Kitplanes articles from January 2000

Kitplanes archives from January 2000

LETTERS.
January 1, 2000... Mini 500 coverage too little, too late? I read with interest the last article on the Mini 500 helicopter [in the November '99 KITPLANES[R]]. I'm thinking this is too little too late. Three years ago there were several Mini 500s at the...

Flying Low, Turning Left.
January 1, 2000... The National Championship Air Races at Reno are home to the world's fastest kit airplanes. Sweat beads on your face and stains your flight suit. As the pace plane taxis past, you give the pilot a quick thumbs up and a tight, nervous...

2000 Plansbuilt Aircraft Directory.
January 1, 2000... "Plans only" is the old-fashioned way to produce your own airplane. Draw on the engineering expertise of the world's top aeronautical engineers who have put their best thoughts on a stack of paper drawings--or more recently on a computer...

Arlington '99: The Eye of the Storms.
January 1, 2000... Good weather blessed the Washington state event last summer. Nineteen ninety-nine was a weird year for weather. Droughts, floods, heat waves, hurricanes, cold snaps, anno Domini... 1999 had it all. Western Washington state, the site...

Brightstar's Yankee Swift Evolves in Europe ... or does it?
January 1, 2000... In the late `80s, Brightstar introduced the Swift glider, followed a few years later by the PowerSwift motorized version. Stanford University aeronautics professors Ilan Kroo and Stephen Morris provided the analysis for this stunning machine....

Glass Goose.
January 1, 2000... A modified version of the original bird takes wing. Tom Scott has been developing and tweaking the all-composite Glass Goose biplane design for 15 years. He started with a Seahawk kit that he purchased in 1984, built it over a...

Pro-Drive gets the oil out of the RotorWay heli drive system.
January 1, 2000... In the beginning, the RotorWay series of helicopters incorporated a chain drive and oil bath to transfer torque from the engine to the main rotorshaft, and it was good. But not good enough according to John Spurling, who provides an...

California Flyin'.
January 1, 2000... Homebuilt enthusiasts get together in the Golden State. Contemplating the quintessential California fly-in has been a pastime of mine for years. Being both a California native and a homebuilt aircraft buff, I've often wondered why--in one...

A Jewel in the Desert.
January 1, 2000... The 28th Copperstate Regional EAA Fly-In shines in the sun. Copperstate isn't the country's biggest regional fly-in, but it may be one of the most closely knit. Volunteers return year after year to help out, and visitors return time after...

Thom Ives gets us down to basics.
January 1, 2000... In the last issue we initiated a scientific look at what makes a piston engine work. The idea is to give you the knowledge for considering a piston engine for aircraft use. We will explore what happens when an engine starts making power by...

Builders share their successes.
January 1, 2000... Blair Murray's N4D Jenny Replica It took me three years and 730 hours to build, but it was well worth it. The airplane is a joy to fly and brings raves from all who go up with me. It is powered by a Subaru and was built from plans from...

Is your homebuilt headed in the right direction?
January 1, 2000... Directional stability (and its effect on the flying qualities of an airplane) is one of the most neglected areas in homebuilt airplane design. It is generally understood that the airplane must be stable in yaw. What is little known is that...

These hot flashes could save your bacon.
January 1, 2000... By the time you accumulate a few hundred hours of earth/fanny separation, you generally have scared the wits out of yourself half a dozen times or so. In my experience, the scariest pucker-factor enhancer is a close sharing of the same sky...