EAA Sport Aviation

what our members are building & restoring

to use control rods was made to enhance safety. Cleveland wheels and brakes replace the original mechanical brakes as an aid to ground handling.

The original seat had a crank mechanism to lift the pilot into the flying position after seated. Harold has the seat welded into the upper position but thinks it will be easy to get into flight position from the small above-wing door, with “a little finagling.” On the door, the Granvilles used a latch handle from a house door, and Harold did, too—he found a similar-looking one at an old hardware store. A big part of the project has been simply scrounging.

His most recent sub-project has been the 50-inch- long wheelpants. Like so many parts, the effort to make a part is simple after much work goes into jigs and fixtures. Not so the wheelpants, which have proven intense both in fixtures and the final product. Harold made a fiberglass positive of a wheelpant, and from that cast inside and outside concrete negatives. He then hammered 0.060-inch 6061 T3 into the concrete mold to rough the shapes, a messy, slow, and noisy effort. The finishing process of the four halves is just beginning, on an English wheel. Six months have been consumed with the wheelpants so far, and they still look rough. This entire project is, after all, an after-work evening effort.

Once it’s finished? Harold has no plans to race it; that’s an era gone past. He hopes to inspire other builders to follow their dreams to the real airplane they want rather than settling for a kit. Long-term plans? Harold hopes simply to fly his Gee Bee R- 1 to Oshkosh.