2016 BUYEr’S GUIDE EXPANDED EDITION KITPLANES DECEMBER Flying a 2015 Taildragger ® 2016 Buyer’s Guide Homebuilt Aircraft • Pole D IRECTORY 2016 to Pole Over 1000 Kits & Plans Listed! • Vortex Generators • Trim and Flaps • Column Buckling • Taildragger Transition • Fuel Injection • Mold Making BELVOIR ENGINH E T EORY DECEMBER 2015 Fuel Injection In the Shop PUBLICATIONS FU EL SYSTEM DESIGN • Wiring Flaps & Trim If It Ain’t Broke… • Mold Making VORTEX GENERATORS Improve Your Cooling www.kitplanes.com December 2015 | Volume 32, Number 12 Annual Buyer’s Guide 17 2016 HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT DIRECTORY: • Kit and plansbuilt aircraft listings. Compiled by Omar Filipovic. • Different strokes for different folks. By Paul Dye. • What makes a kit complete? By Paul Dye. • Shopping for a second-hand project. By Omar Filipovic. • Buying your first homebuilt aircraft. By Louise Hose. Builder Spotlight 6 LEARNING HOW TO DRAG YOUR TaIL: Making the 6 transition from trigear to tailwheels. By LeRoy Cook. 12 LIGHT AIRCRAFT FUEL SYSTEM DESIGN: Part 1—If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! By Ken Krueger. 52 POLE TO POLE! Around the world over both poles (part 2). By Bill Harrelson. 60 VORTEX GENERATORS FOR COOLING: A simple fix reduced CHTs in a Velocity by 55 degrees. By David G. Ullman. 66 ENGINE ThEORY: Fuel injection—putting pressure into fuel delivery. By Tom Wilson. 97 aSK THE DAR: RV-7A converted to RV-7, importing a Canadian ultralight to the U.S. and registering as an LSA. By Mel Asberry. Shop Talk 72 AIRCRAFT WIRING: Electrical trim and flaps for Experimental aircraft. By Marc Ausman. 82 HOME SHOP MACHINIST: Basic mold making. By Bob Hadley. 98 AERO ’LECTRICS: A blast from the past. By Jim Weir. Designer’s Notebook 86 STREssING STRUCTURE: Tubes, struts, and column buckling. By David Paule. 101 WIND TUNNEL: Offset hinge lines. By Barnaby Wainfan. Exploring 17 2 EdITOR’S LOG: Are you crazy? By Paul Dye. 76 RISKY BUSINEss: Amateurs and Experimental aircraft. By Sid Mayeux. 80 ChECKPOINTS: Skills transference, part 2. By Vic Syracuse. Kit Bits 4 LETTERS 91 LIST OF AdvERTISERS 92 BUILDERS’ MaRKETPLACE 104 KIT STUFF: Drawing on experience. By cartoonist Robrucha. On the cover (clockwise from upper left): Just Aircraft SuperSTOL, Lancair Turbine Evolution, Stolp Starduster Too, Searey LSX, Vortex M912 Gyroplane, Sport Performance 52 Aviation Panther, Sonex Aircraft SubSonex, and Groppo Trail. For subscription information, contact KITPLANES® at 800/622-1065 or visit www.kitplanes.com/cs. KITPLANES December 2015 1 EDITOR’S LOG Are you crazy? I started fooling around with real and growing presence of homebuilt air- of any aviation magazine and look at the airplanes in my early teens, hanging craft in the flying community. Rare is the ads—certified airplanes dominate, even around with men who rebuilt and built local airport that doesn’t have at least in the ads for headsets, watches, and their own airplanes. I went to school to one Kitfox, RV, or Glasair waiting for insurance. Homebuilts were for lunatics learn how to design and build airplanes. flight in a hangar down the row. Take and those who wanted to stay close I have spent most of my life working on a look at the ramp in front of the air- to the airport for when the worn-out my own airplanes. So it is completely port restaurant on a sunny Saturday— engine failed. Now we all know better; normal that I live and breathe homebuilt, if there aren’t at least three RVs parked the capability of modern kit aircraft far Experimental aviation. During the years I along with one or two Cessnas or Pip- exceeds most of their certified breth- owned and flew a certified two-seater, it ers, the RV bunch must have decided to ren equipped with the same engines. I was never a matter of “if” I would build meet somewhere else that day. can hop in my middle-of-the-road RV in my own plane—only a matter of “when.” For a long time homebuilt aircraft Oshkosh at dawn, and be on the West I expect that for the majority of our read- (and their pilots) were considered mar- Coast before cocktail hour in the after- ers, this is considered normal behavior, ginal, scruffy things out on the fringe of noon. That’s tough to do in all but the and you can all relate. aviation at best. Flip through the pages most expensive certified hardware. But how often do you get into a friendly discussion with a pilot in an FBO lounge, or on the flight line, or even at a major airshow, and when the topic of homebuilt aircraft comes up, the response is something on the order of, “Are you crazy? Build and fly a machine you built? Why would you want to do something as risky as that when there are lots of certified airplanes out there?” The non-believer then goes back to his cell phone where his mechanic is wait- ing to tell him the bad news about the $657 nav light cover that he is going to have to install because the 40-year-old part on the owner’s airplane is not only crazed, but opaque. In a world where there are more new Experimental airworthiness certificates issued each year than those given to certi- fied airplanes, I find it amazing how many committed aviation people are still igno- rant—or at least unaware—of the huge Do these people look crazy? Looks like fun to me! Paul Dye 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 in 2005, and an RV-3 that Paul Dye he built with his pilot wife. Currently, they are building a Xenos motorglider. A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 4800 hours in many different types of aircraft. He consults and collaborates in aerospace operations and flight-testing projects across the country. 2 KITPLANES December 2015 www.kitplanes.com & www.facebook.com/kitplanes And let’s not forget the advantages It costs less, gives better performance, This month, we bring you our annual of the word “Experimental.” While most has fewer restrictions and regulations Aircraft Buyer’s Guide issue—another aircraft are well proven, reliable, and that tell you what you can’t do—what’s good way to spread the word about easy to maintain when they do have rare not to like? Most aviators I know chafe at what is actually out there in terms of kits, issues, that pink airworthiness certificate overregulation to begin with, and their plans, and materials. The printed guide is allows us to carry all sorts of the latest reaction to a few minutes of exposure is but a glimpse at what is available online technological wizardry in our panels, not derision, it is outright amazement. in terms of detailed information on many under the hood, and spread through- One way we can spread the word is different models of aircraft. out the airframe. The capability of many through publications like Kitplanes®. The guide intentionally includes mod- Experimental panels rivals that of most Better yet—last year, Kitplanes® started els that are no longer available as kits airliners these days. And if we see some- a free, monthly, online newsletter called because many of those models are flying thing new, we can install and try it out the Homebuilder’s Portal. The sole pur- and available on the used market. The for ourselves that afternoon. We take pose of the portal is to spread the word market for used homebuilts is, in fact, responsibility for what we do, of course, and introduce those already in aviation growing—and we want to support those and that means we are given a tremen- to the Experimental world. It features a out shopping for their perfect airplane, dous amount of flexibility by the FAA. chance to read some of the best articles even if they buy instead of build. Unfortunately, you probably already in the Kitplanes® library for free, and So if you have friends that need just know all of this. Since you’re already here each month is centered around a spe- a little nudge toward the Experimental in Kitplanes®, we have at least reached cific topic that educates and informs the side of aviation, maybe this is the issue you. Now the question is: How do we go reader of what the homebuilding world you should hand them. Get them to about spreading the word to the rest of is really like. Subscriptions to the portal sign up for the portal, and then give our aviation fellowship? My experience continue to rise—and that tells me that them a chance to ride in your Experi- has been that most non-Experimental we are building interest in our chosen mental. You might just find that it’s the aviators actually embrace our part of the field. So point your friends to www. easiest conversion you’ll ever make— community once they find out about it. kitplanes.com/homebuilders-portal for homebuilt, Experimental aviation can In fact, Experimental is a pretty easy sell. their free subscription. almost sell itself. J Photo: Dave Prizio KITPLANES December 2015 3 EDITORIAL Editor in Chief Paul Dye [email protected] Becoming a Test Pilot Bridgeport-style knee mills. Small bench- Managing Editor Mark Schrimmer I’m intrigued by Elliot Sequin [“Becom- top mills can be checked with a tramming Art Direction Dan Maher ing a Test Pilot,” September 2015].