EAA Sport Aviation - December 2010

While attempting a landing on a grass strip, Chuck felt the plane veering strongly to the right. To avoid the runway lights, he applied power in an attempt to do a go-around. As he did this the right gear collapsed under the belly, and the prop struck the dirt. Fortunately, he was able to walk away from the damaged craft without injury.

A variety of factors, including inexperi-
ence with tailwheel landings, an undersized
gear, and the flight handling of the new craft,
all contributed to the crash.

Seeing his commitment to Delta Charlie, our family was not willing to let him get discouraged. Over the following six months, he repaired the damaged wingtip, replaced the metal propeller with a wooden version, and rebuilt the landing gear to better withstand rough touchdowns.

The crash damaged two of the four belly panels, leaving Chuck in a bind, as he no longer had the tooling to reproduce the shaped panels. He turned to a material called Sintra, a 6-millimeter thick PVC panel, which he shaped using a heat gun and a plywood form of the belly. It was then attached with Bondo at the joints.

During the rebuild process Chuck made a conscious effort to reconfigure the front landing gear to buffer any future rough landings. He chose to install an Atlee Dodge 3-inch, extended landing gear. This proved to be the most challenging part of the rebuild, as he had to replace all of the welded fittings on the fuselage with new ones.

With no previous aircraft building skills, Chuck documented the entire building process and the skills he acquired, and then organized them in a series of binders. He now has binders with details on fabric and covering procedures, welding, cable-fabrica-tion techniques, the rigging process, and much more. These came in handy, especially when doing the rebuild, serving as a refresher of skills he had learned years ago.

October 18, 2009, Delta Charlie was back in the air, after a six-month hiatus in flight testing. While at times Chuck’s experience was painful and frustrating, it was a valuable reminder of the importance of the flight-testing process. With the knowledge gained from his experience, the plane that emerged at the end of Chuck’s journey was unmistakably different from the one that started it.

Top: Chuck used AutoCAD to design his instrument panel and had all of the components cut out utilizing a CNC water jet cutter. The oval panel that holds the steam gauges is easily removable with two machine screws and offers easy access to the rear of the panel.

Middle: Chuck decided to make the turtledeck a working feature, installing a non-electric, self-contained, hydraulic pump to operate two pistons at the hinge of the deck.

Bottom: These plywood boxes were used as a mold for the bubble doors. The metal frames of each door were placed inside the box, creating an air seal to the interior side. With this in place, plexiglass was cut to fit the frame, heated in an over-sized oven, and then blown out with pressurized air.

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