Great Lakes 2T1A-VR I-ESON "the Outatime Flyer"  |
March 2004, May 2005 The italian Great Lakes: A long journey from dream to reality The beginning Everything begun (or better, roused back) during a winter evening of year 2004. I was annoying and zapping television, when suddenly my attention was catched by a vision: a big, red biplane gently flying low over an american town. The movie was Walt Disney's "the Kid", starring Bruce Willis, persecuted by his youth's dream of flying his Stearman bipe, no more realized. It was just like a flash hit my mind into its remote corners, and my passion for flight suddenly raised back from a too-long sleep.
I'm one of those lucky enough who breath the aviation spirit since the beginning of his life; my father was a Italian Navy pilot, one of the first who came out from the Naval Academy and went training in the USA to earn the wings. He trained in Pensacola on T34's, T28's, Grummans on Lexington Aircraft Carrier and Huey helicopters; once back to Italy he mainly flew on Helicopters for the Anti-submarine radar surveillance service. He then early retired and founded an helicopter airwork & school company. I still was a child when I started going to the hangar moving steps between rotors and turbines, and sixteen years old when I got licensed on the Robinson R22, just in time before the company had to close and the family entered a hard economic crysis. Flying activity suddenly stopped just a few after it begun, but passion for aviation never died, just buried by facts of life. University, the working actvity and other duties and events made harder and harder keep the dream alive, but then that sudden vision of the red biplane... Yes, I love flying, but beyond flying my passion has always been focused on aviation hystory, the pioneers of aviation, the proud tales of the flying chivalry during WWI, the technic of the first fragile "fokkers" and "camels" to the golden age of the barnstormers and the gee bee rallies. These are the basement where my real passion grew over, so like maybe you all I guess that the true taste of flying can be tasted with the well know ingredients to the antique's community: the wind on the face, the noise of the wires, a low powered piston engine spottering in front of the nose, the smell of a grass strip and the taste of a fresh beer on the front porch in a early summer sunset, with ears to the tales of experienced pilots, pioneers of a lost time. The research Let's go back to that winter evening... Times were ripen enough to resurrect this dream. Business going great and improving... "I can't loose more time with secondary everyday's tasks, I must make my dream have a starring role into my life! I will own and fly my own Biplane!" I thought. Since that moment it seemed to me like I had to recover too many years lost; I was a rolling stone; I started lessons to get aircraft PPL licensed and I start devouring all the information I could find on the internet and on books about the golden age of aviation. I still remember perfectly the moment I put the following words into the search engine: "Golden Age biplane". I then came across dozen of pages about biplanes and I had my first contacts with names such as Waco, Stearman, Travel Air, Fleet, and between many others... Great Lakes. My attention focused mainly on these planes because of Antiques and two seats bipes. The characteristics I was looking for in the biplane to choose were few but clear: 1) Antiquity 2) Two seats 3) Radial engine First because I'm a lover of originals from the 20's and 30's, I wished to acquire a biplane which is giving the full taste of that age, and an original antique totally gives this taste. Second, even if I'm mainly a lonely spirit, I think such an experience has to be shared with people you love, so the Biplane had to be a two seater. Third, I "physically" love the radial engines, the way they sound and the look they gives, so I was looking for biplanes with such an engine. But soon I crashed against the difficulties which often distinguish dreams from reality; I discovered that original antiques planes were very high priced and I couldn't afford one, so I sadly had to look around for other kind biplanes, and then I came across the factory and homebuilt biplanes of post-war Era, and I got familiar with other names such as Skybolt, Starduster, Hatz, and again between many others...Great Lakes! Loving the Great Lakes This ship really started to catch my attention due to a lot of interesting qualities; everywhere I read around about this plane was enthusiastic speaking: its flying and aerobatic performances compared with bigger Stearmans and Wacos, its "very forgiven landing" and "easier taxing" characteristics, rare for a taildragger (and very important for me being a totally unskilled pilot). The most important thing which definetively put my choice on the Great Lakes was that it is the unique Biplane, original from the Golden Age, which still came out into production from factory in the Seventies, over than 50 years later it was engineered, and it was almost equal to the original!! Last but not least, it has been being built for many many years, till today, as homebuilt from plans, and that made me faithfull that maybe I could have access to a Great Lakes for an affordable price and with enough homebuilding skills.
Here I must tell you that an airplane which really challenged the Great lakes for the final choice was Steve Culp's Special; I was enchated by that biplane when I first saw it on the internet, with its "Golden Age muscle biplane looking" and that powerfull radial russian engine... But after all, my love for something as closest as possible to an original antique biplane of the Thirties on above everything else, and the Great Lakes rwally seemed to be the right choice, without any challenger. For months my attention turned totally on the Great Lakes, reading and reading again the few information I found on the internet, lookin and looking again to the photos, data, and the few information I found on books. In the meanwhile, daily "patrolling" ads on Barnstormers.com, I was looking for the right GL or GL project to aquire. As I'm at my first aircraft building experience and totally unskilled with aircraft building and restorations (even if skilled in many hand working tools) I had to look for a project "under construction", to use as a "training ground" for my bulding experience, and in the meanwhile looking for spare parts or other GL projects to be cannibalized. The Great Lakes "Guru" I came across some interesting projects and close to aquire one (ask Charley), when eventually I got a name into my e-mail: Harvey Swack. The person who gave me Harvey's name and e-mail described him as "the Great Lakes guru" and I soon discovered that was really the truth! Not only Harvey had the project I bought later, he was (and still is) an endless source of GL's information, providing me papers, documentations, drawings, manuals and everything and more I needed to clear all the secrets of this ship. We had several talks through the phone, me asking, Harvey answering and explaining, from tyres dimensions to deck angle, from powerplant options to wheel pants, and so on.. The hardest issue for Harvey was to convince me on keeping the engine which already was on the project I aquired. The engine is a czech LOM six cylinders inverted, with 180 hp. Since that moment I was past to radials, and my first choice would be on the Kinner 5 cylinders engine, cause I loved the way it looks on the Great lakes and because it is an engine which fits the Golden Age era, even if many people dis-suggested this choiche due to the serious vibrations related to the low rpm, while suggested the Warner 165 hp radial. Harvey demonstrated and convinced me that the inline engine was closer to the original configuration; the Menasco 4 cylinders is quite original on the GL, and a LOM 4 cylinders would fit exactly the Menasco cowling, so my next task for several weeks was to try to trade my 6 cylinders for a 4 cylinders, bu again Harvey discouraged me to do that and suggested to keep the more powerfull 6 cyls. Version. Many other people told the same, so I convinced myself to keep the 6, even because the studies I made on the CAD showed me that the cowling for the 6 cyls. would be fine enough for the final looking I wished to give to my Lakes.
"My" Great Lakes Harvey presented to me the project I later bought as "a terrific buy". It was being built by Don Sergeant for a Gentleman, Mr. Davis in North Carolina, the 17th of a long GLs building experience. That person was finishing the project but had to sell it, and Harey told me that this would be the right project for me. It had the LOM 180hp used engine on it, which came from another GL built by Don and which substituted it with the same engine but the supercharged 210hp version. Fuselage built and wings almost completed, flying wires and much more stuff included; It really looked like the right project for me and I decided to buy it. The real challenge was moving it to Italy. Mr..Davis was so kind to guest me in North Carolina for a week on past March; he showed me the project and gave me the total support managing the crating and organizing the freight transoceanic shipping. A really interesting and important event was that Mr. Davis organized for me a meeting with Don Sergeant at Cheraw airport, SC. We flew down the morning into a Cessna 172 and met Don in front of one of the others GLs he built, he showed me a lot of details, gave me a lot of suggestions and I shot dozens of photos. Unfortunately one hour wasn't enough for me to do eveything I wished to, but it was a fantastic experience however. A Great Lakes shipment to Italy. What happened after I flew back to Italy was a real adventure (dis-adventure). The freight arrived to Italy 40 days after it left the USA, but the shipping company which hired the container didn't payed the Shipping company, so "my" container was stopped into the port with my GL project inside, untill that company wouldn't pay the amount due. After days of panic I was able to clear the situation, but I had to contact the Federal Maritime Commission to sort out the problem! If one day someone of you would need to move an airplane to or from Europe, I would be glad to suggest what to do and what NOT in such a shipment to avoid the terrible problems I had...
The great adventures begins Now I have my project here in Italy, and the new adventure just begun. Aeronauthically speaking, Italy is quite different from United States; we have many local airports, but almost all of them are becoming international airports opening to heavy traffic and low cost flights, with decreasing space for small airplanes, no space into hangars at all, and generally speaking the general aviation is suffering a lot this situation. For an Homebuilder, finding a workshop it's even worse; we are not used to homes with two-cars garages, and it is very diffilcult to get a space to rent and use it as a workshop. I was lucky enough to receive support from a friend (thanks Livio) with same aviation passion (he's going to own a Impulse aicraft), who gave me for free a 100 sq. Meters space, where I made up my workshop and started working on the project. I wish to complete the project with special attention to details, with original GL paint scheme and giving her an antique sport looking, typical of racers of the thirties. The long 6 cylinders engine is needing a proper cowling, which would fit harmoniously with the whole fuselage's shape, so I started engineering it in the CAD in 3D and then I made the wooden buck last summer. I would use original material so I'd avoid using composite and fiberglass, and cowling shaping will necessarly pass through sheet metal techniques, which I'm just starting to skill in. Wheel pants should be big pants of golden age's racers; I have been looking for the right pants for several weeks, then I found out that the Skystar Kitfox's pants would be fine enough to accomplish this goal; I'll make aluminum wheel pants one day once I'll be enough skilled with sheet metal techniques. Wings-to-fuselage fairings, wooden instrument panels and chrome bezels around instruments will be some other details I'll put on my GL.
I'm still deciding which instruments put into the panel; I would like to do it as close as possible to original configuration, but I'll probably opt for a complete and modern VFR panel, with plenty of gauges and instruments for the safety. My opinion is that safety is more important than a simple stilistic aspect of the airplane, particularly for me with a very low number of flight hours on my log; I would never want to experience me and my GL one day too close to a cloud and suddenly inside it, regreting for having not installed useful instruments for such a situation... Color scheme will be ruby-red with white cigar shape on sides and rudder, maybe white wing tips and top of the center section too; I'll probably cover it with PolyFiber. With the will of building a very fine airplane, I'm disassembling the whole project back to bare fuselage, I'm going to sand it, inspecting welds with non-destructive tests and then I'll powder coat it. I'll pay the same attention to aluminu skins and parts, replacing pop rivets ant installing Cherry rivets, then protecting the whole parts with a layer of zinc chromate. I will need to inspect and maybe overhaul the engine, buy some brand new instruments, plus the thousands of other details a homebuilder must be familiar with to finish his project". The journey from dream to reality is still long enough, but now I've joined the Great Lakes Yahoo Groupand I'm participating to the Great lakes internet community I'm finally feeling as I'm not alone anymore with my project; I'm learning something new everyday, and I'm planning to visit Blakesburg on 2006; I'm sure it'd be amazing and a true milestone for my Great Lakes knowledge. I hope to meet you there and share many other new details of my story with you, maybe right there on the front porch with a fresh beer in our hands, and I hope one day all the Great Lakers will be proud enough to have a fellow flying over the skies of Italy, spreading the Great Lakes fame all over Europe. Roberto Vezzi Bergamo, Italy EAA 761420 VAA 717764
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