Steady Progress

I love air powered tools. In my little airplane single engine land construction hanger, when I fired up the air wrench, that inimitable sound meant one thing: Making progress toward an ambitious goal of flying the United States. As many States as I could. In an aircraft I had built myself.

Low.

And slow.

Like, 50 MPH slow. That's pretty slow. For comparison a 737 stalls (ie, falls to the ground) at 125 MPH. My plane would fall to the ground at 35 MPH. The top speed of a 737 is more than 500 MPH. My plane was at risk of falling to pieces in midair above 125 MPH.

So ... low and slow. By design and by desire. I want to see every horse snapping its head up, every deer dashing, every coyote running. The trees, the rivers, the lakes, the ponds, the houses and the people glancing up at me. Some mom trying to start her lawn mower. Some dad loading his SUV with groceries. Kids smoking dope in a park.

Flying low and slow in an aircraft is something of a hazard to life and limb. If you have an engine out then there's no space or time to find a clearing to land safely. You're possibly done. That's something to think about. High and fast is the risk mitigating rule. I've never been a rule breaker. I've always been compliant. Well, there's not much time left. One decade? Two? I don't like easy chairs or reclining.

Anyway, it's a bald fact that complete safety and security are an illusion. There is only risk and how you choose to experience it.

But long before those considerations would ever even be remotely relevant there were still many pieces to remove from TZero:

There are parts to save

and parts to toss:

 

TZero was going to take more time to disassemble than some engine cores would. It was stuck and wouldn't rotate. Mad Max, said my wife. Mad freakin' Max! I didn't listen to her because she had no basis to deny the beauty of a rebuilt Corvair flight engine.

Because TZero was intransigent, removing the clutch and the distributor would be non-trivial. First the heads would have to come off, the top cover and magnesium fan -- then lots and LOTS of penetrating oil had to be applied in all the right places. Tapping with wood in the right places to free it up. The exhaust logs were so rusted onto the heads that it took about 3 days of periodic spraying Liquid Wrench and tapping the exhaust logs with mallet and wood block -- then ballpen hammer and cold chisel (very, very carefully) before the exhaust logs (pictured on right above) came free from the heads.

And because I took my time the heads were still 100% intact -- which was an absolute requirement.

Build time: 1.5 hrs, 5.5 hrs total.

Sheetmetal Gone

More progress. Took all that old sheetmetal off except for the 4 pieces I'll eventually reuse. Isn't TZero nice, sitting in the sunset?

Couple other views:

My wife says this looks like something out of Mad Max and that she's going to wave at me from the ground. Also she claims that she's going to increase my life insurance policy. But this is on its way, one way or 'tother:

And on a plane (see article here):

Build time: 1.5 hrs, 4 hrs total

A Quick Wash and a Great Read

This:

To be able to see these:

Which are the case studs and the nuts that the heads are torqued onto the cylinders and case with. Luckily TZero looks in pretty good shape. Disassembly soon.

But what I've been spending my time on mostly is this absolute wonder:

This manual -- the product of intense focus and genius -- is the brilliant work of William Wynne, who's been developing Corvair flight engine conversions since 1989. Not only is it a technical document of extraordinary value, but Mr. Wynne spices it with exhortations, sharp warnings -- and years of A&P wisdom. This book is more than a conversion manual for Corvair engines, though, it's a conversion manual for life. Check this:

"By choosing to build your own plane, accepting and managing the risk, you are making a giant course correction from a life consigned to "the cancerous discipline of security." The next time you tell someone that you are building your own aircraft, and the first thing out of their mouth is how they would never build one nor fly with you, just think of (this): "In the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine -- and before we know it our lives are gone." That is what is going to happen to all the people with a long personal list of things they would never do. If you are persistent in pursuit of your dreams, your place isn't going to be among those who expended their lives relentlessly looking for security."

"Make your choice. If it sounds scary, it's because consumer society has had decades to teach you to doubt yourself, your potential, your dreams and abilities."

"Building a plane and learning to master its maintenance and flight is the rejection of these messages, and the replacement of them with the knowledge that you are the master of your own adventure. This is what building and flying is all about."

Build time: .5 hrs, 2.5 hrs total

In From The Wilds

I don't know how long T04I3RG was buried at John's Salvage, but I was real excited to pick her up today. She's mostly intact, no major damage by outside inspection. No she doesn't rotate -- and that might be a bigger problem -- but I hope it is merely cylinder and piston ring rust. The previous 3 Corvair engines I had were not listed in the manual as ideally good engines. But TZero meets the standard. She was brought in to the shop a bit messy -- but I expect she'll clean up real nice. Pictured below is TZero now:

And this is what I expect her to look like as soon as I can get her reassembled with parts from William Wynne and Dan Weseman:

Let the match begin!!!

Build time: .5 hrs,  2 hrs total

Pietenpol Down

IV

I'd lived less than 15 minutes from Old Kingsbury Aerodrome for nine years before I dropped by with my daughter. Earlier that day I'd found a Corvair engine I was going to convert to drive the CH 750 I wanted to build.

85TE, as it's identified on navigation charts and with the FAA, has a 2600 foot long grass runway, one I thought was not in service any longer, except for radio controlled airplanes that the Aerodrome was used for.

We drove up and I parked in some shade cast by a post oak. The big hangar that served as the museum display hall was empty save for an airframe up for sale, a WW1 era tank, and the fuselage of a scout aircraft that looked like the kind used in Vietnam by forward air controllers -- but I think it was much older than that.

When we walked into the hanger where the Pioneer Flight Museum office was, a lanky fellow emerged from behind a number of wings being prepared to have fabric applied. He introduced himself as Steve. We talked a bit, and he asked if I was a pilot, and what I was interested in flying. "A CH 750, but I have build it first," I said. "Also I found myself a Corvair engine today to rebuild."

"A Corvair?" he said. "I have one of those in my Wag-a-Bond."

"A William Wynne conversion?"

"William Wynne built the motor. But I acquired it from the guy he built it for."

Steve had about 20 hours on his Corvair. He showed us around the hanger which was being used to house some wonderful WW1 aircraft, all under construction: An SE5A replica, a Rearwin 2000C "Ken-Royce", and some original and replica Bristol Fighters.

Then we moseyed over to another hanger, where they had a Canuck, a Piper J-3 Cub, and a Thomas-Morse Scout. What wasn't on hand was the Fokker Dr.I Triplane.

It was incredible and I was a bit disappointed in myself, an aspiring homebuilder, to have never taken the time to come over and visit before. We came out of the hanger and we talked about the strip. There was a short runway for the RC aircraft, the then the longer one. Planes using 85TE are to circle the field at 1000 ft AGL waiting for RC aircraft to land.

"We had an incident today," Steve said calmly. Then he pointed down at the south end of the runway.

I saw there a crumpled silver wing and a broken up tangle below it. The area around the plane was surrounded by yellow "Do Not Cross" tape. At that very moment, an FAA inspector was investigating the crash, though he wasn't in sight.

"The pilot?" I asked cautiously. Steve seemed to draw in his breath a little. "He's alive, at the hospital. He's got some broken bones. But he's alive."

The plane was a really beautiful Pietenpol Sky Scout that had been attached to the museum. It had a model A engine in it, and on a south takeoff, during the initial climb out, the engine had stopped. The pilot had already begun turning east from the runway. He did his best and brought it down still generally on the field, but unfortunately there was a clump of trees that he wound up hitting. No fire had started. An ambulance had taken him to the hospital in Seguin.

I gazed at the wreckage, which was a couple hundred yards away. I was briefly tempted to go get a better look. "Papa," my daughter asked, "you're not going to crash like that, are you?"

"No baby," I said, without looking at her.  "No, papa won't crash like that."

We walked in silence back up to the main office hanger, and I said goodbye to Steve. I knew I'd be going there again to volunteer with plane construction. How could I not? It would be some time before I would buy my plans from Zenith for the CH750. I could use some aircraft construction training. In the car my daughter said "Hey, let's time how long it takes us to get home!" She was already over it -- my assurance that I wouldn't crash was good enough for her.

I was thinking about the engine I'd found at John's that morning. And I was thinking about what I didn't want to ever have happen on climb out. I was thinking about a fellow pilot in the hospital.

A Corvair Engine Core

IV

I headed out to John's Salvage just south of Seguin Texas in search of a useable Corvair engine that I could rebuild into an experimental aircraft engine.

I had called John, and he'd said that he had about 30 Corvairs left that still had engines. However he added that all the engines that you'd stick in airplanes were gone. "All of them?" I asked. "Yes, all of them."

I didn't let his assessment put me off.

And so with serial numbers in hand from my newly acquired 2014 William Wynne Corvair Conversion Manual, I headed out to John's, a twenty minute drive.


V

There are 5000 vehicles at John's Salvage. Piled high. They sent me out back ("turn left at the third oak") where I was told I would find Corvairs. I couldn't find any. Finally I asked some random if he'd seen any Corvairs. "Sure," he says, pointing. "There's one right there."

I had walked right past it.

I poked around and found more: A bunch of rusted Corvair car bodies stacked on top of each other in heaps, snarled grape vines, small trees and brush almost completely blocking access. Sadly, I'd left my machete at home.

After about 45 minutes of using engine degreaser and a brush on multiple engines, sweating profusely and scratched all to hell from the mesquite thorns, I finally scrubbed away some dirt and scum to see letters I was looking for, stamped in the shiny metal of the case, just behind the oil filler tube -- a serial number ending with a letter combo that meant, in brief, "a good engine for conversion".

To know what to look for, I strongly recommend getting the manual; some serial numbers indicate cores that are "good to rebuild into flight engines", others not. There are caveats and complexities. Go to the authority, William Wynne. Also helpful is to get his disassembly DVD. I did that in 2007 when I disassembled my first engine, and it was well worth it. The engine was seized, but with the manual and DVD I had persevered and prevailed.

There was no way for me to remove the engine in the moment, I lacked the tools and the time; furthermore the car it was in was trapped between multiple other vehicles, had a truck frame on top of it, and was only accessible through a narrow maze of 1 foot wide foot paths. The engine weighs more than 230 pounds with all the gizmos and sheet metal attached.

Well -- no way.

Filthy and a bit bloody, I walked back up to the office, conferred with John for a while, and decided to let them pull the engine out for me. It would cost maybe a little more, but during the week I was writing code for Dell and didn't have time to go pull an engine from a dead Corvair.

After 10 years -- finally -- I was getting back into "the arena".


Build time: 1.5 hrs, 1.5 hrs total