What a Year!

Seasons Greetings! Thinking about what a year we have had and what is in store for us in 2022. We had no plan to go to SNF 2021 because Connecticut was restricting travel from Florida in February and March, then it was opened up and we went last minute. No one knew if SNF was going to be full or a flop. Turned out to be a great show - though we only had an engine to display. The airframe was too far along to disassemble and not far enough along to show off. Meeting the Hatz association members was awesome. We then had the big push to get the plane presentable and mostly done for Oshkosh. Oshkosh: Tornado and crazy stuff happening there and en-route. The huge response to the P-36 LiteFighter. Meeting the other Verner dealers and customers for the first time. Saw a real F6F Hellcat take-off and fly away as well as the Bally Bomber 1/3 scale B-17. Also met the family again and did a soft unveil of our 1/2 scale B-17 project. Really was an amazing week. Then there were major delays and work-arounds this fall and now we are finishing up strong. Expanded the team and our capabilities. We are getting excited to fly!

A little update on progress:

We finished the cowl flaps and are super happy with them. Gary and Trevor helped me make them and get them started and then Shin jumped in and worked super well on installation. Making and installing the flaps was way more tedious work than I had envisioned it would be. Of course, I’ve never built radial engine cowling flaps before. The current design is ground adjustable from fully closed to about 3/4 open. We can make adjustments during flight testing and can even modify them to open up full if needed. We can do better next time but these will be more than good enough for the prototype. Scott has designed an in-flight cockpit adjustable system. Learned some lessons that we will incorporate into the next one and other models. We added an exhaust manifold low-point drain. Radial engines can leak some oil into the exhaust when parked. Steve Wolf showed us how to do it and we were limited in available real estate - so improvised from his design. Gary is an amateur small engine repair person and suggested a chain saw compression release valve instead of a Curtiss drain. Will report on how that works out, but looks like it will be perfect. Fire-proofed the firewall penetrations. Added a ton of nut plates for the cowling and access panels. Added the gun blisters to the cowling and I am considering adding the ADSB-IN/WAAS GPS all-in-one antenna (Uavionix EchoUAT with SKYFYX) inside the right (starboard) blister. Will need a ground plane under it - so will put foil sheet on the inside of the cowling up there. Should fit and would have good all around coverage. The ADSB-out antenna will go on the belly. Shin and Scott added the pitot mast to the left (port) wing tip. Love the look and detail. Scott had 3D printed the mast head and the rest is aluminum. Scott is still making landing gear parts on the Mill and lathe. Will be working on the landing gear legs for the next couple of weeks.

Electric Boat (General Dynamics) is gracious enough to shut down the plant, yards and design/engineering for the last week of the year (without pay). We call it “Shut Down”. Novel I know. Well, everyone at EB has been super ready for “shut down” and are in “Shut Down mode”. Most EB folks take it easy for the week. WE are gonna spend a long hard week in the shop working on the punch list and finishing everything up on the plane. Will likely run the engine again during the week if the New England weather cooperates. I am designing a boot cowl heat shield and some cylinder baffling, map box and arm rest for the cockpit and will get that stuff installed. The landing gear may not get finished till the first week of January. It just is going to take what it takes. The fixturing takes a lot of time to develop. As soon as we can, we will make some video of the P-36 to post on our YouTube channel and our web site. Stay tuned! Have a great holiday and New Year! - Stay Safe!

Flapper Thingies

Here’s a quick up-date on the P-36 LiteFighter. This week: I’m installing an oil drain in the lowest exhaust stack, Will be working on installing the cowl flaps, wing gap filler strips and fwd fuselage access panels this weekend. Scott is making landing gear parts and the lower leg tubes are out for welding. Aaron is working on the landing light actuation mechanism - he is a robotics guru so has some tricks up his sleeve. Paul, Shin and Stuart are working on calculations and engineering reports. Everyone else is either away, up to their eyeballs in home stuff or just plain slacking. Come on man!

Painting the flapper thingies and strips was a very frustrating ordeal. Not as easy as it could have been if 25 degrees warmer. What a difference a month makes! As mentioned previously, we do not have a dedicated space for painting the plane and parts. So I paint outside and rush the parts inside to hang. In December, finding an appropriate time to paint is difficult. Not to mention, you have to do it three times - primer and two top coats. The paint doesn’t flow the same, doesn’t dry the same, everything is different about it. So what would normally take a day to knock-out, took me two weeks and the result was less than stellar. Will have to do for now though. We gotta fly!

Busy erasing items from the white board. Gun sights are in. Radio and transponder are operational - still need to install a ptt switch in the stick grip. Main things left to do: landing gear mod, drill fixture and drilling for final wing attachment bolts, canopy latch, arm rest, map box, map light, adjust ailerons, install pitot mast, install navagation and landing lights. Run the engine and adjust carb and propeller for good static thrust. Determine if inter-cylinder baffles are required. Final weight and balance and upload FAA paperwork for inspection.

We are trying to determine if we can do the flight testing here in Connecticut/Rhode Island in January/February/March or if need to take it to a warmer place with nicer weather. Like Florida, and leave the plane there till SNF is done. I prefer the latter, but it is an expensive proposition. Working from home makes it possible to go elsewhere as I can work evenings on the laptop from just about anywhere. Flying and maintenance during the day. Here in New England, will be maybe one good flying day a week. Choppy, bouncy air most of the time with wind and getting very cold. Less than ideal for sure.

The dilemma: deciding the test location is imperative as it determines where we get the airworthiness inspection and by whom. The FAA seems to have a policy that inspection and flight testing remains in a single FSDO’s territory. Otherwise, if relocated - its inspection and flight testing all over again. I would love to be able to inspect it here. If any issues, can work on it here in our shop and hangar. Elsewhere, will need access to a hangar and shop - with all the needed tools. I do know some people, so it isn’t impossible. Just problematic and an imposition. So I am busy researching cost and availability at various locations in order to make a determination.

Still planning to have Elliott Seguin do the initial flight testing and envelope expansion (5 to 10 hours). We’ll get some serious data and debriefings. Fixing anything not up to snuff. Then, when Elliott is good with it, I will finish the flight testing for phase 1. Then some air to air video and images will be taken. We will have some guest test pilots fly her to get their feedback on handling qualities - normal and aerobatic. We will use that to inform the kit design to be better and better. The plan is to have her flyable at Sun N Fun 2022. We have our booth space and will be attending. We will be getting the prototype to Lakeland, FL by late March regardless of where we do the flight testing. Back to work!

Appreciation

Thanksgiving is a great holiday. Giving thanks and being thankful. Appreciating what you have and what’s been done. Thank you for following us and supporting our efforts along the way. You guys and gals keep us going and inspire us to be better. We appreciate you.

We have a great team and its growing. We have added two Electric Boat engineers to the team since Oshkosh. Stuart and Shin. Stuart is from Michigan and mechanical engineer - vibration and resonance specialist. Worked in the auto industry and now in the submarine world is a “Signatures” guy. Can’t say anything more about that and not have to kill you. He is starting on flutter calculations for the P-36 and is also starting flight training at our local airport. Trevor met him by happenstance at Oshkosh. He was walking around with an EB t-shirt on. Who does that!?! Shin is from New York and a mechanical and aeronautical engineer. Currently he is a submarine systems engineer providing support for the overhaul and repair group. Shin is helping with calculations and putting the finishing touches on the plane. Eager to jump in and work on the machine and its’ engineering. Thanks guys! Welcome aboard!

The rest of the crew: Aaron, Dave, Gary, Paul, Scott and Trevor (and our spouses and significant others) are helping to push her over the finish line. All are incredibly busy with work, family and life - but find the time. I can’t thank you guys and gals enough! You Rock! Aaron and Paul are finalizing the aero and structural calc’s and checking them. Gary and Trevor are helping me with fitment and installation of components and parts. Dave is supporting our IT systems. Scott is finalizing the CAD models and machining parts. He is also guiding the fitment of some of the important parts. Making sure the lines of the plane are smooth and correct. Attention to detail.

It is getting exciting as the final pieces are getting installed and the calcs are showing we are good. Looking more and more like a fighter! We are also getting more and more people stopping in and checking it out. It is fun to talk about the project and see people react to the concept and efforts. Marketing is one way of putting it. I think several of the locals are interested in buying a kit. I hope so, it will be great to have a local squadron of LiteFighters roaring over-head. It is always good to have a bunch of local supporters anyway and we do!

Planning to get a lot done this long weekend. Finalize the gun pod locations on the top cowling, fabricate and fit the wing gap strip fairings, make a map pocket and arm rest, install the fire extinguisher. Charlie is welding a bung onto the lowest exhaust pipe to allow an oil drain. Should be able to get it back this weekend and we will install that pipe and run the drain line. Then we can run the engine again. Next week will be painting all the last parts and installing them : cowl flaps and brackets, gun sights, gun pods, access panels and doubler strips, map pocket and arm rest. The landing gear modification will take up some time in December. While the lower gear legs are being fabricated, we will run the engine, rig and check systems while it is on the old landing gear. Swap out will be quick, then taxi testing.

That’s the plan - reality is the plan always gets changed. So stay tuned and lets see what transpires.

Have a blessed holiday and stay safe!

Gravity always works

Hey there. We are still at it. Time to get you an update. Some great progress and a setback or two to discuss. In early October, we ran the engine a couple more times after the first start and were trying to adjust our idle setting in the carb. Paul stopped by and was mentioning that all the engineering calcs were not finalized because we needed a good weight and balance. Well, we need to start sending our calcs out for review prior to the flight test program. That is coming soon!

So, that changed the priorities and the second week of October we stopped doing the engine runs. We shuffled the shop around again and setup the plane to have everything on it. After Oshkosh, we left the tail and wings off because the mounted tail will not fit in the trailer. We were planning to take the plane to the airport and so reinstalling would have been wasted effort. But with the new mission, the wings went on, tail went on, all the fairings and the cowling and we drained the fuel tanks. We pulled out our industrial scales and made plywood pads the same height - so we could park the plane on the pads, then roll it onto the scales without changing attitude or anything. Paul got to supervise the effort and he logged the data. We did weights at a parked (inclined) position and then in horizontal level flight attitude - with and without a pilot. This gave us the data for a 3D location for CG (Center of Gravity). A recurring error was happening during the testing. The right (starboard) main gear weight kept fluctuating. So we did the tests by swapping the three scales. We then threw out the oddest set of numbers for each wheel location Like a 20 pound difference. Guessing that it has something to do with the spring loads in the landing gear legs. Pretty weird tho. We are going to do another final weight and balance shortly when the aircraft is ready for inspection. These initial numbers are good enough for the calculations as they have plenty of safety factor. Our empty weight came out to 837 pounds after taking the oil into account. 848 with oil. Heavier than planned, but not terrible for the design. We do have plenty of areas where we can optimize structure to reduce the kit version empty weight. But this is a prototype and it is what it is. CG location was “in the zone”, confirming our decision to go with the heavier and more powerful 7 cylinder engine. At first blush, a 250 pound pilot and full fuel is still in our initial calculated cg range with no ballasting fore or aft. Flight testing will determine how heavy a pilot we can handle in this particular airframe. We are pushing for a crew and bags weight allowance of up to 330 pounds. Real Americans are not as light as they used to be. For comparison, a real P-36/P-40 has a 200 pound max. crew weight.

After the testing, we worked on wing gap strip templates and design. Going with a fixed trailing edge and tensioning the front of the strips to the forward false spar just behind the leading edge of the wing. Then a cap will cover the front at the leading edge. We will only have a few screws to secure it from sliding or vibrating out of alignment. Still waiting for time on the router table to cut them out, so they are not finished as of writing this. Very simple so they should be quick to fab and install. Likely at the hangar right before inspection.

We then took a serious look at the landing gear legs. We noticed that when we got the plane to Oshkosh, it had toe-in again. Our thinking was the scissor links were bending as the forks were thin material. The toe-in was even worse after pulling her out of the trailer back home. So the trailer ride really must have over-g’d the landing gear. The roads are terrible and we had the heavier engine this time. Our plan was to remake the scissor links all together and make them billet and stout to fix the toe-in. Well, upon further study, we found that the axles were bent. Not good as they are welded to the lower gear legs. A few people at Oshkosh mentioned the landing gear looked insubstantial and should be beefed-up. We agreed to that for the kit version. Well, now we have a serious problem with this airframe and we pushed-up the landing gear re-design to the second half of October. We studied the available wheels, tires, tubes, axles and brakes and settled on Matco 600F wheels and brakes with 600x6 tires. Had to also redesign the lower gear legs to fit the Matco 1.25” diameter axles that bolt-on with the internal caliper brakes. We are expecting delivery this week. We will set the dimensions and then mill the parts and get them swapped-out as soon as possible. I want to taxi this thing!

While waiting for the wheels (Matco is at full production and getting backed-up) we made the cowl flaps and are half-way done installing them. Looking awesome! They will be ground adjustable for now. Likely held full-open unless the engine is too cool. Scott did design an in-flight adjustable system for them. Will be an option for the kit. It is hard to retrofit that system with the current engine installation so likely won’t incorporate it into this airframe. Can readily make it into the design for the kit and adjust the engine installation to fit around it.

We are also waiting to run the engine again until we add a drain valve to the lowest exhaust pipe. #4 cylinder has a short section of the pipe that creates a low-point and any oil draining from the valve on that cylinder pools in that spot. Radial engines tend to have some oil draining by the piston rings as they sit parked. Especially on a new engine where the rings are not cut in yet. So I need my welder to add a stainless 1/8” npt threaded bung and then I will install a stainless tube and petcock drain valve. That should be sometime this week or weekend hopefully - everyone is either totally busy or out of work. Crazy times and it makes it very difficult to complete things. Then - back to running the engine and getting her dialed-in. Swap the gear legs and taxi her around!

Stay tuned!

It's Alive!

Not much need to elaborate on this one. P-36 First Run in the books:

All Fired Up!

Hey everbody! We are all fired up to finish our prototype. The engine and it’s systems are 100% complete as of yesterday. Filled her with aero oil. The prop is adjusted for initial runs. The brakes are operational. Our punch list is down to a few things. The big ones still to work on: cowl flaps, new scissor links for the gear legs, canopy latch, mount the wings and drill to final tight tolerance bolts, wing gap filler fairings, radio antenna cable bnc connectors, audio panel harness, mount gun blisters and iron sights.

The design for the cowl flaps is mostly done, same for the canopy latch. The scissor links are designed and ready to fabricate. We still need to design a drill fixture for the wing bolts drill and ream operation. These parts and fixtures should be completed over the next few weeks. Then weight and balance and prep everything for inspection. FAA registration paperwork was sent. We have our N number: N936SB.

Our progress after Oshkosh was slowed by external influences, those are not completely going away, but we are fighting thru them. Basically “resources” being stretched thin. For instance: Scott has been working heavy hours on other work that has tied up the mill and lathe. So we are waiting for an opportunity to machine the scissor links and canopy latch parts. The crew has also been busy with other obligations. I’ve been sick a couple times now - some kind of crud - don’t think it is Covid. Plus other obligations (family and external), etc… However, our plan is to work on the cowl flaps this week and get the engine fired-up.

Nothing standing in the way now for running the engine and making carb and prop adjustments. We don’t need cowl flaps - we wont have the cowl on anyway. We are planning to video our first start-up and show everyone a good look at the LiteFighter prototype. I can’t wait to hear her fire-off for the first time on our plane! Will post it on our YouTube channel. Be sure to like and subscribe! We will be posting a lot of videos as we get her going.

FYI - if you are interested in purchasing a kit of our LiteFighter P-40 or P-36, we are going to announce shortly that we are ready to accept initial deposits for them. This will be a $1,500 Refundable deposit. We wont touch the money until we announce the kits are going into production and you agree to purchase the first assemblies. Then it will be applied toward any of the kit assemblies, options, merch, etc… This initial deposit’s purpose is to inform us of the number of likely initial kit purchasers and help us determine how much capitol will be needed and how to structure our business. A few kits is pretty easy to do with our current methods and equipment, space available, etc... A bunch of kits is a different animal all together. Oshkosh showed us we have some serious potential for the later. By having the deposits in hand, it will allow us to seek the capitol needed for either scenario.

Again, we are fired-up! It is getting exciting! We have been waiting for this day to arrive - and it’s here!

Big things are in the works, keep checking in with us.

Full Steam Ahead

After a little bit of a break, we are back to working on the prototype. We have test fit the tacked-up exhaust collector ring and she fits perfectly. Before we could fit it up however, we had to finish the cowl mounting frame. So the last two weeks were working the cowl frame and the oil scoop. We added braces across the top of the cowling and then from the engine mount ring out to the front cowl support ring. The oil cooler scoop is integral to the lower cowling frame and needed to be installed to secure the lower end of the front support ring. Sorry, it is easier to show you than to explain it. Once all the bracing was installed, we could remove the temporary alignment fixtures from the exhaust ports on all the cylinders that were blocking the exhaust from mounting up. Those fixtures held the front ring and fiberglass nose-bowl in perfect relationship with the engine. After making all the brackets and braces, we primed and painted the cowling support frame to be the Federal Interior Green paint code of the rest of the cowling and cockpit areas..

While the paint was curing, we added the 14 spark plug wires to the engine installation. Quite the job! I used up about a half a bag of plastic tie-wraps and cut most of them off. I tried using some velcro strips on the frequently removed sections but they didn’t work as well as temporarily adding tie wraps. I hate to waste good materials but it was much easier than other methods to hold the wires in place. We have dual ignition on this engine and so had to make sure each plug wire was to the correct plug and routed neatly. Two wires on each set of 7 were at maximum length just trying to make it to their spark plugs. I am pretty happy with how they ended-up. Scott also machined the new carburetor throttle arm assembly and it fits perfectly. The stock S&S carburetor throttle arm is a dual-cable motorcycle style bracket with a return spring installed inverse to how you want it on an aircraft. If the cable breaks, you want full power. The S&S spring pulls it to idle. So we are modifying the throttle connection with a whole new bracket arm that will accept a standard aircraft throttle swivel end push/pull cable. After testing we will make that available to all Verner owners running the S&S carburetor.

Some of our team members and a lot of our customers have been getting sicknesses and recovering. Takes you down for about a week. Some are calling it the Oshkosh crud. Not really Covid, but sinus and stomach issues with heavy fatigue. Testing negative for Covid. Glad we are all vaccinated on the team just in case. That has slowed our return to full steam ahead. That and vacations and a hurricane or two. Any way, we are going to get back to full steam ahead this week. Throttle cable connection, choke cable connection, exhaust ring installation, electrical system testing, audio panel wiring and testing, avionics testing. Will also begin work on the cowl flaps. Then we pack up the plane and take her to the hangar for final assembly, weight and balance and ground testing. Then get ready for inspection and signoff. Shooting for end of September 2021. Will be super busy getting to that point.

What a Show!

We just returned home from Oshkosh AirVenture 2021. Just got in around 2AM Tuesday morning No issues on the return trip. We did catch a hotel Sunday night near South Bend.

We had quite the adventure! What a show for us! I want to thank all of you who stopped by our booth to check out our P-36/40 project and the Verner Motor radial engines. We are thrilled to have such a huge response to our LiteFighter line and the Verners! We reached our goal of signing up more than ten potential Beta kit builders and many, many more are now waiting for the standard kit offering. Wow! We are humbled to know there are so many with our same passion for the fighters of WW2 and sport aviation.

We also had many people inquire about the half scale B17 project. Yes, that is right. Half-scale B-17G. It will be a four to five seater with four Verner 7U engines. I will tell more very soon. The Bally Bomber was tied-down at the Brown Arch. It is only 1/3 scale and very difficult for even one person to fit into. However, Jack Bally proved it can be done. Half scale opens up many more possibilities for a useful aircraft. We have a family with B-17 roots who can support this mission and they are looking to find out how many other airframes might be produced for individuals, museums and organizations. Thank you folks for your interest. Contact Mel at: 650-419-7175 or HalfScaleB17@yahoo.com Let’s do it!

We had to drive out to Oshkosh from our base in Groton, CT. It took about 18 hours of driving our F150 super crew pulling a 20 ft box trailer - with a tire blow-out on the way. Likely ran over something and blew out the sidewall on a trailer tire. No harm to us or the vehicles/payload. Fixed it and kept rolling. No other incidents on the way or any coming back fortunately. However, we did have some crazy adventures!

We left Groton late - Saturday evening instead of Friday afternoon. We just had to finish and paint the cowling for the display = so was painting the cowl parts on Saturday morning after pulling a week of all-nighters. the whole week before we had painted the fairings, applied the decals, installed the ailerons and controls, many many final parts. Then, we had to drive non-stop to Oshkosh. Four drivers swapping out every couple hours. We made it to Oshkosh Sunday afternoon around 3:45pm. Setup went well and we had the plane all together and painted for the first time. Cheers! Hit the rental house and crashed - slept very soundly! Head just hit the pillow and then woke up in the morning - not knowing where I was or what was going on. Oh yah, Oshkosh!

Monday morning we hit the booth at 8am and had multiple customers there waiting for us! It never let up all week till Saturday afternoon and Sunday which were both busy with some lulls. An amazing amount of foot traffic through the booth! I think we might qualify for the dead grass award! We also had workers from the other vendors and kitplane companies stop by and check out the plane. We had many of our friends stop by to say hello and made many new ones. Aviation is such a small and close community.

Also during the week, we were interviewed by Aero News Network, EAA and Kitplanes. I have to thank them! Will link their articles and video’s when we get notified. Stay tuned!

Wednesday night was a crazy-wicked storm. Fortunately, it mostly missed the airport proper at Oshkosh. Just rain and lightning. It was forecasted to hit the show and everyone was quickly preparing for it. Aircraft were flying out and those that couldn’t, were getting jammed into any available hangar space. I saw P-51s and show planes covered in bubble wrap to deal with the predicted hail. Campers were being bussed to the museum for cover. We tied-down our plane double good and buttoned-up our tent not knowing what would become of it by morning. We headed to the rental house in Omro. That was a mistake! That is were the center of the super-cell hit at midnight. We had a straight line wind or tornado hit the property and took out 10 trees and cut power to the community. There were four tornados and 7 lives lost in cars in the local towns. The lighting in that storm was incredible! 3 to 4 bolts a second for an hour or more. The sound and reverberations were incredible. Everyone on our street was fortunate and all the falling trees just missed buildings and vehicles. Not so on the other side of the river we overlooked. Met a gentleman farmer a couple days later at the local tavern/pizza joint who lost his barn and garage to a tornado. It must have formed over us as he was directly down-wind from our place. 6th generation farm. Lots of memories and family stuff destroyed there. He was quite emotional - understandably. Again, we were fortunate and only lost power for two days. It was great to get it back on and able to wash laundry and ourselves.

Next day, the show didn’t skip a beat. Thursday opened up and all the warbirds and camper aircraft arrived back at AirVenture. Our booth was fine and full of people. Adventure!

Crew at Oshkosh: Sam and Karen, Scott, Nathan, Aaron, Oliver and last but certainly not least - Trevor.

Paul and Dave could not make it this time. Missed-out dudes! They had very good excuses.

Next - prep for engine start. We have to finish up the cowling work and throttle install. Making changes from the original idea. Also waiting for the exhaust to be welded-out. Our welder is working hard on finishing customer exhausts and it might be a bit. Will keep you informed and post video of our first engine run here shortly!