2008 KIT BUYER’S GUIDE YOUR NEXT AIRPLANE STARTS HERE! 315 DESIGNS! Specs • Performance • Prices On All Of Today’s Kitbuilt Aircraft December 2007 A ZENITH HOMECOMING Rick Lindstrom’s Corvair-Powered 601 Is Done! Spacer Cadet: $4.99US $5.99CAN Our Home Machinist 12 Offers a Real-World Project For You 0 09281 03883 2 T AKING THE E XPERIMENT O UT OF E XPERIMENTAL E NGINES ALPHA TMX SERIES E XPERIMENTAL E NGINE FROM T ELEDYNE MATTITUCK S ERVICES. F ROM THE O NLY E XPERIMENTAL E NGINE S OURCE THAT O FFERS: • B OTH L YCOMING AND TCM ENGINES • A LPHA TMX SERIES W ARRANTY* • P OWERLINK FADEC TECHNOLOGY • AS9100 CERTIFIED Q UALITY M ANAGEMENT S YSTEM • F REE A LPHA TMX SERIES E NGINE C LINIC • T OLL-FREE S UPPORT L INE C ONTACT U S T ODAY TO S EE W HY AN A LPHA TMX SERIES E XPERIMENTAL E NGINE IS THE B EST S OLUTION FOR Y OUR E XPERIMENTAL A IRCRAFT P ROJECT. WITH US, IT’S PERSONAL. 1-800-624-6680 • WWW.TCMLINK.COM/MATTITUCK • [email protected] *ALPHA TMX RED GOLD – 3 YEARS UNLIMITED HOURS, PARTS AND LABOR. ALL OTHER ALPHA TMX SERIES ENGINES – 2 YEARS UNLIMITED HOURS, PARTS AND LABOR. CONTENTS December 2007 | Volume 24, Number 12 On the cover: Kit building options abound for 2008! The cover montage was created by Art Director Suzanne Stackle with photos by Arnold Greenwell, Rick Lindstrom, Richard VanderMeulen and Kevin Wing. Annual Directory, Part 1 36 2008 KIT AIRCRAFT DIRECTORY Our listing includes specs for 315 fi xed-wing designs built from kits, including those designated LSA; compiled by Julia Downie. Flight Reports 36 10 BAREFOOT FLYING Sport Air Aviation’s Corsario delivers wet and wild fun; by Dave Higdon. Builder Spotlight 16 A SIGN OF THE ZODIAC Th e seventh installment of a six-part series; by Rick Lindstrom. 83 BUILD YOUR SKILLS: COMPOSITES Part 8: Building a vacuum pump; by Bob Fritz. 86 COMPLETIONS Builders share their successes. Shop Talk 28 THE HOME MACHINIST Part 9: In our second lathe project, we fi ne-tune the lathe and use the calipers; by Bob Fritz. 94 AERO ’LECTRICS Best of Show; by Jim Weir. Designer’s Notebook 88 WIND TUNNEL Th e perils of PIO; by Barnaby Wainfan. Exploring 2 AROUND THE PATCH Music to my ears; by Marc Cook. 8 WHAT’S NEW 10 An update on the Europa and news about aviation insurance from Avemco; edited by Mary Bernard. 22 GEAR OF THE YEAR 2007 Our staff picks the great gadgets of the season; a Staff Report. 26 PRODUCT REVIEW: GLASS PANEL yourGlassPanel debuts into a busy segment; by Marc Cook. 34 COMMON CENTS Th ere is more than one way to fi nance your kit project; by Dave Higdon. 96 LIGHT STUFF Eric Tucker and the LAMA connection; by Dave Martin. Kit Bits 4 CONTRIBUTORS 6 LETTERS 64 LIST OF ADVERTISERS 91 BUILDERS’ MARKETPLACE 99 THE CLASSIFIED BUILDER 16 104 KIT STUFF Drawing on experience; by cartoonist Robrucha. KITPLANES December 2007 1 AROUND the Patch MARCBY COOK kept the pinouts the same as the 8000— and the same as the Garmin GMA Music to my ears. 340—so upgrades are more a matter of money than wrestling with Tefzel demons. Speaking of coin, the 9000EX tarting on Page 22, you’ll fi nd our brief “Gear in Review” feature, which retails for $2395, a $400 hike over the highlights some of the more intriguing products we saw through the year, 8000B (which now ships with the Inter- primarily at Oshkosh this summer. For electronics geeks, the pickings were nal Recording System standard, as it is bountiful; even on the semi-moribund side of the aisle, having to do with in the 9000). Sbread-and-butter nav/com and GPS radios, good news issued forth from Honeywell (Bendix/King) about new product to come in, oh, about a couple of years. Better late than never, I say. Among the new releases, one caught my eye: PS Engineering’s new PMA9000EX audio panel. I’ll disclose that I have a PMA8000 in my airplane, probably overkill considering that I have but one nav/com, but useful for integrating multiple external audio inputs—altitude alerter from the EFIS, terrain warning from the GPS—as well as dispensing diff erent music channels to the passengers. My pre-teen daughter gets mighty tired of Fred on XM, while I can’t quite stomach three hours of U-Pop. But everything the 8000 does the 9000EX seems to go one better. For example, there’s now an LCD panel to show the various modes—and there are many—for aux inputs and music distribution. With the 8000, you navigate through button-press combinations, annunciated (of sorts) by a clever verbal indication of the mode; it For those of us with a short attention span, works, but I suspect plain text will be better. infl ight entertainment is nothing less In addition to the rear-panel connections for two independent stereo entertain- than miraculous. The Delphi Roady XT in ment inputs—expected to be hard-wired to music devices or “jacked out” so you can my airplane staves off boredom; it’s a lot run your own iPod into the mix—there’s a front-panel jack that can be fed stereo better than an old ADF to keep track of the Angels game, too. audio or a cell phone headset input/output. Moreover, that jack has been changed What We Didn’t See Oshkosh was perhaps the best in many years for electronics, but it was fairly quiet on the engine front. Th e heavy- fuel engine promised by Lycoming was a no-show, as was the parallel-valve O- 540 that Engine Components said it PS Engineering’s latest PMA9000EX is designed for the Experimental market, and brings a would have ready. More than anything, host of new features to the ever-expanding audio panel. these delays underscore the diffi culty of developing engines, either essentially from a 2.5mm item to accept a more common 3.5mm (0.125-inch) plug. But there’s a from scratch—though the Lycoming hidden trick to that jack; it acts as a front-panel USB port that allows you to upload program has been around awhile—or MP3 music fi les right into the audio panel. Total music memory is a relatively slim from known components. When will we 512 megabytes—call it 100 songs, depending upon how aggressively they’re com- see these engines, or even that intrigu- pressed. In addition, the 9000EX has Bluetooth capability, so you can use your cell ing three-cylinder Powerplant Devel- phone wirelessly—on the ground, of course. PS Engineering also, wisely I think, opments Gemini LSA engine? No bets here, as anything can happen in either Marc Cook has been in aviation journalism for 19 years and in magazine work for 25. the engineering or accounting depart- He is a 3900-hour instrument-rated, multi-engine pilot with experience in nearly 150 types. ments. Remember, for the engine guys, He’s completed two kit aircraft , an Aero Designs Pulsar XP and a Glastar Sportsman 2+2. it’s all hardware. 2 KITPLANES December 2007 Photos: Courtesy the Manufacturer, Marc Cook ©2007 Garmin Ltd or its subsidiaries Yes, there are other glass cockpit displays for kitbuilts. End of comparison. Announcing Garmin’s new G900X™ kitplane installation program. Now do-it-yourselfers don’t have to settle for semi-suite avionics. With the launch of Garmin’s new G900X series – and its installation network of factory-approved avionics dealers – builders of the popular Lancair and Van’s RV series* aircraft can now step up to the most proven, most capable, most fully integrated “glass cockpit” ever to fly in any kitbuilt airframe. The dealer-supplied package comes with everything you need: from GPS/Comm, transponder and AHRS sensors to audio panel, wiring harness, and drawings. So, you simply add the finishing touches. Garmin’s new G900X: For your next kitplane cockpit, the choice is clear as glass. To explore the possibilities, go to www.garmin.com *Garmin G900X packages are available for all new 4-place Lancair piston models, as well as all Van’s RV series products configured for 2-across seating. For a list of approved avionics dealers, visit Garmin’s website. NASDAQ GRMN CONTRIBUTORS EDITORIAL JULIA DOWNIE Editor-in-Chief Marc Cook Once a year we take the opportunity to publicly thank the [email protected] Managing Editor Mary Bernard hard-working Julia Downie for her tireless eff orts in col- Art Director Suzanne Stackle lecting and organizing our aircraft directory issues. Perhaps Senior Editor Dave Higdon Contributing Editors Ken Armstrong, Walter Atkinson that’s not oft en enough, as the task of gathering and main- Stein Bruch, Dan Checkoway, taining a massive database is practically a full-time eff ort. Cory Emberson, Bob Fritz Over the years, Julia has helped our directory keep pace with Geoffrey Jones, Tim Kern, Howard Levy, Rick Lindstrom, the industry, no small feat. Th e fi rst of our annual directo- Dave Martin, Dick Starks, ries, for kits, begins on Page 36. Barnaby Wainfan, Jim Weir Ed Wischmeyer Webmaster/Data Manager Julia Downie Cartoonist Robrucha RICK LINDSTROM ADVERTISING Our resident Zenith builder provides the seventh installa- Publisher/Ad Director Cindy Pedersen tion in the six-part series this month. Really. We thought [email protected] Sr. Advertising Manager Chuck Preston he was done last month, but it turns out that homebuilts [email protected] are never really done, and Rick had a few things to add BUSINESS OFFICE about the long-distance building process generally and the 531 Encinitas Blvd., Suite 105, Encinitas, CA 92024 Corvair-powered 601’s trip home in particular.