EAA Sport Aviation - December 2009

www.EAA.org

FAA Kit Evaluators Tune Up
New Kit Approval Process
at Sonex

The FAA’s National Kit Evaluation Team (NKET) made Sonex Aircraft LLC, Oshkosh, its first stop in a series of training events for those assessing new kits under the revised amateur-built policy released in October. Nine evaluators spent three days at Sonex using one of the manufacturer’s approved kits as a test bed to establish a baseline for future new kit evaluations.

“I’m here with my team to essentially practice and obtain the protocols and procedures that we are going to use, establish our methodology, and make sure we employ a standard in evaluating amateur-built manufactured kits from here forward,” one NKET member said.

The FAA selected Sonex because its aircraft are of sheet metal design, one of the most popular types of aircraft construction methods. The NKET will visit two other kit manufacturers, including Velocity Aircraft in Sebastian, Florida, to evaluate composite kits, and a tube and fabric manufacturer (yet to be determined) in the Midwest.

According to NKET representatives, a typical team will have at least two evaluators drawn from all four FAA directorates and FAA headquarters. The four directorates have their own specialties: large airplane, small airplane, rotorcraft, and engines/propellers.

“The important part is that it’s providing the consistency and standardization, and that’s something that

NKET members work with Sonex CEO Jeremy Monnett ( kneeling-left) on a kit evaluation at the Sonex facility in Oshkosh.

the amateur-built ARC really stressed,” said one NKET member. “It will narrow it down from 150 inspectors that could do a kit evaluation to eight.”

Also on hand to assist and observe the process during the NKET training were EAA’s Vice President of Industry and Regulatory Affairs and ARC Co-Chairman, Earl Lawrence and EAA Homebuilders Community Manager, Joe Norris.

“The National Kit Evaluation Team is a major step forward for the FAA. Now it will be easier for kit manufacturers to have their kits evaluated, and the evaluations will be standardized across the country,” said Norris.

Members Aim to Resurrect Bugatti Racer

Two Oklahoma EAA members—Scotty Wilson, EAA 57255, and Gregg Carlson, EAA 1015379—are hop- ing to create a true replica of the Bugatti Model 100 racer. The sleek machine was built by famed automobile maker Ettore Bugatti and engineer Louis de Monge to compete in an air race before the outbreak of World War II, but it wasn’t finished in time. When the German army marched on Paris in June 1940, the project was abandoned before the airplane ever flew. Eventually, it was brought to America by car aficionado Ray Jones to acquire its engines. In 1996, the aircraft was donated to EAA, and it’s on display at EAA’s AirVenture Museum.

In mid-October, Wilson and Carlson came to EAA to identify the plane’s airfoil using a “ Profiler,” an electronic plotter that rolls along the wing’s surface transferring data to a computer for analysis. Because there is no comprehensive set of drawings covering the entire aircraft, “the only way to build one is to backwards engineer

it,” said Wilson. “It is absolutely essential that we be able to accurately determine what airfoil is on the plane,” Wilson stressed.

Some aviation enthusiasts insist that, since the aircraft has never flown, it is not historically significant, but Wilson vehemently disagrees. “Five patents were issued to Bugatti for the airplane—many of which appeared on other aircraft after the war,” he said, including the dual drive train, the flight control tail that mixes the elevator and the rudder, and the automatic flaps system, which pre-dates the F- 16’s by 40 years.