Bedecorp BD-4C
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® BD-4C AUGUST 2018 AUGUST www.kitplanes.com PARKING CREW PARKING Replacement Wires H Covering KOS • Fabric Inthe Shop: • Windshield • Electrical H S WhatO ’s Old IDENTS Is New Again EAR G Acc ILT ILT TABLE U C NG HEROES:NG U L POBEREZNY’S HOME L POBEREZNY’S U ETRA When the Prop Stops theWhen Prop Pros and Cons Pros A Very Special Tour Special Tour A Very HOMEB R PA UNS KITPLANES AUGUST 2018 BD-4C • OSH Parking Crew • Retractable Gear • Paul Poberezny’s Home • Engine Failures • Windshield Replacement • Electrical Wires • Fabric Covering • GlaStar Project BELVOIR PUBLICATIONS FROM DYNON AND ADVANCED FLIGHT SYSTEMS A completely custom panel, with Designed for “plug-n-play” guidance from our experts upgradability Your choice of Advanced AF-5000 Powder series or Dynon coated and silk SkyView in your panel screened panel The ADVANCED Control Module saves hundreds of hours of wiring, combining a plug-n-play wiring hub, power distribution, and aircraft systems control in one device. Now available with EFIS-controlled Custom switch modules with crisp electronic circuit breakers tactile feel and LED power indication You’re a homebuilder, not an electrician. You love crafting your airplane, and can’t wait to fly now that it has wings. A Quick Panel cuts hundreds of hours off your avionics system installation with a complete, professionally engineered panel, delivered ready-to-install in your homebuilt aircraft. To customize your Quick Panel, call us today at (503) 263-0037 dynon.aero/quickpanels CONTENTSAugust 2018 | Volume 35, Number 8 Flight Review 6 AHEAD OF ITS TIME AND KEEPING PaCE: The BD-4 flies into its sixth decade. By Scott M. Spangler. Builder Spotlight 18 PaUl’S HOUSE: A very special part of EAA history…and an unforgettable tour. By David Gustafson. 22 GETTING STARTED ON THE GLaSTAR PROJECT: Starting on the wings and ordering more parts. By Dave Prizio. 28 HOMEBUILT ACCIDENTS—WHEN THE PROP STOPS: 34 Too many accidents start with a stoppage. By Ron Wanttaja. 34 OSHKOSH’S HOMEBUILT PaRKING CREW: Bringing you safely to final stop…and off again. By Louise Hose. 40 GOING RETRACTABLE: The ups and downs of retractable gear. By LeRoy Cook. 44 RaPID PROTOTYPING AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Learning from the pros. By Eric Stewart. 66 ASK THE DAR: SLSA max empty weight, sailplane condition inspections, licensing a RANS S-7LS as an ELSA. By Mel Asberry. Shop Talk 49 UNAIRWORTHY: Unlabeled lights. By Vic Syracuse. 50 BEST PRACTICES: Fabric covering. By Dave Prizio. 62 PLANE AND SIMPLE: Riveting soft materials. 64 HOME SHOP MACHINIST: Interference. By Bob Hadley. 72 THE CREATIVE HOMEBUILDER: Hardened steel mandrels for close-quarters dimple dies. By KITPLANES® Staff. 73 AERO ’LECTRICS: Weir’s wires. By Jim Weir. Designer’s Notebook 76 WIND TUNNEL: Initial weights. By Barnaby Wainfan. Exploring 6 2 EDITOR’S LOG: Blurring the line…By Paul Dye. 58 CHECKPOINTS: A new rating and a new windshield. By Vic Syracuse. 78 REAR COCKPIT: An inside look. By Tom Wilson. Kit Bits 4 LETTERS 67 LIST OF ADVERTISERS 68 BUILDERS’ MaRKETPLACE 80 KIT STUFF: Drawing on experience. By cartoonist Robrucha. On the Cover: Jim Bede Jr. and Paul Dye enjoy a flight in the BD-4C over Florida’s 40 Treasure Coast near Fort Pierce. Photographed by Richard VanderMeulen. For subscription information, contact KITPLANES® at 800/622-1065 or visit www.kitplanes.com/cs. KITPLANES August 2018 1 EDITOR’S LOG Blurring the Line... Auto or manual? That has always been is automated is a futile exercise. If we age of 8 (I was probably 9), I was sure I the question when discussing who should broadly define automation as using already had a handle on how my father’s be flying the airplane. Man or machine— machines to do something instead of car worked. But gee—this fire truck had which is better adapted to fly a chosen using purely human intervention, then all sorts of stalks and things that were course, follow a radio beam down to the the airplane itself is an automation, for unidentifiable. Fortunately, my father ground, or make a good touchdown? it allows a human being to fly through was of an age that he knew about man- Pilots have either been accepting or the air without having to madly flap their ual spark advance, chokes, PTO levers, decrying automation since someone arms to get off the ground. That’s an and compression releases. I learned that hooked a bungee cord to a stick in order extreme interpretation, of course—but the driver of one of those machines really to reach down and find the map that had where exactly do we draw the line? had to know the intimate details of how blown out of their lap and was hiding I remember enjoying going to a local an internal combustion engine worked in down in the floorboards of their wooden park when I was a young lad because order to make it go! crate—and the debate continues to this they had an old fire truck that kids could Today, of course, I don’t even need to day as advanced cockpits abound. Auto- climb all over. You could sit in the driver’s turn a key to start my car. So long as I mation is seen as a benefit or a curse, and seat and play with all the many and var- have the fob in my pocket, I touch a but- sometimes both at the same time. ied controls—levers, large and small, ton, and the computer(s) gladly feed The truth is that trying to draw a line that did mysterious things. Like all good fuel, air, spark, and other magic to the between what is truly manual and what mechanically inclined boys over the engine in the proper proportions and There’s no question that automation reduces workload for aircrews. Compare the engineer’s panel from the famous B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, with the full FADEC engine controls of this Cessna Citation CJ3+. Paul Dye, KITPLANES® Editor in Chief, retired as a Lead Flight Director for NASA’s Human Space Flight program, with 40 years of aerospace experience on everything from Cubs to the Space Shuttle. An avid homebuilder, he began flying and working on airplanes as a teen, and has experience with a wide range of construction techniques and materials. He flies an RV-8 that he built, an RV-3 that he built with his pilot wife, as well as a Dream Tundra they completed. Currently, they are building a Xenos motorglider. Paul Dye A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 5000 hours in many different types of aircraft and is an A&P, EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor, as well as a member of the Homebuilder’s Council. He consults and collaborates in aerospace operations and flight-testing projects across the country. 2 KITPLANES August 2018 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes timing to make it instantly purr like a superior beings, capable of fine con- with all the levers to see if I can coax it kitten. And it does that all without my trol of our machines if all we do is push to life. But that’s just to prove that I can knowing what the engine even looks buttons? Well, sure—I like to go up and still do it. A modern farmer is happy to let like under the hood because it is cov- challenge myself to fly a perfect loop or automation do the drudge work while ered with a big piece of plastic with not nail that steep turn down to a deviation they keep their eye on the rows. And the much more than a protruding dipstick of plus or minus ten feet. I love the fact fireman is just as happy to let the truck to give the curious something to look that I can plant a bush plane down on a take care of things, so they can manage at. Yes, cars have become so automated gravel bar or primitive runway and make getting water on a fire. that it is hard to know what they are it stop exactly where I want. Those skills In the end, the important part of auto- doing for you—and, amazingly, they are necessary if we are going to play on mation is not to reduce workload just so pretty much keep on working…almost the edges of the flight envelope. But if we that we don’t have to do a menial task— all of the time. are trying to get from A to B safely and it is to reduce the workload so that we Sophisticated automation, in the efficiently, automation is a friendly force can do something more important with guise of fly-by-wire, has been around that can help us to be better pilots. the time it gives us. Humans are great at in aerospace and large aircraft applica- The pilot as “systems monitor” may thinking and analyzing the unusual, the tions now for quite a few decades, but horrify many, and if that were all I was unexpected, and the unforeseen. We do it is late in coming to the light aircraft allowed to do in a cockpit, it would hor- an adequate job of following a guidance arena. The surprising thing, however, rify me as well. But having the automa- needle—but since the computer is gen- is just how fast it is taking hold in the tion there when I want to use it is a nice erating that needle, it doesn’t take much experimental world.