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 other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/81495
T at was the concept. T e realities, however, were quite a bit diff erent. The fi rst T-18 to fl y was Bill Warwick's, which had a 180-hp Lycoming engine and a constant-speed propeller, and that set the norm. The "Sunday morning fl yer" had become a fast, sporty, cross-country airplane. While Lee had the wings of his T-18 apart, he took the opportunity to make a modifi cation aimed at improving its cross-country capabilities. Lee said, "I wanted more fuel, so a friend of mine, Tom Hunter, came up with the idea for F-86-style drop tanks. I thought they looked pretty cool. So he had them made, and I bolted them on. They're semi-permanently attached to a rectangular rail that mounts to the outer panel attach fi ttings. They only weigh around 5 pounds a piece and hold 6 gallons each. With them in place, I only see a 2- or 3-mph penalty, so they are effi cient and really handy. "The center section was pretty square with only minor damage, but I installed new fl ap hinges and plumbed it for fuel and replaced the anti-servo tabs on the tail. That's critical on a Thorp's stabilator. Then it was time to tackle the fuselage." John Thorp's goal of simple construction led him away from curves and toward straight lines, which is one of the things that contributed to the fuselage's somewhat boxy appearance. But it is also one of the things that makes Thorp's "matched hole" tooling process work. In this process, when a line of holes is drilled/punched into a part (rib, frame, etc.), a strip of aluminum is clamped/clecoed to the part and the holes drilled through that at the same time. This strip is then used as a drill guide to ensure that the holes drilled on the matching part are positioned identically. In theory, no jigs are required; the builder drills all the holes in all the parts, and they magically cleco together like Legos. Done correctly that's exactly what happens. Lee said, "The fuselage was actually pretty good, considering it had landed in a cornfi eld. I had almost no repairs other than to replace the forward skin and clean up what looked like an antenna farm, one of which was a coat- hanger VOR antenna on the vertical fi n. I removed and remounted only what was needed. I did, however, do a lot of updating; it's safe to say that every wire, hose, nut, and bolt has been replaced on this airplane. For one thing, the instrument panel had probably been pretty high quality for a homebuilt in 1975, when the airplane was originally built by Bill Sattler in Nashville. It had ADF/DME and dual navs, which not many homebuilts had at the time. Now, they were just swap-mart material, which was okay. T e tanks hold six gallons of fuel each and Lee says he only sees about a two to three mph loss in speed. Lee added F-86-style drop tanks to increase the range of this aircraſt . Lee's fi rst fl ight in a T-18 was in the jump seat of John Shinn's T-18, so he added a jump seat into his airplane. "It's a bit nostalgic." EAA EXPERIMENTER 21