Big Dumb Guy Builds Big Dumb Plane

[Slick Goodlin]

Here is some inspiration (from my RoadKill heroes) for you

(cough cough - Aluminum LS - cough cough)

That Model A makes me feel things but I’m afraid if I put an LS in my T that by the time I finished replacing other parts I’d have enough leftovers to just assemble the stock T again.

[Colonel]

Bonus! Two cars with the same VIN.

Can’t go wrong with that

[Slick Goodlin]

Bonus! Two cars with the same VIN.

Can’t go wrong with that

At one time I knew of about five airplanes that shared the same serial number and registration. I think it’s since been sorted.

[Colonel]

Reduce, reuse, conserve! Like everyone else, I think we should do what a Swedish
high school dropout says, and less paperwork should make Thunderberg happy.

I always thought all Piper Cubs looked the same anyways.

[Slick Goodlin]

Any progress on this?

So… about that…

Yes and no. It would be easy to say no I failed here but honestly it’s been in the back of my mind the whole time, just backburnered pretty hard. Some tangential and arguably hard parts have been addressed but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I have a set of wheels for it in my workshop so that’s neat.

One weird problem I ran into early on was that I couldn’t find a source of ash timber that I could grade myself in long enough lengths. The longerons are all butt joined from 11 foot lengths but the best I could find locally was ten feet and so thick I’d have ended up knee deep in shavings after machining it down even if that was long enough. Not insurmountable but being cheap and lazy was definitely a setback here.

What I did do was sort out exactly how to make the fifty-odd custom U-bolts that hold most of the fuselage together and prove to myself that they would be strong enough. I also acquired the most correct tool for bending them rather than have to make a half assed hillbilly version. Oh, and I picked up the correct oddball size woodworking tools to cut the corresponding slots in the wooden upright and transverse compression members that these bolts hold in.

I also came into a hell of a machine for making your own streamline tubing in the dimensions I’d need for the upper wire kingposts and part of the landing gear. This thing is a monster in itself and will likely need restoring but who else has one of those, am I right?

I’ve also made some good contacts in normal cool people who have built and flown these things before. They were a little trickier to find, more often than not the well known players are well known because of their self aggrandizing tendencies and won’t share with what they seem to see as their potential competition. Weird, but I guess people can be weird.

Other than that I’ve taken a bigger role in a bunch of other airplanes so the Bleriot will remain firmly backburnered for a while longer. It’s sort of a target of opportunity so if I come across the right size ash or a good engine I’ll do it but it’s certainly not full speed ahead… yet.

So yeah, that’s where it’s at. Anyone else out there making cool stuff?

[Colonel]

Anyone else out there making cool stuff?

When I retire, if I build something, it's going to be simple and cool.



Why build something there are already 10,000 of, like an RV?

[doe.agnes]

The title of this thread is legendary , best of luck!