Corvair College #12
November 11-13, 2008
Friends,
Here's a collection of photos from Corvair College #12 held November 11-13, 2008, at Ed and Val Fisher's place in Gilbert, S.C. The event was truly a part of the best of
the Corvair movement: creative people getting together to share knowledge, experience and good times. With Corvair College #13 just around the corner, don't let the
experience escape you. Make plans today. You'll be glad you did. A special thanks to Mark Langford, who provided a number of the photos below. His Web site,
http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/flights/cc12/, provides a very interesting personal perspective of his flight to Corvair College #12.
In the above photo, the three fast birds that flew in the greatest distance to Corvair College: Joe Horton's KR-2S from Pennsylvania, Mark Langford's KR-2S from
Alabama and Dan Weseman's Cleanex from Florida. Coincidentally, all three of these aircraft have 3,100 cc engines with fifth bearings. This photo was taken on Saturday.
P.F. Beck flew in Friday in his Corvair powered Pietenpol.
Above, P.F. Beck, Grace and Scoob E in front of P.F.'s Air Camper. The most impressive thing about the plane is that P.F. built it for $6,800, including the engine.
The above photo shows the beautiful simplicity in P.F. Beck's Corvair powered Piet cockpit. He chose birch instead of mahogany for the plywood because he likes its
lighter color. He's given more than 130 people a flight in his PietVair.
P.F. Beck getting ready to take off. His plane sports a very effective homemade Swiss muffler. Sketches of this style muffler can be found in Tony Bingelis'
Firewall Forward book. The plane has a beautiful and effective prop that P.F. carved himself.
Above, disassembling a core motor is always one of the more popular activities at Corvair Colleges. We brought up this engine from Florida as a demonstrator. A group
of builders led by Larry Hudson disassembled it in no time flat.
John and Jean Kearney, whom we first met at Corvair College #5, display their Corvair power sentiments with their license plate, above. They have a
longstanding 601 project, but are concurrently working on a pair of Corvair powered Protech PT-2 based projects. One of them will feature a
turbocharged Corvair powerplant utilizing the systems we constructed for the Turbo Skycoupe, our own 2005 turbo testbed aircraft. They're working
with Ed Fisher to design a more conventional wing for the Protech PT-2. As an interesting coincidence in a small world, their son's unit commander in Iraq was
builder Anthony Hanson, our featured builder at Corvair College #12.
Noted Corvair builder "Indy" Larry Hudson indulges himself with the ever-fun prop blast pose as he runs his engine on our dyno. Larry Drove in from
Indiana with a truckload of cores and parts that builders snatched up. If you're looking for a Corvair core, Larry's a good person to contact. You
can reach him at (317) 535-9137.
Above, an action packed shot from the College with Terry Thomason's green Murphy Rebel engine in the foreground. The format of Colleges is somewhat loose, in
that builders are free to follow any part of the action that appeals to them, or create any center of activity that fits the format. This flexible organization has
proven itself at the Colleges and is often cited as an unexpected plus by first time attendees.
Above is the noon Saturday College Class photo. About 50 builders were in attendance. This is great attendance for a road College held at a new location. A
group this size allows me to spend a lot of one-on-one time with individual builders. As a group, those in attendance at CC #12 were exceptionally well prepared, and
this allowed us to cover a lot of technical and productive ground.
In the above photo, I check the subtle amount of drag in Anthony Hanson's assembled crankcase. A lot of builders were very impressed that I could predict within
a half-thousandth of an inch the amount of crankshaft to main bearing clearance by carefully rotating the crankshaft with my bare hands. At first it looks like a neat
trick, but in reality it's just based on having carefully assembled hundreds of Corvair engines over the years.
On Saturday night, we all took a break at sundown and went to Ed's residential hangar for a catered dinner. This was by far the finest display of hospitality by
any host and hostess of a Corvair College ever. Parked outside his hangar was an aircraft that Ed designed and built called Lil Bitts. It has a 65 hp Rotax engine, is
aerobatic, and is a stunningly light 420 pounds empty. It has a phenomenal rate of climb. Completed in
2004, Ed has this aircraft and the design rights up for sale. He is focusing his efforts on the Sport Fleet project now.
Here's a photo of the very nice dinner at Ed and Val's residential hangar. People who have not been to a College making plans to attend most frequently ask how
much the College costs. Many of them are incredulous when they learn we've never charged anyone anything to come to a Corvair College. This demonstrates our
longstanding commitment to the betterment of the Corvair community. Although we take our work with Corvairs as a very serious business, we work with builders as
fellow aviators and friends rather than mere customers. Many builders' first exposure to the Corvair movement is by attending a free College. This format has brought us
many new loyal fans over the years, and promotes a spirit of camaraderie that purchasers of other engines have a hard time understanding.
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