2021 Past News and Events
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The photo above was taken last week (February 11th or 12th) in Prescott, Arizona after the FIRST FLIGHT of Mike Doyle's beautiful S51. His friend, Sprague Limbaugh took the picture of the plane back in the barn. That is Doyle on the left, Jim Thompson on the right, and chase plane pilot Bill Kowalewski in front of the wing.
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Above, First Flight Pilot Eric Huppert after the second flight.
Eric is an Air Force Academy grad, flew Air Force, flew with Stallion 51 in Kissimmee, Florida checking out pilots in T6's and the full size P51's, and is flying with Jet Blue now, while also running his own aviation contracting business.
Eric had a full Wednesday afternoon cockpit study session with the guys in Prescott, including Jim Gohm. Recall that Gohm and Doyle are both in S51's based in Prescott and are stable mates, and that Gohm has been flying his Stewart for several years now. Eric and the gang, including Jim Thompson, who has assisted Doyle in finishing the plane these past two years, and Jim Czachorowski, our S51 Builders Group Moderator and Spiritual Leader, worked through the First Flight process together quite well.
Thursday, after a couple of attempts cut short by a prop adjustment and a static system abnormality, Eric launched and took her around the pattern three times with the gear down, greased her in, and taxied in triumphantly. A close inspection, a few more tweaks, and a longer flight the following day with some stall work and back in.
Eric pronounced her straight and true and a nice performing example of the breed. By my casual count, that now makes twenty-four Stewart S51's that have flown. A couple more might take flight this year, but a big Congratulations to Mike Doyle, Jim Thompson, Vern Goodsell (who assisted Doyle for most of the early construction), and everyone who has been part of bringing this particular plane along.
And, special thanks to Eric Huppert for getting involved with the program. Eric's experience and cool-headed approach were greatly admired and appreciated by the crew in Prescott.
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Above, Elliot Seguin in Rod Bower's "Hurry Home Honey" for another flight out of Vasalia, California.
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Rod and crew were chasing a gremlin in the landing gear hydraulic system that turned out to be the gage. With that gage replaced, the system is actually operating properly, with more local flights to come as the forty hours is flown, allowing Elliot to continue his cataloging of performance parameters.
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The two photos above are of our new building in Pensacola. We should be finished by the end of May, and will begin to get everything into one location.
Meanwhile, we are still experimenting with our wing leading edge skin fabrication process, and are about to prototype one of two methods we will ultimately use. Tailwheel components are in process, other wing components are about to be cut and fabricated, and we are crawling closer to full kit production. Once the building is finished, we'll move the wing, fuselage, and other jigs down from Montgomery, get them rigged and set, and begin fabricating the sheet metal parts of this plane.
For the second "Meanwhile," we'll gather the other original production fuselages and wings and tails we have scattered about, pair them up with new production landing gear parts, and offer our first two to three fastbuild kits. This could happen by this autumn.
We'll keep you posted.
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Above, you're looking at the tailwheel from the S51 prototype airplane. We have contracted with the supplier of these tailwheels and the tailwheel forks that are the same as the fork used on the prototype. This might seem like a small point, but it does matter.
The forks we will be providing will be a single fork rather than the double fork that is on most previous kits. The single fork, if not built strongly enough, has a tendency to bend, while the double fork is not to true scale: The original P-51 has a single fork. Thus, we will be supplying a very stout forged single fork with the new production.
I did get back down to Bartow in early April and did catch a good weather day and had a forty five minute local flight in Doll. She performed well, no write-ups. As a last (hopefully) mod, we are going to move our oil cooler from the bottom of our inlet duct to a position higher in the duct to see if we can stay a little cooler during taxi in after flights. If this change does not improve our ground cooling, we'll be adding a fan behind the radiator. One way or the other, we want to get the ground coolant temp lower.
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I am writing this update on Memorial Day. We owe so much to those who lost their lives in armed conflict and other tragedies that took their lives while serving in our military and other services. So many thanks to those men and women.
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Sam and Charlie Hudgens have been helping with moving some of the S51 tooling and parts and components out of facilities in Montgomery to Pensacola. Above, they are assembling shelving for parts.
Below, we have Charlie standing by the wing assembly jigs to give the trucking companies we are talking to a relative perspective on shape and size. These things are cumbersome.
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Below, you see fuselage and belly scoop and tail surface jigs. All of these will end up in Pensacola.
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We'll be pretty busy getting these items moved over the rest of the summer. We'll update again soon.
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Above, you'll see Willie Madden (Blue shirt standing nearest) and Boyd Pierce(Leaning on trailer door). We met Willie and Boyd at a service station on one of our runs from Montgomery to Pensacola, moving parts and tooling for the S-51.
As we were refueling on the way down, we noticed the tire on the right side rear axle was a bit forward compared to where it looked like it should have been. On closer inspection, we discovered the aft bracket for the leaf spring for the right side rear axle had separated from the chassis. We had a situation on our hands.
We walked into the service station and explained our predicament to the folks there. Willie and Boyd were drinking coffee at a booth in the restaurant area and offered they knew of a welder down their way (about three miles) that could help us out. We followed them down there and pulled off to stay off the road, and, shortly, Norman Morris pulled up with his welding truck and sized up the situation. That's Norman on the ground doing the welding.
You'll notice on the bottom picture the early prototype of the Mike Lindell "My Pillow" prototype Norman is resting his head on as he welds that bracket. You'll also notice on the picture above one of the early Mattress Topper products Norman is lying on as he puts our trailer suspension back together.
These three fellows were life-savers. What great luck to pull off for gas at a place where Willie and Boyd were having coffee. What great luck they were willing to stop what they were doing to help us out, and what great luck they knew Norman, and what great luck Norman was available and willing to come help us out. This country ain't over yet! Nice people are amongst us!
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Below, you'll see the sheet metal we bought from the HPAI people on our trip to the Czech Republic years ago. There are eight .250" twelve foot by four foot sheets, and about twenty .040 sheets. Those quarter inch sheets are doozies to handle and move.
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In the middle of the trailer is the tilt rack I built to move the quarter inch sheets out of the trailer into the warehouse. Below, you'll see the first sheet out. The sheet is in good, undamaged condition: the plastic film covering is what looks wavy.
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We'll be moving more items into September. Another update soon.
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Above, you'll see Willie Madden (Blue shirt standing nearest) and Boyd Pierce(Leaning on trailer door). We met Willie and Boyd at a service station on one of our runs from Montgomery to Pensacola, moving parts and tooling for the S-51.
As we were refueling on the way down, we noticed the tire on the right side rear axle was a bit forward compared to where it looked like it should have been. On closer inspection, we discovered the aft bracket for the leaf spring for the right side rear axle had separated from the chassis. We had a situation on our hands.
We walked into the service station and explained our predicament to the folks there. Willie and Boyd were drinking coffee at a booth in the restaurant area and offered they knew of a welder down their way (about three miles) that could help us out. We followed them down there and pulled off to stay off the road, and, shortly, Norman Morris pulled up with his welding truck and sized up the situation. That's Norman on the ground doing the welding.
You'll notice on the bottom picture the early prototype of the Mike Lindell "My Pillow" prototype Norman is resting his head on as he welds that bracket. You'll also notice on the picture above one of the early Mattress Topper products Norman is lying on as he puts our trailer suspension back together.
These three fellows were life-savers. What great luck to pull off for gas at a place where Willie and Boyd were having coffee. What great luck they were willing to stop what they were doing to help us out, and what great luck they knew Norman, and what great luck Norman was available and willing to come help us out. This country ain't over yet! Nice people are amongst us!
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Below, you'll see the sheet metal we bought from the HPAI people on our trip to the Czech Republic years ago. There are eight .250" twelve foot by four foot sheets, and about twenty .040 sheets. Those quarter inch sheets are doozies to handle and move.
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In the middle of the trailer is the tilt rack I built to move the quarter inch sheets out of the trailer into the warehouse. Below, you'll see the first sheet out. The sheet is in good, undamaged condition: the plastic film covering is what looks wavy.
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We'll be moving more items into September. Another update soon.
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2021 Past News and Events
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Above, unloading yet another container of parts.
Below, a set of Fast-Build wings to be unloaded.
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Our Pensacola warehouse is almost finished, lacking final landscaping and interior items. The photos above show some of the parts and components we have been relocating to this building through the summer. We still have a long way to go with organizing parts over the next several months.
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The Frustration. We have a builder in Australia needing a canopy frame. You can see above where I have laid out some of the parts. The third piece in the lower section of the picture is obviously NOT the correct part. I have ten or more of every other piece, but NONE of the correct piece for that corner. I do have the tool to hydroform these pieces (5240-7), but I have to wonder how I have wound up with a good many of some parts and none of the corresponding parts. I have run into this phenomenon on several occasions.
We will be fabricating these pieces and getting our Aussie friend equipped. He has been more than patient and gracious waiting on us to supply.
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