I finally got down to Bill Little's to work on the " super secret, never to be spoken of in public project" this past weekend. I was allowed to venture into the depths of Bill's "Fortress of Solitude" for the entire weekend to work on my project that has consumed me for several months now. (Bill said I would have no memory of what happend there when I left the fortress. Must not have worked because I have great memories of what I did down there.) It was all Bill's fault too! He posted the pic's of his now famous USA-1 and they stayed in my mind for months.
I contacted Bill about the plane after the article was put out in Model Aviation. That pretty much cemented that I had to have one. I saw Bills airplane one time down in Florida right before it was whisked away to it's new island home. Wow, was that plane BIG! It also looked so cool just sitting still on the ground. Bill told me what a great plane it was and that I would love it. He even said he had plans I could use to build it. There was one small problem though. I had never built an I-Beam wing before. That's when Bill offered to let me come down and use his shop and he would show me the ropes in building a USA-1.
I showed up Friday evening about 6PM after a 6 hour drive. We had some dinner and some chat time then It was time to start slicing ribs. 140 some ribs later and 2 in the morning I gave in and went to sleep. Funny thing is while I was asleep I was still cutting rib after rib, after rib...
Saturday Dawned and with a big cup of coffee and a good country morning meal it was back to the mines. Nope it wasn't a dream. There was a box full of ribs down there and a glass table top waiting for a student to build his first I beam plane. I had to make fuse sides, doublers, spars and spar doublers, triplers, crutch, and a few other things before actually building. But know worry, I had all day to get that done. Sure I did...
There are two things that are going to happen when pilots of any type get together. First, we're going to talk... A LOT! Second, if the weather is nice, or looks nice, we are going to go fly. It was 70 degrees out there and we had planes. Lots and lots of planes! What the heck, it was 2 in the afternoon and we could take a break to fly then return for my building lesson to continue. I love plans, they always workout.
We went out and tackled the wind that was blowing much harder than it looked. Bill and I put in a flight each. Bill flew his Juno and I flew my SV-22. Arron put in two flights on his GEO-XL before giving in to the wind.We tried anyway and that counts doesn't it? Oh well, I needed the break.
Back to the shop and we picked up where we left off...TALKING.
Bill can talk almost as much as me so we were trying to out do each other I think. Just about the time I started tacking the fuse down to the table, the dinner bell rings. Come to think of it we never ate lunch so we were both starved. Up stairs to eat a great meal made by Bills wife Gail. mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! It was great to say the least. I may have eaten more than I should as I was moving a little slow afterwards. Back down to the lab to work.
Ok, I had drawn my lines on the glass to use as references to keep things straight. The fuse was tacked down centered on the line and I had the crutch in place too. Now the spar went in lined up with the line on the glass to keep the wing square and the tip templates tacked in place to the glass on the ref line. More talking about when to know when to quit building for the night. NOW!!!!! We were both worn out me building, Bill watching over me, and flying in the wind. Not to mention the huge meal that I had. Then there was the fact that I was seeing double. Yep, might be a good time to stop.
The next morning it was straight to the shop and start to glue the ribs in. Now this is where I was impressed with the I-Beam wing. About as fast as you start to glue them in...You're done! 140 ribs in place in no time at all and still plenty of time to talk. When I stepped back and looked at the whole picture I was rather proud of what I had done. I was also surprised at just how much work I had done in such a short time. It actually looked like an airplane sitting there on the table and I had created it from raw wood...COOL! I'm sitting there thinking to myself, " if this much work could be done on a plane doing it from scratch, imagine if I were building a Laser cut Cobra kit from Walter that's an I-Beam"? Hmmmm?
The long and the short of it is, that because of the great spirit of a bunch of C/L guys and gals, I was inspired to make a dream plane. Bill took the time to show me that it wasn't that hard really to build from scratch. He watched over me like a hawk and kept me on the straight and narrow. He even let me make a few mistakes which he used to demonstrate just how to go back and fix them. He would also have a few good stories to tell later too! I have a great respect for those that have been scratch building and I hope to do more. I have to do more if I want to finish the USA-1. I'm not as worried about the task now as I was before. Besides, I have Tom McClain in my back yard if I get stuck.
If Bill wishes to share some photos of my building session (Weekend) he has plenty and my permission to post them. I made sure the camera was being used as this was history being made and the guys up here wouldn't believe I can glue to pieces of wood together!
Thanks Bill, Arron, and Gail for a wonderful weekend. Yes, I am converted!
Kirk
www.wingwalk.com
