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Confessions of An Airplane Nut Part 1 - Background Being a man of faith and a True Believer, I take it on faith that God knew what he was doing when he designed me with all my quirks, foibles, desires and talents. I am also sure that He has a good sense of humor. Case in point, my love of flying and just about anything aeronautical. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a man of substance – financially speaking. In fact, for quite a bit of my life our family has lived from paycheck to paycheck with not much left for frills and gegaws (a technical term.) Consequently, my love of flying things has mostly been limited to pictures, models, dreams, bummed rides, and endless conversations with like minded “Airplane Nuts” (hereinafter referred to as AN to save ink.) By the way, aircraft grade nuts, bolts, and various other types of fittings go by the designation “AN” also, the reason for which should now be obvious. Now such lore is not without it’s value in the real world for how else could I endear myself to my wife with such phrases as: “That plane was a Curtis Hawk when it took off and now it’s a Hawker Hunter. Who are they trying to fool?” - - Which is why my wife seldom will agree to watch a movie with airplanes in it any more. But I digress…The real value in such a love is that it can be passed on to the next generation which is how it worked in my family. I recall the day when my wife came home from the doctor’s office and hit me with the news that we were going to be parents. I had just made up my mind that we could probably stretch the family budget just enough for me to take flying lessons. Needless to say, my plans were changed pretty quickly and the only turn I was practicing was how to turn my son over fast enough to avoid being soaked during a diaper change. Two other children followed in relatively quick succession with the result that flying lessons were well out of reach. I, therefore, turned back to a childhood love, model airplanes, which I built out of balsa wood and cloth and were powered by tiny gas engines. This was in the day before radio controls and these planes were flown around in circles attached by wires to a control handle held by the pilot in the center of the circle. (It’s hard to vomit without losing control and crashing but it can be done.) I knew that I had passed my love of airplanes on to my two sons when I found them in the basement carefully studying the construction of my beautiful Waco SRE biplane – with a hammer. To cut the introduction short(er), my sons grew up deeply involved in building and flying airplane models and actually decided to do something about it (which is where I had gone wrong way back when.) One son, Matthew, ended up with a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Wichita State University and the other, Justin, ended up with two Associate degrees and a Bachelors degree in various aspects of Airframe and Powerplant maintenance from Kansas State University. Both eventually ended up in the teeming metropolis of Mojave, CA working for a gentleman named Burt Rutan at a little known company which goes by the name Scaled Composites. I will probably go into more depth about my sons and their involvement with Scaled in a later chapter in this epistle. For now let me just say that Matt had a very intense indoctrination into aircraft prototyping during his stint as lead project engineer during the construction of SpaceShipOne. If that name doesn’t ring any bells with you then you probably don’t qualify for the AN title. You can read a lot about the project at the official Scaled Composites website which is found at http://www.scaled.com. Even better is the DVD set entitled “Black Sky, the Race for Space” which is available from the Discovery Store at http://shopping.discovery.com Thanks to Matt letting me in on the secret project a whole week before everybody else heard of it, I became immersed in the promotional hoopla (another technical term) and could just casually mention to my fellow workers that my son was building a ROCKET SHIP! My wife and I (enjoyed?) our brief 15 minutes of fame as we were interviewed by three television stations and several newspapers. Eventually SpaceShipOne flew to space three times, won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize, went on permanent display in the Smithsonian Museum, and the hoopla died down. But you know what, somehow I was left with a desire to DO SOMETHING that I hadn’t experienced quite the same way before. If my son could build a space ship, surely I could build something that would fly. After all, didn’t he inherit some of that talent from me? So that’s where this saga really starts and why I decided to take this AN personality and turn it loose on a real flying machine. Not having the close supervision of a man with Burt Rutan’s talents nor the financial backing of a Paul Allen, I decided that a space craft was probably out of the picture. Nor did I want to just purchase a ready-built airplane (a “spam can” as I came to learn it was called) as having a home-built would be part of the challenge. I wanted a true airplane capable of carrying at least one passenger on cross-country flights which I would, as much as possible, build myself. This ruled out ultralights as they have neither the load carrying capacity nor the range I wanted. This also ruled out most of the available kit-built aircraft as they remain way out of my price range. I have amassed quite a few woodworking tools and experience over the years so a plane built out of traditional wood and fabric materials appeals to me more than does a metal craft. The search was on. Back issues of Sport Aviation (an official publication of the Experimental Aircraft Association, aka EAA) were pored through with a special emphasis on the “classified” section. The internet was utilized so much that my wife accused me of being hooked on the darn thing. I’m not but it is SUCH a useful tool. I just kept coming back to this unpretentious wood and fabric, low and slow, 1930’s creation from Bernard Pietenpol known as the Air Camper. It seemed to meet all of my criteria and, on top of all that, just LOOKED like an airplane I could build, fly and be proud of without committing my whole fortune and hard won family relationship to acquire. In short, I acquired a set of plans and got started on this quest just over one year ago. My intention in writing these articles is to; 1) keep fresh in my own mind just why I decided to do this; and 2) let some of the rest of you experience a little of what it is going to be like to undertake this ambitious project starting with almost no prior experience. I have allotted five years to complete the airplane and have it flying but I will not compromise safety in order to meet that deadline. If you are to continue following this saga with me, you will just have to be patient as we have a lot of ground to cover. Here are the major components of the journey as I can visualize them at this point; 1) Carve a propeller properly designed for this airplane and the engine I have chosen; 2) Build the wood components (fuselage, wings, empennage); 3) Fabricate the steel components (various fittings, landing gear, engine mount, cables and brackets); 4) rebuild and convert to aircraft use a 110 HP Corvair engine; 5) Obtain and properly install the needed aircraft gauges; 6) Learn to fly; 7) Obtain an FAA Repairman’s certificate for this plane; 8) Conduct a safe and sane flight test program on the aircraft; 9) Figure out how to cost effectively hanger, maintain, and insure the airplane; and 10) Get out there and fly. That’s about enough for this first article so I will close but leave you with one parting thought. Success may be 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration but without the 10%, the 90% just makes you stink. Tom Stinemetze, certified Airplane Nut ____
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