Texas Parasol Plans...

I was going to let this slide, but every time I read it. It just
****es me off more. I am not one of the Canadian group. But I bought
a set of plans from Richard with his recomendations that it was for a
first time builder, and a good choice for a direct drive VW engine.
Come to find out its not either...!!!!!!!!

The problem isn't the Canadian group that Richard blames for all his
problems. Its Richard himself. He is his own worst enemy. And this
recent post is another example of how Richard's view of reality is
shall we say cloudy at best..........

For those that don't know Richard,,,,, He is on mental disabilty for
his service in Vietnam. And has been for years.

Richard didn't DESIGN the Texas Parasol, Chuck Beason did along with
a group of other builders flyers in the San Antonio area of Texas.....
Richard wasn't one of them. Since Richard was on disabiltiy he
started hanging around Chuck's shop and Chuck took a liking to him and
let him help build complete planes to sell to people. Somewhere along
the line. Richard became computer literate, and did CAD drawings from
measurements of Chucks planes. I don't know if Richard screwed Chuck
B. But Chuck B. told me over the phone that Richard did. And several
people in the area I talked to personally on the phone feel Richard
screwed Chuck... For the first few years Richard sold plans, those on
the internet he let everyone believe he was the one that designed the
plane. When in fact there wasn't a single part of the plane that
Richard designed. And to top it off, when the spar debate came up.
Richard sold the rights to the Texas Parasol to Ted F. of sirus
aviation. All in all a sick joke kind of thing.


Richard in January of this year on this newsgroup said he calculated
the max gross load of 650 lbs. and the thread is in the archives.

Richard's problem and the problem with the spars is Chuck designed the
plane to be buillt light using the smaller 2 stroke engines.......
Richard wanted the Texas Parasol to be all things to all
builders........

And thats were the controversy comes in.

The plans, call for 2 inch by .058 inch thick front tube spars.....
Herbert Beaujon a ligitimate designer says this wing is a 500 lb max
gross wing..... NOT 650 lbs that Richard first claimed to his plans
holders, and future VW engine users. THATS a HUGE difference.... When
confronted with this information. Richard would not reveal how he came
about with the 650 lb number. But INSTEAD showing how he came up with
the number Richard reduced the max gross weight of the Texas Paraso to
600 lbs instead.... Also Richard refused to do a wing load test.
And he gave the exact same response as above. ", but there are
several dozen of theseplanes _flying_ for over 20 years now. Doc, HARR
who has been the test pilot on almost all of these, had over 650 hours
on his "Lucky Lady" when the airfield changed hands and he quit.
Doc loved to play acro with it. Loops (well, tall skinny ones),
spins, rolls. I'll trust my life to his test work because I've
seen what he can do with it" END QUOTE. WTF kind of answer is that
when there is a legimate saftey concern. When I personally asked how
Doc Harr's wings were built. Richard WOULD NOT reply, I assume
because he didn't know how Harr's wings were built.....

Come to find out. Several of Chuck B.s orginal birds had been built
with a longer wing span, and shorter chord. Other pilots had noticed
the "gulling" of the front spar and had added flying wires to that area
of the front spar much like the king post ULS do.....which adds
signicant strenth to the spar. Richard never mentioned this to any of
his builders. He also never mentioned untill pressure was put on him.
That just maybe, not a single airplane had ever been built with the
wing design that was called for in the plans... All were
different.....Richard didn't like Chucks longer wing. He didn't like
the flying wires either, hence he didn't tell anyone.

So not being able to get any strait answers from Richard, about
exactly how Doc Harrs wings were built, and not being able to get
Richard to do a load test on his own wings, to confirm his 600 lb mas
gross weight.

The Candian group set up there own spar load test, under the direction
of an aero engineer. The aero engineer said the wing is a 500 lb max
gross wing. but if its loaded to 2 G's assuming a 600 lb max its going
to fail........... And low and behold it failed at 2 G's... and
PROVED the wing shown in Richard's Texas Parasol drawings are 500 lb
max gross

Confronted with this knowlege. Richard threw up his hands discussed
and just disappeared from the internet until reappering here a couple
of months ago. spouting the same bull**** about "his design" grossing
650 lbs

What this dirty laundry is all about is a guy that took someone elses
design for a lite 500 lb gross plane using light rotax engines and,
claiming it as his own, and marketing it to a group of folks claiming
it now can use a VW engine, 12 gal of fuel and fly a 200 lb pilot on
the same 500 lb gross wing........


And just another fact Richard never built a plane from his plans as he
said...... he built a longer plane by one bay., and maybe with these
wings, maybe with different wings..... I have documented persoanl
emails saying he built it two different ways. I think it makes a
difference as to what he has had to smoke, drink or medications he is
was taking at the time a question was asked......

For reference on why the 2 inch tube spars are a concern

Chuck Slusarczyk CSG HAWK uses 2.25 inch front spar, and so does the
Rans S-4. Both high wing single place planes..... Chuck S. can
verifiy his own max gross on those 2.25 inch spars, and how that was
derived..... Both planes use max Rotax 503 engines weights some 60 lbs
lighter than the direct drive VW.

BTW Chuck S. I think I would stay as far away from Richard Lamb as
possible... In doing research on Richard I came accross a post
referring to HIS LATEST DESIGN posted to the Romance Chat newsgroup. in
January of 2006. Sounds a lot like to me one of Bruce Kings BK 1.1
also from the San Antonio TX area.
Richard seems to use that word DESIGN rather loosely

Monty Graves

Quote from Richard.
"I haven't cut any metal on the latest design.
But I've done a whole lot of drawing on it.
(Not much else to do at the moment)


Some of the sketches are posted at
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb/


I've got two details left to clean up.


One is the attachment of the landing gear.
I was trying to work it out so that the legs
stay on the airframe if the wings are removed.
It would make things a lot easier to live with.


But there turns out to be a lot of mechanical
complexity in doing it that way. The center
part of the wing would have to protrude far
enough outside the airframe that we'd have a
challenge in making the wing pieces line up
exactly right (OK, not all that hard, but a
lot of extra complication).


So it looks like the gear legs will be under
the wing, and a simple plywood cradle for the
fuselage solves the "move it" problem.


The other challenge involves the design of the
tail. This one ain't no baby buggy! As is, I
am projecting 160 MPH cruise (on 4 gallons per
hour fuel burn!)


I'm working out how to build the tail so that the
stabilizer (normally the fixed surface) can be
adjusted (in flight) to provide longitudinal trim
force without a lot of extra drag to slow it down.


This is not unusual on larger aircraft, but on one
so small (and it is TINY), it is a real challenge.
(Extra weight that far back is a killer!)


Estimated cost for the thing is about 4 grand.
(except for the bubble canopy - might be another
500-800 or so there. No valid quotes yet.)
Not too bad though.


Well, enough of that.


Let's go find a sucker to sploosh!


Richard