Magazine

Ultimate experimenter Paul Lipps has used his own homebuilt, a Lancair 320, as a test bed for his many innovations, which include reflexed flaps, an ultra-long pitot tube for more accurate readings, a solar-powered fan for the cockpit, a cowl scoop for ultra cooling of the magneto, extremely close clearances between the spinner and the prop, and a one-of-a-kind propeller.

In this series installment, author Bob Fritz takes you through the basics of building a carbon fiber tank, including measuring, layout, patterns, cutting, epoxy-flox application, sanding, sawing, epoxying and finish work.

Whether portable handheld or panel-mounted, GPSes are the wave of the future in avionics, and these units can store and display a remarkable amount of detailed information. With nifty docks, handhelds can perform much like the panel-mounts in the cockpit, yet be removed for use in other vehicles.

This brand new power management system harnesses CPU power to eliminate the need for much of an aircrafts wiring by consolidating major electrical functions into a single box. It comprises three units: a display, controller module/panel housing and mag controller. Bundled into the setup are radios, instruments (including GPS, EFIS and engine monitoring) and lights. Each flight phase is broken down into the tasks normally performed manually by the pilot, and the VP-200 addresses them more or less automatically, while also providing override capability in the event of a system failure.

Extreme Simple Green - Aircraft is a new product designed to clean your aircraft safely without damaging finishes. Its effective in removing oil and other dirt from the exterior surfaces as well as the interior, and is used by Boeing on its family of airplanes. Its available at specialty stores and aviation supply houses.

Builders share their successes.

Paying attention to the working environment and maintaining machining tools in tip-top shape can yield a more polished finished product, while also making the fabrication process easier.

Exhaust systems do more than just get air into and out of aircraft engines. Exhaust system design, in terms of exhaust pipe length, diameter and tuning, affect the efficiency and performance of the engine, for better or worse.

In Part 3 of this series about building an aircraft strobe, the author beefs up the project using off-the-shelf parts to provide a brighter, more frequent flash without running down the planes electrical system.

The author discusses the theory and effect of constant-speed propellers on piston-engine airplane performance, and compares fixed-pitch versus constant-speed props, effect on thrust HP and propulsion, the comprises involved in choosing a prop, how props perform in various conditions and phases of flight, how variable-pitch props work, and why a constant-speed prop is the best choice for high-performance aircraft.