Experimenter

May 2013

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/126719

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I f I C a n D o T hi s Hal's not-quite-perfect Gryphon in fight. Big Lessons Write Small By Hal Bryan I used to be afraid of building an airplane. That's not exactly true; I was actually afraid of starting an airplane project and never finishing it, so I suppose I was technically afraid of not building an airplane. A recent experience building a very different sort of flying machine taught, or at least reminded, me that there's something even bigger of which I should be afraid. A few months ago, my wife surprised me with a visit to a local museum that was hosting a traveling exhibit exploring some of the mechanical inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. Like many people, I've had a lifelong fascination with da Vinci's work. Among his surviving drawings are seemingly preternatural sketches of surprisingly plausible gliders and parachutes, a more fanciful would-be helicopter, and most famously, a mechanical human-powered ornithopter. Seeing some of these designs actually built, and in the case of a number of his earthbound inventions, actually func- Photography by Hal Bryan tioning, was inspiring. So I did what I always do when I'm inspired at a museum: I stopped to buy something at the gift shop on the way out. After a few minutes, I spotted a small flying model inspired by da Vinci's ornithopter, a rubber-powered, stick-and-tissue kit called a Gryphon that was targeted at builders age 14 and up. Even though I've been "and up" for more than 30 years now, I had my doubts about whether I could build it. My inspiration (read: my need to spend money) outweighed my hesitation, so I bought it anyway. Several weeks later, I decided to build it in hopes that I could fly it at our annual "Family Flight Fest," a model aviation event we hold in the EAA AirVenture Museum. Blithely ignoring just about everything I've learned about building aircraft recently, I laid the parts out on a cluttered and poorly lit workbench in our basement, grabbed a bottle of what I'd call "probably the wrong EAA Experimenter 45

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