In his own words - BWB and the OMABP

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 14:22:33 -0500, Barnyard BOb -
wrote:


On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 19:07:56 GMT, "Bruce A. Frank"
wrote:

There is a good article in the latest issue of "Kitplanes" ("Certified
vs. Homebuilt") about the Chevy conversion package.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When it comes to "Kitplanes".....
check out their past coverage of the Mini-500 helicopter.
It could not have published better press.

It the nature of these kinds of magazines for Wannabies
to pump up and inflate whatever comes along or be silent.
It's how they make their living.

They are not "Consumers Reports" - where there is no advertising.


Barnyard BOb - Caveat Emptor

That's right. Ken Armstrong touted the Mini-500 in an issue that hit
the stands the month they went out of business. That Mini-500 was a
ball of worms but the Kitplanes article didn't point a bit of it out
in their last article on it.

The only way to really figure out what the hell is going on is to look
at the history of whatever it is you are concerned about. Don't rely
on Kitplanes or Custom Planes, or Sport Planes. They are in business
to make a profit and sell advertisement. What you do it get a list of
builders who are flying whatever it is you are interested in building.
Call every single one on that list and see how long they have been
flying, how hard it was to build, how hard it is to maintain, what
idiosyncracies it may have as far as the fuel it uses, or oil or other
things.

Tell the builder your level of experience both as a pilot and a
builder and ask them what they think your problems might be.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm no kissin' cousin of
Jess's either. He and I have gone around and around about many
things. I have no secret allegiance to him or anyone else at the
OMABP either. In fact I have nothing to do with them mostly. I don't
endorse it and I don't NOT endorse it. I'm neutral. But, at the time
I was involved, I had many unanswered questions so I got out of the
project. I thought the risk for my level of knowledge and the number
of unproven parts in that thing just proved too much risk for me to
continue being the test pilot on that project, especially since I was
doing it for FREE to boot.

Over the years, many of my concerns have been proven wrong. The PSRU
has proven to be a damn good unit. It's in many airplanes, it's flown
thousands of hours in them and to my knowledge there's never been a
failure. Also, many of my original concerns are now moot because they
did continue to modify that package over the years and address a great
number of the very things I was uncertain about.

So, my advice to any of you who might like to go this way is to just
get on the phone or the Internet and contact those who have done it
and see how satisfied, or unsatisfied they are. Don't depend upon
some goofy magazine article. All these magazine articles are is a
tiny little snapshot of the whole. I'm sure that Jess, Tom and I
could write up 1000 pages on the things that have happened and have
been modified on that package over the years. That's way too much for
a magazine to publish, and it doesn't tell you what you want to know
anyway.

What you want to know is, "Is it going to kill me?"

When I was a kid just learning to fly back in the early 1960's I used
to wonder if a wing might fall off. I asked my flight instructers and
some builders questions like that. What they told me is that I have
to believe in HISTORY. If there is no history of this Aeronica
Champ's wing falling off, then chances are the one you are flying
won't fall off.

Same thing with these auto engine conversions. At this point in the
game there is a lot of data on the Fords and the Chevy's. The history
looks good to me. I'd have to sort of go along with the
autoconversion freaks and say that they did it. I agree with Juaquin
(Whaa-keen) in his Kitplanes article although he didn't present all
the data. Bill Harold, Tom and Jess pretty much did what they set out
to do and that was to use a Chevy engine in place of a Lycosaur to
make that little airplane perform as well without the expensive
certified engine. Not only have they done it, but many others to whom
Jess has sold that package to over the years have done it too. So,
you have a big data base to look at now in order for you to make your
mind up.

BWB