AirVenture 2022

Wow! What a airshow! Oshkosh AirVenture 2022 was amazing for us and everyone who made it. We were jamming with people all day - every day from the moment we arrived and had to setup and reassemble the plane till the show was history. We had two interviews with media folks and several photo shoots and video shoots. We had hundreds of people asking about the P-36 and P-40 and many have been following us for years. Great to meet you folks! We took several deposits and a bunch more are interested and following the test flights. We had customers from almost everywhere on the planet. Notably - UK, Germany, Israel, Uruguay, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Romania, Canada.

We also sold three engines and took deposit money during the show - a first! Normally, we get no sales at a show and several months later we get them. This is great news and Im happy to report it. We had Ted and Nicole Myers help us with engine questions as they are Verner Motor dealers from Missouri. That was a huge help as we were dealing with the kit plane questions. Verner gave us permission to sell five 3V engines at the show and together we sold all five. I wish we could sell more - they are popular.

During the show, Scott, Karen and I camped at our booth by using the trailer as a camper. We set it up with an office where Scott worked on brochures and printing. A refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker and beds with a dressing area. Pretty comfortable I’d say. The air conditioning worked well except in the middle of the day. We used the homebuilt camping area shower trailers and then the air conditioned bathroom trailers near the Roxy food paviliion. Not too bad. Scott said it was much less hectic than driving to and from a house - I have to agree.

The trailer is 20ft long and 8ft wide box with a 2ft V extension on the nose. 7ft high. That is a lot of space and we used up every bit of it. Paul made it to the show at the beginning of the week for a couple days and stayed at a hotel. His uncle and grandfather met him at our booth and he got to spend some time with them. Aaron and Shin came on Thursday afternoon and tented next to the trailer under the 9x9 canopy. The exhibit area is pretty cool place at night. I was expecting more bugs at night. So glad there was hardly any! There are many vendors camping at their booth spaces so we were not lonely, but it is quiet. But you have to get to bed early because the trash trucks and porto-potty cleaning trucks start in around 4:30 am and hard to sleep through that racket. All evening we could hear the bands playing and shouting at the crowd over at the SOS bar area until about 11:30 or midnight. We even went to the SOS bar on Friday night after some dinner. Packed with aviators! It was fun, but crowded. First time we had gotten over there in all the dozens of Oshkosh’s I’ve been to. Will hit it again next year I think.

The trip to AirVenture was thankfully un-eventful after I backed the trailer into my hangar door when we were all packed up and hitting the road. Arrrgh! The trailer was fine. Door has a puncture wound. I hope I can fix it without too much fanfare and State employees lurking around. The highways are full of pot holes and washboard surfaces. Terrible thing to do to an airplane. The trip home was similar and uneventful as well. Thank the Lord! Get this: we packed-up the trailer Sunday night after the show and got a hotel adjacent to the Whitman airport. The cost went from almost $400 a night during the show to under $100 a night. Oh well, it’s Oshkosh - just throw money at it!

We are now catching up on all the neglected things as well as lost hours from the day job. The Navy wants it’s toys! The plane is hopefully going back together this weekend and we have a plan for modifying the oil vent system to hopefully fix the excessive loss of oil from the breather. The All for Aviation guys in Czech Republic are having the same issues with their Mitsubishi A6M replica with a Verner 9S. They fixed theirs and we will be able to follow suit. Their fix was to make their system very similar to Steve Wolf’s - which is working real well. Copy the best I say!

The plan forward is to get her flying asap. Get some videos and real flight performance data. fly off the 40 hour phase 1 test period. Adjust the models as needed and progress toward making our next prototype and the beta kit parts. Scott is already adjusting the models for the P-40 variant as we got a lot of questions about it. In our mind, the P-40 is almost entirely the same, but we need to show how it will look and we are on it. It is great to get the questions and feedback that is the AirVenture experience.

Getting Ready for AirVenture

Hey folks. We have been working on the plane to get her flying, but are running up against a hard stop this weekend. We have to disassemble her and load her into our car hauler trailer. We have not flown her since Elliot Seguin made the first two flights. We had some issues and they needed fixin’.

The main issues:

1. Overspeeding the engine. We have adjusted the propeller for 2 more degrees of pitch and this dropped the max static from 2050 rpm to 1950 rpm. We need to fly her to see how well we did. Max rpm is 2380 for three minutes, then 2000 for continuous duty.

2. High cylinder head temperature. We did two things. First, we re-jetted the carburetor for more fuel in the intermediate jet. This helped across the throttle range. We may up-size it again depending on how we do with issue #1. Second, we have fabricated inter-cylinder baffles and are installing them. I wanted to see how well the engine cooled with our initial setup before adding them in. Well, it didn’t work out so well. So they are going in. Should help a lot with head temperatures. Final fit-up and then painting them this weekend.

3. Oil blowing out the breather vent tube. We were getting some of this during ground runs and was thinking we had too much oil in the tank. Like my Lycoming if you fill it all the way to 8 qts. We leave it at 6 and it doesn’t go all over the belly of the Grumman Cheetah. Was never enough to worry me for flight testing. However, we lost 2.5 quarts in just 10 minutes of flying. Granted, Elliot was trying to climb and was at high throttle settings for most of it. It finally lost so much that the oil pressure dropped to barely anything. He had to land it. This is a huge safety of crew and machine issue. We have been conducting ground tests and getting crazy weird results. We disconnected the 3/8” drain tube from the separator with the idea that it was a small hose and back-feeding oil into the separator - and that didn’t solve it. We tried various extensions and fittings on the end of the breather tube. Nope. We cured the issue when we added a 2ft long x 1-1/2” diameter hose to the oil tank filler neck and routed it up the firewall and left it open on top. No more oil blowing out. As soon as we covered the end of the big hose, oil was blowing out again. We tried to measure the pressure in the oil tank head space, but our pressure gage wouldn’t read it or there was no pressure. Don’t make no sense. Steve Wolf has been sending us information and images of what he did - and it works fine. So we may have to follow suit . Unfortunately, it would mean removing the oil tank and modifying it or making a new one. Not something we have the time to do before Oshkosh. Dang it!

4. The pitot system was leaking and we were getting low readings on the airspeed indicator. We found that it was the instrument itself that was leaking and since we needed a few more kts on the indicator for VNE and dive speed testing, we ordered a new instrument. It just arrived and I will install it this weekend.

5. No airspeed results to publish - due to #4. This is a huge problem for us and we will get it done as soon as we can. I can tell you what we were getting, but remember - it was low and we have no way of knowing if it is consistently low by a percentage, or if it increases or decreases the faster we go. We just can’t extrapolate anything from the flight data. Elliot took off and climbed out at 100 kts indicated. 500 fpm. max speed attained was 115 kts. On the second flight, he climbed out at 80 kts indicated and was seeing 1000 fpm. Again, this was reading low so he may have been actually climbing at 95 kts and way above the best rate of climb speed for the aircraft. Elliot wanted to climb to 5,000 ft and do some stalls to see what speed that would be indicating at. The over temp and then the oil pressure issues prevented any stalls from being done.

We have a whole testing regime to do and will post everything openly. Not trying to hide anything here. We have been knocking out the issues and trying to learn as much as we can. We are getting a lot of good advice from the experts - so I am sure we will get it fixed. We are just running out of time.

There are a bunch of things we still need to do to get ready for AirVenture 2022. Since we have to trailer the plane, we can’t bring the camper. So we are turning the car hauler into a camper for the week. Ton’s to do for that. Then we have to finish and paint the baffles and get them in before we tear the plane apart to put it in the trailer. Scott is working on a first flight video - posting shortly. We are also making brochures and signage. Planning to hit the highway on Friday the 22nd. Arrive on Saturday afternoon. Setup on Sunday morning. Fingers crossed!

It's an Airplane!

It’s an airplane! We are pleased to announce that we have flown the P-36 LiteFighter! We had two short flights on Friday, July 1st. The first flight was a single lap around the pattern and was cut short by high CHT readings. After discussing the situation and letting her cool down, Elliot Seguin took her up again for a longer flight and made around 6 laps of the flight pattern here at KWST. Low oil pressure cut the flight short and he made a second picture perfect landing. The flight lasted long enough to checkout the handling qualities and pull 2 g turns. Elevator and rudder are nearly perfect. Ailerons are light with neutral control forces. We have some good tips from Steve Wolf to adjust them for more positive feedback pressures.

We do have some issues to resolve. High CHT readings will likely mean a better baffling system in the cowl and possibly re-jetting the carburetor to richen it up at wide open throttle. The oil pressure drop was due to our air/oil separator/breather system siphoning out oil from the tank. NOT GOOD! The other main issue is the prop needs more pitch as it is over-speeding. This could be lending to over-heating with less ram air in the cowling.

The performance was hard to calculate as the pitot system was not reading correctly. Elliot was thinking that we could be 20% error on the airspeed indicator. We don’t have an avionics shop on our field anymore, so we called-in an Avionics Tech and he did a leak test on the pitot. He found our used airspeed indicator was leaking pretty severely. Buying a new one right now. The good news is the pitot tubing in the wings is leak-free and in good condition. So, we don’t have real numbers yet. Hang on! We’ll get em shortly!

We are already designing and fabricating the baffling. We are also experimenting with the breather exit to give it ram air. The exit may be creating a suction and pulling the oil out. The next step if that doesn’t fix it, is to add in an upper chamber to the tank to put the vent as far from the oil as possible. We will be re-jetting the carb and then adjust the propeller pitch for more bite. Re-pitching should help all around.

Yes, we have some squawks to fix, but so much went well that we are thrilled! The handling qualities are good and there are simple fixes to make it even better. The landing gear are very good, tracking is good, stable. The fore/aft wheel location is very good- balances well on the mains. Tail volumes and control authority is great. Elliot said “you have a great little airplane here!”

Sorry for not updating right away. We have been resting up after the flight testing. We spent two long days before he arrived on Thursday afternoon. We then went right into a thorough inspection which did find some issues needing fixing. After dinner, we hit them and worked till after midnight. Up bright and early Friday morning to finish-up for taxi testing. It was non-stop and we had forecasted gusty winds coming by late morning and Saturday was forecasted for T-storms - so not a minute to lose. We pushed for it and then after the second flight decided that we were done for the day - had to get these issues resolved before flying again. Had a great Italian lunch nearby the airport with the team. Went home and crashed. Been super wiped-out the rest of the weekend. I think it was coming down from the adrenaline - and the carbs! It was Sunday afternoon before I was feeling good again.

There were people who wanted to be at the airport for the first flight and my phone was ringing like mad - I am so sorry! I literally had no time to answer it or type a txt to anyone - we were pushing to get flying before the winds picked-up. They sure did and I’m very thankful to Elliot for the push to get it done. First flights are not to be done in gusty conditions - ever! Watching him go through his inspection and preparations, seeing his decisions and approach he takes to making them - all proves that we made the right decision. Thank you Elliot! He had multiple GoPro cameras mounted to the plane and is posting some awesome videos! Go to edseguin on Instagram, elliot seguin on facebook.

We also took video - not professional quality by far. Some of it is usable and we will post it shortly. The green OD camo actually tricked the cameraman when the plane was rolling. It was a super bright day and hard to see the plane through the view-finder. We will be working on getting much better video and sound.

Thank you to all our followers and friends! Thank you to all our team members and their families! We did it!

See you at Oshkosh - real soon!

Stick to the Plan

Hey guys and gals. So our plane is ready to fly - in my opinion. We have been working on the engine and propeller balancing as we needed to reduce the vibrations and had access to a test unit. If we never had hooked up the test unit, we would have been fine with the level of vibration - just quickly pass through the rough range. So glad we have done the work to dynamically balance her. Very much improved. There is still some vibration and Kamil Verner is thinking it is the type of propeller we are using. It is a one-off from NR Prop in Kiev. It is all carbon composite with no core. We are finding that having a wood core with composite overwrap is much better for vibration dampening. We are talking with Mika Jurka from All for Aviation in the Czech Republic. They have just flown their A6M Zero replica with a Verner 9 cylinder engine and WoodComp three bladed, electric constant speed propeller. We will likely purchase a propeller from WoodComp to see if that makes an improvement. This propeller looks awesome though! Again, it is good enough to fly with.

We have been tempted to fly the Hawk and all the locals are wondering if we are scared to do so. No, not one bit! Actually I am chomping at the bit for my turn! We have had an unusual stretch of fantastic flying weather for the last few weekends and it has been killing me to just test her on the ground. We have been slowed from flying by scheduling issues with our test pilot. He has to finish up work he is currently doing and some training that was scheduled. Over the last three weeks, we have debated the merits of sticking with the plan we have had for 6 months and wait for Elliot, or jump in and do it ourselves - as our DAR suggested. I was getting pretty frustrated and ready to just go, but had a long talk with Paul and he was not in favor of changing the plan for schedule pressure. Not a good sign and I agree with that sentiment. Even though I pretty much had convinced myself to just get going. We have 40 hours to fly off before we can fly it to Oshkosh. Or, we have to trailer it again.

Its a lot of work to disassemble and load it, reassemble for the show, disassemble in a hurry before dark after the show and load it. Then reassemble it back at home and basically have to do a condition inspection again before flying it. It is also not just taking the wings off. We have to remove the entire tail as well as its’ too wide for the trailer. Elliot mentioned that we should just trailer it no matter what. That a new aircraft with a brand new engine is not a sure bet for a long cross country flight. “it doesn’t always work out well.” He also said that our customer’s don’t care if it flew-in or was trailered-in either. No one will be watching our beautiful landing. Very true. I actually was more worried about the condition of the highways - they are terrible across the North. So then the plane will be getting another fatigue testing regimen via trailer. Arrgh!

So we are going to stick with the plan and will likely have to trailer the plane to Oshkosh. I have to gear up for that as we are under-staffed for the show. The plan is for Elliot to get here and put her through the paces and put 5 to 10 hours on her and get us the data we need to inform the kit design - and in order to publish performance numbers our customers can believe. Anything sub-par will be addressed in the kit version of the plane. Then, I will take over and fly her for most of the rest of the 40 hours required of phase 1. We will likely get Elliot or another acro-rated pilot to fly the aerobatic and difficult maneuvers. Hopefully, if all goes well, Elliot can do some or all of those maneuvers while he is here. No idea how that will go down.

So, he has agreed to get here late Thursday of this week and stay through the weekend if needed. Weather looks pretty good with T-storms on Saturday and maybe a shower early Sunday morning. First things first, we will be giving the plane a condition inspection. We just passed the airworthiness, but this is more for Elliot to get to know the machine and another set of eyes on everything. Im sure there will be something we should do better or safety wire. So Friday will be mostly that and then putting all the covers back on and prepping for ground and flight testing. Im excited to get going! We have been cleaning and organizing the hangar - much needed! Will keep you posted!

What's the Hold Up?

Updated - see below.

I know, I know. We haven’t flown yet. Sorry! So we have been doing a lot of engine runs and taxi testing. What is slowing us down from going is: we are getting a good amount of dynamic vibration in the engine and propeller. We borrowed a Dyna-Vibe propeller balancer setup from a local pilot and that unit is showing that we are getting from .8 to 1.6 inches per second of vibration from this engine and prop. We have run dozens of combinations and attempts at counter-balancing with no good results so far. Still working it! The worst vibrations as felt in the cockpit are between 950 and 1250 rpm and then it smooths-out by 1400 and feels good thru 1700. Starts to get a little bit at 1800 but nothing as bad as at 1150. The Dyno Vibe is saying that range is really bad too and that the 1600 is bad - tho I don’t feel it in the cockpit. We are statically balancing the propeller to eliminate that as a source. Then will test the compressions on the engine and see if a cylinder is causing the vibration. We can’t do too much if it is the internal engine parts (like the crankshaft counterweight) other than adding propeller flange counterweights. We are following the advice of a few experts on dynamic balancing and it really should not take this much time and effort. Steve Wolf, Brian Kelly and Mark Taylor all started their balancing at worse IPS’s than we are getting and all managed to get the vibrations down to .25 IPS or less with counter-weights. We can do it too. Wish us luck! The good news is that we have learned a lot about static and dynamic balancing. It is not as easy as should be! Will post some images over the next few days.

Update (6/22/2022): we had to statically balance the propeller. This caused us to create two kinds of propeller balancers. a horizontal one and a vertical suspended one. Interestingly, both told us that one blade was heavier and one was light, but not exactly the same weight. Im thinking it is small in-accuracies in the test rigs. We then invented a method of adding weight to the hub for the static balancing and then adding weight for dynamic balancing on a separate ring of the spinner base. Our latest runs show we are dialed-in at our 1800 rpm cruise setting. 0.016 IPS. We are still getting heavy vibrations at 1050 to 1300 rpm but that is even down to under 0.7 IPS. We can read the instruments in all throttle settings. Good enough to fly! Our compression testing has shown that all the heads are within 10 of each other, but wondering if that amount is enough to create some vibration and mess with us. This is a new engine and the rings still need to take a set which should stabilize the compressions and the blow-by in the oil breather system. Talking with Elliot about coming on out to fly her. She’s ready! STAY TUNED!

Got it!

Most of the crew spent a large portion of the Memorial Day weekend working in the hangar to prep the P-36 for our airworthiness inspection on Tuesday, the 31st. Thanks guys and gals! You rock!

The weekend was spent going over and over the inspection checklist and finding discrepancies - then fixing them. It really is a good exercise and we found more than I thought we would. Every nut, bolt, washer and cotter pin was double checked and then checked off the list. We had to add a few additional cockpit placards with one of those electronic label makers. We will probably replace those later with more appealing labels. We decided to safety wire the prop bolts and clip the rudder cable turnbuckles. We were adjusting those items but better to have it all for the inspection. Will likely have to do more adjustments when getting her ready to fly.

Didn’t sleep much over the weekend and was rather shot, but energized as well. We were a bit worried that we might have to spend the week changing or fixing things that would fail the inspection. I was rather worried on Monday morning that we would not be ready. I even asked the DAR if he had any time later in the week. Nope, book-up. I told him: ok, we will be ready! We had a lot of issues to resolve on Monday. Including our fuel gages were not working. That was one little test we never actually did in the last few weeks. To be honest, we were only using a small amount of fuel in the tanks for our engine runs and the needles were bouncing at the bottom - thought that meant they were working. We filled the right tank to top to verify quantity for the labels on the fuel caps. Gage still showed empty. Oh no! Scott found the issue with the wiring on Sunday night and Aaron came Monday and fixed the wiring. We were worried about the calibration, but were relieved to find they are reading perfectly. Fixed!

My family had decided to watch Top Gun Maverick at an IMAX theater in Providence, RI at 1pm on Monday. I was doubting I was going to be able to make that. We ended up doing so well Monday - Aaron, Paul, Gary and myself, that they guys said I had to go to the movie and take a break. I kind of reluctantly agreed - I did need a break. Stressin’. So I left and booked-it to the theater and got there on time. WoW! It kinda blew my mind! The IMAX is so visceral and the sound system is off the hook! I found myself getting a bit emotional - way more than I was ready for. Again, maybe I was so stressed that it manifested itself with the total immersion experience. I have to say - I loved that movie! Just go see it! After some Tai noodles for dinner, right back to the hangar. Glad too, we finished up a couple items. Then was up late finishing some of the forms and uploading them to the FAA website.

Tuesday was a working day for our team members, so they couldn’t be there. It was going to be a hot sunny day and it was. Scott, Gary and I were there early. We pushed the plane out, swept and then pushed her back in. We had all the covers off and one more glaring thing to do that we knew of. The dang turnbuckles. I had not been able to find the safety clips I had purchased for them years ago. The FBO was open and super busy - I ran over there and sure enough, they had some and I finished the squawk list right before the inspector arrived - by RV 7.

Our DAR Jon Ross and his buddy with the RV 7 flew in from Long Island, NY. Jon was asking a lot of questions about the design, the build, the engineering and I was answering the questions. He was liking the answers and agreeing on many of our decisions made. He gave the Hawk a good look over and he knew what to look for - what mattered. He liked what he was looking at. Then, to my surprise, he asked us to install the cowling - wanted to see what she looked like. We did and then he wanted to see the engine running.

We pushed her out onto the ramp and chocked the wheels She fired right up and that’s when I knew we passed. He had a big grin on his face hearing that radial fire-up. “That’s the perfect engine for this plane!” We finished up the paperwork - which took a long time as the printer was not working. Finally debugged that and he printed out our Certificate. Fist bumps all around! Got it! YES!

Jon’s RV-7 buddy said he wants a kit. Grinning ear to ear when the Verner fired-up. This guy is a retired flight test engineer. “Just use the test cards and go slow. Get someone in to do the aerobatic maneuvers”. They were a part of creating the EAA’s Testing Guide - on the FAA’s side of the work. This airplane is pretty basic, so as long as it flies well and stable, will be easy to do the testing. I think they can tell this airplane looks right and that means it should fly right. Paul has input our data and modeled our bird in X-flyer. She flies pretty good in the simulation. We want to dress it out and make it available to you later. Right now its just a grey shape - no detail and the cockpit view is from an F-18.

We are debating the testing internally with the team now. Since this is a non-cert engine, the operating limitations are requiring 40hrs of Phase 1. We don’t have any time to waste. We have to get her flying and going through the test cards any time she and the weather are good to go. I feel confident in the plane and have no fears of flying it. We do want to do this professionally though and I’m not a test pilot.

For now - GOT IT!

It's about time!

We are finally about to get our Airworthiness Inspection with a local DAR right after the Memorial Day weekend. Pretty confident we will pass. There are a few things we still need to do and we will be busy all weekend working those items. I know - It’s about time! There are a number of reasons its taken way longer than expected to get here. Will save you the time - most have to do with other obligations and the day job getting in the way for our whole crew. Resources are limited and it is amazing how far we have come with the resources we have had. Our Verner Motor dealership has really made the difference for us - it sustained us through some pretty tough sea states (rough waves). The team is excited to be getting ready to fly. I sure am!

So what’s left to do? Our engine runs have been getting better and better. We are still blowing out a lot of oil from the breather. So we need to inspect the situation some more and see if anything requires fixing. It is likely just from blow-by of the new piston rings and possibly too much oil in the tank. That shouldn’t stop the inspection though. We are replacing some hardware for sure in the landing gear and checking all hardware on the plane to be compliant. We did use proper hardware throughout, but we will take a good look at it - might find something. Then there are misc. tests to do and some paperwork to scan and upload to the FAA on-line application.

We had replaced the landing gear before SNF 22 and had a rough trailer ride down and back. What we have discovered is that the Delrin sleeves are bending and distorting and that is allowing the lower gear legs to lean outward a smidge - its not much at all - but bugs me. Going to take a good look at them and see if anything we can do about it. It should be ok for taxing and even flight, but might cause excessive wear. We are planning to develop Oleo landing gear legs and we already have a backup plan to turn these legs into oleo if required. That will slow us down some if we have to do it and I don’t want to slow down the first flight - unless it’s necessary. Safety first!

When we got back from the show, we took a break to catch-up on sleep and all the neglected things at home and the shop. Then we got into finalizing calcs for the wing structure. This took a couple weeks to do as everyone has been slammed with our day job - Electric Boat. The Navy is pushing EB to get them submarines - faster! Our calculations are showing that we have a marginal tear-out condition at our bolted wing joint and to be ultra-safe, we are going to limit our G loading on this prototype. We can redesign the joint to eliminate the issue (thicker brackets) - but very hard to do on this example - this far into the build. The fuel tank installation is preventing us from replacing the inboard side of the joint. So we would just build new wings and we are planning to build a new kit production prototype anyway. So it will be done on the next example. On this one, the team decided to keep the bolt size originally called for and installed the final wing attachment bolts and did final wing installation for ailerons, pitot, lights, covers. Then we did a final weight and balance test after everything was back on the plane. Heavy as expected. We will do a weight reduction/optimization review for the next airframe and the kit design. Should be able to loose 30 pounds or more. We have learned a lot about this machine and how to do it better next time.

After that, Scott machined the brackets needed and we installed the canopy latch - it works great! We had replaced the brakes and had no time before SNF to get them working. After servicing them, they are working pretty good. Will know shortly during a taxi test if strong enough or too much. As a taildragger, I’d rather have too weak and just plan to slowly slow down. I do want them to be strong enough to break the steerable, full-swiveling tailwheel free from the detent and caster the plane around on a dime. Steering is by steerable tail wheel and rudder, then differential braking if needed.

Well, here we go. Final stretch on this airplane. Get her inspected and then flying! Will be posting videos. Look for one shortly of our most recent engine runs. It’s About Time!

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!