Charlie's Corner

We had a nice turnout at the Chapter Spring Picnic at Bardstown Airport, May 18th. Threatening weather in the morning didn't deter the Chapter chowhounds (myself included) who showed up to partake of the delicious burgers concocted by Chapter Chairman, Chapter Picnic Chairman, and grille master, Tom Hubbuch (time to delegate, Tom !!) We also had our usual great "pitch in" table of goodies, enough to satisfy all the chowhounds mentioned above !

Our thanks to Tom, his wife Brenda and to Bill Tatum and the others who helped out for an enjoyable day.

Weather cleared in the early afternoon and our Picnic officially became a "Picnic & Fly-in" with the arrival of Ray Thompson in his pretty Ercoupe 415-C, YO-55 "Warbird".

Nestled in the back of the hangar at Bardstown was a circa WW-1, Gnome - Rhone rotary engine owned by Ross Walton of Bardstown which he intends to mount in his Fokker Dr-1 Triplane replica. Ross wasn't there to give us details but the engine name plate indicated that this particular version of the French rotary was manufactured in Torino ( Turin ), Italy, either in a French owned factory or under license from the Gnome - Rhone Company.

The original Fokker Dreideckers of WW I were powered with the 110 HP Oberusel rotary engine manufactured by Motorenfabrik Oberusel AG, Oberusel, Germany. Prior to WW I the Oberusel factory built rotary engines under license from the Gnome - Rhone Company and the Oberusel rotaries of WW I were largely a continuation of the French designs.
Incidentally, the Oberusel factory is still in business, now producing aircraft engines as part of the Rolls-Royce Company and hailed by them as "the oldest existing aero- engine factory in the world".

Anyway, we are anxious to see that rotary mounted on Ross Walton's Fokker Tripe and hear that blip switch in action !!

OTHER PROGRESS IN FLYING MACHINES

At the last meeting, E. J. Schickli reported that his Nieuport is getting its final coats of paint and first flight shouldn't be far off.

Tom Hubbuch reports drilling and more drilling and riveting and more riveting on his wing skins but making nice progress.

Also lots of drilling and riveting on Don and Joy Jeffries Super Rebel. At last reports, installing wing tanks and fighting a leak (see below).

Gary Graham's Titan is very near ready to go. The Jabiru started up and ran beautifully. He is debating between Bardstown and Scottsburg airports for test flying.

Berry Bannon's Kit Fox Outback project has been in a hiatus for a couple of months but he is itching to get back on it. He was making nice progress before taking a break.

Don Disney has a project that we hadn't reported on before. He is building a "Legal Eagle" that will be powered with a half VW engine that he is building. Don is using the Carr plans to convert his engine.

My own 1/2 VW powered "Ultra Sky Scout" nee "Ultra Piet" is chirping to get out of its nest and we hope to be taking it to our hangar at Freeman Field for final assembly soon.

TANK TECH TOPICS

Did anybody ever build a fuel tank that didn't leak the first time it was tested? Anyway, we haven't !!

Our thanks to Don Jeffries who gave us the idea of using the blower output from a shop-vac to provide just about the right amount of pressure for testing. Sealing off the fuel filler with a balloon, using the fuel line to input pressure, and lots of soap suds, we finally found our leak(s).

Tony Bingelis warns us not to exceed about 3 1/2 lbs pressure when testing. Doesn't sound like much, but when thinking about it ( That's one of the great things about building an airplane-it forces you to think once in a while !! ) gasoline only weighs about 6 lbs to the gallon.

My handy dandy Pocket Reference from Harbor Freight tells me that there are 231 cubic inches in a gallon and dividing 6 by 231 on my Dollar Tree highly scientific calculator show that a cubic inch of gasoline only weighs .026 lbs per cubic inch. My tank at its deepest part is about 6 inches deep so the pressure on the tank is only 6 x .026 = .156 lbs per square inch when at rest. Mutiplying that by 9 Gs,( for an average landing ! ) and it is still only 1.4 lbs per square inch.

The lightness of gasoline, of course, has its drawbacks. If you want to get 1 lb per square inch to your carburetor in a gravity feed system, it takes about 38 1/2 inches of head. Fuel pumps may deliver about 5 psi and some carburetors set up for fuel pumps will have to be modified for a gravity feed system..

Charlie Gokey