight into makes
things easier, as well.
Parts Puzzle
The drawings for the spar show a sche-
matic of the various web layers. It took
a bit of noodling to figure out the jigsaw
puzzle, but the prepunched parts gave
us lots of clues. If the holes don’t line
up, it’s wrong—but don’t let that lull
you into complacency, because if they
do line up, that doesn’t make it a slam
dunk that you’ve got it right. Many hole
Building or combining workbenches at Out beyond mid span on the spar, the web
the same height that extend at least as decreases to only a single layer of sheet
long as the wings greatly facilitates the metal and layers sit on one side or the
tasks. The ability to work from both sides other of the “T” spar cap (bronze colored).
of the bench also minimizes the need to That side changes as you continue to go
“swap ends” while work continues. outboard, as shown in this photo.

As assembly of the wings approaches the root, wing nut Clecoes The -5 rivet holes were clamped by 4x25-millimeter (1-inch) bolts,
begin to replace standard spring Clecoes. washers, and nuts.
patterns repeat at various points in the go outboard. Learning how to read draw- too thick for spring-loaded Clecoes. You
assembly. We also found that even after ings is vitally important here—espe- can use them as alignment aids, but they
completing the left spar, getting the cially understanding hidden (dashed) won’t hold things together. The next
right spar assembled was still a think- lines so that you know what is in front step up from a spring Cleco is a wing
ing person’s game because the layups are and what is in back. Never assume you nut Cleco. They have a long reach and
not symmetrical left to right. In fact, have it right in one glance; look again get screwed down without the use of pli-
the right spar is built somewhat back- and again. Spar building is a place to ers. Unfortunately, they also cost about
wards to the left! keep the tools in the drawer while you $3.50 each, and you’ll need lots of them.
Once you have the layers stacked up, lay things out—for a long time. This is the time to make friends with a
if you look at the end of the root end of long-time sheet metal builder and see if
the web, you’ll see a groove between lay- Drill Time they have some you can borrow. Forget
ers that will hold the leg of the spar cap Once you are confident that you have about -3 (3/32-inch) wing nut Clecoes;
“T.” This is very obvious at the root end the layers in place, it is time to drill a spend your time and money on a few -4
with its many layers, but once you get few holes—just a few—to pin things (1/8-inch) units.
out beyond mid-span on the spar, you’ll together. If you have previously built In the Xenos spar, almost all rivet
find that the web has decreased to only a sheet metal parts, you probably have holes will end up as -5. Because many
single layer of sheet metal—so the layer hundreds of Clecoes at your disposal. of the holes are very close to the caps or
sits on one side or the other of the “T.” Unfortunately, none of them will help other components, even wing nut Cle-
And that side changes as you continue to you at the root end because the section is coes aren’t going to help; their bodies are
(Left) Match drilling the rib attach clips must be done from both sides of the spar. (Right) Inexpensive bookshelf brackets were attached
to the workbench to hold and stabilize the spar in a vertical position while the rib attach clips were match drilled.

Sonex provides a few drill jigs that
too big. In this case, we went to plan B,
Cleco onto the rib attachment holes
in the outboard two-thirds of the which turned out to take a little more
spar. We found it helpful to make time, but saved us a whole lot of money!
many more for the job. It turns out that a -5 rivet fits in a hole
drilled with a #21 bit. And that exactly
fits a 4-millimeter-diameter bolt. So,
we bought a box of 4x25-millimeter
(1-inch) bolts, washers, and nuts. It
might sound excruciatingly time con-
suming to install and remove all those
nuts and bolts, but honestly, it just
doesn’t take more than a few extra
hours—and you’ll be spending hun-
dreds of hours on the spars. We don’t
know how the pros do it, but this sure
works for those of us that aren’t going
to do this more than a couple of times.
Anyway, with the spar web layers in
place, we started drilling holes: first
enlarging the prepunches to #40 and
installing silver Clecoes to hold things
in alignment, and then going up to #21
and installing our 4-millimeter bolts
and nuts. We left all of the holes that
would take other parts—the clips for
the ribs, the large blocks for the main
wing-mounting bolts, and the holes for
spar caps—in their original state. It’s far
more precise to leave them this way and
drill them when you are ready than to
have small and large holes in a stack-up.
Once the main web portions were
bolted together, it was time to install
the rib attach clips. These have to be
match drilled to the prepunched holes
in the web components, so we had to
take things apart and use one layer of
the web as a template for each pair of
clips. You clamp one side in place and
drill it from the backside—then take
it off, clamp it to its mate, and drill the
mate. Once you have done this for all
of the clips, you can re-assemble the
spar web, Cleco the clips in place, then
up-drill the holes to final size. Con-
ceptually that is easy—it is just always
disheartening to take things apart once
they have been put together. Well…
that’s tough—it’s all going to come
apart again for deburring anyway!
Keep it Square
The large wing attach blocks were next.
The holes are finished to ¼ inch at
this stage, and they’ll be upsized later

when the spars are matched together. the drilling chips out of the slots! Make
We found it easy to line up the ¼-inch sure you clean those out, or you might
holes with a temporary bolt, then hold not get the height that you want. We
the block straight using a combination used quite an assortment of clamps to
square, and match drill the attachment hold things in position for drilling, but
bolt holes. You quickly become adept that’s the result of building such long
at figuring out these little processes and spars. Lining things up and measuring
making sure that things remain square. is something you’ll want to do several
Don’t rush—it is just so easy to get the times. The spar caps are the most criti-
hole to the wrong size, and once you cal part of the structure, and in the case
have drilled it too big, you will have of the Xenos, they are not predrilled. So
ruined a lot of parts. once you start drilling, you are setting
Once you have matched drilled all of the final geometry and edge distance.
the thick layers and attached the vari- As with the rest of spar assembly,
ous clips and parts to the web, it is time we decided to start with a #40 drill
to think about the spar caps. But first, bit and silver Clecoes to hold things
think about how to line them up. The together. We initially drilled approxi-
height of the spar is given as 739/64 inches mately every foot or two to hold things
from root to tip, and getting that right in alignment. The spar caps do flex, and
is important if you don’t want to create wider spacing will allow them to wave a The “T” spar caps slide in nicely once the
problems down the road of wing assem- little bit if you’re not careful. Long drill slots are adequately cleared of aluminum
bly. Unfortunately, there is room for bits are required in order for the drill shavings and other debris. The drill jigs
ensure they are properly placed before
slop in the slots in the web, so you need motor to clear the edges of the caps, so
drilling commences.
to position the caps precisely before having a bunch of six-inch bits on hand
drilling. Sonex helps you out here with is good prep for the drilling. Remem- the problems with this approach is, of
a few drill jigs that get Clecoed into rib ber that silver spring-type Clecoes will course, the Clecoes that you put in on
attachment holes in the outboard two- not fit all the way through the stack, so the top. The assembly will want to sit
thirds of the spar. But they don’t give you might have to go right up to a #21 on the Clecoes once you flip it over,
you many, and we found that taking the to get a bolt in to hold things together. so you either need to put in enough of
time to make a bunch more really sped You can use short #40 drill bits as these “legs” to keep everything stable,
things up later. We used some 1/8-inch alignment pins while drilling the large or you’ll want some 4x4 blocks about 6
scrap aluminum and drilled them as a holes until you get enough bolts in to inches long to stand the assembly up off
stack to give us a matched set. keep everything rigid. the bench in a stable fashion.
The other tool we made to give us a It took a lot of care to drill precisely Black (-5) Clecoes are your friends
precise spar height was a modified com- perpendicular to the spar web and when you get to the last dozen feet or
bination square. We started with two avoid nicking the caps with the edge of so of the outboard ends. The web is
identical squares and took the slide off the bit. Take your time, and don’t feel thin enough out there that the spring
one square, turned it around, and put it like it all has to be done in one session. Clecoes will hold, so beg, borrow, or
on the second square. With two slides Once you have placed bolts or Clecoes steal about 250 of them, and you’ll be in
on one square, we had, in effect, a large, every foot or so, both top and bottom, good shape. This, in combination with
deep and square caliper. We set this for the assembly should pretty much be the 4-mm bolts, (about 300 of them),
the spar height and slid it on the assem- dimensionally fixed. should give you enough temporary fas-
bly every time we were going to do some When you get outboard a ways, the teners to hold a Xenos spar together. If
drilling to make sure we kept the dimen- layers of web material tend to alter- you’re building a shorter spar, you can
sion perfect. Making tools and jigs can nate on the front and back of the spar get by with less.
really help when you are working on a cap flanges. This means that to see the Next time, we’ll take a look at how
large repeating structure. In the end, the prepunched holes in the webs, you’ll you rivet this thing all together. We’ll
time spent on tools will be paid back in have to flip the spar over to drill many start with disassembly, deburring, dim-
simpler and more precise building. of the holes. Make sure that you have pling, and countersinking (the inboard
drilled as many of the holes as you can edges overlap in the fuselage and sit
Adding the Spar Caps before you flip to hold things in align- flush with each other, so many of the
If the layups for the web have been ment—and then check the alignment rivets and bolts have to be flush as well),
assembled properly, the upper and lower and clamps once again after the big flip. then reassembly and riveting. How do
spar caps should slip right into their If you plan this right, you’ll only have you set -5 rivets? Join us next time and
slots. They did for us, once we blew all of to do this once! We found that one of we’ll show you how it’s done. J

Sandwich Panels, Part 5:
A Simple, Accurate Method
for Molding Flanged Parts By Eric Stewart
This month’s column is the second of

a two-part discussion on how to make
flanged sandwich parts. We continue
the process here with prepping the male
mold for layup.
Once you have the mold mounted to
the base, mix up some Bondo and make
a radiused fillet at the base of the mold. Smooth foil tape down with a credit card. Leave enough overhang to cover the top mold
radius. Trim any tape that overhangs at the bottom.
This helps the carbon sit flush against
the side of the mold when you do the If there are any large dings, holes, etc. alcohol, a water soluble release agent).
layup. When the Bondo has cured to a in the mold that you don’t like or think Harbor Freight’s 6.75-ounce touch-up
rubbery state (usually a few minutes), might trap the part in place, you can fill air spray gun works fine and cleans up
use a chisel to scrape off the excess. It them with modeling clay. Next, wax the easily. (Since PVA is a release agent, it’s
comes off pretty clean if you time it mold and fillet with a release wax like best to use this gun for PVA only, to
right. You can also run a rag with ace- Meguiar’s #8. I find a single application avoid cross contamination.)
tone over the foil to remove any remain- of wax to be sufficient. Finally, shoot Because the PVA can puddle over
ing flecks of Bondo. the mold with a coat of PVA (polyvinyl waxed surfaces, I shoot the first two

(Left) Use a chisel (wood or soft plastic is a bit more forgiving than metal, which easily gouges the foil tape if you aren’t careful) to clean
up the radius at the base of the mold. Radius with a tongue depressor/mix stick, and hold the stick so that it completely scrapes off the
Bondo at the edges tangent to the base and vertical mold edge. This makes peeling off the excess Bondo simple. No sanding required.
(Right) When coupled with PVA, cheap car wax seems to work just as well as mold release wax.
(Left) Shooting the mold with PVA release agent. (Right) Bagging tape is offset about one inch from the mold base and Stretchlon is
offset about two inches from the tape.
coats as a very light mist. This avoids

puddling and provides a base for sub-
sequent coats to adhere to. I then shoot
three heavy coats, letting each coat dry
(about 10-15 minutes at room tempera-
ture). Because PVA is a release agent, be
sure to only spray in a contained paint
booth or other area where you don’t have
to worry about overspray contaminating
your work tables, carbon cloth, etc.
Applying Tape and Stretchlon

Once the final coat of PVA has dried,
tape the mold base to the tempered glass
(to keep it from moving about while you
do the layup), and run a strip of tacky
tape around the perimeter of the base.
Leave the wax paper in place on the sides
Bag prep. Clockwise from upper left: 1) Press seal upper left corner, working from left
and bottom, but remove it across the
to right. 2) Press seal upper right corner, working from right to left. Leave 3–4 inches
top. Cut an oversize sheet of Stretchlon unsealed in the middle, so you can insert pleat tape. 3) Insert pleat to take up extra
(I usually aim to have the Stretchlon material. Cut pleat tape longer than the pleat and fold over on itself when sealing the
extend about 2 inches beyond the edge pleat. 4) Roll bag to top of table until layup is finished.
Photos: Eric Stewart KITPLANES March 2018 49

Carbon that has been pre-wet out on transfer plastic is placed on the mold. Trim as Part under vacuum. Picture was taken
necessary before removing plastic. The scissors here are Kai 7300 12-inch bent handle just after bagging, so there is no bleed
scissors—expensive, but definitely worth it if you spend much time with composites. through into the breather yet.
of the tape), and stick it in place on the a core, and two layers of unidirectional bleeder/breather. Don’t forget to set
upper left corner with the Stretchlon tape. First wet out the BID and uni on your quick disconnect in place before
extending about ½ inch beyond the tape. a piece of transfer plastic (again, I like closing the bag. Now you are ready to
Now press seal the Stretchlon about the 3.5-mil transparent plastic from close the bag. Seal the remaining three
halfway across the top. Move to the Lowe’s). Transfer the first ply of BID, edges like the first, starting at one corner,
opposite corner, attach the Stretchlon remove the plastic, and brush the BID working about halfway along the edge,
there, and press seal the Stretchlon, down smooth against the mold with an then moving to the other end and meet-
again moving toward the middle. When acid brush. Most mold shapes will need ing in the middle with a pleat. Apply
there is about a 3-inch gap between the to have a bit of fabric snipped out at the vacuum, ensuring that your breather
left and right sides, add a 3-inch long corners or elsewhere to lay down nicely. doesn’t shift as it’s pulled down. Because
piece of tacky tape as a pleat (you should It’s much easier to do this while the BID the Stretchlon is so stretchy, it will usu-
have enough Stretchlon to form a pleat is still on the transfer plastic. ally try to bridge the corner between the
since you cut it oversize). Now roll your Next, wrap the uni around the mold, side of the mold and the base. Be sure to
bagging film up out of the way for the keeping it taught as you go. Continue press the bag tightly into this corner to
time being. Although I often use Lowe’s with the remaining layers of BID. Don’t ensure that the fabric is molded tightly
3.5-mil aviation plastic for relatively flat forget to place the foam core after the to the side of the mold. If the parts you
bagging jobs like wing skins, I prefer second layer. I prefer to wrap the uni are making are small, I recommend cal-
Stretchlon for bagging these types of after the first layer of BID. That way, if culating the fiber/resin ratio to make
parts, since you get much better confor- you need to sand the flange at all, you’ll sure it is within spec, as it’s easy to over-
mity around the male mold. have to go through several layers of BID bleed small parts, especially if there are
before you risk damaging the uni. There’s few plies, the shop temperature is high
Layup a link at the end of this article where you (i.e., epoxy is less viscous), or you have a
You can now proceed with your layup. can watch a time-lapse video of a layup. strong vacuum pump.
For example, suppose you want to make Finally, add the usual materials for
a 2-core-2 rib with four layers of BID, a bagging operation—peel, perf, and Trimming to Size
Once the part has cured, unscrew the
mold from the base. Use a Dremel (the
diamond cutoff wheels work great for
trimming carbon) to trim along the base
of the part, just above the radius. Remove
this area as well as the Bondo radius
(it should flake off pretty easily). Begin
the demolding process by blowing com-
pressed air into your alignment holes.
This usually gets the top face loose, and
if you’re lucky, that’s all it takes to pop
the part off the mold. If not, try to free
up the flanges by gently prying them up
(Left) The first step in demolding is to trim the bottom of the flange. (Right) Blow with a chisel. If the flange isn’t too thick,
compressed air into alignment or screw holes to help pop the part free. you should be able to jam a credit card

(Left) Flanges can be freed up with a credit card. (Right) Tap the part free while gripping it in a vise.
between the flange and mold and run it worst you can drop the part in a bath of screw that holds the diamond blade in
around the perimeter of the mold. Try to water. The PVA will dissolve, and the place run along the surface of the mold
free it with compressed air again. MDF should get soft enough to carve out. as a standoff. Then follow up with a
If the part hasn’t popped off the mold at Once the part is free, you can unscrew sanding block and sand the flange level
this point, you can grip the exposed MDF the bottom of the mold (if you have two with the mold. Voila! You now have
base with a vise. Gently tap the flange edge pieces of MDF stacked together), rein- a perfectly straight mold edge that is
with a hammer and piece of flat alumi- sert the top mold face, and use this as a exactly ¾ inch deep. You can make it
num stock to push the part off the mold. trim and drill guide (if you incorporated deeper by putting spacers underneath
The above methods have never failed to alignment holes into the template). Use the mold, or shallower by routering a
free a part for me, but if worse comes to the Dremel for the initial cut, letting the shallower face mold to begin with.
Left) Initial rough cut with a Dremel. (Right) The screw head is about 1/16 inch high, enough to avoid undercutting the flange as long as
you hold the Dremel perpendicular to the mold.
(Left) After removing the part, reinsert the top mold (and any necessary spacers to achieve the desired flange depth) and trim/sand
flush. (Right) This rib needed a 1-inch-deep flange, so I inserted a ¼-inch plywood spacer under the ¾-inch MDF mold to achieve a
total depth of 1 inch.

Rib fit is excellent and dimensionally accurate. Molded ribs in the SR-1 wing.
You can now use a micrometer to

Minimum Bend Radius check the thickness of the flange.
Hopefully you are close to spec. This
When originally developing this method, I was curious how sharp the corner between is why it helps to make a practice part
the flange and rib could be. A smaller radius has two benefits: under tensile or side loads or two, to confirm the material thick-
(imagine trying to rip the rib or bulkhead away from the skin to which it is bonded), the ness used in your offset calculations.
flange corner is the weak point in terms of delamination, since this is where the bond In my experience, thick layups tend to
will typically begin to fail in peel. The designer can mitigate this by ensuring this corner come out over spec if not bagged prop-
has a nice fillet of adhesive and possibly a taped reinforcement. With a smaller radius, erly, so you may need to take this into
the peel forces are lower (= stronger joint) and the size of the reinforcing fillet is smaller account. If you are over spec you can
(= lighter joint). sand the flange down, if that is accept-
Like metal, fibers also have a minimum bend radius. When a material is bent, the mate- able. If you are under spec, you can
rial on the outside stretches, while material on the inside compresses. At a point in the increase your bond line thickness to
middle (called the “neutral line”), the material neither bends not compresses. The failure take up the margin.
in these bends usually occurs on the outer fibers. Calculating the radius of curvature that I hope you’ve enjoyed this two-
will cause the outer material to break then gives the minimum bend radius, which is then part article on molding flanged parts.
increased to account for a safety factor or knockdown factors. There’s no reason why this method can’t
I found two papers discussing minimum bend radius calculations in carbon fiber, both be applied to a variety of aircraft parts
of which gave a minimum bend radius of about 0.2 millimeter (.007 inch) for carbon fiber besides ribs and bulkheads, such as an
fabric1. A 1/16-inch (1.5-millimeter) radius round-over bit thus gives an adequate margin of instrument panel, baggage compart-
safety. Note: (a) The bend radius increases with each subsequent layer of BID, and (b) BID ment, etc. So give it a try and send us
wrapped around a 90-degree corner actually forms an ellipse, but the minimum radius is pics of what you build! You can see the
still equal to that of the corner itself. time-lapse video of a rib layup at www.
—E.S. facebook.com/TheSR1Project. J
1
Both papers derive minimum bend radius using the bending moment equation:
ρmin = ED
Eric Stewart
Eric Stewart is designing

(2σfu )
Where and building the SR-1,
ρmin = minimum bend radius a speed plane for setting
E = fiber’s Young’s modulus (i.e.; modulus of elasticity) records in the FAI c-1a/0
D = fiber’s diameter category (takeoff weight less
σfu = fiber’s ultimate tensile strength than 661 pounds, including
and for Hexcel style 282 carbon fiber (AS2C fiber)
pilot and fuel). You can see
E = 221 GPa
D= 6.9 microns more at www.facebook.com/
σfu = 4.44 GPa TheSR1Project, including
giving additional photos and videos
ρmin = .17mm of the subjects in this series
The mathematically equivalent approach using elongation of fibers can also be used
of articles.
(ρmin = D/2 x [100/% elongation]-1)

The
Creative Homebuilder
Make Your Own

Air-Flow Speed Control By KITPLANES® Staff
Most of us experience the frustra- down and smooths out the pulling pro-
tion of a pneumatic, pull-type rivet gun cess with pneumatic rivet guns.
going from no movement to extreme When the Creative Homebuilder
speed that generates a startling “shock” uses his larger MYO yokes [“Make Your
action. The same jolt can happen on Own Yokes,” January 2018], he adds
pneumatic squeezers, sometimes with a speed control. When converting the
undesirable results. The Creative pneumatic head for foot use, the feath-
Homebuilder uses his make-your-own ering hand trigger assembly is removed
(MYO) fixed air restrictor to allow a and replaced with an adapter that lets
more controlled action on the air tool air pass either way without the trigger-
he is using. ing (or feathering) action of the original.
He starts by drilling/tapping the bore To recover the feathering sensitivity, he
of a coupling adapter to accept a brass installs the orifice at the inlet to the
Allen hex screw. He then drills an orifice foot valve, which slows down the rate at
hole to allow airflow restriction in the which the air enters the cylinder of the
screw—usually in the 0.025- to 0.040- squeezer. This, in turn, slows down the Close-up view of speed control with
modified Allen hex screw inserted into
inch range. Once the screw is installed operation rate. Work potential remains the coupling adapter. The orifice hole is
in the adapter, the fixed air restriction is the same, but work takes place at a barely visible in the center of the installed
accomplished. This speed control slows slower rate. J Allen hex screw.
The original materials: a brass coupling adapter (left) and brass Allen hex screw (right). All bagged up and ready to go!

PLANE and SIMPLE
Drilling in Tight Places By Jon Croke
Drilling hundreds of holes is typi- “impossible” drilling scenarios, but each Top to bottom: the inexpensive Tight Fit
cally a mundane task while building needs to be addressed properly. We must drill, a typical right-angle drill attachment,
short drill bits used with right-angle drills,
our aircraft. Whether using an electric use the tools that are made for drilling and foot-long drill bits.
or air-driven drill, the drilling process in tight places. Fortunately, there are a
is usually stress free. But every once in a couple of affordable tool options avail- use for making rivet holes. The flexibil-
while, we are confronted with a scenario able for this purpose. The least obvious, ity of their long length allows you to flex
that restricts our drill bit from getting least expensive, and most surprising the shaft with your fingers around barri-
a straight shot to the desired hole loca- solution is the foot-long drill bit. ers as needed.
tion. A sense of panic or frustration sets The foot-long drill bit excels by simply The right-angle drill is the ultimate
in as we cannot get our drill properly keeping the drill motor far away from tool for tight drilling locations. It is avail-
positioned. If we try to cheat and drill the target hole. This is often all that is able either as an attachment to your con-
at an angle, this often results in a ruined needed to prevent interference that ventional drill motor (best value) or as a
part or, at best, an oblong hole. would otherwise prevent a straight shot self-contained unit in either electric or air-
Maybe only a handful of situations to the desired hole location. These long powered format. Combined with special
during the aircraft build pose these bits are available in the popular sizes we drill bits, they provide a reliable solution

As the founder of Homebuilt
Jon CROKE
HELP.com, Jon Croke has
produced instructional videos
for Experimental aircraft
builders for over 10 years. He
has built (and helped others
build) over a dozen kit
aircraft of all makes and
models. Jon is a private
pilot and
currently
owns and
flies a Zenith
Cruzer.
(Left) A difficult location for hole making with a conventional drill. (Right) Either a foot-long Drilling with a right-angle drill
bit or a right-angle drill attachment makes accurate drilling possible in restricted locations.
attachment takes a little practice—it
to the most challenging drilling loca- (approximately $100–$250). A com- is easy for the bit to catch in the hole
tions. Most right-angle drills of the style pany called Tight Fit makes a nice econ- as it breaks through the material. This
shown here share a common style of drill omy model for about $40. The internal is often due to not keeping the bit per-
bit: one end has a ¼-inch 28 threaded parts wore out in my Tight Fit after my pendicular to the material, as it is hard
shank, and the cutting end is available in second aircraft build, but it was well to judge with the bit length being very
many popular diameter sizes and lengths. worth the value in getting all of my next- short. Letting up on the pressure as the
Since the right-angle drill attach- to-impossible holes drilled properly. The bit breaks through will definitely help.
ment is only occasionally used in a proj- more expensive, durable models will last These tools and their drill bits are avail-
ect, builders may not want to invest in a lifetime, and many come as a kit with able from your favorite aircraft tool sup-
the somewhat high price of these tools popular drill bit sizes included. plier and the likes of Amazon.com. J
Magnet Clamps By David Paule
SHOP
TIPS
Occasionally it’s impossible to arrange for clamps in some areas. Since I’m building an
aluminum airplane, I can use magnets to hold the parts together. These magnets are neo-
dymium rare earth magnets, and they are quite strong. Mine are 1/16 inch thick by 1/2 inch in
diameter. It would be better if they were 1/8 inch thick because once in a while these break.
Be careful handling them because they can cause injury, especially if a stack of them
gets close to something. If you’re separating some parts that have been clamped with
these, as they separate they’ll lose their clamping force and are free to move around.
If there’s anything steel around they’ll jump to it as they fall. This can cause injury if
you’re not prepared for it. Additionally, the magnets can lodge and stick in unexpected
places. Please use caution when working with them.
I buy mine from K&J Magnetics, Inc. (www.kjmagnetics.com), and the ones I buy are
the N42 type. They are axially magnetized and have a force of about three pounds,
becoming less as the gap between them becomes larger. I’ve found that they work just
fine across a stainless steel firewall, and parts slightly greater than 1/8 inch thick are not
a problem. They can also be stacked for more force if necessary. J

MAINTENANCE MATTERS
Three Battery Problems
Lead to Accidents
Three battery-related accidents, one retract the gear? That is a question the initial climbout. Also, don’t forget that a
now 10 years old, the others more recent, lawyers debated in court, but their argu- depleted battery is going to draw more
point to the need to understand and ments are not of much use to a pilot who than the normal amount of charging
properly maintain your airplane’s electri- suddenly finds himself flying a glider. current. A low-voltage situation could
cal system, especially the battery. Batter- Alternators are sized to handle continu- happen to you.
ies are simple and reliable in most cases, ous loads and recharge batteries, but
but in an age of ever-increasing depen- transitory loads such as a flap retraction Subaru-Powered GlaStar
dence on electrical power, it is vital that are not included in the alternator capac- A GlaStar with a Subaru auto conver-
their maintenance and use is well under- ity calculation, nor is excessive battery sion engine crashed after one bat-
stood. Here are three accidents that illus- charging caused by starting out with a tery in a two-battery electrical system
trate that point. dead or near-dead battery. Airplanes are failed. It’s another case where the pilot
not like cars that come equipped with assumed that an electrically dependent
Diamond Twin Star 100+ amp alternators and huge batteries plane that would not start on its own
A Diamond Twin Star with dual Centu- with plenty of capacity for abuse. could be safely flown after a jump-start.
rion diesel engines crashed after takeoff The lesson here is, do not take off in Unfortunately, it ended in tragedy, with
when the fuel management systems of an electrically dependent airplane if the a severely injured pilot and a totally
both engines reset after a low-voltage battery is too weak to start the engine. destroyed airplane. It just cannot be
condition, causing a dual engine failure. Take the time to charge the battery or said often enough—if your electrically
The airplane in question had a dead bat- batteries first. A second lesson is, be sure dependent airplane will not start on its
tery when the pilot attempted to start to know the minimum voltage required own, it is vitally impor-
the airplane. A ground power source was to run your engine’s electrical systems. tant that you correct
used to jump-start the engines. During See how that compares to the actual the problem before
takeoff, a short time later, the battery system voltage you have when cranking attempting flight.
was still insufficiently charged to sustain your starter. It might surprise you.
the sudden extra power demand of the Since most Experimentals do not
gear retraction motors. When the volt- have retractable gear, it might be fair to
age dropped below the critical level, the ask if this incident is really applicable.
electrically dependent fuel manage- That’s a fair question, but don’t forget
ment systems of both engines reset and that many planes have electric flaps and
stopped the engines in flight. Diamond pitot heat—two big users of electrical
had specifically warned against starting power that could be engaged during
both engines with ground power, but the The EarthX battery has become a popular
warning was not heeded. The plane was choice for builders who wish to take advan-
destroyed and lawsuits ensued. The point tage of the considerable weight savings
is that electrically dependent airplanes it affords. Be sure to connect the battery
need fully charged batteries to fly safely. warning light and external overvoltage
protection if you decide to use one of these
You might ask, if there was enough batteries. They are much more subject to cata-
power to excite the fields of the alterna- strophic failure than conventional batteries if they are
tors, why wasn’t there enough power to not properly charged and protected. (Photo: Courtesy of EarthX, Inc.)
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.

When you first get in your plane before Harbor Freight sells a very affordable battery condition tester for about $50. If you get
attempting to start it, turn on the master one be sure to open it up and tighten all the connections before using it. After that, it
switch and check the voltage of the works well for light-duty use. Here it is hooked up to a Concorde RG-25XC battery.
battery. This battery, at 12.2 volts, may
barely start the plane, but it can’t be they only work if you know the condition occur in flight. The fact that the plane
relied upon for good performance on of each battery and isolate any deficient was hard to start seems to point to a
the upcoming flight. Time to charge it up component in the electrical system. battery problem that developed before
and check it with the condition tester, or
Unfortunately, hooking both batteries takeoff. If such a problem did develop
maybe replace it.
up to the main bus where a single alter- in flight, an otherwise unexplained
Electrically dependent really does mean nator can charge them masks a problem increase in charging current would likely
that the airplane engine will not run with either battery. This is what bedev- be the only early indication.
without electrical power. iled this GlaStar pilot. The lesson here is that, once again,
The builder of this plane, no doubt The way to find this problem is to if a plane won’t start on its own power,
with safety in mind, installed two batter- check the voltage of each battery before find out why before flight. Another les-
ies in his Subaru-powered GlaStar. The starting the engine. With a switch sys- son is that two batteries do not actu-
electronic engine management system tem that connects each battery sepa- ally equal a fully redundant system. It
of that engine requires nothing less. The rately, it is easy to turn off each battery is nearly the same as having a single
plane was equipped with a switch that before flight and check the voltage of larger battery if it is not managed prop-
would permit running on either or both the other one. If either battery is not erly. This is why some electrical design-
batteries. The NTSB report, however, reading at least 12.5 volts, it is probably ers have embraced the dual alternator,
says that the batteries were connected not a good idea to fly with it. Such a single battery concept, especially if
in series. It also says that there was no check would have easily prevented this one of the alternators is a permanent-
field investigation by the NTSB, so we are accident, assuming the short did not magnet type.
left to speculate about what the electri-
cal system really looked like. Obviously,
connecting two 12-volt batteries in series
would produce 24 volts, which was not
the intended design for the 12-volt sys-
tem. In any case, the plane would not
start without ground power.
After starting, the pilot reported a
14.2-volt reading consistent with the
charging voltage of a 12-volt alternator.
There was no report of charging current.
As it turned out, one of the batteries had
a shorted cell that caused it to produce
much less than 12 volts. This eventually
drained the other battery to the point
that it would not produce enough volt-
age to power the electrical system. Once
system voltage dropped too low, the
engine shut down, leading to the crash.
Dual batteries for an electrically Turn the battery tester load to one-half the maximum cold-cranking amp rating to test
dependent airplane are a good idea, but its condition. Sadly, this one needs to be replaced.
Photos: Dave Prizio KITPLANES March 2018 57

Overvoltage Leads
to Battery Failure
The recent forced landing of an RV-8, in
which the owner (not the builder) had
replaced the Odyssey battery with a
new lithium battery, illustrates a point
I have been trying to make for some
time: Airplane electrical systems need
overvoltage protection.
Everyone wants to cut a few pounds
out of their airplane’s empty weight, and
what easier way is there to do that than
replacing your PC680 Odyssey battery
with a new lithium battery. In a few min-
utes, you have shaved off 10 pounds. But
lithium batteries have special challenges This B&C voltage regulator matches up well with their alternators or any other alternator
that go with their impressive weight sav- that does not have built-in voltage regulation. It includes overvoltage protection in its
circuitry. For best results mount this inside the cabin, rather than in the engine compart-
ings. They are sensitive to mischarging, ment. (Photo: Courtesy of B&C Specialty Products, Inc.)
overcharging, and excessive voltage. Tra-
ditional batteries do not like such abuse producing excess voltage, possibly as An unprotected overvoltage condition
either, but when subject to it, they do much as 70 volts or more at some point. when using a lithium battery could be
not usually catch on fire. The best new This is what is called a runaway alterna- even worse, potentially putting the very
lithium batteries have built-in circuitry tor. It is not common, but it does happen. survival of the aircraft in peril. In this case
meant to protect the battery from these New alternators and voltage regulators that is exactly what happened. The run-
perils, but we are still learning about how tend to have built-in overvoltage protec- away alternator caused the lithium bat-
robust these protections may be and tion to prevent this condition, but older tery to begin melting. Whether or not it
their possible failure modes. models generally do not have this safe- would have actually caught fire at some
In the incident in question, two very guard. In this day of electric panels that point is unknown in these particular cir-
experienced pilots were out flying include not only radios but electronic cumstances, but even such a possibility is
when the airplane’s alternator, a Bosch engine and flight instruments, an over- chilling, and only quick and skillful action
automotive unit with a built-in voltage voltage condition that could disable by the pilot prevented a loss of life. No
regulator, malfunctioned and started electronic items could be devastating. doubt this is what the pilot had in mind
as he executed a very abrupt emergency
Alt descent maneuver.
1
Batt 1 relay The pilot said he thought such a failure
– + could not occur because of the built-in
protections that were included in the
battery. It appears, though, that the bat-
Battery 1
tery’s protective measures were simply
overwhelmed. Further investigation may
Main Buss
AV Buss
or may not reveal why the battery failed

to protect itself. It is not in very good
condition at this point. There was no
overvoltage protection included in the
AV relay
Batt 2 relay
aircraft electrical system.
– + Overvoltage Protection
Alt
2 A question arises, how do I know if I have
Battery 2 overvoltage protection in my electri-
Acft Buss cal system? This is especially important
Schottky Diode P/N 122NQ030R For Ref. Only if you did not build the plane. For the
last several years, Plane-Power has been
Connecting two alternators and two batteries does not have to be complicated as this
schematic shows. Of course, each alternator will have its own voltage regulator and over- including overvoltage protection in
voltage protection (unless already built in), plus its own field power switch to energize it most of their alternators. B&C has always
or take it offline if necessary. (Schematic: Courtesy of Aerotronics, Inc.) included it in their voltage regulators.

you should probably be thinking about
a new battery. To really be sure of your
battery condition though, you need
a load tester. Such a tester is available
from Harbor Freight for about $50. If you
have an electrically dependent airplane,
you should have one of these testers, or
one like it, and use it at least annually.
One of your preflight steps should
be to check the voltage of your battery
before you crank the starter. If you have
two batteries, be sure to isolate and check
each one. If they are not up to the task,
they need to be charged or replaced.
Expect to see a slightly lower voltage at
the main bus than you see when testing
the battery directly. This drop should not
be more than about 0.2 volts. If it is, then
suspect problems with wiring or connec-
This Plane-Power alternator is in the process of being installed in an RV-8. It features tions in your electrical system, or possibly
built-in voltage regulation and overvoltage protection. The downside is that these a master relay that is getting old.
features are in the harsh environment of the engine compartment.
The age of aviation electronics is here,
However, if your plane is older, it may care to be sure your battery or batteries and it is mostly wonderful, but there are
well not have this protection. If you are are in top shape. Your fully charged bat- a few things you need to understand if
unsure you can contact Plane-Power to tery should put out 12.7 to 12.8 volts if it you are going to fly safely in this new
see if your alternator has this feature. If is in top condition. If it won’t put out at environment. Be sure you learn what
you find that you do not have this vital least 12.5 volts when it is fully charged, they are. J
protection, you may be able to add it.
For the do-it-yourselfers, check out Bob
Print and Digital

Nuckolls’ schematic in his AeroElectric
Connection, which is available online for
no cost. Or you can go straight to the
information here: www.aeroelectric.com/
Book/AEC_R12A.pdf. His design is only
for alternators that do not have internal
voltage regulation. Be sure you under-
stand the features of your alternator
before you attempt to use his circuitry.
The admonition to include overvolt-
age protection in your aircraft electrical
system is not just for people with lithium
batteries. Remember, overvoltage can
permanently damage avionics and EFIS
systems. This can cost you thousands of
dollars, not to mention putting you in a
perilous situation in flight. Imagine fly-
ing in IFR conditions and having a total
panel failure because of an overvoltage
condition. Spend a few dollars now and
avoid these problems forever.
Battery Condition
If you have an airplane that must have
Either Format – Great Savings!
electrical power to run or to power its
instruments, you need to take special
Subscribe Now at www.kitplanes.com/subscribe

HOME SHOP MACHINIST
Spline shaft couplings are ubiqui-

Spline-al Tap
tous in machine and mechanism design.
They exist in one form or another on
virtually every vehicle on the road or in
the air. While the engineering require-
ments for ANSI-standard involute splines
can be a little complex and the tooling
requirements specialized, straight-side
and V-side splines (also called serrated
splines) on shafts up to ½-inch diameter
are easy projects for the home shop. All Examples of a straight-sided spline shaft (left) and a V-spline (or serrated-spline) shaft (right).
you need is a lathe, a vertical milling
machine, and a 5C spin indexer.
The 5C spin indexer is the go-to tool for
making splines. Every shop should have
one. In previous columns I have used the
spin indexer for a variety of cool jobs,
such as knobs [“Home Shop Machin-
ist,” September 2013] and flats [“Home
Shop Machinist,” September 2016]. The
indexer combines simple collet clamping
with 360° whole number indexing. You
Examples of the broached sockets that mate with spline shafts.
could do the same job on a rotary table
or dividing head, but the spin indexer is
easier to set up and less complicated in
operation. As long as you keep to a num-
ber that divides into 360 (e.g., 4, 5, 6, 8, 9,
10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, etc.) you can
use a spin indexer.
The straight-side spline example for
this column was 3/8-inch diameter with
nine splines. The grooves between each
spline were cut 0.040 inch wide (the
width of my 2-inch, 110-tooth slitting saw)
and 0.020 inch deep. The V-sided spline
example was 5/16-inch diameter with 18
splines. The V-grooves were machined
with a standard four-flute, 3/8-inch diam-
eter square-end end mill.
How many splines and what type The 5C spin indexer is conveniently clamped into position using the mill vise. For the
(straight or V) depends mostly on what straight-side spline, a slitting saw was used (shown); for the V-side spline, a standard end
looks right for your project. For the mill was used.
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.

The width of the grooves for the straight-side For a 5/16-inch shaft (left) that will have 18 splines, the Y and Z tool edge position dimension
spline was based on the 0.040-inch-wide “D” = 0.067 inch. This orients the first groove to be cut on the 45° position, and after
slitting saw. After sketching various options, indexing (clockwise in this view) all subsequent cuts are on that same 45° position (center).
I decided that nine splines machined to a Note the root diameter (right), which determines the pilot hole necessary to make the
depth (D) of 0.020 looked the best. broach and, subsequently, the female socket.
Touching off the tool from the 12-o’clock Turn a length of W1 tool steel to resemble
and 9-o’clock positions simplifies the the above form. Note the step in diameter
set-up. A nine-spline example is shown and 5° relief angle behind the leading
for clarity, but the idea is the same for edges of the first two steps. The pilot hole
any practical number of splines. diameter is dictated by the ID of the root
of the spline grooves. Leave at least two
projects shown, I used the 2D drafting inches of extra length (100% of OD) for
holding in the collet and to allow tool
module in Solid Edge (available from
clerance from the indexer when milling.
Siemens for free at http://tinyurl.com/ After grooving, lathe-turn a relief to the
y8ftse36) to make a number of sketches pilot hole diameter and part off.
before deciding the spline count. Any
basic drawing program or CAD software $5.20. The three-foot length of 0.375
can be used. You can also use a pencil (3/8) was $8 (prices from McMaster-Carr).
and a protractor, but CAD is preferred Depending on your project, you might
because it will give you the most precise consider using W1 (in the unhardened
dimensions to reference your tool posi- state) for the spline shaft as well.
tion and machine setup. W1 tool steel is ideal for making home-
A spline shaft is not much use unless shop broaches because it is very forgiv-
you have a handle, knob, or coupling, ing to machine, heat treats easily with a
for it to mate with. To assure compatibil- propane torch, quenches in water, and
ity with your custom spline, prepare the can be tempered in a toaster oven. The
shaft stock and the broaching stock at resulting tool will have good hardness
the same time. (50+ Rockwell C) and can be used to
The broaching tool starts out as a broach more than a handful of sockets
length of W1 (W for “water hardening”) before any appreciable wear.
tool steel the same diameter as your Other than the tool position (for
spline shaft. straight-side splines the tool is on the
W1 rounds are also called “water hard- shaft centerline at 90° and for V-sided
ening drill rod.” W1 is precision ground splines it’s at 45°), the procedure for mill-
and available in common drill sizes from ing the grooves is the same.
0.062 to 2-inches diameter. The cost for Put the shaft in the indexer with one The V-spline broach. The dark color is the
a three-foot length of 0.3125 (5/16) was to two inches of length protruding. Since result of heat treating.
Photos: Bob Hadley KITPLANES March 2018 61

you can’t mill grooves right up to the col-
let (the tool will hit [crash into] the collet),
you need to account for the tool diam-
eter and figure out how much stock
needs to protrude to get the desired
groove length. Keep in mind you want
the stock to protrude as little as possible
and still be able to mill the grooves to
the desired length. Once you’re satis-
fied, set and secure the X-axis table stop
(see “Home Shop Machinist,” July 2017). (Left) Making the first groove for the straight-side, nine-spline shaft. (Right) The broaching
blank after all the grooves have been milled. Note how the mill’s travel limiter assured all
This will assure the grooves are all the
the grooves are identical length.
same length.
Tighten the collet and set the inch. With the paper between the cut- the V-grooves I ran the 3/8-inch end mill
indexer to “0.” You are now ready to ter and the stock (and the mill off), at 900 rpm and for the slitting saw, 450
touch off the tool and dial in the cutter slowly bring the table up until you just rpm. Keep the feed rate slow and easy
position (shown in the sketches as “D”). begin to feel the cutter starting to drag to the stop limiter, and then back com-
Use an edge finder to locate the side of on the paper. Stop there. Set the Z axis pletely out of the cut at the same slow
the shaft and set zero. To zero the top dial to zero + 0.004 (four thousandths). and easy rate. Once clear, pull the indexer
edge, with the mill off, center the cut- This method prevents the tool edge lock pin and rotate the part according to
ter over the shaft and bring the quill from chipping or gouging the part and, the number of splines you want (e.g., 20°
down (or crank the table up) until the with practice, can be as accurate and for 18 splines and 40° for nine splines).
cutter is almost, but not quite, touch- reliable as any other. Repeat until all splines have been milled.
ing the stock. Take a piece of regular Position the cutter clear of the free end That’s all there is too it! We’ll pick up
inkjet/laser printer paper and measure of the part and dial the table in to line up next month with heat treating the broach
the thickness. It should be about 0.004 the cutter to make the first groove. For and making the sockets for the handle. J
Kitplanes subscriber alert!

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CHECKPOINTS
The title of this month’s column almost

Last Action Taken
sounds ominous, but in reality it is a prac-
tice that I have used many times in all of
my years of flying. In the last few months
alone, I have exercised it twice, and in
one case it truly saved me from taking
a course of action that could have had a
less-than-happy outcome.
During our initial flight training we
are constantly drilled in how to deal
with emergencies, including everything
from communications failures to engine
stoppages. Really good flight schools
have some sort of emergency scenario
planned for every flight right up until
the check ride, excluding solo flights, of
course. That was a practice even when I Many checklists for general aviation aircraft have emergency procedures highlighted,
learned to fly at Davis–Monthan Air Force which means the pilot should spend some time committing them to memory. Then
Base in 1977. Even on my first solo flight, once the actions are taken during an actual emergency, refer to the checklist to verify
completion of the items.
the right window of the C-152 trainer
popped open right as I lifted off. There includes a lot of failure scenarios. Multi- the feather position, and promptly pull-
were no noise-cancelling headphones engine training is a constant barrage of ing the mixture control to idle cutoff.
back then. In fact we didn’t use headsets engine failures. During my training for Unfortunately, this time the instructor
at all! Yes, it was loud and distracting, but a multi-engine rating back in the ’70s, it did not guard the mixture levers, and I
I just reached across the now-empty right was common practice for the instructor proceeded to pull the only remaining
seat, closed the window, and continued to fail an engine at rotation by pulling mixture lever, which happened to be
the flight. Truth be told, it wasn’t much the mixture back to idle cutoff. The stu- for the remaining good engine. Yep, it
of a reach in the C-152. I later heard from dent was expected to identify the failed got kind of quiet, but luckily we had lots
another instructor that it probably wasn’t engine, take the appropriate actions, and of runway left and no metal was bent. I
an “accident” that the window popped continue the flight. A simulated engine never forgot that incident, and it had an
open. Jerry, my instructor and the chief failure in a light twin right at rotation impact upon how I reacted to emergen-
tower controller at the base, was known requires steps that need to done correctly cies as time progressed. The old adage
to look for ways to surprise his students. and immediately. Most light twins cannot about “looking at your watch first” is a
Good for him, as vigilance remains climb on one engine, and some can’t even good one, and I teach that approach
ingrained to this day. I still remember my hold level flight on one engine. Decision- and have practiced it myself many times.
first flight after achieving my Private Pilot making during these few critical seconds An engine failure at rotation probably
certificate—I kept waiting for something needs to be deliberate and correct. doesn’t call for looking at your watch, but
to happen, as every flight prior to it had During one particular training flight, I it can force you to slow down and take
some kind of “emergency.” correctly identified the failed engine and deliberate actions.
As most of you know, the training for proceeded to shut it down by closing the Today most multi-engine training pro-
additional certificates and ratings also throttle, moving the propeller control to grams only simulate engine failures close
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.
Photos: Vic Syracuse KITPLANES March 2018 63

Note the unlabeled knob next to the EFIS warn light. One might think it’s a volume
knob. It turned out to be a servo-controlled oil cooler valve and almost lead to an
unscheduled landing due to rapidly rising oil temps.
to the ground by creating a power con- until weather interfered. Flight planning
dition that produces “zero” thrust, rather showed a total time en route of 14 hours.
than completely cutting the fuel off. If the weather cooperated, this could be
Simulator training for airlines also an easy couple of days. Unfortunately, by
includes emergency scenarios in every the time we finished the inspection, test
single session. Some of the scenarios flights, money transfers, and paperwork,
require an action so immediate that it it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, with
is constantly practiced until it can be the temps hovering around 100° F. Not
executed flawlessly. For some emer- exactly an optimum time for a flight in
gencies, especially in the military and the southwest desert.
airline industries, there are memory Luckily, it was a dry day, with no sum-
items that need to be executed without mer afternoon cumulus, and the winds
reference to a checklist. If you can’t pass weren’t very strong. RVs are good climb-
the memory test, you don’t even get to ers, and eastbound out of Phoenix to
the simulator! Albuquerque only requires climbing
to 11,500 or 12,500 feet. We made it to
What Did I Just Do? Albuquerque quite uneventfully, and
Here’s another approach that has saved even the bumps were tolerable. There
my bacon a couple of times: I stop and were some thunderstorms east of Albu-
ask myself what was the last action taken. querque, which interfered with our
Just a couple of months ago, I traveled planned next stop. However, Amarillo
to Phoenix, Arizona, to perform a pre- looked good, and we made the deci-
buy on an RV-9. The prospective buyer sion to continue, with the idea being we
was meeting me there in the hope that would arrive in Amarillo about 30 min-
it would work out, and we could both utes after sunset. The aircraft was night
then fly back to Bridgeport, Connecticut. legal, but not IFR legal, and I don’t like
I had two days in my schedule that could being out over the desert at night any-
work, and we agreed that we would try way. Thirty minutes after sunset is still
to at least get it as far east as possible light enough for me.

You know how every incident or acci- I was annoyed at the seller though, jumped out at me—that unlabeled
dent has a chain? Well, this is where this and a phone call that night when we knob. I had been playing with it earlier
chain starts—pressure to try and get 4 landed confirmed he knew about the to see if it did anything. Hmm. I hadn’t
hours of flying in on day one, such that problem. He hadn’t flown it at night in figured out what its function was, so
the 10 hours remaining for day two was over a year, he said, so he had forgotten I let it go. On a hunch I rotated it com-
achievable. In fact, the weather was about it. Quite candidly, this problem pletely in the opposite direction from
severe clear from Amarillo to Bridgeport. could be duplicated during the day by its current position. Within 15–20 sec-
So, off we headed, and as we flew east switching on the nav lights—a whole lot onds the oil temp immediately started
the skies were getting darker. The young, less stressful for sure! decreasing and continued rather rapidly
inexperienced pilot in the left seat kept all the way back to 180°! Boy, was I going
telling me it was getting dark due to the What’s This Knob For? to have a discussion when I landed. I
clouds. I kept saying I had been flying The second recent incident occurred was pretty certain this knob was not
long enough to recognize the dark of when I was asked to relocate an RV-10 there when I licensed the airplane, as
night, and it looked like night to me. The from Destin, Florida, to Atlanta due to unlabeled controls are a pet peeve of
ceilings at Amarillo were now lowering an approaching hurricane. Upon arrival mine. Sure enough, the builder admit-
to an unforecasted 1000 feet, and it was at Destin, I had the tanks topped (I won’t ted he had installed a servo-controlled
clearly dark. Really dark. Why? Because fly an unknown airplane without top- oil cooler valve recently and had forgot-
we were now 1 hour past sunset. The ping the tanks) and familiarized myself ten to label it.
light bulb finally went off in my head that with the cockpit layout. I had actually There’s one other lesson in both of
we had crossed into the Central time licensed this airplane as a DAR a number these for all of us who build airplanes.
zone, and somehow I had missed that in of years ago, so I was comfortable with Yes, we get to personalize them, but we
my flight planning. I wasn’t happy, but the build quality. Only one thing caught should build them and label things such
no big deal, as we were only about 30 my eye, and that was an indicator light that another pilot can get in it and safely
minutes from our destination. We had on the panel labeled “EFIS Warn” and fly it. It’s supposed to be fun. Let’s leave
been following I-40 since we left Albu- an unlabeled knob next to it that had the emergency scenarios to the flight
querque, and it was well lit due to the all of the appearances of a volume con- training flights. J
amount of vehicular traffic. trol or dimmer function. The owner was
Then it happened. I don’t remember inaccessible, as he was on a sailboat in
who noticed it first, but both the oil pres- the Gulf behind the hurricane. With
sure and the oil temperature gauges were everything else good to go, the RV-6
showing a steady climb to the top of the pilot who brought me to Destin and I
gauges. It’s not a good feeling to see that departed as a two-ship. Oil temp rose
over the desert at night. They both contin- normally during the climb and then
ued to climb until they were off-scale high, leveled off and proceeded to cool back
and the discussions started regarding a down to around 183° once in level flight
precautionary landing. I did not like the at 7500 feet. About 30 minutes into the
potential outcome of that scenario at all. flight, I noticed the oil temp was starting
Two thoughts jumped into my head: first, to steadily climb, about 1° every 15–20
this engine had been running fine all day, seconds. When it got to 210°, I radioed
for at least 3.5 hours and had no history the RV-6 that I might make a precaution-
of problems, and I had just given it a thor- ary landing to check out a rapidly rising
ough inspection back in Phoenix. Second, oil temp indication. The difference with
high oil temp is usually accompanied by this scenario is that the oil pressure was
a decrease in oil pressure, not an increase. decreasing, as it should with elevated
My next thought was, “What was the last oil temps. It was clear to me that the
thing I did?” and I even said it out loud. I oil really was getting warmer. Perhaps
remembered I had turned on the navi- a leak? The last thing I wanted to do
gation lights about 30 minutes ago. So, I was bend an airplane I was entrusted to
turned them off and, sure enough, both move to safety.
gauges returned to the normal readings Well, again I asked myself what was
we had seen all day. I could duplicate it by the last action taken? I looked around
cycling the nav-light switch. What a relief! the cockpit and verified that all of the
Problem solved. It was a wiring problem, engine controls were in the same posi-
probably a bad or daisy-chained ground. I tion. I scanned the panel, and as I began
have seen those problems before. to turn toward the nearest airport, it

COMPLETIONS
Robert Anderson’s RV-8
After many years of both building and not building (about 50/50),
N184GC first flew on April 22, 2015 from Santa Fe (New Mexico)
Municipal Airport. Making the first flight in the airplane I built was
probably the most rewarding experience I’ve had in my life.
N184GC is powered by a Lycoming O-360-A1A with dual P-Mags
and a Catto three-blade prop. The paint scheme is my own design, but I
left the paint application to the professionals. My airplane was awarded
Best Homebuilt at the 2016 Land of Enchantment Fly-in; First Place,
Custom-Built Metal, and Grand Champion at the 2017 Copperstate
Fly-in; Second place, Custom-Built Metal at Copperstate 2016; and
Kit-Built Outstanding Workmanship at EAA AirVenture 2017.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
[email protected]
John Albritton’s Eze Jet

This day was a long time coming for me (about 12 years), but at last I’m
flying my own jet! The engine is a GE T58-8 turbine, and the airframe
has been highly customized. For example, the winglets were removed
from the wings to a location on the aft fuselage. In the new location,
the airplane feels easier to roll—and it looks cool, too! I also wanted all
three wheels to retract, not just the nose gear like a typical Long-EZ.
Another challenge were the air intakes for the engine. Once they
were in the location where I wanted them, the bends were too great to
get maximum performance from the engine. The only viable solution
was to run them into the area where the back seat would normally be.
That’s OK because I enjoy flying solo and it allowed room for an extra fuel tank—but it also required major modifications to the
flight control system. Many thanks to Robert, Mike, Steve, and Terry at Jet Guys for making the impossible…possible!
Oakland, Tennessee
[email protected]
Rich Macrafic’s RV-7A

After a 12-year build, RV-7A N4956T flew for the first time on Octo-
ber 9, 2017 from KRST (Rochester, Minnesota).
Everybody talks about the “RV grin” after that first flight. For me,
that came on the second flight. The first one was approached with trepi-
dation, caused by the combination of a new plane that had never flown
and a pilot (me) that had only six hours of transition training (albeit
excellent training) under my belt. The flight ended with, I’ll admit, a
few tears—tears of relief, pride, joy, and accomplishment. OK, it also
ended with a bottle of champagne with my co-builder and wife, Cindy.
We extend a sincere, heartfelt thanks for all the eager and knowl-
edgeable assistance we received from so many fronts as we made our way forward on this epic journey. To all of you, thanks for the
memories. You are all a part of the heart and soul of N4956T and have a place in our memories and hearts for a lifetime.
[email protected] J
Rochester, Minnesota
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Submissions to “Completions” should include a description (250 words maximum) of the project and the finished aircraft. Also include a digital image of the aircraft. Minimum digital
image size is 1500 pixels wide x 900 pixels high (5 x 3-inch print size at 300 dpi). Other builders may want to contact you by email, but let us know if you prefer not to have your email
address published. Email text and photos to [email protected] with a subject line of “Completions.” Additional information can be found at www.kitplanes.com/completions.

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Repairman certificate eligibility, ELSA mods,
flying at civil twilight, fuel cap engraving.
By Mel Asberry
Question: I recently purchased primary builder at the original certifica- unable to get a definitive answer to
an original design homebuilt air- tion of the aircraft. this question: Does day VFR include
plane loosely based on a J-4 Cub Replacing the engine is considered civil twilight?
with two-place side-by-side seating. a major change and would normally Answer: Thanks for your question.
The builder/designer obtained an require a new Phase I flight test, but since FAR Part 61.315(b)(5) states that you
N-number and flew off the 40 hours. the aircraft is still in the original Phase I may not fly “at night” while exercis-
At that point he decided to replace period, that will not be necessary. ing the privileges of a Sport Pilot. FAR
the 90-hp Continental engine with Anyone may perform maintenance, Part 1.1 defines “night” as “the time
a new Corvair he assembled him- and even modifications, to an Experi- between the end of evening civil twi-
self. He did not get the aircraft fly- mental Amateur-Built aircraft, so you light and the beginning of morning
ing with the new engine. are good to go in that respect. How- civil twilight, as published in the Air
I need to complete the engine ever, you will not be able to perform Almanac, converted to local time.” So,
installation, reinstall the wings, and the annual condition inspection. Only it looks to me like you are good to go
do many other repairs to make the the original builder, if he has obtained during civil twilight.
aircraft airworthy. I have not yet the repairman certificate, or a certifi- Question: I plan to get my fuel
taken the course offered by Rain- cated A&P mechanic may perform the caps engraved, but I’m not exactly
bow Aviation, but plan to do so very condition inspection required by your sure what information is required.
soon. Can I do this necessary work operating limitations. I’m pretty sure I need to include
myself, make the logbook entries, Question: My ELSA RV-12 just capacity and type of fuel, but is
and in the future do the annual con- passed its airworthiness inspection. there anything else? Also, what
dition inspections myself? Do I need to finish Phase 1 testing happens when 100LL goes away?
Answer: As I understand, your air- before I can make modifications? Should I have the wording on the
craft is certificated as an Experimental/ Answer: No. An ELSA can be modi- caps say something like “100LL or
Amateur-Built. It will remain an E/A-B fied immediately after certification. Equivalent Octane”?
throughout its life. It cannot be con- Question: I have a Private Pilot Answer: Only fuel tank capacity and
verted to a Light Sport Aircraft. There- license and have let my 3rd-class minimum octane rating are required.
fore the Rainbow Aviation course will medical expire; therefore, I exer- Lead content has no bearing on this. J
be of no help in getting the repairman cise the privileges of a Sport Pilot.
certificate for this aircraft. The only My aircraft is licensed as an E/A- Please send your questions for DAR
path to qualify for a repairman certifi- B, and it meets the definition of a Asberry to [email protected] with
cate for this aircraft is to be listed as a Light Sport Aircraft. I have been “Ask the DAR” in the subject line.

WIND TUNNEL
Design Process, Part 4:
Last month we took a look at how

More About Speed
the required cruise speed affects the cost
and complexity of the airplane. As cruise
speed increases, the airplane requires
more power, burns more fuel, and
becomes more complex as retractable
landing gear, high lift systems, and con-
stant-speed propellers become neces-
sary to provide the required performance.
With this in mind, when we are setting
our design requirements, it’s important
to ask the question, “How fast do we
For a lot of typical private flying, planes like the Sling 2 LSA offer an effective combination
really need (want) this airplane to go?” of performance and price. (Photo: Kevin Wing)
We usually look at cruise speed in the
context of flying cross-country. Unless Speed and Range of action of the airplane. This is particu-
the airplane is intended for racing or How fast we need to fly is a direct func- larly true for private pilots since much
to set an absolute record, sheer speed tion of how far we want to go. The of our flying consists of single-day out-
in and of itself has little value. What is faster the airplane is, the farther it can and-back excursions.
important is how fast we need to fly to go in a given time. For most pilots, With this in mind, let’s take a look at how
get from A to B effectively. cruise speed defines the useful radius cruise speed affects time and distance.
Figure 1 shows distance vs. time for
several values of cruise speed for ranges
up to 200 miles in zero wind. For this
example, the airplane first climbs to
cruising attitude at 70% of cruise speed
and then cruises at constant speed there-
after. All of the airplanes have the same
rate of climb and cruise at the same atti-
tude. Note also that speed is in knots,
but distance over the ground is shown in
statute miles.
Let’s look first at the time to cover 100
miles, which is a common day-trip radius
of action. Our slowest (60-knot) airplane
takes 90 minutes to do this trip. Increasing
speed to 80 knots (Cessna 150-ish speed)
reduces this to 68 minutes. Moving up to
the Light-Sport maximum cruise speed of
120 knots cuts this trip to 46 minutes.
For this short range, as we get faster
Figure 1: For very short trips, the time en route isn’t all that different for fast and slow than this we begin to hit diminish-
planes. But for long trips, the difference is significant. ing returns, particularly if we take into
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.

account the time to fly the traffic pattern
and taxi in. Going from 120 knots to 160
knots only saves about 10 minutes. This
means that if they take off simultane-
ously, the 120-knot airplane will be enter-
ing the downwind at about the same
time that the 160-knot airplane arrives
at the destination airport ramp. A further
increase to 200 knots only saves an addi-
tional 6 minutes.
Moving out to a 200-mile radius, the
first thing we can see is that the trip in
the 60-knot airplane is now a 3-hour
evolution. Our 80-knot machine gets us
there in about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Our Light Sport (120-knot) ride does this
mission in 1½ hours. At this range, the
160 knot airplane reduces travel time by
22 minutes over the Light Sport, which
might start to look worthwhile to some
pilots. Even at 200 miles, the benefit of The slower the airplane flies, the more a given headwind increases mission time. In
these examples, solid lines represent zero wind and dashed lines represent flying into
increasing speed to 200 knots is rela-
a 15-knot headwind.
tively small.
At longer ranges, additional speed bringing the time down to 2½ hours, reduces the over-the-ground speed of a
begins to pay off. At 450 miles, which while a 200 knot cruise reduces the 60-knot airplane by 25%, while the same
is about the maximum range of many mission time to 2 hours. wind causes a 12½% penalty for a 120-
single-engine airplanes, going fast starts At this range, the faster cruise speeds knot airplane, and a 7½% penalty for a
to be much more desirable. At this range, provide a very desirable improvement in 200-knot airplane. For the faster airplane,
the 60-knot airplane is a complete non- mission performance. the wind costs a smaller percentage
starter. The 80-knot airplane can do the of the already-shorter zero-wind mis-
mission, but it takes 5 hours. While this Wind sion. Accordingly, a given headwind will
is doable, if tedious, for a one-way trip, it So far, we have only looked at zero-wind increase the flight time much more for
means that there is no reasonable chance conditions. Unfortunately, the wind is a slower airplane than a faster one, and
of a same-day out-and-back excursion. rarely zero and many flights are into a this penalty will rise rapidly with slower
The 120-knot airplane takes 3 hours significant headwind that reduces the cruise speed.
and 20 minutes to do the 450 miles. This airplane’s speed over the ground. This effect is illustrated in Figure 2.
is long enough to be a significant under- The slower the airplane flies, the more For each cruise speed, the solid line
taking, but within the limits of what most a given headwind increases mission time. represents the zero-wind case, while
pilots would be willing to undertake at This effect is nonlinear because a given the dashed line represents flying into a
least occasionally. wind speed is a greater percentage of a 15-knot headwind.
Moving up to 160 knots shaves almost slower cruise speed than of a faster cruise On our 100-mile day excursion, the
an hour off the 450-mile mission, speed. For example, a 15-knot headwind 15-knot headwind increases the mis-
sion time for the 60-knot airplane by 25
minutes. The penalty for the 80-knot air-
plane is about 15 minutes, while the 120-
knot airplane is only delayed by about 5
minutes, and the delay for the 200-knot
airplane is very small indeed.
As the range increases, so does the
time penalty for the headwind. If mission
requirements for the airplane include
routinely flying against significant winds,
the range at which flying faster begins to
With retractable gear, constant-speed props, and cruise speeds in the 200-knot range, pay off is shorter than it is for the zero-
the Velocity V-Twin was designed for long cross-countries. (Photo: Richard VanderMeulen) wind case.

A Few Conclusions
From the above, we can begin to see
some natural breakpoints for our speci-
fied cruise speed. The first of these is
that if the airplane is slower than about
80 knots, its cross-country capability
is minimal. It’s suitable for local, recre-
ational flying only.
80 knots seems to be about the lower
end of the range of cruise speed for use-
ful cross-country capability, but increas-
ing speed to about 120 knots yields a
meaningful improvement for day excur-
sions. The 120-knot airplane has a sig-
nificantly larger radius of operation for
single-day VFR out-and-back flying.
It’s only when the required range gets
significantly above 200 miles that increas-
ing cruise speed beyond the Light Sport
limit of 120 knots really begins to pay off.
Looking at the conclusions above, it’s ...and leave your engine
not surprising that a large number of monitoring to EIS.
popular types have cruise speeds that Trusted with everything from 2-strokes
fall in the 80- to 120-knot range. In fact, to turbines for over two decades.
the certified airplane types that have
sold the most units in history essentially
all fall in this performance band.
This also makes sense from a cost- FLY IT
effectiveness viewpoint. This speed range like you stole it...
is where an airplane with fixed landing
gear and a fixed-pitch propeller works
well. Cost is a major concern for most www.grtavionics.com • (616) 245-7700
private pilots. The fixed-gear, fixed-pitch Proud sponsor of Tiger Airshows and airplane “thief” extraordinaire, Hotwire Harry!
airplane costs less to buy, less to maintain,
and probably burns less fuel than a higher
powered retractable with a constant-
speed propeller. Given the minimal time
value of higher cruise speed for a lot of
typical private flying, these airplanes offer
the most cost-effective combination of
performance and price for many aviators.
It also shows that the 120-knot maxi-
mum speed specified in the U.S. Light
Sport rules is a sensible choice. It’s a
speed that is achievable by simple air-
planes that can be safely operated by
Sport Pilots, which is also fast enough to
make the airplanes effective for the kind
of flying the majority of Sport Pilots do.
Finally, as attractive as the idea of a
really fast airplane is, the added cost and
complexity required to get that alluring
top speed is only really useful to the pilot
if the airplane will be used primarily for
longer range cross-country travel. J

AERO’LECTRICS
I’m kind of loose with my engineering

Spread Those Sheets
and teaching. I don’t have a lot of hard-
and-fast rules. One of them is that any
time I have a calculation that I’m going to
do more than twice, or that takes more
than one or two steps, it gets reduced
to a spreadsheet. I cannot calculate (you
should pardon the expression) how
much time it has saved me to do a volt-
age divider or a wire temperature estima-
tion to have done the work (sometimes
an hour or so on the spreadsheet) that
saves literally lots of hours in the field.
That and spreadsheets allow me to
print out charts that I use in the machine
shop and post them near the machine
on which they are used. 4-40 clearance
hole? Easy —#31 drill at 0.120 inch, and
if I want to tap the sheet behind it then a
#43 at 0.089 will do just fine.
This month let me take you through Almost everything you need to know about machine screws is in machscrw.xls.
a few of the spreadsheets posted at my
college website. You can download a a. I’ve got this chart on the wall behind a. Lots of data with reference to sea
zip file at https://tinyurl.com/ya9a6dxn. my drill press in a frame to keep the level (0 msl). However, here we
It contains a few dozen spreadsheets, cutting oil and metal shavings from introduce the convention of “E to
some of them incomprehensible unless destroying it from time to time. the power.” This may take some
you are familiar with the subject, but you b. As the note at the bottom says, in thought if you’ve never seen it
are certainly free to use them if you can “soft” aluminum (say, 5052H32 or before. Let’s take, for example, the
figure them out. the like) cut yourself some slack density of air at sea level. It says
I’m going to take from them what I and make the drill bit a size or two that it is 76.5E-3 pounds per cubic
think is the most usable information larger. I regularly go to #42 (0.093) foot. E-3 means that the numbers
and try to explain them so that you can for 4-40 with no ill effects. in front of it are multiplied by 10 -3,
use them. 2. Second is altitude.xls. You may find which we remember from high
1. First of all is machscrw.xls. Here you this useful to figure out whether school algebra as divided by 1000.
will find all machine screws from #0 or not you are operating in what is So, the actual value of the density is
through ¼ inch, everything from called the “standard atmosphere.” 0.0765 pounds per cubic foot.
threads per inch (both NC and NF), Temperatures or pressures may be b. Get this convention down now,
clearance drills, tap drills, head sizes different from what you are currently because it is going to be used a
for round, flat, and fillister heads, hex testing your airplane in, and it may whole bunch in future articles.
nut sizes, and washer outside diam- explain some differences in the data 3. You may find ohmslaw.xls useful if
eter, inside diameter, and thickness. that you are recording. you have to convert from power to
Jim Weir
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.

resistors to current to voltage on a
regular basis.
a. Here we introduce a whole new
concept. You fill in the data in the
green boxes and the answers come
up in the orange boxes.
b. Example—you have a 150-watt
landing light on a 12-volt aircraft.
How much current does it draw?
You know E (electromotive force,
or volts = 12 volts) and watts You may find altitude.xls useful to figure out whether or not you are operating in
(power = 150 watts), so you have to “standard atmosphere.”
either use a fuse or circuit-breaker
for a current of (I) = 12.5 amperes
(“amps”) (plus whatever overcur-
rent or safety factor you wish). Me?
That’s a 15-amp breaker.
4. Here is the granddaddy of them all,
and I have this copied into my engi-
Use ohmslaw.xls to convert from power to resistors to current to voltage.
neering binder that I carry with me
nearly all the time. wirecalc.xls is the
ultimate wire table reference and
calculator. Ten years ago it was a neat
spreadsheet; today they’d probably
call it an “app.” Sigh.
a. Yes, it is a wire table. It is the most
complete wire table I’ve ever seen.
Not many wire tables give fusing
current, bundle current, or break-
ing strength.
b. Fusing current is the current at
which the wire will melt.
c. Bundle current is the current rec-
ommended for a wire in a bundle
of wires that may or may not be
run to the maximum current of
each wire. It is extremely conser-
vative and may be derated (in my
personal experience) by a factor of
2:1 without any problems. This is
my personal opinion; your mileage
may vary.
Coming up? If you will recall in the last
three articles, I’ve taken you through the
mill on voltage regulators. I’d like to then
take you through a “theory reduced to
practice” on a lamp dimmer using all the
techniques that I’ve used in these articles.
Then I’d like to take you through the
“anatomy of an ADS-B installation” that
I’ve done in the RST Engineering C-182
heavy that you might want to consider
prior to 2020. From there? Who knows;
certainly not I. Not many wire tables give fusing current, bundle current, or breaking strength, but
Until then…stay tuned… J wirecalc.xls does.
Photos: Jim Weir KITPLANES March 2018 77

REAR COCKPIT
Layoffs, I’ve Had A Few

Consider the lowly nut plate. Funny
looking things, maybe even ugly. Inex-
pensive. Pretty much falls under the
“who cares” category, and for sure you
won’t take her home if you go on about
how much you love your nut plates.
But don’t put a nut plate where you
should, and you won’t have time to
hang out in bars in the first place. You’ll
be in your hangar instead, trying to stick
an 11/32-inch nut onto a glob of mask-
ing tape wrapped to a length of rusty
coat hangar long enough to snake into
position and praying the screw doesn’t
knock it off. Nut plates, like many small
things, matter.
I’m confident saying that, as several
times I’ve had my aviating curtailed for
significant periods because, in part,
work on my air buggy was mired in
a bottomless morass of under-engi-
neered, hurriedly put together stuff that
defied maintenance. And if assembling a
Tab A into Slot B kit aircraft seems a chal-
Easy maintenance matters. Taking the time to fit nut plates now instead of fumbling with
lenge, try reinventing a rag-and-tube screws, nuts, and washers later is a smart building decision.
homebuilt once it’s been put together
and flying. It’s ship-in-a-bottle modeling page of that little tome, which is far too If the Feds allow us our folly for “edu-
at its most tedious. long away from the airport. cation and recreation,” I at least got one
Of course, I must admit my first There followed some rented Cessnas, heck of an education out of it.
aviation sabbatical was entirely self- then the rather vertical jump to the Star- Next came a few years of actually fly-
inflicted and came about from the old duster, followed by the 14-month gap ing my homebuilt, followed by the real-
racer’s nemesis, hardening of the wal- spent on the ’duster’s first condition ization that those engine instruments
let. Having learned aviation during my inspection. That’s when I learned why weren’t lying, and adding a quart of oil
school years, my first job/early matri- they’re called annuals: because it takes every two hours wasn’t normal. Time to
monial phase was pleasantly whiled on at least a year to get through them. It’s rebuild the ol’ 540.
whether to float the water or electric bill also where I started my appreciation for
that month. Then came a couple years nut plates. And service loops in wiring. Grounded
spent—and that’s the perfect word— Or Adel clamps on control cables, wire Now, if you didn’t know how to hang
racing ground iron, plus some organic ties made in the USA, inspection holes, by your financial socks before, get-
human cloning activity before redis- fuel valves that cost more than $35 and ting on a first-name basis with the
covering my logbook in the hall closet. didn’t once serve as Victorian water taps, engine shop will teach you patience.
There’s a six-year span covered in one plus sheet metal thicker than .016 inch. In my case it was six and a half years
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.

between shutting down in front of the Flying Again And they did after the much longer
hangar and firing it back up again. And At the end of the first 14-month Star- six-year layoff for the engine over-
you can bet there were nut plates in the duster layoff, I had but 36 hours in type haul. Again there was no instructor
totally new firewall-forward overhaul. and a bare 44 hours total tailwheel time. handy, but this time there were over
While the mechanical details learned Putting an instructor in the front seat 180 hours in type logged. Still, reason
in all this were important, the real lesson sure seemed intelligent for the first flight said go find an instructor, and the little
was the insidiousness of downtimes. Life after the condition inspection, but just voice was uncharacteristically pretty
turns out to be a short flight, and coax- as with my transition training two years quiet. But when faintly heard it said,
ing 11/32-inch nuts into position with a earlier, there wasn’t a qualified instruc- “Yeah, some dual in something besides
coat hangar and masking tape is not the tor in sight. Ultimately I picked a quiet, a 152 would help, but you’ll be okay.”
best of what aviation or kit building has beautifully clear, windless morning to And there’s the real-world rub of these
to offer. Better to take the time in the see just how much I remembered of this situations: Absolutely yes, meaning-
beginning, and put a nut plate in that flying business. ful dual would be good. But typically
hard-to-reach spot, both for yourself Under “remarks” in my logbook for such is not realistically available, and
and the next guy. that date, it starts with “Wow!” It took it’s up to the owner to make the nearly
Downtime turns out to be expen- two approaches to stick a landing; the impossible self-evaluation and decide
sive in more than squandered time, first was perfect but my brain, flapping whether to go it alone. The stats sug-
too. While my engine sat in pieces and like the red rag at the end of the load, gest we don’t get this one right much
I pecked at a keyboard to pay to put it simply wasn’t ready for the runway rush- of the time.
back together, there was hangar rent to ing up, and involuntarily the throttle Certainly the additional pilot pro-
pay. Six plus years of what amounted to went in. The second time was equally gram, which allows two people in the
storing aviation wreckage added up to on track, on speed, and almost as over- cockpit for Phase I, is a godsend. But
easily more than what the engineless whelming, but the ego overruled the id the challenge still seems to be a lack of
airframe was worth. It was also six years long enough to get us through the blind qualified mentors when and where you
of ozone eating the bungees, radios flare and touchdown. need them.
decaying, and me keeping one step It was a good shove out of the com- Probably the best advice is to avoid
ahead of the mice. fort zone, but was it really right to jump layoffs, even if it’s to stop building for
Perhaps most appropriately for in after such a layoff? The little voice a week of intensive flying in basic air-
KITPLANES® readers, downtime proves that’s never wrong wasn’t totally sure, craft—ultimately it might avoid some
piloting skills are perishable. Whether but leaned toward finding an instructor rebuilding of whatever it is you are build-
you’re building or repairing doesn’t mat- should similar conditions reappear. ing. And don’t forget the nut plates. J
ter; when you’re not flying, you’re not
rthy
refreshing, or better yet, updating, those
Unairwo
hard-earned stick and rudder skills, not
to mention instrument proficiency. Back
when I was flying 172s, this was not ter-
ribly difficult to rectify; I bought a cur-
rent AIM and read until it rendered me
unconscious nightly, then took a BFR. Throttle
After that it was merely paying more
attention than usual in the local area as
Interference
the finer points came back. A slight sticking was
Getting back into the Starduster was noticed when the
throttle was moved to
another issue, and again, this is more
the full open position.
appropriate to KITPLANES® readers, as
Further investigation
the hot-rodded biplane’s quicker takeoff,
revealed that the nut
wider performance envelope and, above and cotter key were
all, its high-drag engine-off “glide” (think catching on the fuel
mine-shaft accident) reward assertive servo hose and had
piloting and can punish the slow or almost cut completely
timid. There’s absolutely nothing super- through the firesleeve.
human about piloting such an aircraft; Rerouting the fuel
it’s something nearly anyone can learn servo hose prevented
to do, but that’s the point—it’s a learned the interference. J
behavior and atrophies if idled. —Vic Syracuse
Photos: Tom Wilson KITPLANES March 2018 79

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What are some of the safety tools discussed for kit aircraft pilots?

What are some of the safety tools discussed for kit aircraft pilots?

What methods were discussed for reducing drag and increasing speed?

What methods were discussed for reducing drag and increasing speed?

NEXRAD: How to Use it Correctly

Low-Cost Speed Mods MARCH 2018

Homebuilt Accidents In the Shop:

A completely custom panel, Designed for “plug-n-play”

To customize your Quick Panel,

There’s nothing like an airplane

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©2017 Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries.

Photos: Richard VanderMeulen and Scott Spangler KITPLANES March 2018 7

The Durand Mark V outside Nick Jilek’s

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Cutaway view of the Durand Mark V.

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Durand’s First Four

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• Aircraft Flight Reviews

Expert advice on how to

For fastest service, visit us at

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KITPLANES March 2018 15

Free access to weather information can be a

Since before a lot of us were born, airliners have been using

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Photos: Myron Nelson KITPLANES March 2018 17

It’s All About Water and Lift

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KITPLANES March 2018 21

Compared to the high cost of horsepower, reducing

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Photos: Nigel Speedy KITPLANES March 2018 23

Tailwheel fairing +1 knot TAS + 2% (4 hp) Worth the small price

Cheap and good for race day, not

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Nigel Speedy learned to fly

KITPLANES March 2018 25

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Dan Dufault, Creator of the T3

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The red knobs adjust the rate of transfer,

KITPLANES March 2018 29

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Photos: Ron Wanttaja and Paul Dye KITPLANES March 2018 31

a “Phantom” accidents is close to that of production

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than a five-hours-per-month Starduster Reality maintained, and often designed by ama-

KITPLANES March 2018 33

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One end of the ECU contains the SD card

Photos: Tom Wilson KITPLANES March 2018 35