EAA Current Newsletter

BRAZOS AREA RECREATIONAL
FLYERS BRAGGING AND GOSSIP

EAA Chapter 983 Newsletter
April, 2004

EAA Chapter 983, P.O. Box 5191, Granbury, Tx. 76049
Website http://www.eaa983.org

Chapter 983 meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 AM. in Ken houseman's hangar. N.E. corner of Pecan Plantation Airpark.

The bad weather seems to be gone, things are looking up and I can actually fit in RV6’s.

FLY-IN DATE CHANGE…. Our first fly-in of the year will be MAY 8^th with a MAY 22^nd rain date. The 2 week separation is due to the SW Regional Fly-in. Volunteers are still needed. NASSAU BAY RUNWAY CONDITIONS vary day to day, call ahead if you plan to go there. RPV ALERT If you are around MWL or Possum Kingdom, be advised that autonomous remotely piloted vehicles are being flown on test flights in the area. Heads up.

Dr Steven McDonald, Author of “BAKER 30” will be giving a presentation on Air Tanker Ops. Now before you Air force types get all excited, this isn’t about passing gas with Americas Finest. Its about putting wet stuff on the red stuff. Fire suppression from the air. Borate, Phoscheck and all that wonderful slimy stuff that protects our forests from fire.

Steven is a Pecan resident and we are lucky to have him here for our meeting. He’s another example of the local talent in our community that makes this such a great place to live.

Gwen and Jason Hutchinson. Wanted to thank all the fine folks that helped get their move to Pecan finished. Nothing broken and the RV6 made it in fine shape.

Norm Snyder Gave us an incredibly enlightening show on Parachutes, how to use them, when to use them and more information than you could absorb in one sitting. He deployed a chute in the hangar, went over its components and proper care. The fine points were listed in a handout and centered on the mental attitude and practice aspects of having a chute. Planning ahead and doing it correctly under pressure. This demo was designed around escape chutes, not sport jumping rigs. A Q&A session followed and went on for quite a while after adjournment of the meeting. This was another great program and illustrates the depth of the talent available locally……………………

Norm is also A Glider Pilot, This is what happens when Glider Guiders, Sport Jumpers and un-common sense collide.

Last month, the chapter mailed out the renewal forms the newsletter. Please get that returned so the editor can make the mailing list corrections and get the web site updated. Thank you for your continued support of the chapter and its activities. Thanks…..

Marcia Walker has agreed to takeover the job as Chapter Librarian. Many of you may not have known that we have a Chapter Library. Well we do, thanks to several members and former members.

Some of the materials that we have include ALL issues of Sport Aviation Magazine from 1668 to present (not many Chapters can say this); most issues of Kitplanes Magazine from 1985 to present; all issues of Light Plane Maintenance from 1986 to 1997 including other LPM materials; Mountain Flying; IFR By The Book; IFR Principles and Practice; Firewall Forward; AeroElectric Connection; Poberezny, The Story Begins; Many King Schools Tapes and Manuals and other things.

So if you need to research something, give Marcia a call. What you’re looking for just might be in the Chapter Library

For those who like to mark their calendars early. The annual Christmas Dinner/Dance and Award Program will be Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 at Pecan Plantation.

Texas Trivia Texas home to the first composite airplane certified by the FAA.

Windecker Eagle I

Wingspan	9.7 m (32 ft)
Length	8.7 m (28 ft 6 in)
Height	2.9 m (9 ft 6 in)
Weight	974 kg (2,150 lb) empty

The Windecker Eagle I has the distinction of being the first all composite aircraft to receive FAA certification and is representative of pioneering work in the field of composite materials. The Eagle was the product of several years of experimentation by dentists Dr. Leo Windecker and his wife Dr. Fairfax Windecker, working with Dow Chemical Company in their quest to develop lightweight fiberglass reinforced plastic structures for aviation use.

The Windeckers started research in 1958 on fiberglass-reinforced plastic structures as they were particularly interested in the weight-saving possibilities for an aircraft. They soon had the support of the Dow Chemical Company, and the work of the Windeckers and Dow's Dr. Malcolm Pruitt, resulted in a patented flexible, non-woven glass fiber material called "Fibaloy." The material had excellent properties that permitted it to be molded into complex shapes and it was easily glued and machined, making it ideal for many aircraft manufacturing and other applications. To test their new Fibaloy material on an aircraft, they built wings for two Monocoupe 90 airplanes. These improved wings resulted in a substantial increase in top speed and a significant reduction in the stall speed of the Monocoupes.

With these encouraging results in hand, Dr. Windecker formed Windecker Research Inc. in Midland, Texas, to develop an all-new composite airplane with Fibaloy material. In October 1967, the company test flew the Windecker X-7, a four-place low-wing cabin monoplane with a fixed tricycle landing gear and a 290 hp Lycoming engine.

The second airplane, the true prototype of the Eagle I production model, featured a redesigned wing, retractable landing gear, and a 285 hp Continental engine. It made its first flight early in 1969 but was destroyed on April 19, 1969, while performing the last of the required series of spin tests. Having determined that the aircraft would not recover from the spin, test pilot Bill Robinson was bailing out when his foot caught in the door jamb. After several tries he was able to slip out of the shoe, clear the airplane, and pull his parachute ripcord just in time, while the airplane crashed down below. It was determined that the dynamic imbalance under certain spin conditions was attributed to an end weighted nose-and-tail weight distribution that made the aircraft spin faster and faster. This, when coupled with aerodynamic blanking of the vertical fin while in spin attitude, made spin recovery impossible under the extreme aft center-of-gravity test conditions.

On the next airplane, a thorough weight reduction and redistribution program was implemented and a ventral fin was added to compensate for the aerodynamic blanking encountered. Because of its unfamiliarity with plastic airframes, the FAA imposed an overdesigned airframe restriction of 20%. This airplane went on to complete the FAA certification tests but not before the Eagle became the most spin tested airplane in existence. The Approved Type Certificate (#A7SW) for the Eagle I was issued in December 1969. This second prototype aircraft was displayed briefly in the Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian in 1970.

The Eagle I, model A-7C, was a four-place, low-wing monoplane of Fibaloy construction and a retractable tricycle landing gear. The 285 hp six-cylinder Continental engine and either a McCauley or Hartzel two-blade constant speed propeller offered performance equal to that of the Beech Bonanza and faster than that of other contemporary aircraft. Windecker built nine Eagle airplanes including the two prototype test aircraft, six civilian versions and one for the US Air Force that was designated the YE-5. The Air Force really wanted the YE-5 airplane so that it could test the radar reflectivity and stealth characteristics of the all-composite construction. The Air Force transferred it to the U.S. Army which wanted to test it for possible use as a utility airplane. The airplane was then sent to the Army Aviation Museum for display. There was also a seventh civilian Eagle I being constructed, but it was never completed before the company went into receivership.

The 1970 economic recession period was a difficult time for the aircraft industry and Windecker had already invested more than $20 million in the development of the Eagle. When he could no longer find financial backers, the company closed its doors. In 1977, Gerald Dietrick bought the assets of Windecker and, in 1979, formed the Composite Aircraft Corporation to build the Eagle I. Dietrick's company never went into production because the Eagle was in direct competition with the well-established metal models from Beech, Cessna, Piper, and Mooney. Because of its revolutionary construction, it was not possible for Dietrick to price the Eagle as low as the Beech Bonanza, which had been in production for several decades ($112,000 vs $95,000). Also, during the 1980s, the light airplane market experienced a severe depression and because of a surplus of aircraft and product liability litigation that halted production of several light aircraft models. Shortly though, composite aircraft arrived and stayed on the aviation scene.

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An airline pilot had hammered his plane into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a, "Thanks for flying with us". He said that in light of the bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally, everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, did we land or were we shot down?"

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Call me and I’ll add your project to this list. Experimental or not. Bold letters mean completed projects.

HEY BOYS AND GIRLS…. We are going to redo the want ads. If you have things for the classifieds, please email them to the editor. I’ll get them into the next issue. I’d also like to talk to some of you guys with the projects we don’t see much. There is a bunch of neat/weird/exotic stuff out there. Fess up and let us in on the secrets.

Scott Correa. Editor in Chief and all around Whipping Boy…….. eaa983@charter.net