Nilsen
Well-Known Member
Hey all,
Well I'm finally embarking on the first step of my Home-Built Aircraft project!
I came here several months ago with a bunch of crazy ideas in my head about airplanes ... a bad case of 'the fever'. At the time of my new member introduction I stated I was interested in very low power aircraft. I had a distaste for what I saw in the ultra-light market as a bunch of kludgy designs. I wanted to design and build my own aircraft: a low power, low fuel, low cost, low environmental footprint, supersonic jet. (I was willing to compromise on the 'supersonic' part).
Last week I read the really juicy bits (about 267 pages worth) of 'Aircraft Performance Stability and Control'; the Perkins/Hague book Orion suggested in a past thread. Then, I took one of the better flying paper and foam-core models of my dream plane that I had sitting around. I pinched it, bent it and re-weighted it in what I thought where the most appropriate areas in order to impart a crude approximation of what I thought I learned. And guess what? To no surprise to me it flew way better.
After seeing my little glider fly further and flatter across my apartment than ever before -and knowing why- I really started to think that it might be time to try to find a way to get into aviation 'by the book'.
See, up until last week I thought that my entry into aviation was going to be by building a self-designed FAR-103 aircraft and find someone who would let me test fly it at their airport. I thought my first step would be getting a bunch of blue foam from Aircraft Spruce, and slicing out an Eppler 387 profile (changed last week to NACA 23012). I thought my only problem would be getting the wings out of my space in Manhattan and into a truck to take it to the airport of my probable rough landing. Maybe I'll still give that a go. But, thanks to these forums , I've finally got a little bit of a better plan.
Tomorrow I'm taking the bus to Wurtsboro Airport and taking my first lesson to become a glider pilot. I'm pretty excited. I looked around at about 6 places in the NY area. I decided on Wurstboro because I can take a bus to it. The brochure from the airport said about $1400 to solo then that much again to get my private license. I think Joeseph Bennis is going to be my instructor, he's the one I've talked to all the time on the phone. Seems like a really good guy. Also Wurstboro is the oldest soaring site in the USA (est. 1927). I hope to have some good postings for the soaring section soon.
I have about 10k saved up just for this, so after I take my test maybe early next year, I'll either start looking around for a Schweizer 1-26 project ... or a bunch of foam core ...
Anyway, Thanks for letting me share my excitement.
Well I'm finally embarking on the first step of my Home-Built Aircraft project!
I came here several months ago with a bunch of crazy ideas in my head about airplanes ... a bad case of 'the fever'. At the time of my new member introduction I stated I was interested in very low power aircraft. I had a distaste for what I saw in the ultra-light market as a bunch of kludgy designs. I wanted to design and build my own aircraft: a low power, low fuel, low cost, low environmental footprint, supersonic jet. (I was willing to compromise on the 'supersonic' part).
Last week I read the really juicy bits (about 267 pages worth) of 'Aircraft Performance Stability and Control'; the Perkins/Hague book Orion suggested in a past thread. Then, I took one of the better flying paper and foam-core models of my dream plane that I had sitting around. I pinched it, bent it and re-weighted it in what I thought where the most appropriate areas in order to impart a crude approximation of what I thought I learned. And guess what? To no surprise to me it flew way better.
After seeing my little glider fly further and flatter across my apartment than ever before -and knowing why- I really started to think that it might be time to try to find a way to get into aviation 'by the book'.
See, up until last week I thought that my entry into aviation was going to be by building a self-designed FAR-103 aircraft and find someone who would let me test fly it at their airport. I thought my first step would be getting a bunch of blue foam from Aircraft Spruce, and slicing out an Eppler 387 profile (changed last week to NACA 23012). I thought my only problem would be getting the wings out of my space in Manhattan and into a truck to take it to the airport of my probable rough landing. Maybe I'll still give that a go. But, thanks to these forums , I've finally got a little bit of a better plan.
Tomorrow I'm taking the bus to Wurtsboro Airport and taking my first lesson to become a glider pilot. I'm pretty excited. I looked around at about 6 places in the NY area. I decided on Wurstboro because I can take a bus to it. The brochure from the airport said about $1400 to solo then that much again to get my private license. I think Joeseph Bennis is going to be my instructor, he's the one I've talked to all the time on the phone. Seems like a really good guy. Also Wurstboro is the oldest soaring site in the USA (est. 1927). I hope to have some good postings for the soaring section soon.
I have about 10k saved up just for this, so after I take my test maybe early next year, I'll either start looking around for a Schweizer 1-26 project ... or a bunch of foam core ...
Anyway, Thanks for letting me share my excitement.
