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