Craymondw(at)aol.com
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 Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:45 am Post subject: Gl2SFT |
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In 1957 a college acquaintance asked me if I was interested in kicking in $10.00 for AV gas on a flight home from Angola, Indiana to White Plains New York in his souped up Piper Tri Pacer. Soon after reaching altitude and heading the pilot reported that he was up all night studying for his engineering finals and said he couldn't keep his eyes open and asked if I would fly the plane while he napped. He added that I follow the highway that ran east and pointed at the altimeter and said "keep the needle pointing at this number." Prior to that my only flying experience was a ride in a J3 Cub. The pilot was soon fast asleep and I was gingerly feeling out the controls trying to teach myself to fly as smoothly as I could. I spent the following two years flying VFR round trips with this teen in some of the worse weather conditions I have ever flown in. On one such return trip we were over Oil City Pennsylvania one mid night in a blinding snow blizzard with me working the navigation finder when he had an admitted case of vertigo and got the plane in a spin. It wasn't until we spun out of the base of the cloud he applied the proper controls. Believe it or not I wasn't alarmed and thought if it happened again he got us out the last time! Beginning in the late 1970's I became interested in aerobatics and took well over 100 hours in lessons from Jim Parker, Daniel Heligon, Dave Sayles and Top Gun Alex Alexander. Over the years I have flown close to two hundred different makes and models of aircraft ranging from home built's, war birds to jets and have come to the conclusion that the simpler and lighter the plane the safer. My angle of attack indicator is my left hand and during flying off my first twenty five hours I took my plane up to altitude and started feeling out the plane performing mild aerobatics and stalling the plane in various attitudes. This was when I noticed my Glasair has a sudden nose down pitch using the rudder. During the construction phase I placed leading edge strips on the wings. I learned my plane buffets and rumbles as it goes into a stall and continues buffeting and doesn't drop a wing. Just for kicks I set the plane up in a buffeting full stall with an instructor, the late David Darnel and kept it there while dropping a few hundred feet to demonstrate to David how well the plane performs in a stall.
The deciding factor in building a Glasair was how over built the structure is, the composite air frame is virtually maintenance free and to have the same performance and looks in a factory built I would have to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more. Where can you buy a factory built with the performance of Glasair One's and Two's in the $70,000 range?! Since 1991 my biggest pleasure has been over hearing novices say; "That isn't a factory built? "
Chuck Raymond
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