Pietenpol-List: Slight Piet mods
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:10 pm
Original Posted By: Isablcorky(at)aol.com
I thought I'd share some of the techniques and modifications that I made whilebuilding my Pietenpol Air Camper so others following along would be able to benefitfrom my pioneering efforts and not have to be bound by those absolutelyawful and incomplete plans that are certainly archaic and possibly dangerous iffollowed. Nobody could possibly build an airplane using those old drawings.The first step was to disregard entirely the model "A" Ford engine with the view-obstructingradiator in favor of a real airplane powerplant. I'll bet that thePiet's that show up at fly-ins with those old engines all arrive in trailersand get put together at night when nobody is around. A man would have to bea fool to fly behind one of those old boat anchors. I just happened to have a160 H.P. Continental with a constant-speed prop available and I figured .... whynot?Where I live there are wooden buildings that have rotted and since that was notsomething I wanted my airplane to do, I switched the structure over to aluminum.That easily solved the problem of what to seal the wood with! Also it wassuch a hassle trying to find Spruce and so confusing trying to figure out whichwoods might be used as a suitable substitute. You have Douglas Fir that is heavierbut stronger and might splinter in a crack-up. White Pine, Poplar and Cedarthat might or might not work, depending who you listen to. All sorts of conflictingopinions about wood, and then there was the constant bickering aboutwhich glue to use. Forget all that! I wanted to get my airplane in the air quicklyand not be bothered by all that old tradition stuff. If I wanted an heirloom,I'd build a grandfather clock!Next was figuring what to do about that gosh-awful parasol wing and all those old-fashionedstruts and cables. Can you imagine trusting your life to cables!The obvious solution was to simply move the wing to the bottom of the airplane.Look around folks, aviation has advanced somewhat since the 30's and practicallyall the up-to-date airplanes are low-wings. It just made sense.And now, about that fabric. I mean, really! How many fabric covered Cessna's orairliners do you see? Aluminum is the only skin for my bird. No hassles withrib-stitching, no wrinkles, no ironing or pinking. Poly-Fiber, acrylic, housepaint..Heck, I don't even have to paint it if I don't want to. That was a no-brainer!OK, so I got this thing pretty far along and it occurred to me that it was goingto be a lot faster than I thought, so a canopy might be a good thing to have.That way I wouldn't be bothered by all that wind blowing in my hair and suckingthings out of the cockpit. Oh yeah, and flaps to slow me down so I can stillfly into pastures like Bernie used to do. No problem adding those things.As you can see, I did retain the tandem seating as well as the tailwheel (althoughI do have supplemental drawings for a nose wheel that I'm considering) becauseI didn't want to lose the "flavor" of the original Pietenpol Air Camper.That about wraps up the subtle design changes I made. Now I'd like to get intothe philosophy of all this just to sort of justify what I have done.You see, I never even met Mr. Pietenpol but I have a strong feeling of what hemust have been like, what he thought and where he was going. I have such respectfor the man that I never put a change into the design unless I thought he wouldhave done it too if he had been around and seriously thought about it. I'msure he would like what I've done with his old-timey flying machine. That'swhy I'm going to start selling plans and call them Pietenpol's AirCamper plans.Obviously, if I called it the Pietenpol Air Camper, it would be plagiarism andmight confuse people, so I'll stick that little "s" on the end to avoid anypossible doubt.That about sums it up. I had a ball building it and imagining how proud Berniewould feel knowing that his airplane was finally updated. I hope this inspiresothers to build from original plans and only change the things that the designerwould have changed if he had the intelligence and insight available to ustoday. That way you can proudly tell the world that, "It's a Pietenpol Air Camper,I built it from the plans".The enclosed picture shows my modified, plans-built, original Pietenpol Air Camperon it's maiden flight last spring. Although you can't see it in the picture,I had "Bernie's Dream" gold leafed on the nose in honor of the designer. (Insert a picture of an RV-4 or RV-8 here)Happy building and flying-Larry________________________________________________________________________________
I thought I'd share some of the techniques and modifications that I made whilebuilding my Pietenpol Air Camper so others following along would be able to benefitfrom my pioneering efforts and not have to be bound by those absolutelyawful and incomplete plans that are certainly archaic and possibly dangerous iffollowed. Nobody could possibly build an airplane using those old drawings.The first step was to disregard entirely the model "A" Ford engine with the view-obstructingradiator in favor of a real airplane powerplant. I'll bet that thePiet's that show up at fly-ins with those old engines all arrive in trailersand get put together at night when nobody is around. A man would have to bea fool to fly behind one of those old boat anchors. I just happened to have a160 H.P. Continental with a constant-speed prop available and I figured .... whynot?Where I live there are wooden buildings that have rotted and since that was notsomething I wanted my airplane to do, I switched the structure over to aluminum.That easily solved the problem of what to seal the wood with! Also it wassuch a hassle trying to find Spruce and so confusing trying to figure out whichwoods might be used as a suitable substitute. You have Douglas Fir that is heavierbut stronger and might splinter in a crack-up. White Pine, Poplar and Cedarthat might or might not work, depending who you listen to. All sorts of conflictingopinions about wood, and then there was the constant bickering aboutwhich glue to use. Forget all that! I wanted to get my airplane in the air quicklyand not be bothered by all that old tradition stuff. If I wanted an heirloom,I'd build a grandfather clock!Next was figuring what to do about that gosh-awful parasol wing and all those old-fashionedstruts and cables. Can you imagine trusting your life to cables!The obvious solution was to simply move the wing to the bottom of the airplane.Look around folks, aviation has advanced somewhat since the 30's and practicallyall the up-to-date airplanes are low-wings. It just made sense.And now, about that fabric. I mean, really! How many fabric covered Cessna's orairliners do you see? Aluminum is the only skin for my bird. No hassles withrib-stitching, no wrinkles, no ironing or pinking. Poly-Fiber, acrylic, housepaint..Heck, I don't even have to paint it if I don't want to. That was a no-brainer!OK, so I got this thing pretty far along and it occurred to me that it was goingto be a lot faster than I thought, so a canopy might be a good thing to have.That way I wouldn't be bothered by all that wind blowing in my hair and suckingthings out of the cockpit. Oh yeah, and flaps to slow me down so I can stillfly into pastures like Bernie used to do. No problem adding those things.As you can see, I did retain the tandem seating as well as the tailwheel (althoughI do have supplemental drawings for a nose wheel that I'm considering) becauseI didn't want to lose the "flavor" of the original Pietenpol Air Camper.That about wraps up the subtle design changes I made. Now I'd like to get intothe philosophy of all this just to sort of justify what I have done.You see, I never even met Mr. Pietenpol but I have a strong feeling of what hemust have been like, what he thought and where he was going. I have such respectfor the man that I never put a change into the design unless I thought he wouldhave done it too if he had been around and seriously thought about it. I'msure he would like what I've done with his old-timey flying machine. That'swhy I'm going to start selling plans and call them Pietenpol's AirCamper plans.Obviously, if I called it the Pietenpol Air Camper, it would be plagiarism andmight confuse people, so I'll stick that little "s" on the end to avoid anypossible doubt.That about sums it up. I had a ball building it and imagining how proud Berniewould feel knowing that his airplane was finally updated. I hope this inspiresothers to build from original plans and only change the things that the designerwould have changed if he had the intelligence and insight available to ustoday. That way you can proudly tell the world that, "It's a Pietenpol Air Camper,I built it from the plans".The enclosed picture shows my modified, plans-built, original Pietenpol Air Camperon it's maiden flight last spring. Although you can't see it in the picture,I had "Bernie's Dream" gold leafed on the nose in honor of the designer. (Insert a picture of an RV-4 or RV-8 here)Happy building and flying-Larry________________________________________________________________________________