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/307497
14 Vol.3 No.5 / May 2014 BREEZ Y AT THE HALF-CENTURY MARK LONG AGO AND NOT so far away, there was a man who walked an invisible dog and fl ew a nearly invisible airplane. Sadly, Carl Unger is now gone, along with the dog that never was, but his airplane is now more visible than ever and has become the iconic representative of fl ight in its purest form. Breezy, as he and his co-designers/ builders dubbed the air- plane, is enjoying something of a resurgence of interest. More and more EAAers are discovering the minimal costs involved in scratchbuilding, and the joys to be had in fl ying an airplane that has no rational reason to exist other than pure aerial fun, which is the way Carl Unger, Charley Rolof , and Bob Liposky wanted it. And that is the exact reason Jon Ross and Mike Miller from Long Island, New York, decided to build their own Breezy. As Jon, EAA Lifetime 135637, put it, "The Breezy represents real fl ying to me; some of which is lost when fl ying the jets (he fl ies corporate jets for a living) or even my RV-8. As such, I wanted to recapture some of those early feelings of fl ight. "My partner in the project is Mike Miller, EAA 1014542, an RV-12 builder. We decided early on that this Breezy should be built as closely as possible to the prototype as we could. Mean- ing it would be simple in the extreme. "My Breezy actually got its start in 1980 or so, when I got a ride in a Breezy at a local New Jersey airport. After my ride I sought out the Breezy designer Carl Unger at Oshkosh. Carl sat me down in the prototype and told me to place my feet on the rudder pedals. He pointed out that your legs cover the longe- rons from view, so it's like sitting on a chair in open space. With almost childlike enthusiasm, he said, 'That's real fl ying!' Carl's enthusiasm was contagious. I regret that he has passed now and he won't be able to see this Breezy. When I recently told his son, Rob, about this, he said, 'He will see it, Jon— don't worry.'" Both Jon and Mike own RVs, but those air- frames didn't give them the skills to plans-build a Breezy, which is strictly a plans-built "rag- and-tube" machine. In fact, since it does all of its fl ying uncovered, it's more tube than rag. There is lots and lots of welding in the fuselage, plus woodwork in the wings, skills you don't pick up building an RV. Jon said, "When I worked as a kid in a ma- chine shop, the Italian owner taught me to gas weld, and I discovered that I had an affinity for it. Later when working at a flight school as an instructor, I had a couple of mentors who were old-time Pan Am flying boat mechanics. They taught me the other skills and encouraged me to get my A&P; and IA tickets, which I did. I later bought a Miller Syncrowave TIG welder and thought it was superior to gas welding. I had some welding help/instruction from a friend who made cruise missile parts in his machine shop, and I learned lots about wood and fabric work from my friend and mentor, Don Wolf, Jon and Mike's Breezy fuselage comes together as they fi t the seats and install instruments. Jon and Mike also scratch-built the Continental O-200 engine that will power their Breezy. They started with a fi rst-run crankcase and add a new crankshaft and updated cylinders. Photography courtesy of Jon Ross E A A E X P _ M a y 1 4 . i n d d 1 4 EAAEXP_May14.indd 14 5 / 5 / 1 4 3 : 1 6 P M 5/5/14 3:16 PM