Building a Great Lakes Sport 2T Sport Trainer

Great Lakes 2T1A-VR I-ESON
"the Outatime Flyer"

March 10th/11th - 2006
Meeting with David Graham, builder of Great Lakes G-GLST

On March 10th 2006, Mr. David Graham came to pick me up at London Luton airport.
David has been building since 2001 a great lakes from plans; believe me this is a real challenge as the bluprints are old and very complicate to use; I have to admit that as a first time builder, I would have never been able to build a Great Lakes from plans. it's a complex project and this is why the Great Lakes is not as popular as other sport biplanes, even if its flight performace are second to none.

David immediately lead me into his shop: it is a small building into his back garden; inside, the Great Lakes "under construction" perfectly fits the building. One foot more, and the Great Lakes would have protrude out from the entrance door!.

Dave's passion which lead him to the Great Lakes is almost exactly the same as me: he loves WWI aircrafts such as the Fokker Dr.I, but wishing to build a two-seater from plans, his choice went on the Great Lakes.
He's also a member of the Great Lakes Groupover Yahoo, where he shares his experience with all other members from all over the world.

the G-GLST "hangar"
David Graham

Dave tests wing to center section rigging: it's perfect!

Till today, Dave has logged over 2500 hours on his project. The perfection of even the smaller detail is incredible. Visiting and inspecting his project has been very usefull for me and his project is now safely saved in hundreds pictures into my laptop.
On saturday, we focused on the wings and David showed me the CNC cut fittings and many other details.
His project is a 4 aileron version so his upper wings are different to mine.
Something funny: he has chosen almost exactly the same colour scheme I did: bright-pontiac red with creamy cigar shapes and feathers scallops; the registration "G-GLST" (which stands for Great Lakes Sport Trainer) was also my second choice for the italian registration of my great lakes. (first option I-ESON has been accepted yet)
BTW, a very interesting two-days mission which gave me lot of information to use for my building experience; THANKS DAVE!

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