Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/178050
H a t z Tr i c k mph. And I'm not even using a 'mini pad.' My eyes aren't 27 years old anymore, and the bigger one makes reading it in the open cockpit that much easier." Whoever thought we'd be seeing open cockpits and super-sophisticated electronics? But then, when you're building an airplane your way, that means exactly what it says: Everything about it can be done "your way." And it's not as if Mark is the first guy to sneak an iPad onboard a biplane. Lightsey had been collecting antique instruments just for this project for years. Everything on the airplane is hand made including the throttle. When it came time to choose an engine, there was no choice to be made. From the beginning, Mark had a specific, and fairly rare, engine in mind: a 135-hp Lycoming O-290-3. What's so special about a Lycoming O-290? Usually nothing, but the -3 says that it has no ring gear up front. So, do you have to prop it? No, you don't, and that's why Mark wanted that specific engine. "I wanted a J-3 Cub look to the nose, but I didn't want to have to prop it," he said. "It's hard to do that kind of a nose with a starter-equipped Lycoming, because the starter ring gear is attached to the prop flange. The ring gear is so big that it dictates the shape of the nose, which isn't what I wanted. The -3 engines, however, have an E80 starter mounted directly to the accessory case out back. I've been told that they built around 300 of the engines for the Piper YL-14, a specialized military liaison airplane that was similar to the later Super Cub. It apparently had slots and introduced flaps to Piper aircraft and had a tilt-up glass rear deck for a litter. However, the project was canceled after only 14 prototypes were built, which orphaned all of the -3 engines. So, you see them from time to time, and I just kept waiting until I found one. Another nice thing about them is that they used the old cast aluminum rocker arm covers with the Lycoming "L" on them. Those have a nice antique feel to them." Mark said that as soon as he made the first flight, he knew he'd made the right decision in building the Hatz and doing it the way that he did it. Although he'd flown everything from exotic WACOs to fire breathers such as the little Caudron racer, the Hatz provided the "something" he'd been looking for. Mark machined the trim handle out of aluminum bar stock. 18 Vol.2 No.9 / Sep tember 2013 "It couldn't be a more pleasant airplane to fly, if you tried," he said. "First, it takes off like a maple seed. No matter what you do with the controls, it's going to float off the ground and start climbing at 800 fpm, which for this slow of an airplane gives a pretty steep climb angle. "I put bearings and bushings everywhere I could in the control system, so the ailerons, which we converted to piano hinges for their gap sealing effect, Photography by Brett Brock