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/323139
14 Vol.3 No.6 / June 2014 A STAR WAS BORN 20 YEARS AGO Cub for takeof and landing distances, it far exceeds it in cruise speed and overall comfort. In a short 18 months the airplane had moved from a clean sheet of paper to a flying prototype, with the first flight coming in late 1994. The first tail kit was sold at the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In in 1995, and the completed factory demonstrator made its first appearance at EAA Oshkosh 1995. The design was off and running. With his work now finished, princi- pal designer Tom Setzer moved to Germany to work with OMF Aircraft on the certificated version of the GlaStar, the Symphony—a plane that sadly did not retain all of its charms after going through the certification process. It has since passed into obscurity. Orders for new GlaStar kits were pouring in, and things looked great; but Stoddard-Hamilton's management team stumbled. Expensive R&D; projects that did not pan out and had nothing to do with the GlaStar robbed the company of much-needed cash, and by 1999 Stoddard-Hamilton was bankrupt. Many customers ended up with partial kits, and many more lost deposits on kits that never got delivered. It was a real mess. If not for the strong builder network formed by the GlaStar Association International, it is doubtful that the brand would have survived. After much wrangling and a number of false starts, a real buyer fi nally emerged in the person of Tom Wathen. He is well known to EAAers for his many fi ne works and his rescue of Flabob Airport in Riverside, California, but GlaStar owners remember him most for saving their favorite airplane. Wathen hired an outsider, Mikael Via, and an insider, Ted Setzer, to turn things around at New Glasair LLC and New GlaStar LLC, as the new companies were originally called. Via, a former practicing attorney, was the perfect guy to wade through the legal troubles and hurt feelings that plagued the new entities. As a Glasair builder himself, he was no stranger to the issues of amateur airplane builders. He made the tough calls necessary to right the ship and clear up the old problems. Setzer was the hands-on guy who knew how to put planes together better than anyone. He had been there from the beginning and knew the ins and outs of each product. Together they made it happen, and within three years they had not only restored faith in the GlaStar and Gla- The author's fi rst airplane building project—a GlaStar completed in 2002. With wings folded it is not too hard to trailer a GlaStar or Sportsman from place to place. This is Dave Ammenti's Bronze Lindy-winning GlaStar. Photography courtesy of Dave Prizio E A A E X P _ J u n e 1 4 . i n d d 1 4 EAAEXP_June14.indd 14 6 / 3 / 1 4 8 : 3 7 A M 6/3/14 8:37 AM