January Minutes
Respectfully Submitted by Jeff Dinius, Secretary

The meeting was called to order by Mike Bond. There were 18 members present.

There were no visitors this month.

Treasurer’s report: Ernie Stevens let us know we had money in the treasury. Ernie also received income from several people renewing their membership. As a reminder, your 2009 membership dues can be paid to Ernie at meetings or via mail.

On The Spot: Ernie Stevens. Ernie grew up in Cambridge, NE which was a small town of about 1200 people. He has been interested in aircraft for as long as he can remember.Ernie’s first ride was in a Monocoupe powered by a Velie engine. The friend with this aircraft upgraded to a fancy airplane when he traded the Monocoupe for an OX-5 powered Curtis Robin.  A bit later a barnstormer with a Ford Trimotor was selling rides and Ernie’s dad got him a ride in the right seat. Ernie was about 12 or 13 at this time but these made a lasting impression.

Ernie was interested in model airplanes as he could afford them. He built free flight models powered by spark ignition single cylinder engines.

At about 18 years old Ernie began building full scale airplanes along with about 20,000 partners. He had gone to work for Boeing building B-29s in 1942. Ernie had some surgery that removed about 1/3 of his colon which made him ineligible for the military.

Ernie began building tooling for the B-29s before the building was completed. He worked on the concrete slab under strings of lights on the nigh shift while they built the building around him. When real precision work was required they pulled out flash lights and magnifying glasses.

When the building was complete so was the tooling and aircraft production began.

In 1960 Ernie purchased his first airplane. It was a 1941 Taylorcraft. He purchased it for $1000. He hired an instructor for $4/hr and paid $15/mo for hanger rental. Ernie traded the T-craft for a Cessna 120 and finally a Cessna 170B. Ernie moved to Wyoming chasing a job. To put his children through college he sold the 170.

In 1970 his job went away so he took “partial” retirement. Partial in that he got a job selling reference books to schools. He covered all of Kansas and Nebraska. Since school is over at 4PM he found himself in many small towns at 4 PM with nothing to do. He began visiting airports and looking around in open hangers. There were many aircraft for sale that required little work to make flyable. These aircraft provided a way for Ernie to fly and then sell to make some extra money. He did this about 10 times over a 3-4 year time period. One of the aircraft he owned this way was a Fly Baby. Dale Matuska eventually ended up with this aircraft.

Ernie currently owns and flies a Super Emeraude. This is the homebuilt version of the CAP 10. The CAP 10 is an aerobatic 2 place side by side that the air show team “The French Connection” made popular. Ernie has had a couple instructors give him biannual that have performed a loop and a hammerhead in his Emeraude but Ernie is not aerobatic even if his airplane is.

Young Eagles: Leslie was not present. Mike Bond reminded the group of a possible rally in April or May. There are 12 potential Young Eagles signed up. We need to consider a date for this spring.

Old Business: There was no old business to discuss.

New Business: No business to discuss.

Announcements:

• Member Adrian Stack had a heart valve replaced and had been doing well when he got a cold that just progressively got worse. He checked with his heart doctor and all was fine so he went to his regular doctor and found a staff infection in the new valve. They have been treating it with antibiotics when a piece broke off the valve and caused a stroke. It paralyzed his left side but that is being corrected. Adrian continues to need the antibiotics but he is out and moving around with a bag, pump, and battery connected to a tube in his heart.


• Herb from the avionics shop at Fort Collins/Loveland passed away this past week.


• The Radial Rocket quick build kit was traded for a “rolling chassis.” It is a nearly complete airframe that requires firewall forward plus “finish” work. This project may become a program for a bit later in the year.


• Speaking of programs, we are searching for programs for this year. If you have any ideas or have a information/skill you could build into a program, please contact Mike Bond.


• Tom Barlow suggested the chapter purchase some “get well” cards for members that are suffering from medical issues. Mike Bond suggested an email string for the same purpose. Tom was taking lead on a card for a couple ailing members.


• Ernie mentioned a friend of his has a 1963 Cessna 150 (fastback design) for sale. The aircraft has a STOL conversion kit but has not flown in several years. The current owner has put a lot of new items into the aircraft to get it up to flyable status. Contact Ernie for more information. The owner is asking $22,500.


• EAA headquarters sent a letter of recognition to the chapter for all the officers that volunteered in 2008. Several officers were present to receive their certificates and pins. Thanks to all the officers for a job well done.

Program:

Dave Biesmeier talked about his Sidewinder from building to racing.         

Begun in January 1977, Dave and Lynn completed the aircraft in December of 1981. The design is an all metal airframe with tube structure in the fuselage covered with aluminum sheet. The wings contain a metal spar with metal ribs and metal skin. In an effort to increase efficiency, Dave butt joined the aluminum skins and used flush rivets.

Dave built the aircraft in a single car garage in Denver. He completed the fuselage tube frame and hoisted it to the rafters to allow room to complete the wing. The wing has fuel tanks that fit within the first few ribs next to the root. They hold 11 gallons per wing. Dave has found this is not much fuel when racing and wished he had extended the tanks another rib.

The aircraft is basically a plans built project although Dave was able to purchase a cowl and some precut/shaped spar web material. The canopy is from a T-18. Everything else was built from raw materials.

The first engine was a “tired” O-290G and a cut down and re-pitched metal prop for $1000. This engine was using a lot of oil but it did work to fly the airplane for a while. Dave re-built the engine but also found an O-320 for $1500 with minimal time on it. Dave installed the O-320 and is flying that today.

The wing does not have flaps which makes a clean airplane difficult to slow down. The original design had a belly board with holes like on a WWII dive bomber. This worked to slow the airplane and increased the decent rate by about 400 feet per minute. The belly board was removed when he installed a constant speed prop as this provides a better decent rate than the board.

Dave performed the flight testing including the initial flight. He only had about 90 hours total with no time in another Sidewinder. He did get about 4 hours in an aerobatic airplane. Most of his time was in Cessna 150s and Grumman AA1 and Tigers.

Dave is interested in racing and has used the aircraft for cross country racing. This means he has been constantly modifying the airframe. He has reformed the cowl to help the engine breath but not add drag. Dave has changed the wing tip design, added fairings to the gear legs, changed props several times and rerouted the exhaust all in the quest for more speed.

Dave’s airplane was on the cover of Sport Aviation in February 2004. He was interviewed by Budd Davidson and then spent half an hour flying with the EAA photo plane. Dave thought that was a fun experience.

Remember the comment about wishing he had more fuel? Dave solved some of that problem by adding an auxiliary tank under the baggage compartment. It holds an additional 8 gallons. At a normal cruise the aircraft burns 6-8 gallons but during a race it is more in the 11-12 gallon per hour range. The extra 8 gallons allows him some reserve on longer legs.

Dave has had some positive results racing. He has raced in 5 AirVenture Cup races with a best finish of 2nd in his class. He has also gotten a second in his class at Copper State. Dave has been successful in some other events. If you are interested in a Sidewinder or racing, contact Dave.  

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February's Program

February's program will be presented by Baren Buschmann. 

We will be watching the movie, 16 Right.

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EAA Chapter E-Gram

http://www.eaa.org/chapters/newsletter/0902_web.html

 

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