“So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern…Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”

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I awaken in the middle of the night; there has been a power outage, all the clocks are wrong, the one on the microwave is blinking. I cannot remember what time I fell asleep. It is pitch black out. Thought: if it is before 5am, back to bed, after, make coffee and walk out to the shop. To find out what time it is I turn on the cable TV to a random channel: 3:22 am. I almost flick it off before noticing the movie is the 30 year old adaptation of Orwell’s book “1984″. The part of the film is covered by the quote above. I watched 60 seconds and turned it off. I don’t need to see more, I have read the book countless times, much of it lives in my memory. I hold it to be the most disturbing book ever written.

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Yesterday at the gas station I had waited in line behind a man speaking heatedly into a cell phone. He held a 12 pack and asked the person behind the counter for a carton of cigarettes and a number of lottery tickets. His belief in luck exceeds his understanding of statistics; Odds of lung cancer 1 in 5, odds of being a millionaire 1 in 30,000,000. Orwell’s quote brings the man’s image back to mind. It is not a significant coincidence. Had I stood there an hour, I could have seen a near continuous stream just like him.

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I am not better than that man. He evokes no sense of disgust nor superiority in me, just an empathy, a strange sense that I genuinely wish that other elements of his life have rich meaning, but I can’t even pretend to imagine it. I too have allowed myself to be anesthetized by the colorless grind of unmemorable days folding into unmemorable months. I am not better than that man.

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I have the personal perspective that the chain of days in the calendar of life are all delivered in a black and white format. The 1,440 minutes that make up each of them pass in a gray flow unless a genuine effort is made to paint them with color, the color of real life.

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It is 4:12 now. The first cup of coffee is done, I am going to the shop now.  1,188 minutes left in this day. I am going to color them by making things with my own hands that will later leave the ground as parts of a machine that will last many decades. If the weather at sunrise is good, the sky will be full of color, and I fire up a 68 year old plane and spend 15 minutes aloft welcoming the color to this day. -ww.

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Above, Grace hugs old friend Tom Brown in front of his Monocoupe in June 2005 at the SAA gathering at Urbana Ill.  Tom is well known for his 1,500 hour Corvair powered Pietenpol. I took the photo, and I can remember the moment so clearly it seems no longer ago than yesterday.

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” If you work outside of aviation, let me teach you something: Many mechanics can fly a plane; Many pilots can change plugs or tires; Many ATC guys can navigate; Many dispatchers can forecast weather; Many linemen can start and taxi a turbo prop; Many glider pilots can hand prop a plane, and so on. As a general rule, people in aviation have an interest that exceeds their job description. While there are obviously plenty of avionics guys who know how to fly, build, navigate, or what ever, most people who work in aviation would gladly tell you that avionics people tend to think of the rest of the aircraft as a support system for the panel.”

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Read the whole story here:

MGL vs Corvair ignition issue

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Michael Heintz, left, and myself on the right congratulate Rick Lindstrom for winning the Best Engine Installation Award at the 2007 Copperstate Fly In. His 601 XL is behind us. The photo was taken at the Quality Sport Planes facility in California during Corvair College #11. Michael actually flew the plane on the 1,500 mile round trip to the Copper State airshow. It is a testimony to our work with Corvairs that a pilot with no previous experience with them could confidently get in the plane and fly it for 12 hours over some of the least forgiving terrain in North America without checkout, special briefing nor concern. We set them up to behave just like Lycomings and Continentals. Some of the numbers marked the tach and temp gauges are slightly different, but the engine operate with the same feel.

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For many years Rick covered avionics for Kitplanes magazine, but in the big picture he is a pilot first, mechanic second and avionics guy third. Rick’s 601XL was built in our hangar in Florida in 2006. During the test phase the engine and airframe behaved flawlessly, but we had a number of issues with the glass cockpit which was made by made by the much heralded Blue Mountain Avionics. Their hay day was short, they ceased production in 2009 and closed the company. -ww.

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Builders,

I am going to sweep together much of the info we have on turbocharging Corvairs here and have it as a reference page for builders, with links to other previous information I have written on the subject.

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Why put a turbo on a Corvair Flight engine? For more power. Corvair cars were the first mass produced turbocharged passenger cars. Many people who know little about cars mistakenly think it was the Porsche 911, but the Corvair Spider beat the Carrera to the market by a full 12 years. The Corvair was designed from the start with the possibility of boosting the output by putting a turbo on it. Above all, it has the cooling for this. Engines that barely have the cooling to run naturally aspirated don’t stand a chance with a turbo.

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 Our work with turbos on flying Corvairs: Most of our flight test work was done in 2005. The information was of personal interest to me, and many builders expressed an interest also. But as a reality check, A turbo on a flying Corvair was not really something 95% of builders needed. Also, bringing our test bed aircraft to airshows and speaking with builders taught me that the great majority of people who expressed interest had little appreciation of the complexity and often they had very unrealistic expectations. The best example of this was the majority of people saying “I don’t want a boosted engine, I just want it turbo-normalized” Clearly some of the sources of information on turbocharging of planes that people were reading was not written from a practical experience. Having a flying plane was done, but there was a lot of work to go before builders could understand what the motor would entail, what it would be good at, and what it could not practically do.

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Above is a 2005 overhead shot of  our test bead aircraft the Turbo-Skycoupe.  It is easy to see the stainless heat shield over the hot side of the turbo in this view. You can see more photos at this link: More Turbo Skycoupe photos

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Turbo-normalizing engines: Picture a naturally aspirated 100 hp Corvair powered plane climbing out from an airport at sea level. The pressure is 29.92″ there. Now picture the same plane taking off from Leadville CO, at 9,927′. The air there is has only 65% of the density it does at sea level. A turbo could easily put this right back, but here is the in-escapable issue: You can only do this with an inflight adjustable prop. If you tried it with a fixed pitch prop that worked at sea level, the prop would radically over speed at altitude.  If you put on a fixed pitch prop that absorbed 100 hp at 9,927′ and then tried to take off from sea leave without boosting the engine past 29,92″ on take off, the plane might not even spin the same prop to 2,500 rpm. performance would be very poor, less than a naturally aspirated 100 hp motor with the right prop. The bottom line is you can’t turbo-normalize any plane unless it has an in flight adjustable prop. They exist, but they cost nearly as much money as your motor will. The good news is that a turbo-boosted engine still makes sense in some applications, and it works with a fixed pitch prop.

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The Vne problem: Many people who like the idea of a turbo say “I want to get up high and go fast.” OK, this can be done, but here is a very real issue: Many light planes, especially experimentals, can already operate near their Vne (Velocity Never Exceed) speed. If you add a turbo to them, they will be able to fly right through it in level flight, a very bad idea. People debate this, but here is the reality that the educated side of the argument knows: Vne is based on TRUE airspeed not indicated. If you are in a plane with a Vne of 200 mph, and you are at 10,000′ and indicating 170 mph on a naturaly aspirated engine, you have no where to go. This is because your true airspeed will be 199 mph, and that is 1 mph below your Vne. Put a turbo on that plane and you can’t use it to increase the high altitude cruise. This is a very common condition for Van’s RV aircraft, and it is a big part of the reason why you don’t hear about them being usefully turbocharged. With Corvairs, the common example is the KR-2s, which can fly very near it’s Vne naturally aspirated.  If someone around the airport tells you I am wrong about this, look it up for yourself in Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators. I can’t sing nor dance, but I did learn some things in my 5 1/2 years at Embry-Riddle.

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Above, Arnold Holmes and I stand behind the engine installation on a V-8 powered Lancair IV-P. This is an EngineAir package that I helped develop from 1993 to ’98. It’s 450hp, geared, injected, intercooled and very heavily turbocharged.

 Most of the people commenting on turbocharging piston planes have little experience with it. In 1996 We took a Lancair IVP like this one on a test flight to 32,500′  I have a number of hours aloft above 29,000′ in these planes. Very few people have flown that high in light piston planes, and truly very few have worked on the engines and system that worked in this environment. You can learn a lot; example, you can easily overheat an engine even when it is 30 below zero outside because the air density is low, and it can’t take many BTU’s out of the cooling system.

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There are also many practical things that directly relate to turbocharged Corvairs such as techniques of welding 321 stainless tubing. Many new guys like to talk about selecting the turbo itself, but my experience says that the reliability of the system has a lot to do with details like how large the radius in the exhaust bends are, if the welders are really careful to come off the Tig pedal slowly and not to leave tiny ‘craters’ on the ends of weld beads, and a bunch of other details. Dozens of companies have on line catalogs to pick turbos, and people regurgitate that info all the time, but real installations have to be very carefully fabricated by experienced people.

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Get a good look at the size of the 5-blade MT propeller. Air is thin at 30,000′ and to absorb 400 hp there, you need blade area, speed and lots of pitch change . Contrary to what some people think, even though this engine was geared 2.19 to 1, it only needed 74″ of diameter to be optimized for the task.

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on to part #2…..

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Builders, Here is part 2:

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“Boosted” engines: If normalizing is trying to maintain 29.92″ of sea level pressure in the intake, a boosted engine is driving the manifold pressure above this. This is actually very common, and almost every single classic radial engine was “Boosted”, except they most often used superchargers to do this. A P&W 450 hp radial is known by its displacement “the 985″ is how many cubic inches it has. They make their rated power at 36.5″ of manifold pressure. Many other classic piston engines made their power at 45 -72″ of manifold pressure. High end GA engines like the GTISO-520 makes it “low power” 375 hp rating at 40″ MAP. In the big picture it is ‘turbo normalizing’ that is the oddity.

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In the car, the turbo Corvair is a Boosted engine. The 180 HP ‘Corsa’ model made its rated power at 5,200 rpm and 45″ MAP. That is about 7 pounds of boost in car-speak. Worth noting is that the same engine made 265 foot pounds of torque was down low in the rpm band, at a setting that can be used in a direct drive engine, and the turbos we have used are far better at building torque that the car original was. A 3,000 cc  engine running 40″ MAP on takeoff is burning the same amount of fuel and air as a 4,000 cc naturally aspirated engine. If that doesn’t sound dramatic, read this story to understand what kind of difference 35% more power makes on a plane’s climb performance: Pietenpol Power: 100 hp Corvair vs 65 hp Lycoming

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Draw through vs Blow through:  On a draw through arrangement, the air flows through the carb, then the turbo and on to the engine.  A blow through is turbo-carb (or injection) and then the engine. Draw through is characterized by simplicity. Our set ups are all draw through, as was the original Corvair car. Virtually all modern cars are fuel injected, and the ones that are turboed are blow through. The primary advantages are two things which don’t matter to planes, throttle response and emmisions.  One of the hidden advantages to draw through is the fuel getting fully vaporized early radically cools the intake air and makes it more dense without the need for an intercooler. Injected engines can’t do this because the fuel arrives in the intake just ahead of the valves. In one minute at full output, a turbo engine will digest and vaporize more than a pound of fuel, this has a great cooling effect on 250 cubic feet of air.

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One of the things that always comes up when you mention draw through arrangements on planes is an alarmist pointing out that every foot of the intake has air and fuel in it under slight pressure, and this is in his mind a giant fire hazard. A dozen years ago it was mentioned on the Dragonfly builder’s list that I was working on a draw through arrangement for the Corvair. The leading ‘personality’ on that list wrote a long diatribe about what a horrible person I was, and convinced most people of this by saying that no airplane was made that way.  Only one problem with his argument, it  was a complete lie.  The US built 300,000 planes in WWII; 160,000 of them were multi engine, and 32,000 of those had four engines. If you look at all the radials, the Allisons and the Merlins on these planes, You are looking at 750,000 engines, and virtually every one of them was a draw through arrangement being boosted by a turbo, a supercharger or both.  A R-4360 engine has at least forty, (40′) feet of intake piping after the blower, and every bit of it is packed with fuel and air. There are 56 couplings in that intake system that I can think of. If draw through systems didn’t work WWII would have had a different outcome.

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 For a look at some of our ground testing we did in 2004 before flight testing, get a look at this link: Testing Turbo Corvair and Rotax 912S. In some of the tests we ran the MAP all the way to 60″, which is 15 pounds of boost, or a 2,700 cc engine inhaling the same amount of air as one that is 5,400 cc (330 cubic inches) The turbo we were using was a modified Garret TO-4B with a .58AR housing, machined for a carbon seal. It worked great. Not all turbos are expensive, this one was made in the USA and it was only $545 brand new. The real cost of a full turbo system is far more, because many of the other parts like the exhaust system have to be made from very high quality materials. If you look at the price of turbos on Ebay, be aware that the market is flooded with counterfeit name brand turbos that are made in red China. A turbo counts on good materials, it often runs 1,600F on the inlet and the wheel is turning 100,000 rpm while it is working. If it breaks a blade or bearing, it feeds the metal from the compressor side right into the engine. It pays to buy the real thing, especially because the US made items are often reasonably priced.

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 We learned a lot in testing. My plan was to take the regular 2004 100 hp conversion on the Skycoupe and run it with the turbo on it and get some time on it to see what parts would need to be upgraded to last on a turbo engine.  First, let me say that nothing on the engine broke, but judging from the 1550F EGTs and high oil temps, the engine would have gotten ‘tired’ quickly with the stock conversion parts of 2004.  When I see people talking about putting a turbo on an engine out of a junkyard that was never intended to be turboed, I can only wish them good luck, because our testing indicated that any engine running in a boost condition will need the best available internal parts and systems.

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Below is a number of things our testing indicated we needed for the engine to work as a regular, long lived power plant. After each topic is a link to a story of the part we developed to address each of the issues. These developed systems also served as stand alone options that have improved regular naturally aspirated Corvairs, but the owe their origins to conditions our testing identified 10 years ago.

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Engines in lower compression and more displacement with a quench: The 2,850 pistons were developed specifically to work with turbocharging. They also happen to work very well as a dual fuel piston suited to both 100ll and auto fuel. The 3,000 cc models we developed as a spin off. read the stories by clicking on the links:

Getting Started in 2013, Part #16, 3,000 cc Piston/cylinder kits

Getting Started in 2013, Part #14, 2,850 cc piston/rod/cyl. Kits

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Pressure retard distributor: When an engine is boosted it need less ignition advance. This is done on a Corvair car with a pressure retard in the place of the vacuum advance on the stock distributor. In the Skycoupe I made a special dual points distributor that only had 25 degrees of total advance. The long term answer was the system below. As a tech spin off it will also be useful on naturally aspirated engine at very high altitudes:

Ignition system, experimental “E/E-T”

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Ultra high grade exhaust valves: We normally use 4-N stainless valves in Corvairs, but the exhaust valves of turbo motors need to be made of exceptional materal to last to a normal TBO. This is a job for the super-alloy Inconel. Mark Petz of Falcon head fame developed these in 2008.  See picture below:

Above, I hold the last word in Corvair exhaust valves. In the past year, Mark Petniunas put a tremendous amount of effort into finding a source for these valves, which are precision manufactured out of the super alloy Inconel. It has greater strength at 1,500F than 4130N steel does at room temp.

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321 stainless exhaust. Our normal exhausts are made of 304 stainless, a very high quality material, but the job is better done by 321. Very few experimental engine companies have ever used this because it is 3 times the price of 304. The link below is about our regular systems, at the bottom of this page is a photo of a 321 system I made for a 601XL test.

Stainless Steel Exhaust Systems

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high volume oil pumps: Turbo engines need more oil flow to feed the bearing in the turbo, the 5th bearing and to internally cool the engine. High volume oil pumps have been around for a long time for Corvair cars, but we developed our CNC model which has better internal alignment:

High Volume Oil Pump

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large aircraft oil coolers. Turbo engine make the oil hot, it flows through the turbo’s bearing with is one inch away from the exhaust housing which can be visibly glowing. Our Gold oil systemens serve many purposes, but they would serve a turbo engine very well and allow the use of a appropriate sized cooler:

Heavy Duty Gold Oil Systems, new cooler model.

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5th bearings: These were in development by the time we were doing our turbo testing, but we did not have one on the skycoupe. Today, virtually all Corvair flight engines use one, and I would not consider building a turbo engine without one:

Getting Started in 2013, part #1, Crankshaft process options.

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I am holding the turbocharger that Woody Harris found for our test program. Note that it has an integrated wastegate. This is a common feature on modern car turbos. However, almost no modern car turbo has the capability of being used in a drawthrough application, which is a highly desirable format for aircraft use. It took us a long time to find an expert on turbos who could properly fabricate a modern turbo, appropriately sized for our application, with a carbon seal. 

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I built this exhaust System out of 321 stainless. Its future home is on Woody Harris’ 601 XL.   He will be retrofitting his 2,850 cc engine with a turbocharger. This is the engine half of the exhaust system, and it was built in my jigs. Our regular exhaust systems are built out of 304 stainless, which is extremely durable and fairly resistant to heat flow. 321 is the alloy of choice for Turbo Systems, as it withstands elevated temperatures even better. Notice how the one pipe crosses underneath the engine to go over and meet with the other before heading into the Turbo.  It is worth noting, however, that naturally aspirated Corvair powered 601s with 2,700 cc engines have exceeded 17,000’ and have little problem with density altitudes over 14,000 feet.

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“I do not have an instrument rating nor a multi rating. If I wanted either, I am sure I could write a check to a ratings mill and have enough skill in 15 days to do a passable job on the check ride. People who actually have mastery of muti and instrument flight understand that neither of these are forgiving of just “pass-able” skills when it counts. I can make a good case that this really extends to every skill set in aviation, that safety lies in mastery.  My personal concept of what I want to do in aviation is mastery of the stick and rudder VFR planes that I like. Because I am a homebuilder, I am also speaking of mastering the building of this plane, and it only makes sense to me to know the power plant, and I mean really know it, as well. “-ww.

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Read the whole story at this link:

Shop perspective: Mastery or ?

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Above, a 2009 photo. I stand between Bob Burbank, 20,000 flight CFIG on the left, and on the right is my instructor and mentor is flying, the legendary Chuck Nelson. Chuck has been flying for 65 years. He bought his first plane, a ’38 Cub, when he was 15.  . His background includes flying in the U.S. Air Force, crop dusting, water bombing, weather modification, racing at Reno, and working with both Duane Cole and Curtis Pitts. He became an instructor in the USAF in the early 1950s, and it emerged as the calling of his life. A long list of former students covers people working in every branch of the military, most major airlines, a U.S. aerobatic champion, and a guy who builds Corvairs for a living.

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Chuck has taught an incredible range of flying skills to more than 2,000 students. Through it all, the minimum acceptable standard to consider any level as accomplished is Mastery.  I bypassed many other instructors before I met Chuck. I was on a quest to learn real stick and rudder kills from a Master, and most of the CFI’s I met could not even fly a tail wheel, far less instruct in one. Having Chuck as a mentor provided me with an emersion experience into the skills, perspectives, ethics and philosophy of the ‘old breed’ CFI’s. The depth of what I learned can not be expressed in a few paragraphs.

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Those who settle for the instruction and company of flyers who’s standard is the minimum to get by, will be no better themselves, and one day they may very well encounter a set of conditions that are 1% above their minimum skills. Sadly, many of them have little idea how lacking their understanding is, how inadequate their skills are. Conversely, all who aim higher, keep company with better men and seek mastery, will know themselves to be in a better position, every hour of their lives.

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Above in our driveway, 2011: I stand beside my mentor in flying, Chuck Nelson. In the foreground is the 15 foot lapstrake double-ended sailboat we built. Over coffee a couple of years ago, Chuck casually said that he had actually done just about everything he ever wanted to do in life. And in Chuck’s case this is a long list of adventures, the centerpiece of which is an incredible array of experiences in flying. I was concerned that there were no more items on his “bucket list” to check. After I pressed him for a while, he confessed that he had always wanted to build a sailboat. He had owned plenty of them, lived on one for years, and cruised for months at a time, but he had never built one. The boat above is the result of several years of working one morning a week or so. I qualify the term “working” because this time included a whole lot of coffee drinking at the kitchen table, a lot of plinking in our backyard range, flying around in the Taylorcraft in good weather, messing around with sailplanes, and general screwing around. Quality time well spent, with something nice to show for it in the end.

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Builders.

Today is the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s  speech at Yankee stadium in 1939. I spoke with my father today, and he told me of being 14 in NJ and listening to the speech on the radio. Gehrig was 35 and just been found to have ALS, a disease with a 100% fatality rate. Considered by many to be the embodiment of sportsmanship, he stood at the microphone and told the nation “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth“.

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The 4th of July, 1939 at Yankee Stadium. He was dead less than 2 years later.

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I was once a baseball fan, but I never watched another Major League game after the Roberto Alomar incident in 1996*.  I still love the game, but I don’t care for what it has become. This does not tarnish what it was, and I uphold that Lou Gehrig’s speech remains the most moving moment in the history of American sports.

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Here is the connection to flying: If I went to the news stand at the airport and looked at Flying, the AOPA magazine, or Plane and Pilot, or even 1/2 of the things in Sport Aviation, I don’t care for the things they cover, planes they praise or even experiences they promote. The flying that I love is from a era as far removed from Cirrus and TBM as Gehrig was from the steroid scandals.  I view baseball of today and the General aviation of Cessna 162 Skycatchers  as poisoned, degenerate offspring of things that were once beautiful.

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A very important difference:  No one will ever be able to go to a Major league stadium and watch a game again without considering how money drugs and TV have shaped and mutilated it so it can be made more profitable at any cost. You can never go back, it will never be pure again.

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However, flying is very different. As a homebuilder, you can pick any era in aviation you love, build a plane from that period, and go visit it just as it was, any time you like. A plane is a time machine that can transport you to the mindset of any time. If you took your Pietenpol Aircamper flying today, once you were away from the ground a bit, it would be very hard to distinguish the 4th of July today, from the 4th of July the day Gehrig said he was the luckiest man on earth.

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Powered flight is 111 years old. It has had countless  perfect days, and they are all still there, you can go visit most of them. Tonight you can open one of the dozens of great aviation books, and read the words of the author as he vividly describes the sky on a day long past, but not forgotten.  If you are lucky the authors images will fill your sleep. Tomorrow at sunrise, you can awaken and go to your shop and make the first part of  your own time machine that will transport you to that long past hour aloft. -ww

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*I accept that Alomar was later genuinely remorseful for what he did. My problem is with the league that only suspended him for 5 games, a decision of money over ethics and Sportsmanship.

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Builders, I wrote the comments below to address a guy who put a 65 continental on a new homebuilt, rebuilt the carb himself, and couldn’t make it even slightly hint of running in two hours of hand propping. The man was not a mechanic, never built a plane before, and had never soloed a plane. He went on a net discussion group to ask others how to start his plane, and got some advice on starter fluid. the comment below was to hopefully get some builders to look at the bigger picture, that reliability isn’t cast into the metal of certified engines, it is in the attitudes and decision making of the people working on and flying them.

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I have been an light aircraft mechanic in Florida for a long time. One of inspection tasks that is occasionally done is looking over a single engine plane before it flies to the Bahamas. The gap from West Palm to West End is 56 miles, and smart pilots, particularly those renting, get another set of eyes on the plane before they stick their family in it. When given 30 minutes to evaluate a certified engine’s condition on the ramp, my focus is on the Mags and the Carb, as there two are the most likely sources of taking a swim. A slightly low compression cylinder is not the same trouble as a failed mag on a 95 degree day with four people in a C-172. If the Mags and the carb are working perfectly, odds of other trouble are quite low. The slightest hint of issue from either is a good reason to delay the trip.
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The exact same logic applies to Experimentals, and I can make a statistical case that flying the 40 hours on a new homebuilt, even one with a certified engine, is greater risk than flying for a week in the Bahamas. If a neighbor chose an A-65 Continental for his newly built Pietenpol, I wouldn’t be concerned that the basic engine had 800 hrs. on it. If it has consistent oil pressure. it is not likely to throw a rod, but I would advise him to stack the deck in his favor and make absolutely sure that he had a perfect Carb and Mags on it, as they are the likely source of any issue.
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When looking at the O-320 headed to the islands, I look at the logs to make sure that the last people who touched the mags and carb were in a repair station, or the factory. After visual inspection for leaks and security, I run the engine to full power and try to make it misbehave with the throttle and mixture. A critical test is full static power and slightly leaning must show an rpm increase. Carb heat must work, and cutting off the fuel and letting it idle must cause a 25-50 rpm rise before it quits. Engine must idle as solid as a rock. Turn the prop and feel for low compression and listen for impulses to click at the same time. The 1/2″ nuts holding the mags are checked for torque. Hands on mags to make sure they are secure. Leads traced to look for cuts, every 3/4 nut checked. Engine is started and the key is messed with to make sure a worn switch will not short. The run up is performed with the engine heat soaked, because mags have trouble when they are hot, not cold. Zero tolerance outside of limits on mag drop. The goal is to find the circumstances in which it misbehaves, not to show that it runs ok. Any discrepancy on mags or Carb, even one that is hard to quantify, is cause for the delay of the trip. If I bring any issue to the pilots attention and he responds with a variation on “It will be alright” I never fly with him nor work for him again. I am not a cat, I don’t have 9 lives.

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If a newly finished home built has a used certified engine on it, and the builder is having trouble starting it, odds are the trouble is with the Mags or the carb. If it is stored in a reasonably dry place, a piston in a bore can happily wait 20 years to be re-stared, but the points in mags don’t like this and carbs don’t like fuel, especially auto fuel evaporating from them. (The sole common exception to the mags-carb rule is the camshafts on Lycomings left to sit often corrode and if the engine is run without correcting this the grind the lobes off in a few hours and pump the metal through the oil system.) A homebuilder is allowed to fix his own carb and mags if they need attention, and there are manuals and parts lists on the net, but I can make a case that this isn’t always smart.

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Looking at the carb: aircraft carbs are deceptively simple, and they look far easier to rebuild than a four barrel. Here is the hidden issue: Many carbs on engines for home builts are 60 years old and have had long periods of inactivity, previous owners mix and match parts, and people who like to drill out jets. A skilled guy in a FAA fuel system repair station can spot all of these, but a homebuilder is likely blind to them. I like aircraft carbs, and I teach people to use them after sending them to a professional. Maybe 3 of 10 NAS3′s or MA3′s sold at fly marts have mix and match parts inside. Hard starting is not the worst thing about poorly tuned carbs. First, a carb that is set too lean or has a malfunctioning enrichment circuit will damage the engine in flight. Second, ones that don’t run smooth will often quit at idle. Put this on a hand prop plane and combine it with the fact that many pilots don’t fly every pattern power off, and the new homebuilt ends up 100 yards short of the runway threshold. For more info on carbs, look at this link: http://flycorvair.net/2013/12/03/carburetor-reference-page/

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I do not trust mags that have no logs, were repaired by amateurs, or have had a decade with no inspection of any kind. My neighbor owned a Mag test bench that could run all brands and evaluate them with proper loads on the leads, a tool you find in a Mag repair station. He just sold it on Ebay and got $4,000 for it. If it was actually possible to properly evaluate, repair, overhaul and test aircraft mags without this tool, then it would not be possible to sell it for $4,000. It is legal for a homebuilder to ‘repair’ his own mags, but no rational person who make the argument that a first time amateur without the test device could do as good a job as a professional with the correct equipment.
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Now lets think about a new Pietenpol getting ready for it’s first flight: Plane is built by a nice guy, but planes are a hobby, not a career. A tech counselor looked at it, but that man’s experience was building one RV-6A, and all his “looks good” offered was a false sense of security. It passes the FAA exam, with a DAR that charges $400 but didn’t even ask to see it run. The plane is out of rig, but no one knows this yet. The low time pilot’s time in type is two trips around the pattern at Brodhead. He got 3 hours of tail wheel in a Cessna 170, (a plane that could land itself) but he was not allowed to solo it. The pilot has never flown anything that has the short glide ratio of a Piet. At his last Biennial the CFI allowed him to drag the 152 in with power and plop it down on the runway. He is nervous enough even without the video cameras, but there is a growing group of spectators adding pressure. Under these conditions, does it sound smart that he is also flying the first aircraft carb that he has ever ‘rebuilt’?
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A small continental is an easy engine to troubleshoot if you are trained on them. This training can come in many forms, but the most effective is learning them in person, from someone who knows them. Theoretically you could learn to fly by reading a book, but everyone understands that in person flight training works. I only make the same point with maintenance, that instruction is best, person to person. On a relative scale, making one run that is reluctant to start is very easy compared to doing an airworthy job overhauling a carb or a mag without specific tools or training. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about this, but what ever difference in opinion is, the wager riding on the opinion is the same, the whole value of the plane and the lives of the people in it. Place your bet carefully.
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I like Continentals, and have a lot of time flying behind them. Their primary quality is reliability. This well earned reputation was made seven decades ago, when homebuilding was still illegal in the US. The Continental reputation was built on relatively new engines, installed at factories, and maintained by trained, licensed A&E mechanics, in a era where people had longer attention spans. Seventy years later, anyone expecting that the same reputation magically lives in the metal is deluding themselves. To get the same results, you have to get as close to the original format as possible. But the issue is that the parts can be old, the details of the installation on a homebuilt can be weak, and the guy working on the carb may have never built one before. Is the issue beginning to make some sense?
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To even get close to the original reliability, One must spend some money on parts, the used parts must have a history and be within limits, and critical items like mags and the carb should be done or at least checked by a repair station. You can choose to do otherwise, but it is not possible to then argue that you can expect the full reputation for reliability. Anyone who thinks that you can have the reliability of a certified motor when you buy one that is advertised as “no logs” or “experimental only” is mistaken. You don’t get to have it both ways. Continental’s reputation was not built on engines made of junk and spray painted. If the engine was just as reliable with out of spec parts, then they wouldn’t be out of spec would they?
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There are always people who argue that they have to have “a reliable certified engine” and that they will not fly auto engines. Then the first thing they do is go out and look for the cheapest collection of parts bolted together that are masquerading as a “certified” engine, made of out of spec parts. That behavior isn’t rational, but people who are compulsively cheap often are satisfied with the illusion of reliability instead of the real thing. Want to know who isn’t fooled by this? Our old friends Physics, Chemistry and Gravity. If the FAA considers the engine un-airworthy in a certified plane, it is just as un-airworthy in an experimental one. Physics, Chemistry and Gravity don’t care if the plane was built in a factory or your garage. An engine built of out of spec parts doesn’t magically become airworthy when it is bolted on an experimental.

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I am an Embry-Riddle trained A&P with 24 years of continuous work on light aircraft. I am qualified to work on virtually any part in GA planes, but that doesn’t mean I am reluctant to hire other mechanics with greater experience and better tooling. When the right mag had excessive drop on the C-85 in my wife’s Taylorcraft, I could have replaced the cracked coil myself, but instead I took both mags to a repair station and waited while they were overhauled. In the last 10 years we have finished several home builts, and I could have overhauled each of the carbs myself, but I elected to send them all to a certified repair station. The difference between ‘fixed’ and ‘Yellow tagged’ is often hundreds of dollars. It sounds like a lot of money until you have lived through two plane crashes and attended a few funerals. 90% of the people reading this make more money than I do, and 95% have less experience with aircraft engines. If those people are trying to save money by fixing a mag or a carb themselves, when I would send the same part out, they should rethink that plan.

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My known specialty is training amateurs to build aircraft engines for experimental aircraft. It doesn’t matter that the hardware is mostly Chevrolet and not Continental, It isn’t about metal, it is about the capacity of builders to learn, and I am not speaking of turning wrenches, I am speaking of learning to make good decisions in a very unforgiving environment. No one has to agree with my perspective, but I have been doing this for long enough, with enough homebuilders that it is worth considering carefully. Homebuilding, including building engines, can be done with reasonably low risk, but only when the builder makes good decisions. -ww

Builders,

Just 21 Days until Oshkosh 2014. As always, we will be there in booth 616 in the North aircraft display area (where all homebuilt companies are) I always have people ask the same questions, so here are the answers that you can always count on:

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Are you going to Oshkosh?

Yes, I always do, I go every year, I am there the whole week, I am always in the North Aircraft display area. I have not missed a year since 2001, and I only missed that year because I was in the hospital in critical condition, on a ventilator. Until you read my obituary, and have it confirmed by two independent sources, you can count on me going to Oshkosh, I am planning on being there the next 20 years.

Will you have manuals and parts to sell?

Yes, we will have most of our catalog of parts on hand to sell.  It is fun to go to Airventure, but the booth costs the better part of $3,000 for the week and we have about $1,500 in travel expenses. We are there to meet friends and talk about planes and engines, but primarily I am there to do business and sell parts.

Will you be giving forums?

Yes, I have done so 19 our of the last 20 years. (see “on a ventilator” above). You can just check the program for the forum times and dates. Look under all titles, William Wynne, Flycorvair and Corvair engines. Compared to any other airshow, Oshkosh has excellent forums run by their chairman Mark Forss. Over the years I have given more than 75 forums at Airventure, they are well attended and lively.

Will you look at my core engine? Can I drop of core parts with you?

Yes, I do after hours parking lot tours, and we have a hand truck and a cart you can borrow to move any part or engine. Bring it, we will make it happen, I llok at 20 engines during Oshkosh. It is a good way to confirm you are on the right track, or make a plan for the next college.

Can people come to your booth and say negative, pessimistic things about politics, America, the world and the future?

Yes, but they will not get to the end of their first sentence. For people who watch too much tv news, I gently remind them that being at the greatest airshow in the world, among friends. on a sunny day in a free country makes ‘the sky is falling’ a tough sell, and it makes them sound like Eeyore the negative donkey from Winnie the Pooh. We have too many good things to cover to waste time on negative talk.

 In 10 years I have had 4 people test the theory that they paid to be at Airventure and they can stand any place, say anything they like and be as offensive as they like. What they all learned is that I am leasing the spot, and I didn’t drive 1,300 miles and spend $750 a day to be tolerant of very poorly behaved people. I know that real builders didn’t drive to Oshkosh to hear it either. Other business tolerate poorly behaved people, I have limits. Count on our booth to be an oasis of positive ideas and attitudes.

Is it really true that you made 3 young men apologize for talking during the National Anthem?

Yes, but they were not just speaking by accident, they were jerks standing just outside my booth in 2005, loudly yammering in four letter words on their cell phones during the Anthem. Each of them were bigger than me, but they were smug, about 20, very well dressed, and had evidently never been called on the carpet to answer for stupid behavior. They quickly understood that the choice was to offer a genuine apology to people within earshot, or suffer the embarrassment of having a middle aged guy with a ponytail kick their ass in front of their girlfriends.  I have since been through mildly successful voluntary anger management training, but I would probably still fail under the same conditions. I know some of my old friends thought the moment was ‘classic’, but I not really proud of it.

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Read about last year at this link:

Brodhead, Oshkosh and Beyond 2013

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Related stories:

Turtles and Cell Phones, 6/24/13.

comments from Corvair builders:

Mail Sack 6/25/13, Cell Phones and Upcoming Events.

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Tammy Duckworth, above center, and her husband Bryan Bowlsbey, left, with the Corvair All Stars at our booth at AirVenture 2009. From the right, Mark Petniunas from Falcon Machine, Dan Weseman from Fly5thBearing.com, my wife Grace Ellen, myself, and Roy Szarafinski from Roy’s Garage. Tammy and Bryan are old friends. Tammy had recently accepted a post as Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Builders,

Here are some questions that came in as comments on other stories:

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Frank Stephenson writes:

“While there will be many different results, I am wondering what the average time before overhaul may be. Also what are we looking at cost wise for one of these engines and the average cost of an engine mount? I am considering selling my current conventional geared C-172 with a C-O300B engine and buying or building something a bit smaller and more efficient. I really don’t know anything about Corvair engines other than I know of several folks who have utilized them, but I don’t really know anything about their results. I have found, in general, that automotive engines don’t make really good aircraft engines, but some VW engines I have known of are an exception and apparently the Corvair engines may be an exception.”

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Frank, the minimum time between overhauls on a well built engine is 1,500 hours. Ten years ago we listed 1,000 hours as a very conservative figure, since then, improvements like using valve rotators have driven the life span up significantly. The Overhaul cost on the engine is very low, on the order of $2,000 to replace almost all moving parts or recondition them. You can lean more at this link: Basic Corvair information I understand that many automotive engine engines have a poor record, but I have been doing this for 25 years, and we have earned an excellent one. You can read this link: Planes flying on Corvair Power, and see many examples. For the cost of motor mounts, just look at out catalog,http://www.flycorvair.com/, and page down to Group 4200, it lists the price of every mount we make.

I know VW engines have worked for many people, but I will put the track record for reliability, power and TBO of our work with Corvairs against any VW based engine. There is a lot of information on our main webpage, http://www.flycorvair.com/. I understand that it looks overwhelming, but better too much than to little.

Here is an important point: I don’t think efficiency is a good enough reason to move to homebuilding. Lets say your Cessna does 110mph on 8 gallons an hour. There are several Corvair powered planes that can do that on 5 gallons an hour, even some on 3 gallons an hour. But even if you were to cut your fuel costs on flying 200 hours a year from $8,000 to $4,000 per year, I don’t think it is enough motivation to send a guy to the shop for 1,500 building hours. The only people that consistently succeed at homebuilding are the people who inherently would rather fly something the personally built, and people motivate by the desire to learn new skills. I have met very few people motivated just to fly less expensively who thought in the long run that homebuilding was worth it. Consider this carefully, you may have a better time staying airborne in the plane you have.

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Steve Spears

“Sir, I am currently building a RW26 Special ll and I would like to use the Corvair engine. However, some people are telling me that it is to heavy for the aircraft. What are your thoughts and do you know of anyone who has used a Corvair engine in the Rag Wing aircraft? I read what you wrote about the Pietenpol and am encouraged that I can use the engine”

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Steve, I looked at this pretty closely for an hour the other night. I tend to think that a Corvair is too big to the R-26. The 912 appears to be as large an engine as people use. Several of Rodger Mann’s designs have flown with Corvairs, but I wouldn’t call any of them an ideal match. I am guessing that a Rotax 503 is really the optimum engine for many of his designs. For a comparison of how heavy duty a Pietenpol is built, the longerons in the fuselage are one inch square spruce from the firewall to the tail post. I am pretty sure the R-26 is lighter than that.

For any plane that you are wondering about Corvair power for, the best rule of thumb is asking if the same plane has flown with a Continental o-200. If it has, a Corvair will always work in it. For a comparison of the two engines look at this link:Corvair vs O-200….weight comparison and this one:Dynamometer testing the Corvair and O-200. We also have a lot of info on comparisons to 912s at this link: Testing and Data Collection reference page.  -ww.

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Builders:

This webpage now has more than 550 stories, here is a sample of older stories that you may have missed. here is a reminder of 6 of them. If you would like to see a list if 200 of the stories in categories, click on this link: 200 Stories of aircraft building. Below, just click on the colored ling to read the story.

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On flying planes: New Pietenpol, Gary Boothe, Cool, Calif.

Above, Gary’s Piet at its first public display.

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On Engines: World’s Strongest 3,000cc Corvair, built by Greg Crouchley

“At first glance you might not see the inner motor head. Greg’s normal stomping ground is in international manufacturing, and I have never seen him without a collared shirt on, even when he was building his engine at Corvair College #24.  But this is camouflage for a guy who has a long background of getting his hands dirty.” 

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On Installation components: Fuel Injection – Corvair flight engines reference page

“If I were to pick a single topic that new builders are interested in, but know little about the applications of, It would be Fuel Injection. This is a topic dominated by misconceptions and myths.”

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On Philosophy: James Stockdale – Philosophy

“Although I have read the biographies of several hundred aviators in the past 25 years, I can say without hesitation that James Stockdale had the most impressive personal code of all.”

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On Risk management: “If only someone had told him……”

” In almost every case, the unfortunate person at the center had been told, often previously warned more than once, but they chose to ignore the warnings or discount them for reasons that frequently seem hard to remember after the damage is done. It is not the lack of information, but the willful choice to ignore it that is at the root of trouble.“

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On Operations: Notes on Corvair flight engine oils.

“If a builder spends many hours talking about super special oils, and how they can fix everything in your life including your 401K,  and later comes to a college but has no idea how to install a distributor and set timing, I am going to tease him about spending a lot of time thinking about synthetic oil, an answer in search of a valid question,  when he needed to be reading about the fundamentals of his engine.”

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On Aviators: Robert Hedrix, Aviator, Nha Trang, 1975

“If you are reading this, and you are producing a plane with your own hands, then you are in the arena of flight. You will know it’s great challenges and rewards. You will struggle to make it right, to learn, to keep going when most others quit; You will feel fear, and overcome it before your first take off. The hours you spend aloft in your own creation will mark special days in your life long remembered when most are forgotten. Homebuilt planes can be very modest, but they are direct access to the human endeavor of flight, and through it you can understand some kinship with a man who’s “crowded hour” in the arena of flight came in April of 1975.”

Above is the image, published in 1975. Hedrix was not identified until 10 years later.

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Builders:

In two weeks we will be headed back to Oshkosh. Once there we will be surrounded by hundreds of companies that will all attest on a stack of Bibles that they have carefully tested all of their products to protect the safety of their customers. In with these people will be at least 30 companies selling engines. Every single one of these companies will tell you without blinking an eye that their engine power output numbers are the result of careful Dynomometer testing. Almost all (90%) of these companies are lying about this.

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Traditional dyno testing is expensive, and a bit of a production to adapt an aircraft engine to. To learn much, it requires hours of evaluation, and runs at different conditions. Any company that does this would be justified in taking a photo of this milestone in their company history…….except you can politely ask to see a photo of their engine on a dyno, and of course they will not be able to produce a single image of their engine running on a dyno. I actually had one company tell they had done 100 hours of testing, but had forgotten to take a single photo of it. In an era where nearly every human has a cell phone that is also a camera, please tell me who would believe this?

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There are many kinds of dynos. Basically they all apply a load to the engine, and then measure the equal and opposite torque reaction resisting this load. No Dyno measures HP; they measure torque. HP is a calculation based on torque and RPM. If you building a plane, you don’t need to know this, but ideally everyone selling engines would, (but they don’t). A real motor head, like yours truly, knows this stuff. Combine this with some basic fabrication, and “Taa Daa!” the $500 dyno. Our dyno used the prop to generate the load,  allowed the engine to rotate on it’s crank axis by using a front spindle from a Corvair car, and measure the torque with a hydraulic cylinder. Later we simplified it further with an electronic scale for measurement. Using a digital optical tach, the accuracy measuring HP was within 2%

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I didn’t invent this kind of dyno, it has been around a long time, pictures of them in 1960s Sport Aviation magazines. This isn’t even the simplest kind of dyno. In one old Sport Aviation there is a picture of a Corvair  hanging on a steel cable turning a prop, with a wooden arm touching a scale. Yes that works also. The pictures of our set up have been on our webpage for more than 10 years. It would be very easy for any company selling engines at Oshkosh to have built their own version. Easy, but not as easy as telling people they have hundred of hours of testing, but forgot to take any photos.

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2003- Above, Oil system testing at Spruce Creek airport, 2003. We were testing how much pressure loss the cooler had when the oil in it was cold soaked for an hour at 32F. Testing like this is serious business. Note that Gus Warren liked Becks Dark, and I liked Michelob. Lot’s of companies like to have the appearance that they test products: they put people in lab coats and have them make scientific faces.  I don’t care for appearances, I just want results, and the picture shows we drank beer while we let the oil cool off. I can put on a lab coat a lot faster than a salesman can become a motor head and teach builders anything valuable.

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2004- Above, an O-200 on our dynamomemter; test crew from left to right, above: Gus Warren, Detroit Institute of Aeronautics, A&P 1990; Steve Upson, Northrop University, A&P 1976; yours truly, William Wynne, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, A&P 1991. While the way we dress may be slow to catch on in high fashion circles, we certainly know our stuff about all types of aircraft powerplants.

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2008- Above, Kevin and I are standing on my front yard, wearing jackets. We were waiting just before sunset for a rare weather phenomena to occur: a perfect standard day of 59F 50% relative humidity and a pressure of 29.92. Any time you read a dyno report and it says “corrected horsepower,” they’re making a calculation, sometimes accurate and sometimes not, to adjust for their test conditions not being at standard atmosphere. Because we live in Florida near sea level, there was actually  three occasions in four years when these conditions were met on testing days, and all our results we calibrated against these standards.

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How you can build a Dyno for $500 if you know how they work and you can weld:

Dynamometer testing the Corvair and O-200

A page devoted to all kinds of testing:

Testing and Data Collection reference page

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Builders:

I just read a note from Shad bell where he recounted flying one of his sons in the family Pietenpol today. Shad and his father Gary started the plane many years ago, got their Corvair Going at College#7 in Ohio, and have flew the plane from Ohio to Brodhead WI, for many years. But today is the first day flying for generation #3.

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I took a few minutes to comb through the files for a number of pictures of this plane. It is a special thing when a father and son share in the building and flying of a plane, but it is exceedingly rare that 3 generations get to share the spirit of building and flying. Hats off to the Bell family dynasty.

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Above, Shad and the Piet in flight. Aircraft is based in Ohio. It has made a number of appearances at Brodhead. Gary and Shad came to CC#7 to get started on their engine.

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Above, – 2008-  Brodhead, Wisconsin.  Gary on right,  his son Shad on the left. I am pretty sure this was the plane’s first trip to Brodhead.

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2009 – Gary Bell lounges like a King, above. I like the transition from the year before. When your Pietenpol flies to Brodhead, you’re on top of the world. When you pull it off two years in a row, you own the world.

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Above 2009 s a close-up of Shad Bell with the plane. The plane sports a Tennessee Prop.

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Above, A great afternoon at Brodhead WI, 2009. R to L, the Piets of Gary and Shad Bell , Kurt Shipman, Randy Bush, all Corvair powered.

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A 2011 photograph from Brodhead showing the Bell’s Pietenpol in the foreground. Behind it is Kevin Purtee’s aircraft from Texas, and the far slot is Dick Navratil’s Rotec radial powered Piet.

Above, 2013 - The Bell’s Pietenpol makes another trip back to Brodhead.   Randy Bush’s and Shad’s Air Campers joined Tom Brown’s Piet and Bill Knight’s Last Original at Brodhead this year. Some years at Brodhead draw more than 25 Pietenpols. 2013 was a light turnout, but Corvairs powered one-third of the Pietenpols on hand. -ww

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Builders:

The very impressive video linked to below is the work of 601XL-2,700cc Corvair builder and flyer Ken Pavlou, of Connecticut. He finished his plane barely 2 months ago, but now has 70 flawless hours on it. He is flying the plane to Oshkosh in 2 weeks.

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Left to right, Three Corvair powered Zenith 601XL’s. Ken Pavlou, Roger Pritchard and Louis Leung’s planes in a row. 

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The seven minute video of the flight can be found at this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afIoeM6tqTE .

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Pictured is Ken’s night landing at Groton – New London airport. The minutes approaching the airport were from the west over Niantic and Waterford. Ken told me the basic altitude was about 1000 feet and he was cruising at 115 mph indicated. You can also watch video of Ken’s first flight at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK01KhG2CkE&feature=youtu.be

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Stop and think about how many times you have heard someone tell you that auto engine were not reliable, and can’t be made to fly in planes. Look at Ken’s plane, think about it’s flawless performance, and realize that every blow hard that told you it wouldn’t work, simply didn’t know what he was talking about…..although that isn’t an impediment to them talking.

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Ken isn’t an A&P from a flying family dynasty. Quite the contrary, he is a registered nurse who grew up in Greece. Gravity physics and  chemistry don’t play favorites, they will work for anyone who plays by their rules, and this trio will provide total reliability for people who use good judgment and work with proven designs. Success identical to Ken’s is available to anyone who is willing to learn with an open mind, it is not reserved for ‘special’ people. Experience with aircraft only helps the builder with judgment and a plan, it will not provide success for, nor protect the person who will not listen, consider, and learn. This is, and will always remain, lesson #1 in homebuilding.

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More stories involving Ken, aka “Adonis”:

Zenvairs ruled the skies over the northeast!

New 601XL, 2,700 Corvair, Ken Pavlou CT.

Corvair College #30 and #31 sign up now open

CHT info taken from test flight of 601XL

Thought for the day: “Censorship” on the net

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Builders,

Here is a list of my forums on the Corvair at Airventure this year, Please also note that our booth is 616. For more information, please read this link:

21 Days to Oshkosh 2014

……(yes, I know it is no longer 21 days to Oshkosh.)

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2013, Above, Grace and ScoobE stand in front of the Arch, as we depart from my 20th Oshkosh.

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Tuesday, July 29

Builders,

We are leaving to head north today. We will be at Brodhead WI late Friday and all day Saturday the 26th. The first day of Oshkosh is the 28th. The Last day is Sunday August 3rd.

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 We will be there in booth 616 in the North aircraft display area (where all homebuilt companies are) Right where we were the last several years.

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Our forum schedule: Oshkosh Corvair Forums – 2014

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Answers to common Oshkosh questions: 21 Days to Oshkosh 2014

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After Oshkosh we are detouring to NJ to visit with my Parents on the way back to Florida. I expect to be in NJ by August 6th, and back in the workshop in Florida by the 15th. That will give us 30 days to prep for Corvair College #30.

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While we are gone, It is almost certain that the shop answering machine on 904-529-0006 will fill up. As a much better alternative, please use our email: WilliamTCA@aol.com as a phone message location. Simply put “Phone Message” in the subject box and we will call you back from the road. Please include your phone number and a good time to call you. We will be swamped at Oshkosh, but I have a chance to return many calls while at my parents home.

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If you are planning on attending Corvair Colleges #30 or #31, please sign up before Oshkosh starts. Both of these events are more than half full, and in a few days at Oshkosh I expect that they will fill up. We have limited space in MO for #30, which restricts us to 70 builders. #31 at Barnwell can take 90 people, but that is also getting full. For  sign up info read this: Corvair College #30 and #31 sign up now open

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We hope to see as many of you as possible in the next few weeks. -ww.

Builders,

I went to the print shop yesterday and picked up boxes of our new manual. This is a very large, entirely new Corvair Conversion manual I have been working on for 18 months.

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Rear view of a 3000 cc engine with mechanical fuel injection.

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It is based on the new numbering system that we introduced last year, It is much better organized than our previous manual. It has twice the page count, but it has a more compact font and smaller margins, yielding 3.5 times the content of the last manual, The word count is now 103,500. Every photo has a detailed caption, much of the book is in color, it has greatly expanded sections on installations and includes checklists and operations data.

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Grace has delayed mailing new manual orders that have come in recently to wait for this. If you bought a manual in the last 90 days we will get you a new one after Oshkosh for reduced cost. If you hold an older manual and would like to upgrade, just send us an email with “Manual upgrade” in the subject line and the number from the cover of your original manual please include your mailing address.  After Oshkosh we will send you a note about the cost of the upgrade before we ship it to you.

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New Builders can directly go to the manual link on our products page: http://www.flycorvair.com/manual.html to order their manual. We have raised the price to $69, from the $59 cost that we had on the last manual for 10 years.- ww.

DATE and REVISION: 10 August, 2014. Original Safety Alert.

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SUBJECT: Failure of Chinese made “New” rocker arms for Corvairs, marketed by several firms in the US, most commonly sold by Clark’s Corvairs as “new replacement rocker arms,” sold as set #C-8641.

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APPLICABILITY: Recommendation for all Corvair flight engines that have these installed.

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EXCLUSION: This does NOT apply to any Corvair flight engine using original GM US made rocker arms, just engines using the Chinese replacements. NOTE: We have never built any production FlyCorvair.com engine using these rocker arms. If you own an engine actually built by myself, this Safety Alert does not apply to it. This Safety Alert is issued for the benefit of builders who may have independently elected to purchase the Chinese rockers for their personal engines.

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COMMENTARY: Yesterday (9 August, 2014) in California, a Corvair powered aircraft experienced a severe loss of power following a failure of an exhaust rocker arm. The power loss was progressive over a few minutes. Excellent pilot judgment, to turn to the nearest airport at the first sign of an issue, paid off. The airplane landed on the runway back at the airport without damage.

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( When a four stroke engine has an intake rocker arm fail, the engine only looses power from that cylinder. Conversely, an exhaust rocker failure does not allow burning air/fuel to exit the combustion chamber, and when the intake valve opens it tends to “flash back” up the intake tract and rob power from the neighboring cylinders.  Intake rocker failure on a Corvair would be less than a 20% power loss, but an exhaust rocker failure could be up to a 50% power loss.)

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32 days earlier we had received a detailed report on the failure of a Chinese made Corvair rocker arm in Arizona, in the intake position on a 3,000cc Corvair.  This happened on a ground run up, not in the air.  Obviously as a ground issue, there was no damage to the airframe. It was of concern to the owner, but not the kind of stress as in the 9 August failure.  Although there had been a report of 1 other failure in the previous 5 years, that engine had many extenuating conditions such as a previous piston/valve collision. The 6 July 2014 failure was the first one that was on a “pure” engine. The parts were carefully inspected by a professional engineer, and the probable conclusion was that they were incorrectly made. The rockers had been purchased from Clark’s Corvairs, and they were contacted for a failure history in cars. They stated that they had seen a very low rate of returns in cars. (As a reminder, Clark’s does not sell these as “aircraft” parts, that is a builder choice.) I supplied a set of GM rockers to the flyer in Arizona and his aircraft was returned to flight with about 2 hours of work and less than $100 in parts.

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At Oshkosh I spoke with a number of builders of flying Corvair powered planes to asses how widespread the use of these Chinese rockers are. I had previously thought it was a small number, as I used none of them in our production engines, I have never sold nor promoted the Chinese part, and I have been long recognized as a tireless critic of Chinese manufactured parts. My estimate is now that 20% of flying planes may have these rockers, it was our intention to make a comment on them upon our return to Florida.

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We have not yet returned to our shop, we are still on the road, but in light of yesterday’s failure, we are issuing this Safety Alert immediately. The fleet of Corvair powered planes is less than 500 aircraft, and the number of engines built to our exact recommendations is a still smaller number. A single failure gets my attention and is worthy of comment, however, a second failure of the same part, even if it is one we do not recommend, warrants a Safety Alert.

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SUGGESTED ACTION: I highly recommend that all flying Corvair engines with the Chinese rockers remove them before further flight and replace them with cleaned and inspected original GM rockers. The failed rockers had 80 and 160 hours on them. These are roughly the equivalent of 2,000-4,000 miles of operation in a car. It is important to understand that this is not an “infant mortality issue,” and having 100, 200, or even 400 hours of operation on Chinese rockers without issue does not justify their further use.

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The rocker arm is a deceptively simple looking part, but it’s correct manufacture is a complex process involving careful quality control and very high levels of manufacturing expertise. By comparison, a small, but highly skilled shop of precision machinists can make a billet crankshaft, but it is highly unlikely that any small shop could make a Corvair rocker arm. The design is a deep stamping done under very controlled conditions. The GM rockers were done in several hits on a blank that was thicker in areas that would be stretched. The Chinese units appear to be made from uniform thickness blanks, which leads to very thin sections in the ball area. That is the location of both failures. GM units are twice as thick in the ball area. There will always be some fool to say that GM’s design was not good but this is pure BS; it is the most prolific rocker arm in history, also on almost every small block Chevy 1955-2003. We are speaking of nearly 1 billion rocker arms. Since 1978 I have owned about 40 cars and trucks. Other than 2 Buicks, every one of them has been a Chevy, a Chevy truck, or a GMC. They all had these rockers, I have never broken one. I have seen the inside of more than 500 Corvair core engines, and I am pretty sure I have never seen a broken GM rocker arm. If your local ‘expert’ tells you he has seen dozens of broken rockers of this design, nod politely, but understand he is dishonest and a liar.

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This is a “Safety Alert” and I am issuing a “Suggested Action” because Corvairs are experimental engines, and as such do not have Airworthiness Directives and Service Bulletins in the same form as certified engines do. I cannot require any builder to take any action, I can only appeal to his better judgment by making a serious recommendation. Airworthiness Directives are only issued by the federal government, and Service Bulletins are issued by certified part manufacturers, thus the difference in the Safety Alert.

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This said, I appeal to builders to follow this recommendation. The most frequent form of push back on suggestions of this kind is a builder who is myopically looking at his one plane and making a conclusion based on his impression of his own plane. Conversely I get to see all the data, understand the extenuating or aggravating conditions, I had world class training in statistical decision making at Embry-Riddle, and I always further consider what still works, not just looking at what broke.  I am not a genius, but for the above reasons, my recommendations on Corvair flight engines carry more weight than those of one guy with a flying plane, even a well intentioned one. We don’t have to speak of opinions of internet personalities that have no direct personal involvement nor experience with flying Corvairs.

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DISTRIBUTION: I ask that this information be shared with others who personally involved in building a Corvair flight engine. This should be done just by people who have read and understood the information themselves, who also are Corvair builders.  If someone named “Flyboy26″ shares this with an airframe builders group or a general pilot discussion board, and includes a comment like “no one should fly car engines” or “Corvairs break”, neatly deleting the Chinese source of this issue, you can be assured that their motivation for commenting has nothing to do with promoting safety or assisting others in managing risk.

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FURTHER READING:

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Chinese Crankshafts for Corvairs, update 2/17/13.

Cessna’s Chinese adventure a failure.

Communist Chinese government at Oshkosh

Mooney sold to Chinese, Fake endorsements.

Builders:

In the discussion of rocker arms, the subject of roller rockers comes up occasionally as an alternative to the stock ball type. While they are made in America and very fine quality, there are actually some pros and cons to using them in a flight engine.

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First, a bit of history: Roller rockers were developed to replace ball types so V-8s could use 7,500 rpm and cams with .650″ lift. They were never designed with simplicity and longevity in mind. Back more than 12 years ago, there were several Corvair car parts outfits like SC performance and Clarks selling roller rockers, and most of the literature implied that they were developed by these companies. This all seemed reasonable in a black and white photo. However, the first time I saw an SC performance rocker in person, I saw it was orange in color. Because I spend my youth on NJ drag strips like Englishtown, Atco and McCarter highway, I instantly knew they were made by a company in the middle of America called Harland-Sharp. H-S didn’t have a website as late as 2003, but they directly sold to builders and they were a lot cheaper than SC Performance, which carefully trimmed the H-S name off the packaging before marking them up for resale.

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Part of the internet hype at the time was roller rockers lowering oil temps and boosting power in Corvair engines. Neither of these are vaguely true. I bought a set just to test, and when our 601XL flew in early 2004, I am pretty sure it was the first Corvair powered plane to fly with roller rockers. We flew it several hundred hours and checked the valve train intermittently. They worked, but just as I predicted, no change in power nor oil temp. Other builders followed this with even more hours, notably Mark Langford who eventually flew more than 1,000 hours on the same set without issue.

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When installing roller Rockers several other items must be changed. They need to be mounted on longer rocker studs, commonly sold by Clarks as #9295.  (The studs that Langford and I used were made by ARP in California, and the current Clarks item looks visibly different, but I don’t know their origin.) They must have deeper than stock valve covers, custom length pushrods and Poly-locks.

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Roller rockers have their own adjustment nuts called “poly-locks” It is basically a threaded tube with an Allen set screw up the middle that jams on the top of the stud. Most builders and car people don’t understand the two reasons for the existence of Ploy-locks are very rapid adjustment of the clearance on mechanical lifer cams on V-8s (This is not for maintenance, it is to alter the power delivery on the engine, often to suit traction conditions in drag racing. These went with the little T-handle hold downs bolts on valve covers) and second was to allow the use of a device called a ‘Stud Girdle’ that clamped the tops of all the Poly-locks rigidly together to prevent the from flexing when using combination of very high lift,  very high spring pressure and astronomical rpm limits, none of which is ever remotely seen in Corvair flight engines.

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PRO: Dan Weseman, Florida, 400 hrs on 3,100cc Cleanex , 125 hrs on 3,000 cc Panther.

Above, Dan Weseman and I stand in our front yard. This was the first run of the Panther’s engine.

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I spoke with Panther designer and builder Dan Weseman on the phone yesterday. When his Corvair was assembled we put it together with new rockers, which turned out to be Chinese ones. He is going to replace them before flying again. Dan said he is thinking about a set of H-S roller rockers. His engine was already built with longer studs, so all he needs are the rockers, a new set of pushrods, and perhaps doubling up valve cover gaskets. Dan was a hard core hot rodding guy before getting into planes, mostly working with small block Fords in Mustangs. He has had many sets of roller rockers and is pretty confident that he isn’t going to have a reliability issue. He points to our experience and that of Langford. It isn’t a guarantee, but he finds it it be a good indicator. He is well aware of the life-span limitations on roller rockers at very high loads, but judges that operating them on flight engines are well below this threshold.

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CON: Woody Harris, California, 440 hours on 2,850cc 601XL

Woody Harris, above left, and his friend Steve celebrate with cigars and Piper Heidsieck champagne after the first flight of his 601.

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I spoke with Woody today. He is the guy who just broke the exhaust rocker on 9 August. He is going to change all his all his rockers out before flying again. He took a moment to amend my notes saying he had 160 hours on his rockers; after that first guess, he checked his records and found out that he actually had 350 hours on the Chinese rockers. He strongly suspects that he got that far because before installing them he did a very careful job of meticulously de-burring all the surfaces in the ball area. I include this because if anyone suggests that the issue with Chinese rockers was improper installation, we can just put that to rest now. The issue with them is poor quality control in manufacturing, period.

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Woody is pretty sure that he is heading back to GM original rockers, not roller rockers. Woody functions as our ‘man on the west coast.’ Many builders have met him this was and have had a glimpse of his racing background. Lots of people have had something to do with ‘race cars.’ On the other hand Woody has run a Ford GT-40 to the lap record at Brands Hatch and was McLaren’s rep in North America. He also has a lot of experience with roller rockers, and he isn’t going to put them in his plane. He ran roller rockers in very demanding situations and thought they required constant attention. He concedes that our application, doesn’t stress them anywhere near that far, but his point is that the original GM rockers have a very long history of working, and he simply wants to move back and tap into that reliability. Nothing wrong with the ball design, it is just a question of who made the parts. To Woody, roller rockers are an answer to a question that our application is not asking. Today he is just looking through his collection of used GM original rockers from core engines to find 12 in good shape. We additional spoke about looking at several different brands of grooved balls to see if they are made differently, but I pointed our that I have been using the ones from Clarks with GM rockers on all of our engines in the last 12-14 years, without issue.

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“Tell me what to do.”:  Obviously I make recommendations about how to build Corvair engines, but I always first try to lay out the background information. I am here to share what we know, not simply tell people what to do, and I thought this was an ideal question to highlight this on.

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There will be plenty of people who chime in with no personal experience and tell others what to do about rockers. I try to be polite, but that kind of info doesn’t help anyone.  Second there are people who will point out one other person’s experience, like Mark Langford’s 1,000 hours on roller rockers. Information like that doesn’t help either, because in many cases the person bringing it up doesn’t know many of the important difference in assembly or operation that may be a factor. It is my business to understand these, and I politely point out that many comments chimed in often miss details or are off the issue and outside the cause-effect-solution chain. Last let me point out that even one guy point out what has worked for him for 1,000 hours is just a good data point. To have the complete picture, one must have the global view, and include all data points (with their details and conditions) including all the parts that never broke. I am in a good position to provide that perspective on Corvair engines.

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To me, the best solution for most builders is the path that Woody is taking, to go back to having GM original rockers on flight engines. These have a very long track record of working, they are very cheap, and they can be retrofitted in a few hours, end of story.  However, there are a number of builders like Dan who will consider roller rockers, and for those builders I wanted to provide the pros and cons here, to have them make a far more informed choice.  We have our own 3,000cc Corvair going together for our Wagabond, and I have both a set of Harland-Sharp rockers and plenty of GM ones. I would not be reluctant to fly it either way, but in the next weak or two I am going to give some consideration to which to do the final assembly with.

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Below, some notes and photos from the archives:

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 Below, a picture from the Summit Racing website. There are different sets for 140 hp heads and another for 110/95 hp heads. You can not mix them because the splay angle of the valves in the heads are different. The ball design of the original rockes negates this, because the axis is free to float on a ball rocker and it is rigidly set by the trunion angle on a roller rocker. Most sets sold to car people are the 140 hp sets, the difference is so fine that it can’t be seen holding it in your hand. Keep this in mind before buying a cheap used set off ebay.

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Harland Sharp SC110 – Harland Sharp Original Roller Rockers

Rocker Arms, Stud, Full Roller, 1.58 Ratio, Aluminum, Orange Anodized, Chevy, 2.7L, Set of 12

Part Number: CSP-SC110

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Above, a 2005 photo of an engine we built in our old Edgewater hangar, sitting on the old dynamometer, showing the roller rockers. We built about eight engines like this. All the pushrods we used came from the Smith Brothers on the west coast. Every engine with roller rockers requires non-stock length pushrods to have correct valve geometry. It is not tough to measure, but we met many builders who guessed wrong  on their first try. Old 3,100 engines all required custom length pushrods, and this was an Achilles heel of the engine for first time builders. We eliminated the custom length pushrod issue when we went to the 3,000 cc engines six years ago.

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Above, a 2003 photo of the 2,700 engine we assembled and flew in our 601XL. This was the first Corvair powered plane to fly roller rockers. The longer studs required by these rockers, and their poly-locks (the locking nut system for a roller rocker) dictate deeper valve covers than stock. Traditionally, car people used heavy cast aluminum valve covers. Above is my solution: I milled away the center flat portion of the valve cover, folded up two boxes which were 3/8″ deep, out of .020 steel. I welded these on in place of the removed flat spot. This was not a particularly easy weld bead.

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Here is the modified valve cover installed, above. Also visible in this shot is titanium-ceramic exhaust coated by the Moore brothers, a famous shop which does STC’d coating on aircraft parts. This design and method was superseded by all of our 304 stainless steel exhaust systems

Builders,

If you are planning on attending the College #30 in Mexico MO in September, we are now just 36 hours from the sign up deadline. I am closing the sign up sheet Friday night at midnight, from that point the college is just one month away.

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For more information on the sign-up click on this link below:

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Corvair College #30 and #31 sign up now open

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Blast from the past 2005: Sebastien Heintz, Grace and myself at the Zenith factory in Mexico MO in 2005. It was a stop on our Midwest night school tour that year.  Over the last 11 years we have had two ‘Corvair days’ and two Corvair Colleges at Zenith’s facilities. We have purchased both 601 and 701 kits from the Heintz family and enjoyed a long standing cooperative working relationship that directly benefited countless builders.

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Builders:

When we were at Oshkosh this year, a man walked into the booth on a slow afternoon. After 20 years of doing presentations at airshows, I can say that it is very hard to predict who the serious builders are when they walk in for a look, but I can always tell in 10 seconds who is there with an “issue.”  None of these people are actual builders, they are all “Local experts” who want to tell me that they know more about Corvair flight engines than I do. Mostly, they are harmless blowhards there to complain that none of our builders respect their “advice.” But the particular guy who walked into my booth was a dangerous idiot because he had actually convinced a Corvair builder at his local airport to use cast pistons in his engine, completely against advice I have been giving for 25 years. He came to the booth to gloat over his success. In reality he had just seriously endangered the builder, and every one of the man’s future passengers, all for the sake of his own ego.

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Above, BHP’s Corvair powered plane The Last Original. This plane has 800 hours on it today. It lives at Brodhead and belongs to our friend Bill Knight. Contrary to what some people think, this plane has forged pistons in it.

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The builder in question is a guy I have known for years; He is a very nice guy, his Pietenpol is almost done and it is outstanding in appearance. At any grass strip, this man and his plane  would inspire confidence to allow many people to let their child take a flight in his plane. Externally, this engine would even look like one “built to WW’s specs.” But with Chinese cast pistons in it, this plane contains a very dangerous hidden flaw with a very high probability of a disaster awaiting.

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Most planes that are the aviation equivalent of an IED look the part, and are presented by people who are easily recognizable as mentally ill. People understand to stay away. What makes the plane described to me at Oshkosh so dangerous is that the finish and demeanor of the builder will be very disarming. I don’t have to warn people about what to do if they meet a guy with a wild look, speaking about the afterlife and holding a grenade with no pin. This warning is about recognizing that sometimes the same grenade is wrapped in a very nice gift box, and the pleasant guy offering to let your kid look inside doesn’t himself understand the contents. All he knows is that his “local expert” (who will not be flying in the plane) assured him that he and his passengers were in no danger at all.

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The dangerous idiot local expert stood in my booth and offered these reasons why he told the Pietenpol builder not to use forged pistons: 1) the cast pistons were made in the U.S., and our forged ones were made in China, 2) Bernard Pietenpol’s own plane The Last Original has cast pistons, 3) The engine only makes 70 HP so it doesn’t need the extra $80 expense (per set) that forged pistons cost. Everything this man said is a vile lie, but dangerous idiots never restrict themselves to the truth nor reality when dispensing “advice.”

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Lets look at the lies one by one: 1) In reality, it is the “High Tech” cast pistons the idiot advocated putting in the engine that are made by the Chinese. Every forged piston we have ever sold was made in California, so the idiot had it 100% backwards. Every cast piston for the Corvair that I have seen for sale is a product of China. They may say “ISO-9001″ on the box, but that is just printed words from a culture of corruption.

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2) BHP’s own plane, The Last Original, does not have cast pistons in it. A number of years ago, Bill Knight, the owner, contacted us about upgrading the engine to my spec’s internally. The only visible external change is that the engine has our black prop hub, but internally, it is all modern stuff out of our Conversion Manual, including forged pistons. I have one of the original GM pistons in my shop, and it is in poor shape. Bill Knight made a very good call on standing the plane down until it was updated. The actual engine assembly on the update was done by Mark Petz, who was standing in the booth when the idiot was saying his lie. When I asked the idiot if he would like to personally meet the man who put the forged pistons in The Last Original, the idiot was dumbfounded.

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3) Everyone who came to our booth at Oshkosh this year saw both the display engine I built and Roy’s water brake dyno.  After Oshkosh, we went to Roy’s in Michigan for a day and did a complete break in run on the display engine before delivering it to a Canadian Zenith 650 builder. Because the engine was brand new, I didn’t lean on it very hard, but the engine pulled 76.5 HP at 2,675 rpm, which is below the static take off rpm of a Pietenpol. If the idiot was counting on a modern Corvair to only make 70 HP he is very wrong. I owned a dyno for years that we ran countless engines on in public, Roy has a better one, and Mark owns an even more sophisticated one. I am sure that the idiot based his guess on nothing, because that is what idiots do.

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Even if the engine was to produce only 70 HP, it should still have forged pistons. In reality, all the original GM pistons were cast, but they were vast better quality that the Chinese junk sold today. The GM pistons were all U.S. made and had a steel belt cast inside to control expansion and strengthen them. Because people flew them in the 1970s means nothing about Chinese parts today.

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The great danger in using cast pistons is that undoubtably the builder is going to use our CHT limits, ignition advance curves, carb jetting. cam, rpm, spark plug and prop recommendations, which are all based on the engine having forged pistons, a requirement I have held for 25 years. It is my prediction that the builder will blow a hole in one of his Chinese pistons in the first 25 hours of operation. When he does this, he may not get back to the airport, and he may wreck the plane and get hurt. Does anyone think that the idiot will then show up and build him a new plane and pay his medical bills? And then people will say, “See Corvair engines don’t work,” neatly ignoring that Continentals with the wrong pistons in them don’t work either.

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I have not included the name of the builder here, because I want people to focus on not listening to local idiots. I have said this countless times, and I have no idea why the builder couldn’t just say, “Sorry, no offense, but I am going to just follow WW’s recommendations.” After I publish this I am going to go on the Matronics Pietenpol list and state the builder’s name, and say that I do like the guy, but his engine is unairworthy.  I will do this in hopes that he will change them, but if he doesn’t, and his Chinese cast pistons fail, it will be public record that I warned him, and maybe the next guy will learn not to listen to idiots.

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Above, Tom Brown’s Pietenpol, flying since 1982. It has more than 1,500 hours on it. It is often said that this plane has cast pistons in it, but we are very good friends with Tom, and he has told me that he and his dad rebuilt the engine after briefly flying it in 1982. It may have forged pistons, but if it does have cast ones, they are U.S. made ones from GM, and they are vastly better quality than any cast piston from China. This plane does not use the full ignition advance, cam nor carb jetting we use today.

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It is not possible for me to express how much I detest people who will not fly in planes, but give advice to others contrary to what our testing has shown. Words like “Vermin” hardly cover it. I suggest that people read my story about how fools in aviation have an ironic way of hurting others and walking away without a scratch, at this link: Effective Risk Management – 2,903 words.

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The link contains the story of a great aviator, Phil Schact, a man hugely influential on Grace’s flying, who burned to death as the direct result of an idiot’s actions. In the year that followed that accident, I spent a number of long quiet nights sitting on the front porch thinking, and came to the conclusion that I would never be a good Christian, because I was not willing to even contemplate forgiving that idiot. I understand the power of forgiveness, in my life I have been both the recipient and the grantor, but we know the real measure is can you forgive the unforgivable? By this measure, I will always fail to forgive dangerous idiots in aviation. No matter how long I live, I will go to my grave with this black mark on my heart. -ww.