Fall 2019 Update

Hi folks! We haven’t gone dark. Sorry, we just need to write more for you guys out there who are “living vicariously” thru us. I just wrote the report for the RFA magazine and had to write here too. Sorry if you end up reading almost the same thing in the magazine later. Anyway, we’ve had a very crazy few months of trips, visits, tragedies and small victories. We went to Ohio to Russ Turner’s WW1 bbq fly-in. Had to drive at the last minute as the Grumman AA5A Cheetah I share had a bad electrical glitch the day before. Ended up spending a lot of money on a new voltage regulator and rebuilt alternator. i’m still dealing with trying to get my Apollo GX60 GPS com radio fixed. Long drive, but since we were going to Dayton, we had to hit the Air Force museum and the Champagne Lady museum. Great trip! Our customer and good friend Steve Wolf came to visit as a co-pilot for the B-17 Nine O Nine in early September. Steve was in Connecticut for a week and flew the B-17 about 14 times. Waterbury Oxford and then right here at Groton New London airport. It was a treat to take Steve around our area. We never thought there would be a crash. The plane was meticulously maintained. Steve was home in Florida when the crash happened. It is such a tragedy. I’ve had a ride in Aluminum Overcast with the EAA and it was great to have my son and friend fly the 9O9 at our home airport with Steve Wolf at the controls with Capt. Mac. Will cherish those memories.

We redesigned the P-36 aileron controls and hinges from what we had modeled. This was to make them more like an RV-8 setup - even though ours are tapered. Something we thought we might do and it was time. We are making wing parts and getting ready to assemble the outboard wings. We are finishing the fuel system design and making parts. Firewall forward is getting worked on and we are ordering instruments and looking for radios. Our good friend and composites guru Rob Walty has a new moldless forming process and its working out super well. No more sanding out molds! We can mill foam or wood male or female plug on our 3D router table and he can go right to glassing up the part and vacuum bagging it without it sticking. The part pops right off and you can make as many as you want from the same shaped plug. Makes the exterior smooth like it was a polished mold. We will be doing the cowling, wing tips, tail fairings, gear leg fairings and wing root fillets in composite via this method. Our goal is to have the P-36 prototype ready to fly in time for SNF 2020. There will be delays, its inevitable, but we will push till this thing flies.