Fast glass biplanes

A few weeks ago I came home to a goose sitting in my front lawn, it let
me take pictures and even video of it before it got up and walked away.
Unfortunately there were too many eyes around. Had he shown the poor
judgement to land in my back yard, his next stop would have been my
freezer. Since I live under the pattern at Merrill Field I could always
claim I was enhancing aviation safety:

http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/goose.avi

Del Rawlins-
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What happened to that goose?
Looked like a prime candidate for road kill...
heading for that very busy street.

BTW....
Are you sure you were in Alaska?
I didn't notice any snow, dirt roads,
mountains, huskies, eskimos or igloos. g


Barnyard BOb - which way to Iditarod

"John Pelchat" wrote in message
om...
|
| I looked at the NTSB site and gear design was mentioned in the
| findings for both Lionheart accidents. I'm not an engineer, so I
| leave it up to the rest of you to consider the information.
|

I actually saw the Lionheart crash at Bremerton. When he took off it was a
thing of beauty. The round engine coupled with the wind going through the
strutless wings made it sound like a giant dragonfly. He departed from
runway 19 at Bremerton and was gone, IIRC, about 45 minutes.

When he returned the wind had shifted almost 180 degrees. I guess he did not
check the AWOS or look at the wind sock. He made several low passes over the
runway, but he said later that he was having trouble getting lined up
properly. We went out to watch him land just as he was on short final.

He landed with a left quartering tailwind of about 9 knots. The Lionheart
started to weathervane. One main gear collapsed, then the other as he
groundlooped. The gear bolts were connected directly to the fuel tanks, so
when the gear collapsed the bottom of the fuel tank was ripped out. The
plane burst into a spectacular fire which was caught on film by several
cameras on the ground and a camera in the chase plane. It was pitiful
watching Bremerton's lone fire truck (a pickup truck with a water tank on
the back) try to put this thing out. The water would not even reach the
fire.

His wife was sure he was dead because we did not see him get out. As it
turned out he had only a cut on his thumb. The airplane was a total loss. He
did not have insurance and had spent much of his life savings on the plane.
He told me he had spent about $400,000 on building the plane. It had a
magnificent burlwood panel.

I believe his was the fifth Lionheart completed and the fourth to crash. The
pilot told me he did not plan to build another. I had first met the builder
a couple years before in a Belfair restaurant. A factory representative was
with him wearing a Lionheart t-shirt. I went over and introduced myself. The
rep was a professional builder who was going to spend about six months
working on the project with the owner.

On 18 Nov 2003 10:27 PM, - Barnyard BOb - posted the following:

What happened to that goose?
Looked like a prime candidate for road kill...
heading for that very busy street.

I dunno. I went inside before my blood lust got the better of my
judgement.

Are you sure you were in Alaska?
I didn't notice any snow, dirt roads,
mountains, huskies, eskimos or igloos. g

I left Alaska and moved to Los Anchorage 2 years ago. I really miss
Cordova (pop. 2500 and falling), but I don't really miss what I was
doing for a living there, and am happy to have gotten out before the
seafood based economy totally collapses. I just got word that one of
the major fish processing plants, and the only one which operates year
round (read: non seasonal workforce and a big part of the winter economy)
is going to be shutting down.

I can see the mountains from my house in the other direction, the only
"igloos" I have ever seen were loaded on an Alaska Airlines 737 (that's
what Alaska calls their containers), I don't like dogs, the windshield
of the Jeep in the video is covered with plenty of evidence of dirt road/
alcan usage, and if I want to see eskimos I can drive downtown (I'm
gonna get flamed for that).

There are 3 major differences I notice between living in a small town,
and living in the big ****ty:

1) More traffic on my 5 minute drive to school/work.

2) I can't drive or walk for 20 minutes and be the only human being
around.

3) When I needed some oddball part to accomplish some purpose on one of
my projects, in Cordova I would exhaust the local possibilities in the
space of 30 minutes and then just mail order the damn thing. Here, I
can spend 2 days and 3 tanks of gas driving all over hell and back,
explaining my needs to complete morons and then listening to their
wrongheaded opinions for doing what they think I want to do, and still
not find what I am looking for before mail ordering the damn thing.
Unless you are trying to perform the exact same task as Joe Dip**** in
the same exact manner, the world is set against you.

The best things which can be said of my current location, is that I am
working on my project again after a 3 year hiatus, and I live close to
the road out of Anchorage. When/if I ever finish the Bearhawk I'll be
an hour and a half away from my old haunts. That's the right word too,
since it's well on its way to becoming a ghost town.

----------------------------------------------------
Del Rawlins-
Remove _kills_spammers_ to reply via email.
Unofficial Bearhawk FAQ website:
http://www.rawlinsbrothers.org/bhfaq/

Del Rawlins wrote:

There are 3 major differences I notice between living in a small town,
and living in the big ****ty:

....

2) I can't drive or walk for 20 minutes and be the only human being
around.

What, you don't have an ad agency within 20 minutes?

Dave 'didn't say law firm' Hyde

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 23:31:56 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote:


I believe his was the fifth Lionheart completed and the fourth to crash.

Wow. What's going on here? Too much airplane for too little
experience?

Corky Scott

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
... One main gear collapsed, then the other as he
groundlooped. The gear bolts were connected directly to the fuel tanks, so
when the gear collapsed the bottom of the fuel tank was ripped out.

I'm still early in the learning stages of aircraft design but offhand
that design choice sounds rather ill-considered. Am I missing something?

The
plane burst into a spectacular fire which was caught on film by several
cameras on the ground and a camera in the chase plane. It was pitiful
watching Bremerton's lone fire truck (a pickup truck with a water tank on
the back) try to put this thing out. The water would not even reach the
fire.

His wife was sure he was dead because we did not see him get out. As it
turned out he had only a cut on his thumb. ...

--

FF

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
| On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 23:31:56 -0800, "C J Campbell"
| wrote:
|
|
| I believe his was the fifth Lionheart completed and the fourth to crash.
|
| Wow. What's going on here? Too much airplane for too little
| experience?

Short coupled tailwheel airplane landing in a left quartering tailwind with
a serious design flaw in the landing gear. The pilot of the chase plane said
that the Lionheart's pilot was having enormous difficulty controlling the
airplane throughout the flight, with violent pitch excursions. He also had
not had much recent experience landing any tailwheel airplane and none at
all in the Lionheart. The pilot was an ATP currently flying for a major
airline.

It reminds me of a story Mike told me about a pilot at Tacoma Narrows who
finished his homebuilt aircraft after many years of loving work. He was
hesitant to fly it because he was not current and had not flown a tailwheel
airplane in a long time, but his family and friends wanted to see him fly
and so he and Mike worked out a careful plan to test fly it, beginning with
taxi tests, fast taxis, etc. Unfortunately, the man's entire family and many
friends turned out to watch the initial tests, expecting him to fly. Instead
of doing the fast taxi he took off, pitched up too high, and plopped back
down so hard that he jammed the landing gear up through the wings and
folding up the prop on the runway.

His buddies helped him move the plane back into the hangar, only now the
obsession was to get the thing flying again instead of creating a work of
art. Six months later the airplane was ready for another try. The same crowd
turned out and again the pilot was pressured into taking off before he was
ready. Mike said that the man was so fearful he was sweating, pale and
shaking before leaving -- he doesn't know how his family missed it.

He had an impossible time controlling the airplane. He could not land it and
finally the tower had Mike and others trying to talk him down. Mike said he
could hear from the pilot's voice that he was in terrible trouble. Finally,
with the airplane on fumes, the pilot managed a landing and the airplane
coasted to a stop at the end of the runway. But it never pulled off onto the
taxiway and the pilot did not get out. He was dead of a massive heart
attack.

No doubt at the funeral they said of him that he died doing what he loved to
do.

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 08:32:53 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote:


"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
| On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 23:31:56 -0800, "C J Campbell"
| wrote:
|
|
| I believe his was the fifth Lionheart completed and the fourth to crash.
|
| Wow. What's going on here? Too much airplane for too little
| experience?

Short coupled tailwheel airplane landing in a left quartering tailwind with
a serious design flaw in the landing gear. The pilot of the chase plane said
that the Lionheart's pilot was having enormous difficulty controlling the
airplane throughout the flight, with violent pitch excursions.

I went to the Lionheart website to have a look. There was a section
that listed testimonials. Among those testimonials was one from none
other than Jim Campbell, he liked it...

Corky Scott

"Richard Isakson" wrote in message Bull****, Jay.

I worked for several years as an engineer in Boeing's Aero Staff.
Everything you just said is wrong. The people that design wings at Boeing
use the best technology available that's consistant with the production
materials that are available.

I suppose nobody ever approved using composites untill just recently
(wasn't on the QPL), so I guess it wasn't the engineer's fault that
they didn't get to use these materials until 30 years after the
homebuilt guys were using them in their garage. Right?

They don't design on the basis of some
political whim.

You must have had better luck working in large organizations than I
have.

They don't design biplanes because it's easy to show
mathematically that the mutual interference between the circulation of the
two wings decreases the efficiency of both wings.

Ya sure, but for what airfoil, chord, span, stagger, flow model?

You seem to have strange theory that just because something isn't done it
must be a good thing to try.

No, the theory is just because someone else hasn't been able to do it
right, doesn't mean it won't ever work. Give yourself some credit.
Its happened before.

Subsonic aerodynamics was well explored by
World War II.

Ya, and we know what kind of advanced tools they had at their disposal
during that time. I think their computer was a group of ladies in a
room with adding machines.

Much of transonic and supersonic flow was understood shortly
after. If you think that you've come up with something new that just means
you don't understand why thinks work.

When the Wright brothers came up with this idea of heavier than air
powered flight didn't mean they just didn't understand how things
worked. If they'd listened to the early 1900's version of people with
that attitude, we'd be celebrating some French guy inventing powered
flight. They had intuition that they may be something there, and
didn't give up just because lots of other people had failed.

If you want do to something different
just to be different go ahead, but it will be an inferior product and
possibly dangerous.

I'm not building anything yet, I'm just discussing some ideas with
people interested in looking at old problems with new eyes.

Your current design has at least three fatal flaws.
You need to open some books and understand the theory of flight before you
start designing airplanes.

Instead of running numbers on Excel with formulas filled with fudge
factors from experimental data taken 70 years ago, I think I'm going
to throw some wings on my FEA computer model and let the computer take
care of the algebra at 2.4GHz.

Rich

I went to the Lionheart website to have a look. There was a section
that listed testimonials. Among those testimonials was one from none
other than Jim Campbell, he liked it...

Corky Scott

Well, I'm sold then!

B.S.