EAA Sport Aviation - November 2009

The panel is primarily traditional, with a touch of modern instrumentation.

builder in Tennessee, for his help and knowledge. “Brad came out for 10 days the first time and taught me how to do body work. He helped me close the first two wings and then, later, also the second set of wings,” says Tod.

Tod’s customized panel reflects his esteem for the old instruments with which he flew for many years and gives a nod to modern technology by including a Dynon electronic flight instrument system (EFIS), as well. “The old Lockheed Electras were completely steam gauges,” he explains. “After I retired, I flew ‘backup’ for four years in a King Air with a full glass cockpit. But my panel is pretty much traditional. I wondered how I was going to put nine identical CHT/EGT gauges in it, so I put them in a circle matching the [radial] cylinders—my little daisy!”

With its pushrod-actuated ailerons and elevator (the four ailerons and flaps are connected by cables at the wing roots), Tod says, “When I first flew it in October 2006, I didn’t like the feel of the ailerons because of the way the wingtips were designed. They were rounded to look nice, but they were encouraging the formation of vortices right on the end of the ailerons, so I redesigned the wingtips a bit. The elevator has a very nice feel, and it’s got a lot of rudder, which is nice with a taildragger. It climbs out at 115 knots, and the cruise speed pretty much depends how high you sit on your wallet. What I did was run it up at 30 gph, at about 75 percent power just to see how fast it would go—it went about 206 knots. Then I pulled power back and cruised at a normal rate, around 20 gph at 60 percent power—that’s about 185 knots. And final approach speed is 73 knots.”

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