Building Mariah Gale

[Vance]

Hello Mark,

My 1999 BMW M Roadster is basically a hot rod Z3.

She is built in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

I purchased her used with around 25,000 miles and she has around 80,000 miles on her now.

She is not as fast as your Corvette ZO6.

She moves right along and I love her.

She has a very compliant ride, slides wonderfully and makes great sounds.

She is very forgiving.

Her brakes are remarkable.

She sings a lovely song as the miles disappear beneath the tires.


The thing Vince is working on in the picture is just the plug for the mold.

The more perfect it is the less work needs to be done to the final part.

The horizontal and vertical stabilizer will be made in 3 parts, a left, right and bottom.

The Rudder will be made in two pieces, a left and right.

The spars and ribs will be custom fit to the actual skins and then bonded in place.

There will be no need to paint the empennage if it comes out like other things I have seen Vince make from Carbon fiber.

It should be the same with the body and seats.

I don’t understand it. It is apparently dependent on where you want to spend the time; on the plug and mold or finishing the final part.

I try not to interfere with Vince’s art.

Thank you, Vance

[scottessex]

Our programmer at the software company is working on a delivery program. He likes it because he says computers were originally used to calculate artillery trajectory. He says it gives him a sense of history. It will operate on Ed’s cell phone.

Wow! how cool is that? a"Bombardier" App for your smart phone!

Looking great Vance, M-G is going to be a great looking aircraft.

[Vance]

Mike just sent me a picture of what appears to be continued progress on the mold.

I find the build up to the climax very exciting.

It is still looking like the second week in January.

They are going to shut down soon for the Christmas/New Year holiday.

Thank you, Vance

[SgurlEd]

Originally Posted by Vance

Mike just sent me a picture of what appears to be continued progress on the mold.

I find the build up to the climax very exciting.

It is still looking like the second week in January.

They are going to shut down soon for the Christmas/New Year holiday.

Thank you, Vance

This is so exciting to see all the progress!! Thanks for posting Vance!!

Mike sure is cracking the whip...wow!

[gyroman]

Vance,

I think everyone finds the buildup to the climax exciting.... and fun too...

[Vance]

Mike claims it is Orville and Wilbur.

It appears to me it is Nacho and his helper working on the vertical stabilizer mold for Mariah Gale.

Thank you, Vance.

[Vance]

Mike sent another picture of the progress on the mold.

They are working hard.

My excitement continues to build.

Thank you, Vance

[SgurlEd]

Originally Posted by Vance

Mike sent another picture of the progress on the mold.

They are working hard.

My excitement continues to build.

Thank you, Vance

Wow that is some mold...Mariah Gale is going to be just ELEGANT!!

I am still trying to figure in Vinces idea along with my own...it's a struggle but he is most likely correct...one artist should always listen to another!

Thanks for posting Snooks...

the EXCITEMENT is Building Oh Yeahhhhh!

[Vance]

Mike sent another progress picture, this time it is the mold for the rudder.

I have been wondering about making the entire empennage out of two layers of Kevlar with a spacer instead of 2 layers of carbon, a spacer and a layer of Kevlar.

My feeling is that with the spars and ribs it is already overbuilt and the flexibility of the Kevlar may make a better part.

One less layer may make it lighter.

Based on my rough calculations that is 23.25 for the Kevlar as opposed to 31.2 for the carbon fiber.

I would be grateful for input, any opinions out there?

Thank you, Vance

[Vance]

The closer we got to laying up the empennage the more my ignorance haunted me.

Mike and Vince are helping because they want to expand their capabilities and I feel there is not much I can teach them.

Neither of them has experience making parts for aircraft.

As I began to panic I called on my good friend, Martin Hollmann and he very gently confirmed that I was operating over my head and offered to do a stress analysis on the empennage for a very reasonable price.

I have already learned a great deal cleaning up my drawings as I tried to imagine Martin wondering what we are doing based on the drawings and photographs.

He began working on it today and has already expanded his focus beyond the empennage.

Martin is an aeronautical engineer and I have attended many of his lectures at numerous EAA events around the country and always come away confused on a higher level.

Martin has marketed a composite airplane called the Stallion and done the stress analysis for the Lancair and Lancair ES kit airplanes so my empennage should be simple in comparison.

Martin also designed The Sporster and Bumble Bee gyroplanes and wrote a book entitled Modern gyroplane design. I feel he is well qualified.

He is going to do the calculations to 14 CFR part 23.

I am hopping his involvement will expand Mike and Vince’s learning experience and will improve the likelihood of Mariah Gale being a successful aircraft.

I thought The Predator and Mariah Gale back to back gave a clearer picture of what we are trying to do than my words.

We are basically trying to copy The Predator with less drag, more fuel and more room so she is better suited for our cross country adventure and off airport departures.

Thank you, Vance

[Jazzenjohn]

Good idea bringing Martin in on the project. I'm very interested in what he comes up with for the layup. He designed the Bumble Bee and it had a composite tail. I have the plans and was surprised how minimal the layup was for it. He stressed most of the aircraft to 3 g's and I believe it only required a single 10 ounce fiberglass layer for the (vastly smaller) tail surfaces but 3 additional layers for each of the horizontal to vertical stab corners where most of the stress is. I think he's a good choice for helping you design a strong, minimum weight tail.

[Vance]

Hello John,

I actually had already involved Martin at the beginning of building the empennage once we felt the Mooney empennage was just too heavy.

We had talked about air foils at length.

Martin picked the NACA 63012 that we are using, it was not my first choice.

We also talked about designing with core.

I didn’t feel I could afford his professional help and did not want to impose on our friendship.

I panicked as my ignorance loomed large and decisions needed to be made.

We had discussed our adventure at Marysville and then again at Watsonville.

Part of Martins compensation is a copy of our book.

He likes the idea.

Martin has seen Ed’s photography and met her at Watsonville.

He feels that Graphite has some disadvantages and we can do well with 7781 cloth, vinyl ester resin with a quarter inch foam core.

We discussed using phenolic inserts to keep from crushing the core where it mounts to the airframe.

We discussed propeller resonance at some length.

Martin is a vacuum bag enthusiast.

I feel he will help Mariah Gale to become a success.

He is a very generous friend.

Martin wants to protect Ed from my ignorance.

He said he is having fun and that is what is important.

We have a lot of mutual friends.

Thank you, Vance

[All_In]

Originally Posted by Vance

The closer we got to laying up the empennage the more my ignorance haunted me.

Mike and Vince are helping because they want to expand their capabilities and I feel there is not much I can teach them.

Neither of them has experience making parts for aircraft.

As I began to panic I called on my good friend, Martin Hollmann and he very gently confirmed that I was operating over my head and offered to do a stress analysis on the empennage for a very reasonable price.

I have already learned a great deal cleaning up my drawings as I tried to imagine Martin wondering what we are doing based on the drawings and photographs.

He began working on it today and has already expanded his focus beyond the empennage.

Martin is an aeronautical engineer and I have attended many of his lectures at numerous EAA events around the country and always come away confused on a higher level.

Martin has marketed a composite airplane called the Stallion and done the stress analysis for the Lancair and Lancair ES kit airplanes so my empennage should be simple in comparison.

Martin also designed The Sporster and Bumble Bee gyroplanes and wrote a book entitled Modern gyroplane design. I feel he is well qualified.

He is going to do the calculations to 14 CFR part 23.

I am hopping his involvement will expand Mike and Vince’s learning experience and will improve the likelihood of Mariah Gale being a successful aircraft.

I thought The Predator and Mariah Gale back to back gave a clearer picture of what we are trying to do than my words.

We are basically trying to copy The Predator with less drag, more fuel and more room so she is better suited for our cross country adventure and off airport departures.

Thank you, Vance

This is great news Vance. This should guarantee a successful design!!!

[Vance]

In my opinion John; nothing guarantees a successful design.

Part of the challenge is we are only making one and we would like it to work the first time and not break until after the mission is successfully completed or I am too old to fly.

Martin may be an aeronautical engineer but he only has 400 hours in a gyroplane that is a very different design.

I feel the adventure would be less interesting if success was somehow guaranteed.

In my opinion the empennage will be lighter, stronger and less expensive with Martin's input.

Much of what we are doing is completely outside of Martins experience.

He will be more comfortable doing the calculations.

We are imagining a VNE of 150kts in a dive with a two G pull up with reasonable safety factors.

The description of the stability we are aiming for is very complex.

Martin feels Mariah Gale's Vertical and horizontal stabilizer volume is generous.

I have left the details up to him because I don’t know enough to ask good questions.

Jim Belland is pleased we involved Martin on a professional level because we are both haunted by our ignorance and inexperience.

I received the drawings from Martin and am off to Hollister see Mike, Vince and Nacho.

The drawings have specific sources for things so it will still be a bit before everything is comes together.

Martin feels it will be strong enough with two layers of glass and a little thicker core.

He feels light weight is very important in a gyroplane.

The mold is finished and they are just waiting on me.

I got a call from Jim yesterday and the keel is further along and he gave me some drawings.

Center to center beneath the propeller is now seven inches deep and 14 inches wide.

the keel from the firewall to the rear mount is 190 inches long.

It is made from .75 diameter .049 4130 tubing begining with 5/8 lacing reducing to 1/2 lacing as it moves rear ward.

The vertical piece under the propeller is streamline tubing.

Jim says it is much stronger than it looks in the drawing and I will modify the drawing to reflect the increased depth.

Thank you, Vance

[MarkG]

Vance

Sounds like it is coming along very well. I know it will all depend on were if it were to happen but you may want to have him check the strength if you were to inadvertently sand into the first layer of glass during the finishing process. It is easy to do...........