The Last Airplane

On Jul 26, 8:03 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

surely the best simplest 'last aeroplane' would be the open framework
Legal Eagle ultralight by Leonard Millholland.
it would have to be the most competent minimalist aircraft going.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Either of Leonard's designs would be the logical first-choice, his
welded fuselage being clearly superior with regard to strength vs
weight. Indeed, I have said as much -- many times -- when I was a
subscriber to the Legal Eagle Group. (*) But Leonard's design fails
the minimalist test by requiring not only a skilled weldor but a wide
range of tubing sizes. With the Chuck-Bird the only welding is
reduced to a couple of joints that could be done with an arc-welder
and a minimum of skill. By reducing the fuselage to a riveted, bolted
or even bonded structure, you've not only reduced the required skill-
level, you've opened up the range of accepted materials to such an
extent that virtually anyone should be able to lay hands upon suitable
'fuselage-stuff.' (As an experiment, I was able to fabricate a half-
scale fuselage structure using 3/8" square longerons and Kevlar roving
as the shear-web.)

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- (*) - Should you express an opinion that differs from that of
the moderator or principle users of a particular Group you will often
be 86'd or invited to take your opinions elsewhere. This form of Info
Nazism is quite common on the Internet since it is always done for the
'good of the Group,' etc. (In the case of the Legal Eagle, a couple
of the Groups 'leaders' pointed out that since I had not bought the
plans and was not building a Legal Eagle, my comments (which were
about engines) were seen as criticism of Leonard's efforts. They
weren't, but when someone makes it clear you are not welcome, the only
honorable thing to do is to drop out of the Group.)

Dear Jim,

I found & joined the Group flybynight mentioned. This is not the
origianl (2002?) Group. Their Files archive does not include any of
the many drawings I'd uploaded.

I'm not sure I want to post anything there but I'll be happy to send
you copies of the drawings if/when they reappear :-) (Serious problem
here with maintain back-ups. If a file sees no activity for a year or
more I usually erase it. But as I recall, the TP drawings were
identified as design work, meaning they may have survived.)

-R..S.Hoover

RST Engineering wrote:
Any pointer to this group would be most appreciated.

Jim



Yahoo groups...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/texasparasol/


--

Richard

(remove the X to email)

wrote:

Dear Tony,

I'm afraid you've misunderstood my intent. I paid $80 for a set of
'Texas Parasol' plans that turned out to be worthless. At that time
there was quite a bit of interest in the design. By the time they
encountered the errors they had quite a bit of time and metal invested
in the project. I corrected the errors and made copies available to
some of those builders. But having lost all confidence in the
'designer' I elected not to build the thing. Later, I re-drew the
whole thing (about two dozen drawings) showing alternative methods for
attaching the tail, wing and landing gear.

The whole story is in the various archives and deserves your
attention, especially so with regard to the many contradictions, most
in the 'designers' own words.

I believe there is still a Group dedicated to the Texas Parasol. I
will dig out the drawings and see if they can be posted in the
archives there.

-R.S.Hoover

This isn't the first time I've misunderstood something important...

I did consider building the TP but after all the discussions about it, I
decided not to. With your improvements, I would sure give it more
consideration. I think I downloaded the original plans but I don't know
if I still have them.

Tony

flybynightkarmarepair wrote:

IF you can weld, or come up with the cash for a pre-welded fuselage.
And I think 1/2 VW engines are a waste of time, me. Better dreamers
build the Double Eagle, IMHO.

http://www.doubleeagleairplane.com/

But if you don't weld, the Texas Parasol makes SOME sense. And if you
ignore the lift strut attachment details in the plans, and make the
front spar 2.25"...the wings look very quick to build. If you have a
DSL connection and about 2 hours, you can download the plans for
free. This package is sort of an easter basket, but includes a lot of
details that developed AFTER the initial plans release, and is, IMHO,
worth the time to download it an look it over. This is NOT, again,
IMHO, a First TIme Builder's project. Too many details are left
undeveloped.

http://www.matronics.com/photoshare/...et.02.11.2006/

Finally, Graham Lee's Miranda bears looking at. The aluminum tube
with gusset construction well proven on blizzards of his Nieuport
replicas in a cabin biplane. To the best of my knowledge though, no
one has yet built this design, and it is not exactly "minimal". I
haven't seen the plans for this one yet.

http://www.nieuports.com/index.asp?page=miranda

I can weld but it's been more than a few years since I was in good
practice. I downloaded the TP plans and if I can get my hands on Bob's
updates, I may consider building it. I like the idea of simple but I
also think a welded tube fuse is pretty simple too.

Right now I'm building a small business but after we relocate in a year
or 2 I expect to have the space to start building again. I had to scrap
my las project...

Tony

On Jul 26, 11:18 pm, Anthony W wrote:

I did consider building the TP but after all the discussions about it, I
decided not to. With your improvements, I would sure give it more
consideration. I think I downloaded the original plans but I don't know
if I still have them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Tony,

You'd best put a smiley on 'improvements' or you'll have all sorts of
TP supporters dancing on your head :-)

IF... you followed the $80 plans, drilling holes where shown then
trying to bolt the thing together... you'd discover that the plans
were WRONG... and that you'd just trashed a lot of aluminum. Take
that to the fabled 'designer' and he would INSIST the plans were
correct, in effect saying 7" was really 11", that everything fit
perfectly well and that if you had a problem with that, it was
entirely YOUR problem.

That's when you realize the Fabled Designer is a few cans shy of a six-
pac.

My 'improvements' were merely corrections to the drawings. They were
fairly extensive because of the stack-up, in that once you'd corrected
the cross-member dimensions you would have to correct the attachment
of the forward lift-strut, the under-cart V-member and so on.

But there were two areas where the plans violated accepted engineering
practice. One was the lift-strut attachment at the spar, the other
was the attachment of the cabanes to the longerons. Since these
errors are to accepted standards virtually ANYONE who saw them would
understand the need for correction. Indeed, suitable corrections have
been included in the archives of the TP Group.

With regard to the wing & spar controversy, I didn't get that far
along before I realized the plans were some sort of scam and dropped
the project. (At that time I was not aware of Richard's mental
problem.) Indeed, given the price of suitable aluminum tubing, from
the outset I was thinking more along the lines of a wooden wing &
tail-feathers.

What first attracted me to the design was the potential to develop a
light, strong fuselage using matched-hole tooling, a factor that
remains valid.

A wing using aluminum tubing spars and foam ribs is surely the
lightest way to go but the performance of such wings is generally poor
due to the scalloping of the cover. By comparison, a wooden wing of
the Ison type -- the same as used by Leonard Mulholland -- performs
very close to spec, thanks to its rigid leading-edge, and may be
extended so as to improve its aspect ratio.

The simplicity of the design is its main attractant but only when that
simplicity is valid. If your landing gear does not align properly or
your bolt-holes violate the rule for edge-distance, it really doesn't
matter how simple the design may be.

-R.S.Hoover

Anthony W wrote:
wrote:



This isn't the first time I've misunderstood something important...

I did consider building the TP but after all the discussions about it, I
decided not to. With your improvements, I would sure give it more
consideration. I think I downloaded the original plans but I don't know
if I still have them.

Tony


Anthony,

His "imprvements" have not been built or flown.

And his intent here is just more bashing.



--

Richard

(remove the X to email)

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:07:32 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Jul 26, 8:03 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

surely the best simplest 'last aeroplane' would be the open framework
Legal Eagle ultralight by Leonard Millholland.
it would have to be the most competent minimalist aircraft going.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Either of Leonard's designs would be the logical first-choice, his
welded fuselage being clearly superior with regard to strength vs
weight. Indeed, I have said as much -- many times -- when I was a
subscriber to the Legal Eagle Group. (*) But Leonard's design fails
the minimalist test by requiring not only a skilled weldor but a wide
range of tubing sizes. With the Chuck-Bird the only welding is
reduced to a couple of joints that could be done with an arc-welder
and a minimum of skill. By reducing the fuselage to a riveted, bolted
or even bonded structure, you've not only reduced the required skill-
level, you've opened up the range of accepted materials to such an
extent that virtually anyone should be able to lay hands upon suitable
'fuselage-stuff.' (As an experiment, I was able to fabricate a half-
scale fuselage structure using 3/8" square longerons and Kevlar roving
as the shear-web.)

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- (*) - Should you express an opinion that differs from that of
the moderator or principle users of a particular Group you will often
be 86'd or invited to take your opinions elsewhere. This form of Info
Nazism is quite common on the Internet since it is always done for the
'good of the Group,' etc. (In the case of the Legal Eagle, a couple
of the Groups 'leaders' pointed out that since I had not bought the
plans and was not building a Legal Eagle, my comments (which were
about engines) were seen as criticism of Leonard's efforts. They
weren't, but when someone makes it clear you are not welcome, the only
honorable thing to do is to drop out of the Group.)


I wouldnt worry about them Bob.
cheap has never been a criteria I've even considered in relation to
aviation.

structurally sound, design strength, margin of safety, flight
qualities, stall speed, Vne, structural cruising speed, glide ratio,
cg range, endurance and such are terms that interest me. oh and
fatigue life, particularly fatigue life is what interests me.
"free plan" is a criteria used by the incompetent.

Chuck Slusarzic is a stand out pioneer because his was the first fully
stress analysed ultralight. I wonder if the "Free Plans" types even
realise what that means.

Stealth Pilot

On Jul 27, 4:52 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

I wouldnt worry about them Bob.
cheap has never been a criteria I've even considered in relation to
aviation.
----------------------------------------------------------------

That simply means you are wealthy.

The MEDIAN income in the United States is about $28,000 per year.

When the President of the EAA refers to one of Van's kits as
'inexpensive' and the Lycoming to power it as 'affordable' he's
saying homebuilt aviation is only for the wealthy. It's not, but the
bureaucracy that controls the EAA has moved so far from our roots that
they now treat an affordable homebuilt as a special case, something to
be singled-out and pointed to: See? Even poor people can build
airplanes.

About half of my mail comes from those 'poor people.' 'Cheap' is a
valid factor in their homebuilt equation because they have no other
choice.

Being poor does not mean being dumb, any more than flying on the cheap
means an unsafe airframe or an unreliable engine. For the most part,
what it means is that you don't have the option of BUYING solutions to
the problems you encounter; you will have to figure them out for
yourself, perhaps with a bit of help from your friends.

So they solve the problems and go flying. But don't expect to see
these people at Oshkosh or other EAA-sponsored fly-in's. They have
been priced out of the market. Fortunately, there are no traffic cops
in the sky and despite our growing population, America remains mostly
empty space.

-R.S.Hoover

wrote:

Dear Tony,

You'd best put a smiley on 'improvements' or you'll have all sorts of
TP supporters dancing on your head :-)

IF... you followed the $80 plans, drilling holes where shown then
trying to bolt the thing together... you'd discover that the plans
were WRONG... and that you'd just trashed a lot of aluminum. Take
that to the fabled 'designer' and he would INSIST the plans were
correct, in effect saying 7" was really 11", that everything fit
perfectly well and that if you had a problem with that, it was
entirely YOUR problem.

That's when you realize the Fabled Designer is a few cans shy of a six-
pac.

My 'improvements' were merely corrections to the drawings. They were
fairly extensive because of the stack-up, in that once you'd corrected
the cross-member dimensions you would have to correct the attachment
of the forward lift-strut, the under-cart V-member and so on.

But there were two areas where the plans violated accepted engineering
practice. One was the lift-strut attachment at the spar, the other
was the attachment of the cabanes to the longerons. Since these
errors are to accepted standards virtually ANYONE who saw them would
understand the need for correction. Indeed, suitable corrections have
been included in the archives of the TP Group.

With regard to the wing & spar controversy, I didn't get that far
along before I realized the plans were some sort of scam and dropped
the project. (At that time I was not aware of Richard's mental
problem.) Indeed, given the price of suitable aluminum tubing, from
the outset I was thinking more along the lines of a wooden wing &
tail-feathers.

What first attracted me to the design was the potential to develop a
light, strong fuselage using matched-hole tooling, a factor that
remains valid.

A wing using aluminum tubing spars and foam ribs is surely the
lightest way to go but the performance of such wings is generally poor
due to the scalloping of the cover. By comparison, a wooden wing of
the Ison type -- the same as used by Leonard Mulholland -- performs
very close to spec, thanks to its rigid leading-edge, and may be
extended so as to improve its aspect ratio.

The simplicity of the design is its main attractant but only when that
simplicity is valid. If your landing gear does not align properly or
your bolt-holes violate the rule for edge-distance, it really doesn't
matter how simple the design may be.

-R.S.Hoover

So if this design isn't salvageable, lets get back to cheap and simple.
I scraped my Volksplane because it would have weighed a ton if I had
completed it. I could have shaved some more weight off as I went but it
was designed heavy in my opinion. A simple to tube frame isn't out of
reach for most folks since welding is making a comeback for the masses.
Everybody knows at least one person that welds and could be talked into
helping. I learnt to weld in mechanic's school 30 years ago and with
some practice I could be back up to speed.

I was considering a sport plane sized version of the Ragwing motor-bipe.
The TP was in that size but it's looking less viable all the time.

Tony