Flying on the Cheap - Wood

This brings to mind several things about building on the cheap.

A couple years ago one of the locals who is not a pilot, but was
interested in building an airplane decided to build an Emeraud.

The project was a prime example of "building on the cheap". The
builder has been in poor health most of his life and has only worked
at a few non demanding odd jobs so he had little money.

He scrounged, for just about everything and eventually ended up with a
good looking airplane. He some where he found an APU with a good 125
HP engine ... Cheap! He did a very nice job of construction and I
think you could probably find examples of just about everything Bob
said in the original post. However when he got to the engine he
didn't have the money for it even if it was cheap. So at this point he
took on a partner with two things in mind. One was money for the
engine and the other was a pilot who could take him for rides in his
airplane.

Welll... best laid plans...
I've mentioned this airplane before. It's the one where the new
partner had only been checked out in, I believe it was a two seat
Cessna tail dragger. The Emeraud with 125 HP was a different animal.

They were doing taxi tests when for some reason instead of easing in
the power the new partner firewalled it. The thing went ballistic with
the nose coming up higher and higher. He panicked and pulled the power
instead of shoving the nose down. So what goes straight up will pretty
much come straight down. Fortunately there was a slight cross wind.
Very slight as it was almost calm, but it was enough. The wing had
enough lift to bring the nose back up and it impacted just to the side
of the runway. It hit hard enough to drive the wheels (with tires)
into the ground far enough for the wing the hit the ground.

The only damage to this "Flying on the Cheap", wood airplane was the
gear and struts ripped off the main spar, a foot long vertical crack
in the bottom fiberglass cowl, and two sets of teeth marks in the
glare shield. Well, the prop was kinda short which meant the engine
had to be rebuilt ... again, but the point is this was one of the
"stick built", scrounged parts, "Flying on the Cheap" airplanes and it
came out of the crash far better than you could have expected from a
Cessna or Piper.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com