Sun N Fun 2022

SNF 22 was a great show for us. We were one of the busiest booths in our area for sure. I would say we had as many or more people through our booth as we did at AirVenture last year. We met so many people that are following us. If you made it to SNF and checked us out, please send me an email at: swatrous@scalebirds.com

We had the P-36A on display and our tent setup had brochures and business cards and shade. It was very warm and windy until the storms on Thursday, then cooler and windy. Lots of wind this year. We had our usual flags and signs. The plane was looking great and we were ready Tuesday morning. Wham, they started the show and we were busy from the start. We let a lot of people sit in the cockpit and almost everyone actually fit. Somebody was too tall and one guy was too wide - his shoulders were like 5 inches wider than the canopy rails - football or rugby kind of guy. He did sit in it tho, just couldn’t close the canopy. Most were surprised at how roomy the cockpit was. We didn’t have any brochures of the P-36 until about Friday morning. Scott brought his laptop and worked on it during the week to get a nice one done. Will link it in the website. We ran out of business cards and the new brochures Sat and made more for Sunday. We were that busy!

I was amazed by the number of actual warbird pilots, owners and mechanics that stopped by and checked out the P-36. Thank you all. All of them really liked it and we may have won some kits sales from them. The real stuff is so expensive, they cannot just play with them. Heck, the cost of one of our kits is like a propeller blade. They appreciated that the feel of the plane is very WW2 and told us that we got it right. The Verner on the front and the cowl flaps was what really caught there attention. The cockpit completed the deal for them.

We had several interviews and good press coverage - despite not pushing for it yet. We had been graciously offered to be highlighted by the SNF media - we turned it down as we are just not quite ready for a big marketing push. Total concentration on getting her flying and get the real data and adjustments made to the kit design. The idea was a soft launch at SNF and then we will do a full launch at AirVenture 2022.

We worked some heavy hours to get the P-36 ready for showing and we made it. She was absolutely done - except for two parts. The canopy latch mounting bracket and the spinner. There literally was no time left to make those before the show or we would have. Scott finished up the landing gear parts and everyone pitched-in to assemble and install them onto the plane. Having the new gear legs was critical path. I am super excited that they not only look awesome, they seem to work better and stayed straight and true through the trailer ride to and from Florida. No, we couldn’t fly her down. Had to take her apart and load her into the car hauler box trailer we own and drive her down to SNF. Believe it or not, highway 95 is terrible in many locations. I thought NJ was rough roads, SC and GA had some terrible spots. We had real time fatigue testing on the airframe. Airplanes should not be treated like that! We will be inspecting everything in the next two weeks as we are pushing for the FAA airworthiness inspection. So far, initial observations show no damage except for a wing tip. There is always risk of trailer rash and I can’t wait to be able to fly the plane to shows instead.

Not everyone of the team members could make it to SNF this time. Aaron, Scott, Karen and myself did make it. A super treat was Aarons parents came to the show and stayed with us for a couple days. We put them right to work! Great support and advice! Shin was planning to fly-in Thursday night and stay till Monday, but the weather Thursday was terrible and the airline canceled his flight. Nothing available till Saturday night so it wasn’t worth it for one day at the show. Karen was scheduled to fly home on Thursday and that was canceled as well. It worked out well as she booked a flight on Friday and her and Aaron flew back on the same flight, same row. Aaron had rented an economy car and was given a convertible Mustang. That never happens to me. A bit jealous. So they could ride together and that helped the booth staffing on Friday. It was just Scott and myself Friday afternoon and then Sat, Sun and I was surprised at the amount of customers the final weekend. Not just the local airshow people, but seriously interested buyer types.

We had a lot of interest in the Verner Motor line of radial engines. I would say they are getting to be popular with all sorts of sport aircraft. Karen and I were invited to the Hatz Association lunch on Wednesday and we were treated very well. Steve Wolf and Kevin Kimball were guest speakers. So great stories and info about the Lockheed Vega restoration Kevin’s shop is doing. Steve and Kathy Hirtz had just had their anniversary a few days earlier and the group surprised them with a cake. Great time!

Scott and I were staying in FL a few days after the show, so we broke down the booth on Monday and with just the two of us, took most of the day to pack the trailer - in strong winds. We then had dinner with Steve and Kathy. Spent Tuesday with Steve and he took us to Kevin’s shop at Tangerine field North of Orlando. I was in heaven. Kevin, his dad Jim and his son Kallin gave us a tour while Steve was bending up some spar web blanks for the elevators on his P-47D project. They showed us their CNC machines, old school tools and the Vega project. It is so much cooler in person than the videos of it. We also saw some Stearmans and one was an Air Mail model. Award winners and perfect in every way. Steve’s P-47 project is stunning too! It will no doubt be the best replica of a P-47 ever! I wanted to stay another day with Steve and go see his buddy Jack Hallet, but I had to get to NC to work on a customers aircraft and get his 3V motor running for him.

We did stop in and see Brian Kelly in Spruce Creek since it was on our way to NC. Had to check out his RV-8R engine installation and cowling efforts. Looking great and should be flying about now. He loves the power of the Verner 9S, but he is having cooling issues, so the flights are super short - no time to get real performance data. It climbs a lot better though. He is modifying the cowling and baffling to get improvements. Some of those are causing more drag, so top speed is suffering - again, only short flights so hard to tell. Im guessing he will get the bugs worked-out pretty soon. Brian gave us a golf cart tour of Spruce Creek - that was a real treat as I’ve always wanted to see the place. Very cool! After that we drove to Elizabethtown, NC.

Our new customer in NC has a JH Aircraft, Corsair ultralight with a Verner Motor 3V engine installed from the factory in Germany. He also has the trailer for the airframe. This is the first production example in the US. The customer contacted us for help with getting the aircraft flyable. He spent a ton of money and was taken for a ride. The engine wouldn’t run and never was run to full throttle. The dealer had held onto the airframe for almost a year before delivering it. Tried to get it flyable but didn’t read the manuals and could not figure it out. So, in the interest of helping him and Verner’s reputation, we worked on the craft for two full days to get the engine running again. The dealer support was non-existent and one of the dealers helpers had even bent a wingtip bow with a hammer! Buyer beware! After trying to run the engine and failing to do so, it turned-out that the fuel system was the primary issue. We had to relocate the fuel selector and hoses - it was above the fuel tank and had an air bubble the pump would not overcome. Then disassemble and check the carburetor - which was fine after all, and adjust some wiring and install a new battery. The dealer had tried to jump start the engine and this ruined the lithium battery. Plus, a lot of head scratching and figuring. The throttle was a T handle on the instrument panel, terrible as you can’t make fine adjustments to rpm. The 3V will shake at low rpm. The graphite tubing space frame of the ultralight Corsair allows the instrument panel to shake wicked bad. So, we got it running, but not fine tuned. The owner will need to address the fuel tank leaks and the throttle has to be replaced with a quadrant style. Then we can go back and work on the engine mixture to get it flight ready. We learned a lot about what not to do in designing an aircraft.

We got back late Saturday night and had Easter with family. The P-36 is now safely in its hangar at the Westerly State airport in RI. I need to clean the hangar and re-assemble the plane. We have to prep for our inspection and then flight testing. We will start posting videos of the process and first flights for sure. So buckle-up and hang on!

Heading South

Looking forward to seeing all of our old friends, and making plenty of new ones, down in Lakeland this coming up week at Sun ‘N Fun!!! To avoid “burying the lead” I wanted to start out by letting you all know we will be at Booth N68 right outside of Buildings A and B this year with the COMPLETED P-36 Litefighter!

It has been a hectic two months trying to button up all of our open actions on our whiteboard to get to first flight, as well as playing whack-a-mole with new ones (since when does two day shipping take two weeks!?). But on Tuesday this week we finished the last few items, turned all of the systems on and off, did our preflight walk through, paused for a quick celebration, and the proceeded to start disassembling the aircraft so that we could load it into the trailer to head down to Sun ‘N Fun. Sam and Karen are already en route with the truck and trailer, making a pitstop to help one of our Verner customers to help get his engine up and running. I will be flying down in a few hours, and Scott and Shin will be joining us later this week.

Two final things: (1) Wednesday was Sam’s birthday, so if you see him this week, wish him a happy birthday! (2) Sam is a perfectionist and would want me to add the disclaimer that the plane isn’t technically complete, we still have to install the second generation canopy latch and replace one bolt which is the wrong length in the landing gear. But other than that, we are ready for our first flight after Sun ‘N Fun, and are looking forward to a great week!

Closing In

We are closing in on finishing our prototype P-36 Hawk LiteFighter. A few more landing gear and misc. parts to finish-up. Our plan is to do that within a week. Then we want to do some engine runs, taxi testing and systems checks from our hangar/base at KWST. Then pack her up and haul the plane in our box trailer to the Sun N Fun airshow for display. Right after the show, we will take her to Leesburg Florida for ground testing, FAA DAR inspection and then flight testing in mid April. Our goal was to fly her before SNF, but the reality is what it is plan now is to be ready to fly right after SNF and stay in FL until we are sure she can fly back home to CT. I don’t want to disassemble her again and trailer it home. That is the backup plan if scheduling conflicts or systems issues arise. We have a hangar lined-up at KLEE and the DAR is available. I can’t wait to get down there in the sunny warm weather! The landing gear parts are taking longer than anticipated, but are coming out great! Not something to rush. We are getting our punch-list items checked-off and making great progress.

What we have been working on: Besides working on fabricating landing gear parts: we finished the heat shield/boot cowl and added all the nut plates to it and the cowl support frame. Installed the GPS and ADSB units, cables and antennae. Ran the engine again - has been a while now. - carb and propeller are still not dialed-in. Installed the arm rest and map box, with map light. Designed and fabricated the retractable landing light assembly. New temper foam seat cushions and covers. Worked on our control stops. Added stops for elevator and rudder systems. Drilled and reamed the spar bolt holes at the inboard to outboard wing joints. This was a big job due to designing and fabricating a jig to drill these in-place on the plane. Note to self - change this to a milled assembly for the kit! These bolts are tight-tolerance, high-shear bolts. The joint has to be perfect. Got it done! Installed the wing gap strip covers, nut plates and tensioning system. Swapped out our dual CHT gage for an EGT/CHT gage and added an exhaust sender and firewall poke-thru. Designed and fabricated the canopy latch and mounting brackets and the push to talk switch installation on the control stick grip. Made a new hinge pin for the control column too - no slop at all now. During this effort, we also had to upgrade the hubs, wheels and tires on our trailer and fix the side door latch. Replaced the Garmin backup camera on the truck as well.

This week: Finish the landing gear parts! Then primer and paint them. Then lift the front of the plane and swap the gear legs out. Bleed the brakes and complete their install. Finish the canopy latch brackets and install the latch. Install the landing gear light. Adjust the ailerons for proper travel and balance. Next week we will run the engine and dial in the carburetor jetting and then propeller pitch. Re-check all the systems.

Then the following week: disassemble the airframe, load into the trailer. Pack the trailer with all needed parts, tools, equipment and the booth tent, signs and banners for the SNF booth. Drive! We will be bringing our GoPro’s and gear for making videos of the process. Will post asap. Closing In on it!

Antibodies

So just as I was writing the last blog entry, unknown to me, I was coming down with the Omicron variant. Three days before Christmas 21, my wife Karen, son Scott and I started showing symptoms. Pretty rough for a few days, but never felt in danger. Terrible timing though. No Christmas, New Years or time with the rest of our family. Awesome end to 2021. Antibodies for Christmas! So everything I mentioned about putting in a heck of a hard work week during shut-down - nope. So no one could come to the shop for half the week. But not taking chances, no crew all the rest of the week and New Years. Big reset on the schedule. That one full week would have gotten so much done - will take all of January and part of February to do part time what we could have done that week. But I am thankful. We are healthy again. Damn this covid stuff!

So when I could get back to the shop, I fabricated the templates and then parts for a heat-shield/boot cowl that goes between the engine mounting ring and the firewall. This keeps the hottest air outboard in the round cowling and sends it right to the cowl flap exit area. Shielding the ignition, fuel and oil systems from the hot exhaust. We are about to finish installing this shroud. I also added the fire extinguisher in the easiest and least obtrusive location. Then we added a lot of nut plates to the wing gap fairing areas. The crew has been slowly coming back in and working from time to time and it sure helps. Scott has been making progress on the landing gear components and they are looking awesome. Those large blocks will have a lot of 3D milling to get to final shape, but we had to get the internal geometry done while he had square edges to clamp to. He also just made a precision bolt for the control stick hinge on the lathe. The AN bolt and flanged bushings we originally used had way too much slop in the aileron system. Tolerances were way too loose. Then we also did a fuel flow test. Plenty of fuel is moving to the carburetor - 1 gallon in just under 2 minutes. We did find a fuel leak and had to pull some under-wing fairings to access and dry the belly up. It ruined some paint on those fairings. We have had fuel in the tanks before when we did the first engine runs and didn’t have the issue. It was a loose fitting that was snug, but not properly tight. So - double checked all the fuel fittings. We still need to go from the spinner to rudder and double check all hardware, cables, fittings, etc. for threads showing, cotter pins, torques. Most of it has been done, but want to double check prior to inspection.

Our engineers have been crunching the numbers and adjusting all the spreadsheets with our latest weight and balance data. Tons of work that they did over the break and it is ready to share with our test pilot and crew. Good news and bad. Good news is our projected cruise and dive speeds are pretty high. Our projected climb is not. We are heavy and it will impact the climb rate, stall speed and g loading. For this prototype, we mainly want to be safe to fly and it should be for sure. Will post the actual numbers as soon as we get them. I am anxious to see how far off our preliminary numbers are. We don’t have sophisticated software and things like cooling and parasite drag as well as actual engine and prop performance may make a big difference. We will work on reducing weight, optimizing structure to handle more where needed for the beta kit version of the airframe. None of this is unexpected. We knew going in that we would be heavy. We had no one to optimize the initial structure. Then again, I like robust, solid feeling aircraft. Flight testing will give us the empirical data we need to zero-in on the right performance.

Our current plan is to get the gear replaced and do a final weight and balance. Then get some good video and pics to show our followers. Then we will run it and taxi it to ensure all systems are ready. Then disassemble her and get it ready to ship to Florida for FAA/DAR inspection and the test flight program in March. Will have her in our booth at Sun N Fun all week. Word has it that we can fly her in the showcase daily during the show. It’s good to know people!

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!