Len Evansic

We call it the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) system. It's quite modern in that it uses English, the current international language, rather than the passé French (Système International). Even if the entire world converts to metric, the SAE system will not go away. There are too many embedded standards that use it. Take the Schrader valve (tire valve) for instance. All of the threads in one of these valves, both internal and external, are a combination of SAE and SI units. Metric diameter with inch pitch. Every automotive pneumatic tire in the world has used this valve standard since the late 1920's, and it will not go away anytime soon. -- Len

When I started out as an engineer, I had to often deal with designs that were passed back and forth to our UK subsidiary for fabrication and installation throughout the EU. It became painfully obvious that it was not the US, but the rest of the world that was swallowing the jagged little pill called the metric system. At first, when making drawings for european consumption, I made the mistake of going through the mess of soft conversions. A 4" x 4" x 0.25" wall square tube had it's dimensions changed to a 100 x 100 x 6mm wall tube. This seems sane enough, except that the metric size does not exist! You see, unfortunately for the metric world, we in the US were too successful in standardization of raw material stock sizes. The actual metric tube that is available is a 102 x 102 x 6.35 mm tube, which is absolutely identical to our 4 x 4 x .25 tube. Inch measurements with a hard conversion to metric. Add to that the fact that locating holes through the centerlines now require odd measurements like 51 mm, and the metric version becomes quite messy. Now, which of those two measurements is easier to remember and use, given that the metric standard is not metric in the first place? -- Len

1U is kind of big. Unnecessarily so. 19" wide on the front face x 1.75" high. Not that I'd use either, you could use a PC104 with a solid-state drive, or a Mac mini, which is far more capable than the machine you specified, but the same price and much smaller. The PC104 would be smaller, more expensive and less powerful in the end, but it would be easily configureable to take a myriad of inputs to control or monitor just about anything you could throw at it, owing to it's embedded industrial upbringing. I threw in the Mac mini because it could handle the interfacing aspects just as well if you were willing to put in the time. -- Len

If you don't mind me asking, what were the two other planes? I'm curious, as my sister lives in Harrisburg, and I'm always looking for people in the area who are building planes too. Especially ones with a lot of experience. -- Len

I don't think they will have a problem with the weather, but building in Alaska could be a big challenge as you need a warm workspace and warm materials when bonding. Someone who is actually flying could offer more insight though. If you were to choose an appropriate epoxy that could withstand the low temperatures without cracking, then these planes should be OK. Neither the Cozy nor the Dragonfly are amphibians though, and I don't think either are good for unimproved surfaces. The Cozy needs a quite a bit more runway than a Cessna, so short fields could be an issue. -- Len

It's a conventional auto engine; liquid cooled. You would still need a redrive or at least a thrust bearing to take the prop load. -- Len

Wow! Boy if that was only available here. With ~1.3:1 redrive (to raise the output shaft), that would be perfect. -- Len

I'm just in the beginning of building phase, but I did see on Marc Zeitlin's site that there is someone down in Binghamton. I'd check over on Marc's e-mail list where you may find a local flyer. Hit Marc's unofficial site for more information. -- Len

What's a TERF CD? -- Len

With a 2000 HP engine, I'd hang something like that on it too! -- Len

I haven't seen this movie, but I did see something on the History Channel this weekend that made my jaw drop. Tivo (and similar) users may want to set a timer for the next occurrence of "Last Secrets of the Axis." a WWII documentary that sheds light on the Japanese super weapons that were on the cusp when we dropped the bomb. Actually the show is about geopolitical and cultural tie-ins between Germany and Japan, but mostly about the cool tech that never got deployed. Back on topic, they showcased the Japanese Kyushu J7W1 Shinden fighter which used a revolutionary canard design. The prototypes we found had props, but this bird was designed to be a jet fighter! The historians interviewed all agreed that if Japan was able to get this fighter airborne sooner, the war would have lasted much longer and we would have lost many more bombers than we did. The show had black and white pictures of the Shinden, but also had several animated sequences of both the prop and jet powered Shinden attacking our bombers. Just a side note, the Shinden's main gear operates like the Infinity retracts, while the nose is opposite of the Rutan-derived canards. Also the castors at the bottom of the rudders apparently are there to protect the prop from ground strikes on rotation or landing. The japanese arrived at the canard pusher design as a practical way of making a single-engined jet aircraft. Unable to produce materials that could withstand the exhaust temperatures, the turbine had to be placed at the rear, while contemporary dual jets hung off of the wings so that meltable in the airframe would be behind the jets. Putting this much weight aft, meant that they had to move the flight control surfaces somewhere else, hence the canard design. -- Len

Clive, I didn't see their programme (is that the right U.K. spelling?), but there's not a snowball's chance in hell for this to work enough for them to get off the ground. Adouglas hit on this in his posts, there's just not enough efficiency here to get this off the ground without a bungie from God. In theory, that's probably the only way to justify a single-engine hybrid-electric drive system. In reality, as Adouglas says, it is just way too inefficient all around. Hybrid-electric cars almost make sense because we have gravity and hills, and because in stop and go traffic we spend more than half of the time decelerating. Regenerative braking down hills and slowing the inertia of the vehicle in stop-and-go can be used to generate stored electrical power. This beast is only a power consumer, with no chance of regenerating any power. In this case, a hybrid-electric would consume vastly more energy than a direct-drive internal combustion engine. To match their fuel economy estimates, they would have to use the only extant efficient way of hovering; helicopter rotors, providing lift, not thrust. The difference is that the ducted fan is all about moving a small cross section of air at a high velocity, with blades nearly at stall, where a helicopter rotor works not by forcing the air, but by flying the rotors through it with much less drag. These people learned aerodynamics from animé or video games. -- Len

It looks cool, but totally impractical and very dangerous. The rudder would have about zero authority, as it would never be in a clean airstream and it would be of insufficient size. This thing looks to be much less stable than the notably unstable V-22 Osprey, which has had hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at it for control circuitry. Electric fans? This thing will NEVER fly! We have several unmanned hovering vehicles in development here, and the single biggest practical problem is the weight of the motors and batteries that is required to produce the thrust to lift through fan propulsion only. Remember, airplanes are held up by aerodynamic forces on the wings, not by the thrust of the prop. Anyway, all of our electric vehicles are necessarily small, and have very expensive Lithium-polymer batteries if they cary their own power, or are tethered to batteries on the ground. Still, a typical battery charge will only last about 5 minutes when the motors have to produce enough power to lift the vehicle through thrust alone. Very impractical. Cool looking rendering, but do not invest here. I'd be happy to stand corrected, but I doubt that they have any proof-of-concept in actual hardware. This thing looks much better suited as a submarine. -- Len

That's probably the most accurate name for what I want to do also, but I'll probably find another name. I just bought a copy of the Cozy plans, which should arrive today, so my re-design is about to commence. The Aerocanard SX option (wider front-opening canopy with wider back seat) is probably the most likely thing I'll incorporate from that side of the fence. -- Len

I'm not so sure about that. The one thing I do know is that a direct drive aircraft engine will fly in the face of Honda engine design philosophy by its very nature. When I interviewed, I heard of the heroic battles that went on within the corporation to get a V6 produced for the North American market. The thinking that was pervasive throughout Honda at the time was that four cylinders was all that you need, and that the JDM engines had enough power output and so there was no need to go six cylinders. But the North American market argument was that Americans drive differently than the Japanese. Americans buying the Accord, don't run the engine to the redline before shifting. We use predominantly automatic transmissions, and therefore have shifts well below the power band of the standard Honda four cylinder engine. For this reason, Honda higher-ups grudgingly agreed to produce a V6 for the NA market. It was produced only in Anna, but the design was done and tightly controlled by Honda Japan. As an aside, any problems in testing were documented here, but then submitted and re-documented in Japan. As an engineer, this struck me as bass-ackward, because an engineer working with production and testing would see a problem, investigate it, and fully document it, but could not submit a design fix. The broken pieces were then sent to Japan, to people who had no involvement, who would ignore everything discovered here to re-work things. Then, the changes would be sent back over here to be implemented (for the first time, on the line). This several-month round trip would often be repeated for a single problem, as the Japanese engineers were not exposed to the actual manufacturing or American investigations, and quite often would not fix the real issue of the breakage or defect. Honda would guarantee the one-way flow of information by ensuring that in a building that employed ~400 engineers, there were only two (2!) CAD terminals. Back on topic, where I was going with this is that the Accord engine components were designed for a high-rpm low-torque engine. I doubt that they would be used in a low-rpm high-torque engine. Historically, Honda produces power with speed, not torque. That isn't to say that they don't have the knowledge to go the other way. Also, the distance-intensive design and manufacturing model they use is probably the reason that this engine is not on the market yet. Things may have changed over the last ten years, but I doubt it. -- Len

I assume that you are in Marysville, rather than Anna OH, then. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Honda would build the aero engine at the Anna facility alongside the Goldwing, Honda, and Acura engines. Of course, they could build it at the partner's facility (wherever Continental builds engines now). When I was just getting out of school, I interviewed at the Anna plant. Four rounds for me to see that I didn't fit the compartmentalized culture, before they also came to the same conclusion. Still, their employee benefits were great. In hindsight, I've often wondered if I should have made a better effort to fit in and show enthusiasm at my last interview. They still make great engines, but I feel that I have gained much better work experience than I would have working there. -- Len

OK, so I was being a little dense. A quick visit to Aerocad's website tells me that it's the FG with a front opening canopy. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that their prototype is completed yet. Since the description is in the future tense, one has to wonder what benefits or drawbacks this option has vs. what others have done. I'm not sure if the canopy is the same shape. It appears that it may be wider and more blunt than the normal canopy. Larger rear windows as well. Does it have gull wings for the back seat? What is the performance difference, and what about leaking? These need to be answered, but it appears to be more in line with what I want to build (if it can be merged into a plans-built craft). -- Len

At first I thought that was a typo, but the E and X keys are too far apart for that. I know that FG is fixed gear, RG is retract gear, but what is the SX canopy option? -- Len

Hey FlightService, Have you heard anything on the grapevine that would indicate when this engine would become available, or a better guess at a purchase price at that time? I'm not looking forward to having to decide on an engine, but a Honda aircraft engine (at the right time and at the right price) would make that decision a lot easier. -- Len

How big do you intend to make it, and what do you hope to discover with it? Since you are doing this for a science fair project, I assume that you would want to have it sitting at your booth. A small size like this wouldn't be conducive to collecting good data, as the entire tunnel would be too small to get laminar flow. If you want to measure things like lift or drag forces for an airfoil at various angles of attack, you may be better off making a water tunnel instead. This requires a good bit of math to translate between the viscosity of water to the viscosity of air, but will be easier to make and control accurately on a student budget. If you are just going for a "this is how an airfoil works" type of setup where you don't actually care about the forces of lift and drag, then a wind tunnel will be easier and cheaper to make. -- Len

Do the plans come with a video tape? I got the info pack from AS&S, and it didn't have a video. Others have said that the plans come with a video, but I didn't see anything like that in your picture on ebay. Sorry to hear that you can't work on your plane. Sometimes, things just happen to derail the best-laid plans. -- Len

Jon, If you don't take the drywall down, make sure you check for firebreaks in the wall cavities. Luckily my garage doesn't have sheetrock on the walls, but it does have two firebreaks per vertical section. This alone is making the spray-in type look more and more attractive, as I'd have to cut the fiberglass for every freakin' one of these. Firebreaks may not be typical of open garage walls (like mine), but if the building codes in your area mandate them for enclosed walls, you may have to deal with them. A firebreak is a 2x4 that is placed horizontally within the cavity, to prevent or slow convective air flow within the wall, in case of a fire. -- Len

How much does this cost? I realize the savings in heating will be large, but this is a garage. It's hard to tighten up a garage to be that efficient. I was just pricing insulation for my garage, and found that I can insulate the rear and side wall for about $100 with R-13 fiberglass batting. The front wall is 90% garage door, and the remaining bits are already insulated and covered with plywood. I know that R-13 isn't that good, so I would top it with R-6.5 foil-faced foam insulation. This will cost and additional $225 to get walls with a rating of R19.5, for a total cost of approximately $325 (plus tax). What is the rating of the expanding foam for 2x4 cavities? How much does it cost per square foot of coverage? How easy is it to apply at near-freezing temperatures? I am truly curious, because if it is a better option, then I want to pursue that instead. I haven't even gotten to the ceiling, where I expect to loose the most heat. -- Len

Wait, there's supposed to be a video with it?! Mine didn't come with one This may be a cut-back now that Aircraft Spruce is the sole proprietor. Wish I had a video with mine. I got a wad of photocopied articles, a copy of the current newsletter and a few color pictures of some in flight. I would love to have videos of people getting in or out, and how it looks taking off or landing. -- Len

That's my only worry, but I plan to duct combustion air for the heater. My garage is on the windward side of the house, and it has a vent on the windward side that the prior owners had ducted to the stove vent (before they figured out that it is hard to exhaust into the wind). I intend to route this vent to the heaters and use it for the combustion air supply. I know the vent-free ones are supposed to be very clean and complete combustion, but I may also duct the exhaust. The humidity provided by the heater would definitely help hold heat, but too much could turn the room into a steamroom. As an aside, that heater I linked before (for $189) is selling for $268 at Lowes, and $249 at Home Depot, without the blower. You found a good site. -- Len