By Martin J. Merritt, EAA 331791
This piece originally ran in the July 2023 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
As my 50-plus year affair with aviation was entering its home stretch, there was one box I still wanted to check off. It’s been a great run so far in certified ships flying all over North America, once to Europe for fun, and later as a retirement job, but my last aircraft was going to be one I built myself.
I was looking for something different than what I had been flying — but not too different — it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. A two-seat rag-and-tube taildragger would fit the bill nicely. After considering each of the kits on the market, my wife and I flew our Malibu from Calgary, Alberta, to Hays, Kansas, to test fly the RANS S-20. We loved it and in August 2018 ordered the kit.
Our kit showed up in January 2019, a couple of months later than advertised but still much faster than would become normal once the pandemic arrived. I am retired and have a well-equipped hangar 15 minutes from home to work in so building became a full-time labour of love. C-GMDK flew for the first time on March 13, 2021, after 26 months of construction and about 2,000 hours of effort.
RANS suggests a build time of 750 hours. I don’t think that is realistic, but 2,000, really? This would likely be my last airplane and the only one I would ever build. We wanted to continue to fly cross-country, going VFR for the first time in more than 30 years. We wanted to slow down and go down, but not give up the modern conveniences or creature comforts we had come to enjoy and rely on.
Our S-20 was built as an experimental with a 1,500-pound gross weight. It has a Garmin G3X primary display, an iPad on the co-pilot side, three-axis autopilot, XM radio, four-point seat belts with inertia reels, and Aerocet gear warning system for later addition of amphib floats (now under construction). All but one antenna are buried under the fabric to retain a clean look. Vortex generators added to the wing and underside of the horizontal stab reduced stall speed by 5 knots and added improved low speed feel.
The panel I wanted to fly behind was not one I thought I was capable of building. Happily there’s a fix for that. SteinAir in Minnesota supplied all of the components and built the panel to a spec it helped us design. SteinAir’s before and after sales support has been excellent. Even so there remains a fair bit of work to install it all, power it, and connect antennas, servos, and sensors — all of which was new to me. Thank goodness for my friend Mike Ward, a retired A&P mechanic.
The paint and fabric is from Stewart Systems. All waterborne products, no smells, easy clean up, great look, and excellent vendor support. The scheme and colours I came up with myself, but I was heavily influenced by the stripy schemes of other high-wing taildraggers. I built a temporary spray booth in my hangar to apply it. The interior panels are cut from a grey quilted product by Skandia (gives the S-20 a C-130 look, I know!) and has both thermal and acoustic benefits. After our first long trip we knew the stock seats had to go. They’re light but not very comfortable. Aftermarket seats by Rocky Mountain Kitplanes fit over the stock RANS seat frames. They are of modern automotive quality and wonderfully comfortable even after two legs of three-plus hours in a day.
Forward of the firewall we departed from the kit design installing a turbocharged Rotax 914 UL and an Airmaster constant-speed prop. This required a substantial rework of the cowl to manage the extra heat. After a few tweaks and the addition of thermostats to both the oil and coolant systems, we are able to climb at max continuous power on a hot summer day keeping everything in the green. We cruise at about 100 knots down low, increasing to about 110 knots at 10,500 feet.
Finally, thanks to my friend and fellow S-20 builder John Spratt who provided indispensable help, advice, and inspiration along the way.
Our little S-20 now has more than 300 hours on it, and has travelled from Calgary to southern Arizona and to the east coast of Canada. Made the pilgrimage to AirVenture, visited Death Valley, California, at -210 feet MSL, and cruised as high as 11,500 feet crossing the Grand Canyon. Landed on Canada’s longest runway at 14,000 feet on dry lake beds and on grass strips of 900 feet. Creature comforts and features plus the turbo engine and constant-speed prop added about 100 pounds but has resulted in a ship that is doing everything we wanted.