William Wynne

601 Paper By William Wynne June 11, 2008 For some months now, there’s been Internet speculation after every 601 accident, new or old, surfaces. For the first few months, I thought that this was the kind of tiresome Internet banter that comes and goes. Many of our customers are 601 builders and flyers. By and large, the talk on the Net had no validity and had no effect on these builders’ plans. It was not till we were at Sun ’N Fun this year, and I had a chance to speak in person to hundreds of homebuilders, to find out that some of this negative speculation had touched a nerve with first time builders and people seriously considering starting a project. In my forums and a number of private e-mails I expressed our positive experience with the 601, the fact that a large number of our customers now flying feel the same, and that the aircraft, the man who designed it and his family behind it have my complete confidence. Recent weeks have shown that some of the negative discussion continues. This motivates me to write these notes on the 601, and share them with other homebuilders. These are my own thoughts. No one in the company asked me to write them, nor do these words express any type of company position. Our companies have complementary products, but I am not a dealer for Zenith. I have a friendly relationship with the Heintz family, at the same level they enjoy with many other aviation professionals. I’m a Zenith customer and builder. Our shop in Florida has worked on a number of their aircraft which have been completed and flown. As the notes will show, I’m a fan of the 601 and hold its designer, Chris Heintz, in high esteem. I also want it clearly understood that my comments here are not about any accident in particular, nor am I passing judgment on any pilot. The paper is long because I am working to share information worthy of consideration to builders thinking about the subject. This discussion is about a larger perspective. Background I’ve been an EAA member for 20 years. My start in aviation was 5 ½ years at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. Much of my time was spent in aerospace engineering, and I earned a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and an A&P license while at the school. I arrived at Riddle in my late 20s and took the time very seriously. I was fortunate enough to have some of the finest educators working in the aerospace world as instructors. As we go a little further, you’ll understand the perspective of my background and its value on this subject. Our 601XL Above, my wife Grace and I with our 601 at Sun 'N Fun 2006. My wife Grace and I saw the 601XL taildragger prototype kit at Oshkosh in 2003 and decided to buy it on the spot. My entire career in aviation has been homebuilts. We had tackled a lot of different projects, from ultralights to the most sophisticated Lancairs. We looked at the 601 as the perfect personal plane for us. We picked up the kit in Missouri, built it in the winter of 2004 and the completed airframe was on display in the Zenith booth at Sun ’N Fun 2004. There are a lot of photos of this on our Web site: www.Flycorvair.com Between April 2004 and December 2007, our 601 N1777W flew 420 hours. Our demo pilot, Gus Warren, gave about 120 different people a flight in the aircraft. The plane flew from Florida to Oshkosh in 2004, 2005 and 2006. About 10 different people acted as PIC in the airplane. In reviewing the logs with Gus, two points stand out: The majority of demo flights were done within 100 pounds of gross weight, the airplane was flown hundreds of miles near 1,500 pounds, and an overload test was conducted. At Sun ’N Fun 2006, both Roger and Nick from the Zenith factory accompanied Gus in our 601 on the aircraft demonstration flybys. Almost all display aircraft fly a descending pattern to increase their speed in front of the flightline. Gus stated that his sooth descent speed was 180 mph. Neither Nick nor Roger showed concern. In 2007, Grace and I loaned N1777W to two Embry Riddle pilots from the school’s Sport Aerobatics Club. These young aviators, skilled in the handling of a Pitts S2-B and an Extra 300, needed a very brief checkout to be comfortable in our 601. We turned the airplane over to them. The aircraft was not placarded against spins or any other normal maneuver. Each of the pilots reported to me that the aircraft had normal behavior through a complete and thorough workout. One further reported he’d done multiple turn spins in each direction. The standard 2,700 cc Corvair is a powerful engine, capable of pulling an XL well in excess of 135 mph. Approximately 200 of the 420 hours flown in our own aircraft was done with a specially prepared 3,100 cc Corvair, generating about 130 hp. This engine gave the plane very sharp performance and demonstrated the capability of the 601. We used the plane intelligently, but we did not baby it. In December 2007, we sold the airframe to a very good friend of ours. I disassembled the aircraft and delivered it on a trailer. I specifically noted that after years of rigorous use, the wing attach bolts had the same amount of drag on removal as they had on installation. There were absolutely no signs of stress on the hardware or any change in torque on the fasteners. The entire time we had N1777W, it was kept in a highly polished finish. This would certainly have shown any wrinkling or distortion of the skin on the aircraft far better than paint. Again, after years of use, no change in the airframe occurred. More Direct Experience In the years since 2004, a number of Zeniths were finished in our shop in Edgewater, Fla. Two of the best known of these are Rick Lindstrom’s Kit Planes 601 XL N42KP and Phil Maxson’s yellow-nosed 601 N601MX in New Jersey. Both of these aircraft have a polished finish, and neither show any type of distortion of the wing surface despite use to the full limits of the design. Additionally, we’ve worked with a number of other builders who have flown their own Corvair powered XLs, and none of these people have had any type of issue with the airframe’s structure. These aircraft were built from plans, kits and quick build kits, spanning the production years of 2000 to 2007, offering experience with every facet of 601 XL construction. All of this combines to give me a fair perspective of how well the XL works under rigorous conditions. It is this firsthand experience under a variety of conditions that gives me the strong trust I have in the design. Phil Maxson, above left, and Gus Warren, right, in front of Phil's 601 N601MX on display in the Zenith Aircraft Company booth at Sun 'N Fun 2006. Internet Commentary Several times in the past year accidents in 601s occurring anywhere in the world are immediately brought up for discussion on the Matronics list. It doesn’t matter if some of these aircraft were license built aircraft that differed from U.S. aircraft, or even if the aircraft only resembled a 601XL. These posts almost always spark innuendo or incendiary comments speculating there is some type of design deficiency. Some of these posters are thoughtless people yet to be integrated into the social fabric of real aviators. I say this because anyone who’s been around aviation for any length of time in the company of airmen of experience knows that the Golden Rule of accidents is that you never speculate or offer an opinion on another pilot’s accident, certainly never in the case where you have no personal history with the specific aircraft or pilot. This is not done in the name of greater morality, better ethics or good Karma. It’s done because almost all early speculation later is shown to be wildly off base. And those who offer early opinions look foolish in the long run. Reality Check Actual accident investigators never speculate about accidents. Venturing a guess is the complete antithesis of an actual investigation. My degree in aeronautics is the same degree most accident investigators hold. Many well known NTSB accident investigators like Greg Feith are Embry-Riddle alumni. He lectured on many occasions in my classes. Throughout my studies in aerodynamics, performance, human factors, weather, etc., it was repeatedly driven into our minds never to speculate. Often, builders are unaware that people directly attached to aircraft accidents are sometimes restricted by authorities on what they may say about an ongoing investigation. While people new to homebuilding may think that Zenith should respond directly to each report, realize that most responsible companies don’t. They are only doing what professionals do, which is waiting for a final report on aircraft that are their actual products, and making no comment about planes that were not Zenith products. I hold little hope that these words will deter the posts of negative people. On the other hand, I do think that our positive experience with the plane and looking at the big picture will go a long way to reassure real homebuilders that they made a very good choice in selecting the 601. An Observation I don’t subscribe to the Matronics list. I have read a number of comments that were forwarded to me and looked them up for their context in the Matronics archives. The most telling feature of these posts, apart from being almost all speculation, is in almost all circumstances the typists point to the airframe as the culprit in any accident. Looking at aviation statistics, this is not realistic. I recently read AOPA magazine’s 50th anniversary issue cover to cover. Their editors devoted the magazine to a retrospective of the past 50 years of general aviation. On the subject of accidents, Bruce Landsberg, Executive Director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, commented: “There are a couple of subtle messages in all these statistics. First, it is most likely that we as pilots will be the source of a mishap. Secondly, the hardware is about four times as reliable as humans.” The pilot’s lack of skill or judgment is still the primary factor in the vast majority of investigated accidents. Weather, spins and fuel exhaustion may sound like external issues, but they are what they have always been: pilot problems. It is very telling to me that almost none of the discussion group posters bring up pilot factors, weather, building history, maintenance or a multitude of other facets. In actual official accident reports, heavy emphasis is put on who was flying and how much time in type the pilot in command had. This clearly shows that real reports focus a lot of attention on the human factors involved. Some of this speculation is clearly posted by amateurs without a good idea of the statistical history of general aviation accidents. However, I also believe that some of the posters with mysterious e-mail names are people with an ax to grind. While at Sun ’N Fun, I found two salesmen for other companies way too willing to offer an opinion on the accident record of the 601, an aircraft with which they had no experience. After many years of hard work and tireless effort, Zenith has a commanding position in the LSA marketplace. Many new designs from Europe have become astronomically expensive due to the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, making these would-be 601 competitors very hard to sell. These planes may be good designs, but some of the salespeople pushing them at major airshows seemingly learned their sales technique on used car lots. Twenty years ago, you couldn’t have convinced me that people would spread rumors about aircraft accidents for their own financial gain. Today, I still feel the same way about 97 percent of the people in homebuilding. But experience has now shown me that a tiny percentage of the people marketing homebuilts don’t consider any behavior off limits. The Internet offers the opportunity to engage in this without any traceability. Almost every negative Internet comment chooses to ignore the fact that there are hundreds of completed XLs flying all around the world which have safely demonstrated for years the same flight maneuvers which are alleged on the Net to be unsafe. The XL prototype is nearly 20 years old and is still being used as a work horse at Quality Sport Planes, the West Coast Zenith facility. The factory demonstrator has flown hundreds of people and crossed the country numerous times. While there may be subtle differences between each kit built plane, the people writing the posts ignore the obvious: There are far greater differences among pilots than between planes. Builders who finish their planes and fly them within the same flight envelope as our aircraft, the demonstrator or the prototype, will have the same success. Aluminum and physics do not behave at random and they don’t play favorites. Have There Been Accidents? Of course there have been 601 XLs lost. I don’t debate this. I merely object to speculation and myopic points of view. An Embry-Riddle classmate of mine went on to work as an accident investigator for Cessna. He told me that Cessna had produced nearly 100,000 aircraft, more than 50 percent of which were still in service somewhere in the world. The inescapable corollary to this is simple: No matter how well they were designed and built, somebody, somewhere in the world was going to die in a Cessna every week. The fact that hundreds of 601s have been built means that we will hear about 601 accidents more frequently than aircraft which have been built in tiny numbers. My time in homebuilding allows me to say that most homebuilt designs are more demanding to fly and far less forgiving than the 601. There are very challenging planes that actually have the safety record that the most paranoid speculator falsely believes exists with the 601. Yet no Internet discussion exists on the accident record of these other homebuilts because their fans and builders know that statistically speaking, the weakest link in an airplane is the pilot. Although the 601 is a far easier airplane to fly, it is not immune from piloting issues. Pilots tend to gravitate toward aircraft that are not only within their financial means, but within their perceived skill set as well. The 601’s docile behavior and predictable flight characteristics justifiably attract pilots with low time or experience limited to typical single-engine certified training aircraft. The LSA rule, with its lack of requirement for a medical, brings an older demographic of pilots to all LSA designs. Homebuilts also have this issue: The typical builder lets his skills deteriorate while he finishes the airplane. This is an old issue, but it isn’t going away. Despite kits being easier to build, the typical homebuilt may actually take more calendar time to build than those of yesteryear because modern builders face a multitude of concurrent recreational opportunities (like spending time on the computer). Twenty years ago, the Piper Malibu was a much celebrated high performance aircraft. Not long after its introduction, there were several in flight structural failures resulting in fatalities. Even in an era before the Internet, a black cloud gathered over the design. People, the great majority of whom were not in a position to purchase a Malibu, opined about every conceivable theory. Long after the damage to Piper’s sales were done, the official ruling clearly showed that pilots of limited experience, many without instrument ratings, had flown the aircraft into destructive instrument weather. Some pilots had used the plane’s sophisticated autopilot to pretend they had an instrument rating. Two of the hallmarks of the Malibu design are its light weight for its size and its very efficient high aspect ratio wing. The Malibu, like all aircraft, has a Va speed to be respected. The final analysis on the accidents showed that the pilots had flown into hardcore weather well above the maneuvering speed. Today, the Malibu and its derivatives are known to be fine, if pricey, aircraft. No defect was ever found with the structure. The problem was largely solved by the insurance companies insisting on tougher training requirements for pilots, to weed out pilots who believed they could fly the airplane simply because they could afford to purchase it. In spite of all of the speculation, the final analysis had shown it was a pilot problem. Michael Heintz, left above, and myself on the right congratulate Rick Lindstrom for winning the Best Engine Installation Award at the 2007 Copperstate Fly In. His 601 XL is behind us. The photo was taken at the Quality Sportplanes facility during Corvair College #11. Rick Lindstrom, who has owned many aircraft besides his 601, points out that the affordability of insurance and the requirements to obtain it are the best statistical information available to builders about the design of their choice. If an aircraft is challenging to fly, insurance companies will demand hundreds, if not thousands of hours of experience and many hours time in type training. Even with these two requirements, aircraft deemed to pose significant risk will have astronomically high premiums. Ten years ago, some fast glass aircraft were approaching $20,000 a year to insure. The 601 is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Rick insured his aircraft for four different pilots. Falcon Insurance, the provider recommended by the EAA, had very modest experience requirements, and only wanted one to five hours time in type, depending on the pilot. About 15 years ago, the Audi 5000 automobile was almost driven out of the marketplace by news media reports of what was later termed “Sudden Acceleration Incidents.” The National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration conducted an extensive nationwide investigation that actually revealed hundreds of reported claims of this in all types of cars. News reporters speculated on all types of causes, such as cruise control or fuel injection suddenly making these cars lunge forward despite their operators reporting that their foot was jammed to the floor on the brake pedal. A year and millions and millions of dollars later it was conclusively shown that every single one of these incidents was caused by the operator mistakenly pressing the gas pedal to the floor. Perhaps the only valuable insight came from a comparison the Highway Administration conducted of the proximity of the brake to gas pedal when they considered setting national standards. It turned out that a Mercury Grand Marquis had the gas pedal and brake farthest apart, yet it had suffered many false reports of sudden acceleration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the car with the pedals closest together was the Honda CRX. Despite the proximity of the pedals, there had been no sudden acceleration reports in the CRX. It didn’t take a statistical analysis genius to understand that the average Marquis owner was nearly three times the age of the CRX owner. While the overwhelming majority of Marquis owners were perfectly safe drivers, the demographics combined with the number of cars made produced the reports, not the location of the pedals. To have a discussion of any LSA aircraft without consideration given to the demographics of the pilots produces a skewed perspective. Understand I am in no way suggesting that being older disqualifies a pilot or makes him unsafe. I flew with Steve Wittman when he was 91 years old. I am only pointing out that a large group of older drivers or pilots will have a small number of individuals who are more prone to accidents. Va – The Maneuvering Speed One of the most surprising things to me is the number of pilots with many years worth of experience who have a weak understanding or no appreciation of aerodynamics. I’m not speaking of hardcore aerodynamic equations, I’m talking about the basics, like all the tenets contained in the book Stick and Rudder. The maneuvering speed is a critical speed to understand when flying a light aircraft. Many pilots know the Vne of their aircraft, a speed that few flights will ever see. Va is a much more critical number because the pilot deals with it on almost every flight. The front page of our 601 plans lists the maneuvering speed as 105 mph. Yet in our travels as 601 owners, I found a number of 601 pilots operating the plane with no idea what the maneuvering speed was. Pointing out that Va is printed on the front page of the Zenith plans revealed that the pilots who didn’t know this were often not the builders of their airplane. The maneuvering speed of any aircraft is an important dividing line. Below this speed, full and abrupt control surface deflections will produce a strong maneuver or a stall, but will not harm the aircraft. Above this speed, a harsh maneuver or a full control surface deflection can produce crippling structural damage in the airplane. If 105 mph sounds low to you, it is a reality of LSA airplanes. They are required to have a 44 knot clean stall speed. The laws of aerodynamics dictate that two times this speed will be a close approximation to the maneuvering speed in any aircraft with normal category G limits. Because all LSA category aircraft are striving to have the maximum useful load, you will not find any popular LSA category aircraft rated for aerobatic loads at gross weight. They would simply have too high of an empty weight with typical construction methods. All of the popular engines in the 601 will have a cruise speed far above the maneuvering speed of the aircraft. Most general aviation aircraft have useful cruise speeds which are above the maneuvering speed of the aircraft. However, well trained pilots know that you must use smooth, slow and partial deflections of the control system when operating above maneuvering speed. In our home flight environment of Florida, there’s the additional factor of turbulence. Most of the year in Florida, the afternoons bring very strong thermals. Our 601 or any other LSA with a wing loading of 10 pounds per square foot produces a very bumpy ride when flying underneath cloud formations at speed. With our 190 cid Corvair, our 601 easily cruised above 140 mph. However, only a fool would do this in rough air. The loads go up exponentially with speed. So, a seemingly small reduction in speed is a significant margin of safety improvement. 125 mph gave a much softer ride and provided a much greater factor of safety on penetrating turbulent air. When especially turbulent, the smart maneuver was to slow down further to the maneuvering speed. A related issue is the stick force on the 601’s elevator. Compared to many certified general aviation aircraft, the 601 has a much lighter elevator. However, it’s not fair to categorize it as light. Certified aircraft like a Pitts or Varga are lighter on the elevator. The majority of homebuilts I have experience with have lighter elevator controls than a 601. A number of them, like a Wittman Tailwind, with its excellent aerodynamic qualities, have extremely light elevators in addition to having almost no increase in stick forces with each new G pulled. Homebuilts like the Tailwind, require the pilot to be very cautious when transitioning from other aircraft. While a new 601 pilot needs to be aware of the elevator, unlike many other homebuilts, it is not challenging to master. A reckless or poorly trained pilot can create a negative relationship between Va and elevator force by flying faster than Va and making a sudden move on the elevator for any reason – turbulence, carelessness, traffic, etc. – the light elevator forces will allow him to overstress the aircraft with less of a stick pull than would have been required in an aircraft like a J-3 Cub. This in no way can be construed to being considered a design deficiency. There are a number of advantages to aircraft with good authority on the tail surfaces, like maneuverability on the landing. Central to homebuilding is the ability to create good flying planes, not to accept one dumbed down for the most ham fisted pilot in the masses. With all the people who flew in our 601, I cannot recall any of them being surprised at the lightness of the controls. It is something that with a little training any competent pilot can become acclimated to. Dr. Ray in front of his Corvair powered 601 XL, above. This photo was taken in the Zenith booth at Oshkosh 2007. For people without a lot of exposure to flying, consider this example: Light stick forces are like driving a 4-wheel-drive SUV. There are advantages to traction and ground clearance, but it’s possible at highway speeds to jerk the wheel and roll over an SUV where most 2-wheel-drive cars will not. The same way it doesn’t take much training not to jerk the wheel in the fast lane of I-95 in an SUV, it doesn’t take much understanding or training to refrain from making harsh or oscillating control stick movements in any aircraft with light control stick forces. Hundreds of millions of miles have been safely driven in 4WD SUVs. A tiny fraction of 1% have rolled over; the cause is understood. But some people still want them dumbed down until they can be driven by distracted, agitated and possibly intoxicated drivers. This level of “save you from yourself” has crept into most of the products in our world, but you can’t make planes this way. This issue applies to well engineered aircraft of all sizes. A few weeks after Sept. 11, an Airbus airliner crashed right after departing Kennedy Airport. The accident was traced to the aircraft flying through the wake turbulence of a previous departing airliner, and the harsh and abrupt rudder inputs that broke the vertical stabilizer. The manual and training for this Airbus specifically forbid this type of control input. There are very few aircraft in general aviation that cannot be broken by harsh manipulation of the controls. A single-seat Pitts or a Cassutt come close, but they are certainly not LSA designs, and they also incidentally have incredibly light elevator forces. Looking for a “Perfectly Safe Plane” I was fascinated by homebuilts even before I learned how to fly a plane. When I first started looking for a plane to build I had little time aloft. This distorted my perspective. I went through a phase of looking for a “safe plane” with a 25 mph stall speed and other features touted in brochures which allegedly made certain designs “safe.” Today, my perspective is different. I still prefer planes with moderate landing speeds and rugged fuel systems, but I no longer look for the mythical “safe plane.” What a very good flight instructor taught me is that training myself into a skilled, knowledgeable aviator with good judgment would offer far more protection than any alleged “safe plane.” A less confident, lower skilled pilot flying with the false confidence in a “safe plane” now looks far more dangerous. Because I went through the phase, I can recognize it in people’s comments, and read it in their words if they are stuck in the “safe plane” phase. People who constantly want to alter a design for redundancy or reanalyze or strengthen it are often on a quest for the “safe plane.” I transitioned through this phase quickly because I was immersed in aviation every day. Sadly, some homebuilders in this phase are working alone in their garage, and may not have been aloft in a light plane in many years. They may be stuck in this mindset, which is really self doubt, for years or permanently. This is sad to me because the whole point of homebuilding is to liberate people from feelings like self doubt. Five or ten hours aloft with a skilled, trustworthy instructor can change this whole outlook to one of knowing that self reliance through good training is the only path to safe operation you can believe in. Four Types of Builders Many years of working with homebuilders has taught me that they’re a very diverse group of people who are not easily characterized in general. However, if you were to restrict the discussion to their progress on their projects, they can be better understood in terms of four types: Woody Harris, above left, and his friend Steve toast the first flight of Woody's Corvair powered 601 XL. Woody took slightly over a year of part-time work to complete his quick build kit. First is the successful builder who has put in his work, completed and flown his project. On the first day of work, almost every builder visualizes himself in the category after two or three years. This is good optimism, but even good kits have a hard time getting 25% of people in this category in 36 months. . Second is the perennial builder who enjoys the creative part of it, but has a number of other responsibilities in life that will keep him from setting a record for quick building. These builders like the work and rarely have a set timetable to finish. They often own another flying plane that divides their time, but this experience puts them beyond pitfalls like looking for a “safe plane.” The third group is like the second, but after a number of years, their situation isn’t allowing them to see enough light at the end of the tunnel. After a certain number of years, these guys take an unemotional assessment of the project and quietly bow out. Although they may have been an active participant in the discussion of the design, they realize that the lack of progress is because homebuilding doesn’t fit into every life. For many people, the idea of being a homebuilder is more appealing than the reality. I have respect for people who found themselves in this category after taking an honest shot at homebuilding. The motto of category three is “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Although I’m a rabid homebuilder, I have several friends in this group. Many of them own or fly certified airplanes and I respect them for following the path that fits their life. The fourth group is also in the position of not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but they just can’t bring themselves to admit that their personal situation and their building habits are really what are keeping them from Category One. These people, many who started with grandiose pronouncements of what they were going to do, find themselves in an embarrassing position several years down the road. Other builders who quietly started after them have worked their way to Category One with little fanfare. In the Internet age, Category Four builders feel self-imposed pressure, after dozens or hundreds of posts, to justify why their project has made little progress. While these people frequently write about ideas or modifications they plan to include in their plane, they accomplish little actual work. They accuse builders who work diligently and surpass their progress of employing professional help or doing sloppy work. As many builders progress past, a Category 4 person needs a scapegoat or an issue to blame. He often exits with a big dramatic accusation. If a guy who has made a number of posts but little progress follows an accident report with a post like “I have my doubts about this design, and I am now going to build an RV-8,” he is revealing himself as a Category 4 person. Experience has shown me that odds are 50:1 against him ever buying a tail kit for an RV-8, and even if he does, he will just find himself a Category 4 person of that design. Before the Internet age, the audience of these dramatic pronouncements was limited to the builders in the refreshment line at the local EAA chapter meeting. Today with the Net, the potential audience is a lot bigger, but the effect on real builders is still zero. Conclusion If you’re a first time homebuilder working on your 601 project, I hope reading this gave you a renewed sense of confidence in your choice of aircraft. In no way am I criticizing anyone for asking legitimate questions about their 601. One day you’ll be pilot in command of this aircraft, and you will be solely responsible for you and your passenger. Seeking technical answers to questions you might have about your aircraft is simply responsible behavior. It is the speculation and the fearmongering without any information or background to which I object. I don’t like this in any aspect of life, and it certainly has no place in aviation. The great majority of 601 builders putting Corvair engines in their planes are unconcerned about this issue. We have a disproportionately large number of engineers, aircraft mechanics and experienced homebuilders in our group. They tend to look at things in more objective, rational terms. If you would like further background on the subject, I urge you to contact me or any one of our Corvair builders flying their 601. I will be glad to take the time to factually cover the subject in any of my forums or presentations at Oshkosh. Homebuilding is a lot more satisfying when you have a trusted group of experienced airmen to consult during your project. A Word about Respect Chris Heintz, the designer of the 601, is among the most respected men in the world of experimental aviation. He is held in very high regard by every other experimental aircraft designer I know. This isn’t a popularity contest; it’s plain and simple respect for his capability and achievements. As a student at Embry-Riddle, I read everything that he wrote on aircraft design. His work is all done with a very conservative approach with careful technical analysis. For decades, Chris Heintz has been a champion and provider of truly affordable experimental aircraft designs. I consider the negative comments tantamount to biting one of the very few technically skilled hands willing to feed people on the affordable end of the market. In recent years, we’ve been lucky enough to spend a number of hours in his company, and he’s certainly shown himself to be humble and a complete gentleman. Some of the Internet speculators have said things that I personally consider an offense to his reputation. I am tempted to say that these people are not welcome at any event which I host, but this is not necessary. People like that rarely finish planes and don’t come to educational or social gatherings. When your plane is done and flying, you will find that there are far more negative people on the Net than out flying. Contact Information Below are e-mail and contact information for a number of the pilots mentioned in this paper. Builders seeking further explanation or additional information can politely contact these pilots for firsthand experience on flying the 601. Our friends mentioned here will be glad to share information with fellow builders, but they are not interested in Internet style debate, speculation or innuendo. These guys are a valuable resource for builders serious about completing and flying their 601 projects. Dr. Ray, DavGRay@sbcglobal.net Gus Warren, Gus@FlyWithGus.com Phil Maxson, PMaxPMax@hotmail.com Rick Lindstrom, TigerRick@mindspring.com Woody Harris, WoodyMSI@aol.com