Cleaning out my future workshop. My 1 car garage that is! I only have something like 12×18ft available plus a small extra room maybe 8×12 feet at the end.
Since only the fuselage fits into this small space the thinking right now is to finish of as much as possible on the fuselage, maybe tear down the wall between the two spaces to be able to finish the wing and then find another place to mate the parts and the stuff that follows.
It is really a to small space for this but I think I will stand a better chance finishing the Glasair if the build site is as close as possible to home. If I have an hour to spare that can be put to productive use if I am building at home, otherwise not.
Parts will be stored in the container until needed to save space.

Apart from cleaning out the garage I am mainly waiting. The Experimental build process locally requires the FAA to stop by and aprove everything previously done so I have to wait for them to turn up..

As noted on the separate page the short field performance of the Glasair is somewhat under question. Most peaple in the US seems to think that anything below a 3000ft concrete runway is a no-no. Since most GA airports in Sweden is below 2000ft, and we have quite a few Swedes operating Glasairs from these airports, I knew they were not 100% correct saying it was impossible with smaller runways. I also know about a gentleman in austria that uses a 1600 ft concrete runway as Glasair III base but recently I got in touch with a guy flying his Glasair 1 RG from a 1400ft really bad uneven dirt strip, that has to be some sort of record with a RG.

Amazingly he lives very close to Kingman, AZ. The city I left less then three months ago! To bad I did not get a chance to a chat in person with the guy.

After what feels like forever the container arrived today. Customs and local trucking was no problem at all and as far as I could see there was no damage to the Glasair kit. But as always I am very impressed by the truckers, they got the container unloaded in a tiny space with no problems at all.

After a huge amount of unexpected problems the container is finally on the Atlantic. Expected to arrive in Europe late August. The liability concerns in the US makes what in Europe is an easy task something that can be almost impossible. The biggest problem was to find a trucker willing to go to a residential address and pick the container up!
I got so many questions in the meantime about how to do it I might have to write a separate page about it.

A lot happened lately but very little according to plans.. My wife broke her arm so I had to go back way ahead of schedule, so I had to leave Sheble and go back. I did arrange for the kit and its transportation so I loaded it into a container. Took two days since I had to do it on my own. Transporting a kit brought a few complications I did not expect that a majority of trucking companies would refuse to unload a container at residential adresses because of liability. The one I found at the end almost got stuck in the mud too..

Kent and his wife. He was the gentlemen working on the kit until a knee surgery ended his buildning plans.

Had a few days of with the family. Apart from going and the normal SoCal tourist tour I dropped by Planes of Fame. Interesting to study the cooling setup of the P51 and P39, since they are watercooled just as my Glasair will be.

According to specs the cooling setup of the P51 actually added thrust and that is a big difference compared to the GA aircrafts of today where cooling usally produces 30-40% of the total drag.
Bought Carmichels book on aerodynamics and drag reduction, heavy reading to say the least but if I want speed I know I need to reduce the drag of the Glasair.
American air racing has a wing/fuselage fairing and the wheel fairings from James (the RV holy cowl company) reduces some drag but apart from that it is only the cooling I can do anything about..

Crash is maybe a word a bit on the strong side. The glasair suffered from failing main gear and skidded of the runway. Biggest damage was probably to the builders wallet. Most of the gear broke of in the process and the wing looked really sad underneath. Seeing a lot of accidents here at Gillespie, wonder why?

I underestimated the workspace issue. Even after mailing most eaa members at Gillespie airfield, all official ‘landlords’ and pulling a string or two it was impossible to find workspace. Or rather I found one: $1500 per month! A bit out of my league.
Add to that that most transport companies don’t even bother to respond on the transport between Ct and San Diego (and the single one that did ask more then the total going from Ct across the Atlantic to Sweden) I decided to ship the kit directly to Sweden and resume work when I get back home.
I will try to find someone to share the container with since I will need only half of it.. If I succeed it would reduce the freight cost further.

The kit comes with the Lycoming O-320 engine mount. If I want to keep it simple I should stick with that. It is a economical option as well since most experimental builders today want the IO-360 so the O-320’s are usually sold at really attractive prices.
Downside would be performance: Shorter strips is out and that there is a race or two that I would like to attend and with the 320 there is simple not enough oumph available. A O-320 is many times delivering below 120Hp at the prop. The 150/160 official figure is on a new engine with no muffler or accessories.
Giving a renesis conversion some serious thinking right now, there is no money to be saved on such a convertion in comparison with a O-320. But 200+ Hp with lower weight then the 320 it is interesting…


The renesis is Mazda’s latest Wankel generation. With the ports relocated compared to earlier generations the design got rid of the emission and reliability problems.
As close to a turbine as I will ever get.

OK, everytime I get to excited and think I will manage the project in no time I just have a look at the current state of it. That always brings me back to mother earth…


The kit came with all mods I would have opted for myself. It has slotted flaps, extended wingtips incl extra fuel and rear windows.