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
would be smooth, and they are. The airplane will actually do a pretty decent aileron roll and loops just fine, but it's the low-altitude cruising, at 1,000 feet or so, that's the most fun. Lots of the cars are moving faster than we are, but you know what? You don't care. You don't fly an airplane like this to get somewhere. You fly it to enjoy the journey." As a guy who spends most of his time with his hands inside airplanes, he knows whereof he speaks, when he said, "The same thing can be said of the building. The actual building is the journey, and when it's over and the airplane is done, it's as if there's something missing from your life. "Airplane building is a form of creation that you find in almost no other area. Maybe in wooden boats, I don't know. But when you're building something that you know has life in it, it's just different than working on a car or anything else that's simply a machine. "And building isn't about speed. It's not about when it's going to be finished. It's about creating the component that's laying on your bench at that moment. And it doesn't make any difference what it is. Maybe a rib. Maybe a landing gear. Whatever it is, that's the project. The airplane isn't the project. Each individual part is. "When you have it done and sitting on the ramp, or you're cresting a ridge in the late afternoon sun, and you look around at the airplane, you don't even see the airplane. Your mind sees inside of it, and you remember how it felt to be sanding this part or welding that one. You are forever connected to each of those little parts, and you're being carried along by a living entity that has more than just a little of your own DNA in it. "We're not 'building' airplanes, we're 'creating' something that flies, which means it actually lives. And the feeling that overwhelms you on the first takeoff is a feeling only a few people in the world have had. That's what makes the entire journey worth it." I don't think we can add anything to that, do you? Budd Davisson is an aeronautical engineer, has flown more than 300 different aircraft types, and published four books and more than 4,000 articles. He is editor-in-chief of Flight Journal magazine and a flight instructor primarily in Pitts/tailwheel aircraft. Visit him at www.Airbum.com. The Family Hatz Part of the reason the Hatz is such a simple design is because it was designed by a homebuilder, not an engineer. John Hatz was the fixed-base operator in Merrill, Wisconsin, and decided, as so many have, that he wanted an airplane that didn't exist. He wanted something that would be happy on the local grass runways and would let him pretend he was flying one of the much bigger biplanes—the WACOs, Travel Airs, and their ilk. In fact, the airplane was to be a replacement for his WACO and was to be a biplane with the soul of a Cub. Not a bad goal! And he achieved it. Soon, just about everyone in the area had gotten a ride in it including Dudley Kelly, an engineer from Versailles, Kentucky. Kelly talked John into letting him draw up plans so others could enjoy the delights to be had in watching an autumn sunset through a maze of flying wires interwoven with nostalgia. The first Hatz flew in 1967, and an estimated 150-plus followed; but not all were the same airplane as there have been a variety of evolutions of the design that have resulted in four distinctly different Hatz models. The Hatz CB-1 is the original John Hatz design. He envisioned the aircraft being powered primarily by O-200s and O-235s (100 and 115 hp), as they were readily available from dead or dying C-150s/152s. In the Kelly D, which is referred to as the Simple Hatz, the center section and curved lines were eliminated to make the airplane faster to build. In the Hatz Classic, the sophistication of the Classic is increased by the fuselage being visibly rounded and streamlined by stringers leading into a fully enclosed cowling. The engine of choice is the 150-hp Lycoming O-320. The Hatz Bantam, as the name implies, is a Hatz light. It's designed around a 120-hp Jabiru, and through reducing the span and length and generally working to get weight out of it, the design becomes a nice little two-place, light-sport aircraft compliant airplane. For full information, go to www.HatzBiplane.com which is the digital home of the Hatz Biplane Association and the source of all things Hatz…including hats. EAA Experimenter 19