Moving into a exam period at school so updates will be sparse. Apart from school I am mainly working with the arrangements of the kit move.
The US visa work also takes a lot of time…

For us considering flying in Europe we need to see to that our equipment is FM immune. From my point of view it is one of those ‘OH, I found a theoretical possibility that a thing might go wrong. Nobody ever reported the problem in real life but we better make this change mandatory anyhow so we make sure flying gets as expensive as possible’ regulations the European FAA (Ie CAA/EASA etc) are so fond of.
Anyway; I was reading up on the subject and passed this great page giving me a crash course on the subject: The flying monkeys.
Have a look at their Mode S update as well while you’re there, personally I would just ad that since several states currently is NOT going to accept a mandatory move to Mode S my guess is that it will never become mandatory for VFR flying.

Personally I am just gonna choose the ‘class III’ route and label the radio. With the IFR charges in Europe I am not sure I will be able to fly IFR there anyhow.

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.

Somewhere in the back of my head I did expect the museum to remove the instruments carefully and with no damage. And in one way they did, no instruments are broken. But why did they have to cut up the complete harness? Now I have to get a new one for no reason other then there was a wire cutter happy guy in the avionics shop…

Got a few mails harasssing my for my choice of gear on the Glasair (or actually half of them is harassing my choice of aircraft in the first place but lets just ignore them ) and actually it is a valid question: How did a guy like me with 75% tail dragger time in my logbook and with RG envy end up with a tri cycle?
I do think the FT is but ugly compared to both the TD and RG. But it is a practical decition: The glasair is a go-somewhere-plane so I do not want to have to choose another somewhere just because the wrongwind direction at the destination, and that is a reality with the TD. At least at my skill level and on concrete.
It was a worse ruling out the RG: Have you noticed that all Glasair promotion photos is of the RG? The RG is a beutifull aircraft and you do gain some speed… But I noticed that especially after a long trip I tend to forget things, and one button I cannot aford to forget to press is the Gear extention one.. Besides: It makes the aircraft heavier and increases the t/o landing distance.
So that is how I ended up with the ugly duckling…

Bought a prop. Interesting one actually, it is a NASA research product. I was looking into them three years ago but they were way to expensive, close to C/S prices actually (of course the company went bust…). They are supposed to give close to C/S performance in a fixed pitch setup thanks to blades that bends defending on load. But the really interesting part to me is that it is supposed to be very quiet.
Got it from a Andy Plunkett, a glasair builder that is going the Subaru route. In the end so he decided to use a electrical C/S instead.

Stumbled upon a old Glasair 1 instrument panel from a museum, they intended to use only the airframe from the original donor aircraft so the sold of the engine and instruments. I was to late for the engine but I got complete IFR instrumentation including a simple moving map at a bargain price. I spent less then some people spend on the radio alone. Hope I will be as happy after I fired it up, it has not been used during the last twenty years…

OK lets see at the end if I stick to my objecties all the way but the are currently:

I want to make a aircraft that can both cross the atlantic and operate out of sub 2000 feet grass strips. The aircraft has to be cheap, because the more expensive it get the more it limits the rest of your life. I want to be able to take the this aircraft instead of going with airlines on short and selected longer trips.

This is how I intent to complete that mission:

The Glasair is a fast aircraft by design and originally it was a close to STOL aircraft. Sadly enough it got heavier and heavier during the later models so the rough/short field performance is not as good as it used to be on the Glasair I TD. I intend to keep the aircraft as light as possible to minimize this problem. The extended wingtip and slotted flaps option should keep the STOL performance as good as possible too. These to options decreases the stall speed to 63mph, but that is still a long way from the 49mph I am used to in the Glastar. This speed increase itself indicates ((63/49)^2) I should expect at least 60% longer landing runs compared to the Glastar. Interesting the stall speed in a Glasair II with slotted flaps and extended wingtips is still higher then the stall speed in the original Glasair I, add to that the higher mass thats need to be slowed down…

To be able to cross the pond I need it to be IFR equipped (glidescope is a must). Also, I want it to be IFR equipped both as a safety feature and because it transforms an aircraft from an purly tool of joy into a personal transporter. So instrument minimum would be NAV/GS/GPS. I will try to stick to that to minimize weight.

Range is good enough as default in a Glasair, with a total of close to 60 gallons. With more then 170knot/200mph TAS cruise and a more then 7 hour endurance you can go really far.

Luxury items will be AOA indicator (to improve short field performance) and a wingleveler acting as co-pilot for safety. I have been in heavy IMC conditions and I really need a co in those… Apart from that a wingleveler will save fuel on long trips since it keeps the aircraft on 100% right (and shortest) track.

To be able to keep the costs down I will minimize my urges for anything extra, try to buy as much used as possible and be innovative. I would like to complete (incl engine,prop, painting, avionics etc) this aircraft in the area of the cost of a new kit from Glasair aviation.

This is going to be interesting: Just bought a project Glasair Super II FT kit from a gentleman in Connecticut. He got started but does not have the time/patience/etc to finish it in the ten years he had it, so he offered it to me at a price that I consider as free as long as I removed it from his poperty ASAP. It is not a very planned purchase, I did want a Glasair somewhere in the distant future but now is not really the time for it.
I am not quite sure I am sane considering the project: I am already supposed to do full time college studies, start on my essay, work and get my remaining ratings. Where am I supposed to find the time for this??!
So the question is if I should ship this to San Diego and finish it there or if I should ship it to Sweden instead and start on it when I get back there.
Initial freight estimates actually makes it cheaper to ship it to Sweden then within the US!

On the second hand I would just love flying the finished aircraft over the pond so decisions, decisions..

OK, I know I keep repeating myself here But there is something special with being able to land pretty much anywhere….