Tabla de contenidos para July 2025 en KITPLANES

ABOUT 16 YEARS AGO, I received an email from the editor in chief of KITPLANES magazine (Marc Cook) asking if I’d like to become a regular contributor, writing columns, features, and flight reviews. He’d seen my words on various internet forums and thought I might have something to say. I accepted (although I was otherwise employed), and when Marc decided to leave to “pursue other projects” (he likes motorcycles), I was asked to take over as editor in chief—which I did when I retired from our nation’s space program in 2013. I enjoyed the EIC job for six and a half years, even though I discovered that the worst thing about running a monthly magazine is that they expect you to do one every single month! It was a hard…

CubCrafters is known for its little innovations—things that make you say “Cool! Why didn’t I think of that?” Here are just a few of the things you’ll find in the XCub that make life easier.…

THE SR-1 RACE PLANE is a one-off design and therefore requires a custom engine mount. The engine, an EP912STi from Edge Performance (see my article “On the Edge” in the February 2023 issue of KITPLANES), came with the stock Rotax engine mount. This is a stubby ring mount that serves as an interface for each manufacturer’s unique engine mount, so most aircraft with a Rotax engine actually have two engine mounts: the Rotax ring mount and the manufacturer’s mount that spans the firewall to the ring mount. Vibration isolators typically (but not always) are placed between the ring mount and manufacturer mount. The design of the Rotax does not allow for vibration isolators at the rear of the engine itself, as would be typical with a Lycoming or Continental. This…

OSHKOSH 2025 is approaching rapidly and N2165U wants to go! We have been working hard to finish small projects and continue moving toward test flying. Before we test fly, somebody will need to perform a condition inspection, as this plane has not flown in three years now. The inspection will be extremely thorough and we will make sure that every single nut and bolt is tight. Because of this, I decided to plan ahead and get N2165U looked at now while it is still somewhat apart. The fuel tanks, wingtips, fairings, cowling, and rear bulkhead are still off. About a month ago, I asked my mechanic friend, Lee Ulrich, to come take a look at N2165U. Lee is an Aircraft & Powerplant Mechanic (A&P), Aviation Inspector (AI), and Van’s RV-7…

IN THE APRIL 2025 issue of KITPLANES, Eric Stewart wrote a cool article showing how he used 3D printing to make mold forms for carbon fiber parts. In the epilogue to his story, Eric mentioned how one can jump into this technology by combining a cheap 3D printer with SolidWorks software, which is available to EAA members. My own articles are often illustrated with sketches that have been CAD-generated. The particular software I use, Solid Edge, is available to EAA members to download for free. I can’t speak to the specifics of Solid-Works, but I can tell you, from over 25 years of using Solid Edge, that modern 3D CAD software is amazing! Before Solid Edge, I was a 2D AutoCAD user (funny how only drug addicts and software people…

LAST MONTH WE STARTED our look at testing the airplane in slow flight and exploring stall characteristics. We discussed lateral/directional behavior last time, so we now turn our attention to the pitch axis. The pilot trims the airplane to fly at a higher angle of attack in order to reduce speed in flight. The slower the commanded airspeed, the higher the angle of attack. At some critical angle of attack the airflow over the wing begins to separate and the airplane enters an incipient stall. We consider the airplane to be at a “high angle of attack” when it is approaching or beyond the angle of attack at which the flow starts to separate on the wing. As the stall develops, the airplane should exhibit these behaviors in pitch: •…

WHERE TO PUT the extra wheel on light airplanes has been a thing since the invention of the triangle. It all started when some flying geometer drew three points and realized putting the tail on the ground meant the pilot could easily flip or ground-loop the airplane—while one of those newfangled nosewheels made most airplanes less likely to become inadvertent lawnmowers. Of course, no engineering alchemy could change the fact that nosewheels are visually challenging while adding a pinch of weight and drag, hence the religious war over where the third wheel goes. If there is no clear winner in the wheel war what is obvious is that nosewheel airplanes have predominated since Eisenhower, and today tailwheels spring forth only from homebuilder’s workshops or factories producing for specialized jobs. One…

FLYING WAS AT THE TOP of my to-do list when I retired a few years ago. I really wanted to fly gyros, but I couldn’t find instruction near me in New Hampshire. Additionally, the flight schools and pilots I spoke with all told me gyroplanes were “dangerous machines.” To top things off, I discovered gyro rentals are impossible to find in New England. The idea of buying or building my own gyro was a little too daunting for me at the time, so I gave up on my dream of rotary flight and went for a fixed-wing Sport Pilot certificate instead. Aviation still proved to be everything I thought it would be…even with wings instead of blades. I quickly went “all in” and purchased a Light Sport Aircraft, racking up…

REFLECT ON THIS: To turn a matte-gray sheet of 6061-T6, which absorbs as much light as it reflects, into a mirrored surface that cloaks itself with its surroundings, focuses the sun like a solar oven, and attracts fingers like unsupervised candy at day care, everything must first turn black: hands, clothes, shoes, rags, the floor, tools, and the tub of your washing machine if you’re foolish enough to machine-wash the buffing pads and rags. On the other hand, there’s nothing like a mirror-like polish to make your airplane simultaneously invisible and glaringly obvious on a flight line. Something about a reflective surface is universally appealing, classic, timeless—even visceral. (I can imagine a caveman staring at a cloud-dappled sky reflecting off the silver surface of a puddle thinking, “Someday I’m going…

THE ’60S AND ’70S saw many aircraft designed to use the VW engine. Most tend to blend together in memory, but Bill Johnson’s Mini-Coupe still stands out: You don’t see many homebuilts with twin tails. To me, it looks like the result of a midnight meeting between an Ercoupe and a Japanese Ohka kamikaze (aka “Baka Bomb”). Several designers in the early ’70s were experimenting with building VW-powered aircraft out of aluminum, and one can probably view the Chris Tena Mini-Coupe as the ancestor to the Sonex. Wikipedia says that the company was named “Chris Tena” after Johnson’s wife. The plane came as a complete kit, with preformed ribs, spars, and fuselage skins. Pulled rivets were used for assembly, and all welded parts were included in the kit. It’s reported…

There are times when you want to debur the backside of a hole, but you don’t have enough room to use a regular deburring tool—think for example of the inside of a tube that you’ve drilled a hole in. The Burraway is a spring-loaded tool that deburs both sides of the hole. You can see a video of how it works here (https://cogsdill.com/products/deburring-tools/burraway/). Search for “two-way deburring tool” on eBay and you can find Burraway as well as generic knockoffs, new and used. You probably won’t use it often, but you’ll be glad you have one when you need it!.…

LIVING IN THE small airplane world polarizes between a time warp where nothing changes and a techno-political maelstrom where everything flies around the barnyard tornado style. Lately, it seems there are plenty of sacred cows zooming past my windows, so it seems a good time to touch on several subjects. ADS-B Privacy Not that I want to say I told you so, but back in our February 2019 issue of KITPLANES I grumbled regarding the inevitable governmental misuse of ADS-B. And I repeated some of that in my May 2022 column. Now we see Florida pilots petitioning, with AOPA joining in, after airports began using ADS-B data for billing people over landing fees. More Orwellian, AOPA cites FAA abuses of ADS-B in cases where the feds have brought “questionable” action…

MY THORP T-18 is a project that one person began and another continued—including the rudder build—before it came to me. Looking over the rudder, I now wonder why the builders before me apparently never considered installing a taillight. The top of the vertical stabilizer has a fairing that blends into the rudder’s fairing. At the upper end, where the skins come together, the rudder is quite narrow. These features make it hard to install a light without it looking awkward or being blocked. Mounting one at the back of the fairing risks obstruction by the rudder itself. Placing it at the top of the rudder would result in an ungainly extension. I considered adding a light in a small aluminum tube beneath the rudder, but the clearance to the tail…

The cost to try polishing with Nuvite NuShine IIF9 is very low. Tool needs are minimal, especially if you already have a buffer. The cost to continue polishing, if you find it’s your thing, is even less. Here’s a look at what to expect. • A rotary buffer ($40 to $120). Like so many tools, you can spend a lot or a little. An expensive rotary buffer is no better than a reliable inexpensive buffer. The key feature is that it has adjustable speed. (I polish at about 750 rpm, though Nuvite recommends 2000 rpm.)• Wool compounding pads ($15 to $33 each). I use the 3M brand, part number 05711, and bought two exclusively for grade F9. For initial polishing, make sure you buy a compounding pad, not a polishing…

AIRPLANES ARE MECHANICALLY repetitive by their very nature. Because they have wings, they generally have ribs—and those ribs are often similar (if not identical) and numerous because wings are generally large. That means that you are going to have to build a lot of ribs—a very repetitive task. Even if the ribs in your kit come preformed, you are going to be fluting metal ribs to make them flat, deburring the many holes you find, or if you are—gasp—building in wood, the parts count for gussets alone is eye-watering. And the repetition doesn’t end with numerous similar parts. In a typical metal airplane you’re going to be drilling tens of thousands of holes, then deburring them, and then (if it’s a fast airplane) dimpling them. Then—and only then—do you get…

MANY BUILDERS THINK that because I am a DAR (Designated Airworthiness Inspector) I can do my own airworthiness inspections. But that is not the case. I must go through the same process as everyone else, and I am OK with that. I am a firm believer that you can’t ever have too many eyes on an aircraft. Ever. So, for those of you who are building, I am going to walk you through the process. It’s always a good idea to introduce yourself to the DAR sometime during the building process. No, it’s not required, as there are no longer any mandatory inspections during the construction. The DAR can give you advice on how to prepare for the inspection. You should also consider ordering the EAA Amateur-Built Certification kit, which…

“WHAT’S THAT NOISE?” asked Gus. “What noise?” I replied. “Listen.” We were at 1000 feet, over the lake, headed home after a short but glorious flight in the Pulsar on a spring day. I strained to hear any extraneous sounds. The purr of the engine was normal, the rush of air through the vents was normal, and there were no squeaks or rattles… Until there was. A squeak. An odd squeak. “It’s coming from the back. Did you put anything back there?” “No, I didn’t even look back there.” Soon we were on the ground. I tried to hear the noise again with no luck. We taxied up to the hangar and shut down. Then a high-pitched meow. “Oh, my gosh!” I pushed the canopy forward. “Ace got into the…