There´s a few options. Either I´ve got OCD, I´m dumb, or I´m somehwere at the lower end of Dunning-Kruegers cruve. I´m hoping for the latter, because that will get better as I progress and learn. The first step in getting good at anything is admitting being bad or not understanding it.

Anyway.

Sometimes when I look at planes and daydream, I get hung up on really stypid minor things. Like how the stabilisers on the Rans S-20 tail is supported by EIGHT wires. It looks like something the Wright Brothers could have come up with. Flaperons «look» wrong also unless the plane is made by corrugated sheets of aluminium. And don´t get me started on the fixed seats in Aerotreks/Kitfoxes either. And why can´t all planes just have the throttle and a flap handle in the middle? Why are so many doors so angular? Please make a nice, curved bubble door an option! Stuff like that. There´s always something… Why isn´t anyone making the plane I´ve got in my head?

I know all these planes are made and flown by people who are VASTLY more insightful and skilled that I am. If they say the Rans S-20 needs eight wires on it´s tail - It needs eight wires. Being at the bottom of the DK-curve doesn´t mean you´re stupid, just lacking insight. It´s just annoying being able to actually get my self worked up by looking at pictures of planes!

But the moment I get in a plane to go and make holes in the sky. It all goes away.

Whatever you do in your long and fruitful life, do NOT get within 100ft,
or look at detailed pictures of a Maule.

Shock therapy.

They look really nice from a distance though!

asa wrote:Whatever you do in your long and fruitful life, do NOT get within 100ft,
or look at detailed pictures of a Maule.

And don't get within a thousand ft of a Zenith 750... OMG! If planes actually flew like they look, that would be one sorry-flying airplane! But they actually fly pretty nicely, and have excellent STOL performance. My buddy actually owned one, and showed me pictures of another that was yellow with small black polka dots. The owner claimed it was solid yellow, and the black dots were just from people touching it with a 10-foot pole. Too funny!

The rod bracing bracing (used to be cables, 3/32" 7x7) on the S-20 is there for the same reason the Wrights used it:best bang for the buck when it comes down to weight v drag. If it flew at 200 mph, the extra weight of making the vert fin and the hor stab self supporting would be a no brainer.

Varanger wrote:I´m somehwere at the lower end of Dunning-Kruegers cruve.

At least your confidence is bottomed out while you realize you know nothing.

This is a more desirable place to be than the initial peak value of the curve where you know even less but have high confidence, like much of Instagram/Facebook/Youtube.

Once you succumb to the idea that much in aviation is about feeling and is in defiance of reason and financial prudence, the happier you will be. People will debate you all day long here on what is best and most practical. The answer is of course having both a Skywagon and a Super Cub. But it's okay to embrace the irrational and be attracted to certain weird things, or be disgusted by other aesthetic details. It's your money.

Varanger wrote:Why isn´t anyone making the plane I´ve got in my head?

If someone built the plane I have in my head half the time, it'd probably end up half as pretty as the Defender https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbQMqd0kEY and fly about half as well to boot. When I get around to building something, it'll likely be a cub - wire braced tail and all.

Zzz wrote:Once you succumb to the idea that much in aviation is about feeling and is in defiance of reason and financial prudence, the happier you will be. People will debate you all day long here on what is best and most practical. The answer is of course having both a Skywagon and a Super Cub. But it's okay to embrace the irrational and be attracted to certain weird things, or be disgusted by other aesthetic details. It's your money.

The actual practical answer is a used minivan. I could have a lot of used minivans for how much money I've sunk into aviation. Problem is that idea makes me sad. Wagons and Super Cubs make me happy. Problem solved.

Not many are familiar with the Defender.

My ol dad worked with Bob back in the 60’s. I have visited him at Friendship Field a few times. Always interesting to say the least. The reason we ended up in the north is Bob and my dad came looking for a P-39 in July Lake in northern B.C. in the late 60’s. Long story, but ol dad and I eventually gathered some of it many years later.

Bob was also responsible for one of the first flying Zeros after WWII and a Hurricane that was later lost in a museum fire, a B25 turned into a camper, 4 place Mustang, etc. The ol boy worked on some of those as well.

Good memories.

Thanks.

Rod
UpNorth

I like purdy things also…

I've heard enough stories about people with more money than sense competence, launching into wild ventures trying to build the perfect sportscar, plane, boat or whatever, to know that the result is almost always the same: complete and utter failure.

courierguy wrote:The rod bracing bracing (used to be cables, 3/32" 7x7) on the S-20 is there for the same reason the Wrights used it:best bang for the buck when it comes down to weight v drag. If it flew at 200 mph, the extra weight of making the vert fin and the hor stab self supporting would be a no brainer.

Even thought I don't always know exactly why some planes have a tube or wire that might seem to be placed there just to annoy people for laughs, I know and trust it serves a purpose. Swap wires for struts, and the weight and price probably goes up a little bit. Reduce the number of struts and the weight and price goes up a little more. Sometimes, it will be prioritized. Like on the Kitfox, where it has to have struts supporting the horizontal stab in order to accomodate the folding wings.

The upside is that as soon as I start the preflight, it all goes away and I am happy all eight, familiar wires on the Savage Cub is just where I left them last time, and that not having a heavy cantilever wing means I can land slow, short in a safe manner.

Always good to ponder things and ask questions

Often there is a good answer

Sometimes there isn’t