Made It to AirVenture 2023

Hey guys. We made it to Oshkosh by Saturday evening at 7pm. Karen, Scott, Jennifer and myself left on Friday morning about 11 am pulling the trailer with the P-36 in it. Spent the night in the Cleveland OH area. There were some heavy but brief showers in NY state, then mainly clear till we got to the Wisconsin border. We stopped at the Russell Military Museum at Exit 1. We have been seeing the place for years but we never have the time to stop-in. This year, we are about a day earlier than usual and decided we needed time out of the truck and walking around. What a cool place! Lots of Armor, trucks and aircraft. Cool stuff too. Spent about an hour (not long enough) and then left as a storm was approaching right as they closed-up at 5pm. Rolled up to Milwaukie and hit some heavy rain. Then it cleared and we had a good ride up to Fond Du Loc and into Oshkosh at 7. We had enough time to figure out where our booth was and drop the trailer there, then got out right before another storm hit Oshkosh. Had a hotel lined-up in Appleton, WI Saturday night. Sunday we had a good breakfast at the Machine Shed restaurant, then rolled down to the show and our booth. We pulled the plane out of the trailer and attached the wings and tail. Then we buttoned up the fairings and installed the flaps and wing gap strips. We were mostly done by 11:30am but then had a bunch of people stop by the booth, so it took the rest of the afternoon to finish up. We met some people that have been following us and it was good to put faces to the names. Met Chris, the curator for the Connecticut Air and Space Museum. Sorry, really bad with last names. Chris is the guy who discussed with us about painting the plane to resemble Lt. Gordon Sterling’s Pearl Harbor aircraft. It is an honor for us to share his memory and story of bravery. Its a stunning paint job too! Many compliments today. Well done team!

Monday morning we start the show. That is when we put up our flags and posters, set out the signage and all while answering questions. Its a fun time till it gets hot in the afternoon. We do have an awning on the trailer to shade our table. That helps a lot!

We watched many aircraft arriving and I love to see the Warbird arrivals. The F-16 was ripping up the joint! Right now its Sunday night. Scott is up editing our brochure to show the latest structure with flaps.

Hope to see some of you guys there! Will try to get some images and video to post. More later!

Oshkosh Prep

Its the week before AirVenture 2023 and we are finally done with the plane and now have to break-it-down. Aarrgh! Well, we are pretty experienced with trailering the P-36 replica. The trailer isn’t ready - we have to move my daughter’s furniture first before we can fill it with airplane parts. So its crazy time again - again!

We are going to be in the ultralight exhibitor area near the Paradise City grass airfield. Booth 912. So the thing about the ultralight area is: it’s where the action is! Really, it is full of action each day of AirVenture until the airshow starts. then again, right after the airshow ends. All week! We hope to be able to run the engine a few times - so stop by our booth and get all the latest info and times for that. We are planning to have a 3V engine on display - similar to what we did at Sun N Fun. A customer is allowing us to show his engine for the week before he gets to see it himself. That is gracious for sure! Thank you Brian Saunders!

We are going to have the trailer with awning and a small popup tent with the engine in the tent and the P-36 out in front. Its just Scott, my daughter Jennifer and my wife Karen and I for crew this year. That’s enough booth help, but no time for slacking! Im getting excited to be at the show and see the airplanes and crowds. Timber Tiger is going to have two of our Verner radials on display with their aircraft projects. Meyers Aviation will have one or two as well. So Verners are starting to spread and gain in popularity. Love it!

We finished the flaps and landing gear mods. Spent some time designing a flap indicator that is mechanical. Cable operated from the flap drive system. The prototype ended up not working well. It would bind up. So we redesigned it and the parts are printing out now. May not get it done in time. Maybe that goes in at Oshkosh.

I have been meaning to clean and wash the plane for a long time now (since October??). So yesterday (Sunday) I pushed it outside in the middle of a downpour. Got a bucket with a bit of car wash soap in it and scrubbed her down. The rain got so heavy it was like a spray gun at the car wash. I pulled it in a little at a time, drying it off as I went. Wow. clean as a whistle! Spic and Span! We have had just terrible weather so far this summer. Except when I’m at work in the shop.

Scott and I have been working on planning out the next steps after AirVenture. We are having discussions with some airframe kit manufacturers about part or all of our kit production. These companies are top-notch. it will likely be a combination of us making some of the parts and others making some. TBD. The goal is to have the best possible kit as fast as possible. We know some of you have been waiting for too long as it is. We will likely open up kit sales right away and take deposits for production positions. That way we can confirm with our vendors that there is demand and they will gladly jump on it. Stay tuned, we will announce the details shortly. We are planning to have many meetings at Oshkosh. Can’t wait!

So I doubt I will write a blog till after the show, but my daughter may help us edit some short videos for the YouTube channel while we are there. I hope to see some of you at the booth. Keep in touch! Safe Travels!

Getting Excited!

Over due for an update. The flaps are installed and working properly. Putting final touches and final hardware on all the joints (ie: drilled bolts and castle nuts, proper length bolts, etc…). We have approx 40 degrees of travel. We still have some fairings to modify and re-install. The landing gear parts are all made. The upper legs are at the welder. The modifications are going to turn the existing legs into oleo type shock absorber struts. Oil and air dampened. The lower gears legs are made and being fitted to the axle mount elbows (ankles??). So some paint on the legs after we get them back from the welder and the legs can be assembled and tested over the next week. Once everything is the way we want it, installation will be quick. Then, our attention will move to the engine and prop. Cylinder head baffles and engine runs. Pull testing and oil cooler modifications. The cowl nose bowl inlets will be modified to put more air on the heads. That will hopefully work well and not really be seen.

The modifications have taken us a lot longer than planned. Most of that is due to several delays that have occurred. Going to Sun N Fun last minute was a big schedule buster. Had to do it for Verner Motor’s sake, they are very good to us. All our crew were busy in May, so I was fumbling along by myself - when I could be. I had a rough month in May with a cricked neck for a week and then a week of getting used to a new medicine. Aarrrgh. On top of that, we had a tree that needed to be cut down next to the house and all the chaos that brings. Throw in a plumbing disaster and the time just flies. Aaron is justifiably busy with a new baby girl last week. Paul is prepping for baby #2 coming in August. The whole crew are thrilled for them!

We are making progress. It is getting exciting (finally!) to see some results after all the design, fabrication and modifications to the airframe. Currently, the plane is up on jacks and stable. Will be great to see her back on her gear and out on the flight-line for testing again. More videos coming!

Getting There

Howdy folks! Sorry for the long pause. We went to Sun N Fun and what a week! Always fun and warmer than here in CT. Everything worked out great for the show. Steve Wolfs’ P-47D project was a huge hit! We could have sold 15 of them for real if we had a kit. More on that later. Terry Allred allowed us to display his 3 cylinder Verner Motor in the booth as well. I hope we will see a number of sales from the effort and that is the whole reason for going this year. We want to help Verner Motor keep busy building engines. In addition to the engine focus of our trip, we managed to re-kindle some old contacts we had and build some new relationships. Networking in a small industry. We have our work cut-out for us getting into the kit production phase. One of those relationships is with a kit industry big name. He knows the Verner family very well and is interested in helping us transform to production. Can’t get any better. He also is very experienced with getting ASTM certification for SLSA aircraft. We will see where we can go with that.

Steve Wolf is progressing very nicely on the P-47D replica. It will be a huge hit when it is flying. Jim Busha the marketing VP for EAA stopped by and wants to stay in touch with the progress - Sport Aviation feature article coming! The 47 features fully functioning cowl flaps, sliding canopy, actual 47 throttle quadrant, gun sight and stick grip. It has the turbo exhaust and inlets in the rear fuselage. Fully retractable landing gear - tail and mains. Will have guns, drop tank and bomb racks. The Verner 9S fits nicely in the cowling and with an adjustable prop will give it a great sound and good thrust. Steve is amazing with sheet metal fabrication - despite being a rag and tube aircraft builder mostly. He is having fun re-learning his metal skills. The finish is first rate and the plane looks like a production version. Amazing!

After Sun N Fun, I took a week off. I was exhausted and felt like a zombie. Maybe a bit too much heat down there. Finally started feeling normal and got back to work on the P-36. Finished up the modifications to the trailing edge ribs and added the flap spar sections after installing nut plates for mounting the drive tube hinge blocks. Each side of the wing gets four of these blocks. This last week we test fit the flaps after riveting up the flap spars - we could not test fit them while we had a bunch of clecos in the way. Found that our flap ribs were a smidge to high to nest clear of the torque tube. So we modified the fwd inch of each rib to clear. We will incorporate lessons learned in the kit flap design and they will fit up much better. The Devil is in the details! Sometimes, its just a discrepancy between the cad model shape and the actual shape after bending and then riveting parts together. Production parts would be much closer to the cad shape as rivet holes and forming jigs would be better located and repeatable. Anyway, the flaps should be installed this week and then the drive system over the following week.

After the flaps get done, we will tackle the landing gear legs. Scott has an important job to get done over the next couple weeks and then a planned trip. AFter that, we will get the landing gear leg parts completed in quick order. So I have some time to get the flaps done and then mount and adjust the propellers. We are also making cylinder head baffles to try to help with additional cooling of the heads. We may have to modify the cowl inlet shape to allow more air to move outwards to the cylinder heads with less restriction. Another lesson learned. When installing a full cowl on the Verner, allow as much distance in front of the cylinder heads as possible. We kept it fairly tight - maybe 2.5 inches from the nose bowl to the front of the heads. Steve Wolf has about 4 inches on the Samson Mite and has no cooling issues at all. Moving our cowling at this point is not easy and would likely require a whole new cowling and frame. We really want to spend the time on the next airframe if possible.

So we are getting there. Slower than anticipated and some of that is even though we didn’t have to bring the plane down to show at SNF, it still took time away from the project that we don’t get back. I was thinking we would only be about a week away from the effort, but it actually was still three weeks off from working it. We used about a week before leaving getting everything together, making new signage and printing brochures, etc… I didn’t anticipate being worn-out for a week after the show. So we are quickly running out of calender before AirVenture. We are working as hard as conditions allow. Back to work!

It's a Go!

Hey folks! We are going to Sun N Fun ‘23 after all! We have a booth space reserved - not the same spot unfortunately. We gave that up earlier when we were not planning to go. Verner Motor needed to have representation at the show and we need to help them out. So now we are in North exhibits - booth 21. It is straight out between building C and D almost to the main avenue and one spot in from the end cap.

We will have Steve Wolf’s 60% scale replica P-47D fuselage and tail on display. The wings are not done yet. He just finished the cowling and has the Verner 9S mounted. If you can make it to the show, you will not want to miss checking this out. Steve is a Master Craftsman and is not holding back. It is a tribute to his friend Jack Hallet who flew P-38s and P-47s during WW2 in Europe. Jack’s P-47D was nicknamed “Frigid Midgit” - the painter misspelled it and Jack didn’t have the heart to bother him about it. On the cowl, it had a large Snow White character - Dopey giving Hitler the middle finger. This replica has a real gun-sight, throttle quadrant and stick grip. Jack helped on the project while he still could and donated his actual flight helmet and goggles as well as a bunch of pictures and memorabilia.

Jack’s P-47 had a unique paint job. One of the plastic model companies even made a model of it with decals to match Jack’s plane. It was an olive drab painted early D model without the dorsal fin. That fin along the top of the tail fuselage was added in the field and left unpainted. Jack had made contact with some trees during a low-level prank during one of his first flights in the P-47 and the wings were replaced - they were un-painted too except for the US roundel. Jack said: “The P-47 didn’t pull out of a dive like the P-38 did”. “Pulled the nose up and it just kept going the angle it was!” Their transition to P-47 was - none. Just jump in and fly it - no manuals, instruction, nothing. The very first plane their squadron flew was damaged on landing. Jack was second or third to fly their new mounts.

Jack was a real fun guy and thanks to Steve and Kathy, I am proud that my wife Karen and I were able to meet him several times. He told us many stories and always had a good laugh. A very humble and genteel guy. One interesting thing is that General George Patton had given him a pistol for bravery. Jack was almost embarrassed to talk about it. A real Patton Pistol. He was that kind of a guy. Best generation.

Along with Steve’s Frigid Midgit, we are going to have Terry Allred’s Verner 3VL engine on display. We could not in good concience tear apart the P-36 even more and trailer it again. We need to jump right into completing it after the show. Not bringing it was the only way we could attend. Steve and Terry stepped-up big time for us. Thank You! We have the best friends!

Flap work continues and the landing gear modification to Oleo struts is waiting on a few machined parts to get made. We are going to be ready to fly in April - early May at the latest. So testing in May/June. Then, get ready for a long cross country for AirVenture ‘23 late July. That will be fun- or at least a great adventure!

March Already!

Can't believe it is March already. February was jam-packed so I guess it just flew-by. SNF is almost here! We are in discussions on sharing a booth with Myers Aviation. We were not planning to go this year, but Verner is concerned about representation, so we are gonna try - last minute! If we go, it will interrupt our flight testing, but not too much if we don't trailer the P-36.

We are on-track for completing our flap installation and the oleo strut conversion by early April. The flaps are built and ready to install. The flap actuation torque tubes and drive arms are fabricated and ready to install. The wing modifications are under-way. Those modifications involve removing the aft, lower skins and modifying the ribs to make room for the flaps. We will also install a Z bent spar for the hinges to mount to. The hinge blocks will hold the actuation drive system. The flap actuator is electric and will mount behind the pilot seat bulkhead and below the baggage space. The flap switch will be mounted to a small box that will fit on the left side-wall of the cockpit - between the throttle and the arm rest. We will have a circuit breaker mounted into the box there also.

In February, I made a trip down to Florida to visit some customers and give/receive advice on FWF installation of the Verner engines. That was a very productive trip and fun too! At the end of the month, I took a full week off to go on a Caribbean cruise with my wife-where I am writing this blog from. Yah-Mon! My first cruise - very fun! I did get sick the first night, but felt good after that.

Standing in line for a show, met a married couple-both airline pilots. He flew airshows in a Bede 5 micro-jet he built. She has an RV-8 they built. He is retired, she is still working. They know my wife’s sister who is an airline pilot. I also donated my BD-5 project to Art Nall - the same guy he sold his micro-jet to. Mine will be converted to a jet with the larger engine after his. So two of the fastest BD-5J’s. You never know who you will meet. Aviation is a small World in the sense that you meet people and they know your friends from some crazy interaction. It’s cool! Planning to meet up at SNF and for sure Oshkosh.

Just before leaving for this cruise, we got our new replacement propeller blades from NR Prop of Kiev, Ukraine. They sent it parcel post and USPS delivered it here. Only took two weeks - from a war zone! They are still in business. It is important for their economy to keep moving along so business is encouraged. They have mostly scheduled power outages from the damaged electrical grid. The blades look great. Very good quality and finish. These are not the exact same blades we had. These are going to have a smaller over-all diameter of 68". The old prop was 72". We are re-using the hub. We wanted a known performance blade and tip design for flight testing. These are a standard propeller model for NR Prop so they know the performance it should provide. Designed for 125 hp and 115 to 135 kts cruise speeds. The shape is slightly slimmer than before, but it looks WW2 in shape but with squared tips instead of rounded. I'm very eager to check the balance and install this and the 2-blade wood prop from GSC for static pull testing.

Our plan is to get you real performance numbers ASAP. March and April will be very busy! Flight testing in April and May.

Update: Trips over - Back to work! I wasn’t able to edit the website blog from the ship - internet was spotty for andriod phones. Sending it from home. Promise to update you on any SNF plans and if we get a booth.

Fresh Start

Happy New Year! Best wished to all of you and your families. We made some progress, but not as much as I was planning for - but that’s what plans are for! I didn’t plan on getting a nasty cold for Christmas. Must have been getting it right as I was writing the last blog entry. Wife got it and gave it to me - I want to blame somebody! The gift that keeps on giving! Then Scott got it and it ruined the first half of our work week. Christmas was delayed, but good enough thanks to Dayquil. The rest of my family didn’t get sick or were just finished with it and we had a good time none-the-less. Plus, it was like Artic here for a few days over Christmas and after. I’m glad we didn’t get the snow that many had to endure. Just some rain and then freezing cold. Glad to be working inside!

The flaps are designed to be split flaps like the P-36 and 40 had - except at approx. 50% of span. On the next airframe they will be closer to 60% like the real ones - since we have more aileron than needed. This thing rolls quick! I am planning to use the electric drive motor out of a Pulsar build that was never finished. We are using a square tube for a main spar and then z-bent stiffeners, piano-hinge and .125 inch thick bar stock at trailing edge for the span-wise members. Triangular ribs made of several pieces riveted-up are spaced at normal intervals to make each flap rigid and transfer the airflow loads to the hinge and the drive assembly. We are adding in z-bent spars for mounting the flap drive system hinge blocks and the piano hinges. We will be modifying the inboard and outboard wings aft of the rear spars to accommodate the flap spars and the space needed for the flaps to fit up in there. The modified ribs will get stiffeners.

Over the week, Scott worked on tweaking the CAD models and 2D patterns and then the cut path files - trying to catch-up. I spent a lot of the week working on cleaning-up parts lists (not a very glamorous job) and cleaning/organizing work spaces - basement shop and office, our industrial shop and the hangar. Trevor helped with the organizing too. Also we have been rounding up tools and equipment from our multiple spaces and getting them to the locations we will need them (haven’t been making parts in a long time now). I keep telling myself to buy tools for all the spaces so I don’t have to drag them back and forth. Someday!

On Saturday and Sunday, we did cut-out most of the flap parts and the two skins with rivet holes on the 3D router table. Will be able to finish cutting the rest of the thicker parts out over the next few days. Then will bend the parts up with the box brake we have at our shop. The steel lasered parts have still not arrived - hope they show up soon. Then can get busy welding up the flap drive system parts. I have been chomping at the bit to build the flaps and we are going to hit it hard this week and likely a few more. Then attack the landing gear mods. At least that is the PLAN now! Fresh start to the new year!

Also, here is a pic of the wood prop we ordered from GSC Systems, Inc. in Canada. This is going to just be for testing purposes and likely just a few flights. NR Prop is still alive - literally! They are working when they can on making a new set of carbon fiber propeller blades for our hub. God bless them there in Kiev.

Happy Holidays - Merry Christmas!

The ScaleBirds crew want to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah and any of the year end/beginning holidays you practice and enjoy. God bless you all.

Many of you know that most of us on the ScaleBirds crew work a day job for General Dynamics, Electric Boat Division here in Southeastern Connecticut. The ship building industry and Electric Boat in particular shut-down the yard and design facilities between Christmas and New Years. We call it “shut-down”. Unusually creative I know. That means a whole week off from work and enough time to get a serious amount of work done on the plane. Ready for that! There are some friends and family activities to make room in the schedule for.

We have been preparing for this week for a while. The design work is done on the mods we are going to do. Some final 2d patterns to make and then we can start cutting metal. We have ordered our materials and have sent files off for laser cutting the steel parts - hope we get them this week. Planning to fabricate the flaps and flap drive assemblies, cut the wing skin and ribs and then add in the flap spars and hinges. Test fit and then paint everything. Scott will then work on landing gear parts in the machine shop. Will see how far we get in a week.