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Quote of the Day: Skin in the Game
“In those early days, the Chief Engineer was almost always the Chief Pilot as well. This had the automatic result of eliminating poor engineering very early in aviation.” — Igor I. Sikorsky
This little pearl of wisdom from Igor has a real resonance with yours truly. I knew that the onset of summer was when I first strapped my backside in an airplane that was built with the labors of me and my flying buddy Tom. A quick review of my logbook confirmed that I did my first flight in N914KD on June 29, 2012, so I missed my first flight anniversary for a Quote of the Day by a week.
It was not that plane’s first flight, because I am a realist when it comes to my flying skills, and I paid a mere pittance to one of my instructor buddies, who has over 15,000 hours flying in dozens of aircraft types, and he actually had time in our type of aircraft. He did the honors of being the first, and after about 30 minutes of seat-of-the-pants flying, he landed and assessed the stability of our baby.
His assessment as he taxied back the ramp was a pair of thumbs up, but he also had a punch list of squawks that needed to be resolved before the next flight. Most notably getting the airspeed on the Electronic EFIS software displaying the correct value. Some cooling issues, which after several increasingly more invasive modifications, we have finally conquered last summer under all but the hottest (+37C) of days. Lastly, adjusting the pitch of the horizontal stabilizer. This item was finally addressed to our complete satisfaction this spring. It became important to increase the pitch down range (beyond the initial adjustable range, which we did after that first flight) for further reducing the landing speed for my son’s flying instructions. Yes, the circle is now complete, and one of my sons has tasted the flying urge and has taken to the air.
Tom and I both were bitten hard by the freedom one feels when you are coursing through the air and it’s under your control. We had done several trips to that orgy of experimental aircraft flying held annually on the shores of Lake Winnebago in Oshkosh, WI. After several trips to some Experimental Fly-ins, the idea of actually building a plane evolved from why to why not?
We settled on a comprehensive kit, both in the complete supply of the parts required and, more crucially, the instructions. Some available kits are notoriously vague on “how to do this step,” or have few pictures of the assembly’s final expected appearance. This kit came with a three-inch binder full of women instructions and pictures.
This box arrived in the dead winter, January of 2003. We had delusions visions that we could whip out the assembly and fly to the centennial celebration of the first flight in Kitty Hawk, NC, in December 2003.
The model airplanes I built as a boy as came in a box, so I guess it’s true that the difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. Well the reality of life’s obligations adjusted that to May of 2012. This is the birth certificate that the FAA’s representative (he’s a DAR, Designated Airworthiness Representative) conferred to our labor of love.
Ol’ Bill has been doing these airworthiness inspections for at least a decade, and mentioned after four hours of him and his assistants looking into every nook and cranny of 914KD that it was one of the cleanest build reviews he had ever done. That is the result of two aerospace engineers sweating the details and knowing who would be flying it for the next few decades.
The time from kit receipt to flight was also hampered by SkyStar, the manufacturer of the kit, going bankrupt before they delivered all of the parts. It required a few years of tussle to get everything for which we paid. Bankruptcy also hampered getting factory support when the instructions had ambiguities that only a pair of aerospace engineers would think to question.
Since there are over 1,500 of these kits sold, and two-thirds of them are flying, there is a demand for support, and fortunately one of the folks who worked for “SkyStar” bought the interests, tooling, and leftover parts, and reestablished the marquee. This is not that uncommon an event in the life of an airframe in both certified and uncertified GA aircraft production.
After nine years, 1,700 hours between the two builders, I got to relive Mr. Sikorsky’s nostrum, or Mr. Long’s admonition to Have Skin in the Game. Was it a risk? Sure, all of life is a risk, but if one does not have some calculated risks in one’s life how do you know you are alive and free?
I love it, and you are quite funny. I like your outside inspector.
Sounds like your airplane knows the human blood temperature.
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That is my favorite Igor quote.
The second favorite:
Well you just killed one my other possible QotD topics…
I am impressed. Here is the biggest thing I ever built from a kit. A brother and I built it back in 1967. We couldn’t then afford to buy an AlumaCraft 16′ canoe like those used in Minnesota’s boundary waters, so we built a canvas-hulled canoe from a kit that was advertised in some of the Field and Stream type magazines. Ours was just a 14′ canoe. It wasn’t as light as an aluminum canoe of the same size would have been. The canvas was painted with a linseed-oil/paint mixture, if I remember right, and it got heavier after a session in the water. But it was light enough to handle easily out of the water (for portaging and loading) and the canoe also handled well in the water. We never took it to the boundary waters, nor did we ever plan to, but it got some use for fishing close to home and in an expedition down an ice-choked Mississippi River in early 1969.
Did the skin of your plane come in kit form, too? Were you on your own for cutting and fitting?
What fun!
With a boat you can always swim, and jumping from a plane that does not have an easy to egress configuration, which limits a parachute option, and only works above a few thousand feet anyway.
The plane’s cover is Poly Fiber system. It come in rolls like you get from a fabric store. You “glue it” to the leading and trailing edges or the appropriate corners of the fuselage tubing, heat shrink it a certain percentage, then load the Dacron fibers with a vinyl plasticizer, spray it with an aluminized paint to protect the Dacron from the Sun’s UV degrading rays, then paint with a long linked polyurethane paint. It’s is good for 20 to 30 years if you keep it out of the sun.
The process is very similar to the shrinkable wrap we did as kids to the balsa airplane models we built.
The bigger the toys…
OK, but you still have 5 quotes left.
That’s a really nice looking plane. Now all you need is a picture of a pretty girl for the nose art.
Saving that for the current project.
It,
I have a picture of my wife when she was 18 on the OC beach in a bikini, perhaps I can get a vinyl graphic shop to turn it into a appliqué.
That sounds like a great plan.
Does that one have the same sort of skin material?
Nope I learn my lesson, I spent a lot of hours doing the Poly-Fiber process. It involves a lot of process technique including how to do Seine knots to keep the fabric attached to the concave portions of the wings and in general to any lifting surface.
This plane is solely made of composites, mostly fiberglass, and some carbon structural areas. I, with the help of my son, did the entire airframe in 3 months, at the kit factory two years ago. That is about how long it required to just cover the airframe with the Dacron.
I went to see if anybody tried using poly fiber on a cedar-strip canoe, and quickly found myself in thick weeds in the discussion forums. Shoulda stayed on shore.
My cousin died of cancer earlier this spring, he was a life long flight enthusiast and in his younger days a ultra-light pilot. (He gave it up once his son was born – and never flew again)
He had a powerchute ultralight, similar to this:
One summer day, it was too perfect not to be out flying, and he took his plane out for a flight. (he lived on a farm in NW Saskatchewan – a low population township – its where we grew up)
His contraption is a bit strange, and as he’s flying its not unusual for drivers to pull over and take pictures of him as he flies over. However on this perfect day, one car that does pull over, is an RCMP cruiser. The cruiser begins to follow him, and as you can tell by the photo these things are very limited in range, altitude and flight time, so eventually there is no more avoiding it, and he lands back in his pasture where he left from.
A few minutes after landing, the police arrive. The Mountie who chased him down is enthralled, he’d never seen a contraption like this one – he wanted to know about where to buy it, what kind of training you need to fly it… and vitally what kind of license you need to fly it…My cousin loves his hobby, and is quite happy to share his enthusiasm with the officer.
Eventually all the officers curiosities are settled, and (I am sure much to my cousin’s relief) leaves. Because my cousin was so open and sharing with the officer, he never asked for the one question that could have wrecked my cousin’s day – to see his license to fly, that my cousin did not have. (yet)
Your cousin is safe, the FAA does not require a license to fly either a paraglider or a single seat ultralight (the 2 seat ultra light version requires a sport light license, but if you went you spend the effort for one of those, it’s only a little more effort to get a base private pilot ticket…)
Canada doesnt completely subscribe to FAA guidelines. Canada does require license to leave the ground in any vehicle – except perhaps trebuchet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_licensing_in_Canada#Ultra-light_pilot_permit
How about without a vehicle? Or is there no Rapture for Canadians?
No, there is no Rapture for Canadians… We’re already there. … /sarcasm
It strikes me that the only thing bolder than taking a plane you built yourself as an amateur out for its first flight is taking a plane some other random amateur built by themselves out for its first flight. Airworthiness certificate or not, I don’t know if there’s any amount of money you could pay me to be test pilot for planes people build in their garage.
My hat’s off to that guy – but also to you, GLDIII, for successfully completing such an ambitious project. Lord knows I couldn’t even get my Revell model airplanes to stay intact for more than 5 minutes.