By Dennis Fox, EAA 1030810, EAA Chapter 1410
EAA Chapter 1410 in High River, Alberta, has been a hotbed of homebuilding for many years, and it continues today. Every chapter has some key people that keep the membership motivated, and one of ours is Jack Dueck. Many people know Jack from his many years as a contributor to EAA as a director, technical counselor, SportAir Workshops instructor and Hints for Homebuilders contributor, and author of various articles published in EAA Sport Aviation magazine,
In recent years, Jack has mentored a small group of Chapter 1410 members to take on build projects as a group. The group usually meets at Jack’s shop on Wednesdays and Saturdays where he organizes the daily tasks and workflow and keeps the group stocked with working material, hardware, and tools. To date, the group has completed the build of a Zenith 601, RV-7A, and a Mosquito helicopter that is almost ready to fly, it just needs rotor blades (and a pilot).
The current project is an Osprey amphibian that was donated to the group after the second builder passed away. The Osprey is a two-seat, wood, fabric, and fiberglass scratchbuild project. It came to the group complete with O-320 engine, and the wood construction showed excellent workmanship. Most of the airframe components were structurally complete but still required substantial final finish work.
The hull came with an empty cabin, everything had to be fabricated and installed. That included seats, flight controls, pulleys and cables, rudder/brake pedal assembly with nose wheel steering links, instrument cluster, and engine control console. Then the complete electrical system had to be planned and installed.
While the cabin was being completed, work was being done on the retractable gear. It was worked on, and worked on, and then worked on some more. There are a lot of levers and links to make both the main wheels and the nose wheel retract and extend at the same time. The whole system is operated by a Johnson bar. It all seems to work now; however, there are some skeptics in the group that think it could still be problematic. We decided that before the wings go on, we will taxi around the yard to test the main gear down-locks. Jack welded up a set of auxiliary “trainer wheels” so that if the gear collapsed, it would only fall a few inches onto the auxiliary wheels and prevent serious hull damage. Soon to be tested.
The engine install had its own challenges, The main one being that the engine cowling didn’t really want to fit (it was probably for an O-235). While it had the correct general shape, it was just too small in most dimensions. However, with lots of resin, glass, Bondo, and perseverance, and more perseverance, and then some more, it finally agreed to make friends with the engine.
The last part of the power system was the prop (actually, the missing prop). A new prop was considered outside of the budget. A search for options revealed a wooden “Osprey” prop near us but not for sale. It was, however, not yet installed and was available to us on loan. The wheels started turning in Jack’s head, and it wasn’t long until he was on the internet searching “how to carve a propeller.” He downloaded some plans on how to make a prop duplicator and proceeded to build the unit. A few practice props later and he declared that he was ready to start on the real one (with the expensive wood). The final result was a direct copy of the one that was loaned to us. It was drilled, coated, and balanced, ready to mount at a very reasonable price (as long as Jack doesn’t charge by the hour).
Wings, ailerons, elevator, vertical, and horizontal stabs were all worked on as their time came up in the schedule. Recently the hull, canopy, cabin top, empennage, and engine cowling were painted the primary base color and are now ready for some trim paint. What a difference it makes to see everything in the same color. It is giving us all a boost of enthusiasm for the final push to completion.
Taxi tests were completed twice in October, and we declared both successful. We’ve completed the build as far as we can go until the wings go on. The wings will be covered with fabric and painted. After that it will be time for inspection and paperwork, and with any luck, the bird will be ready to spread its wings by spring, and we can start the flight testing.
Soon it will be time to start thinking of the next project; will it be the Thatcher or the Mini-coupe? Stay tuned.