Al Dugas is retiring to North Conway, New Hampshire,
to build his Falco. Al tried retiring once before but went stir-crazy
"sitting around the pool". Al has just finished building
a shop for the Falco. He did all of the work himself, pre-cutting
all of the wood at home in Salem, Massachucetts, and then trucking
the pieces up to New Hampshire. The entire shop is held together
with screws, so the construction site has been exceptionally
quiet -- no sawing or nailing. Al has painted all of the plywood
for the walls and ceiling before putting them up. One day while
Al was down on the floor painting a piece of plywood, a neighbor
stopped by and asked "What're you doing?" "Painting
the ceiling" says Al. Then, a long silence. |
| It's a girl.
Congratulations to Jim and Anita DeAngelo for Jamie Marie DeAngelo,
a lovely 6 lb. 7-1/2 oz. young lady who was born on May 6 at
the civilized hour of 1:46 PM. Mother and daughter are doing
fine. The father is recovering as well as can be expected. |
The annual Wright Memorial Trophy is awarded each
year to the ten most significant homebuilt aircraft at the Dayton
Air Fair. One hundred and fifty randomly-selected EAA chapters
vote on the airplane types. This year the Falco came in third
in the voting. Karl Hansen will attend and accept his trophy.
The show is on July 24, as always the weekend before Oshkosh.
Eight out of the ten chosen are made of steel tubing, wood or
aluminum, and only one was a Tupperware Sternwheeler. |
| A California
company has announced the Falco 500. "The spectacular productivity
machine. You're looking at a model that's about to reshape your
image of a computer terminal. Sure, it's got eye-catching looks.
But more than that, it combines some of the most dazzling specs
you've ever seen." Wonder where they got the name? Even
the type face used in the ads is similar to what we use. Falco
Data Products, 1294 Hammerwood Avenue, Sunnyvale, California
94089, (408) 745-7123 or (800) 835-8765. "The Falco 500.
We think you're going to admire its body. But we know you're
going to fall in love with its mind." |
Stelio Frati's F.1300 Squalus made its debut at
the Farnborough air show and is expected to make its first flight
in October. The August 25 issue of Aviation Week & Space
Technology confirms that Rockwell International signed a
memorandum of under-standing in April to be a partner in the
proposed sale of the aircraft to the USAF. The Fairchild T-46A
trainer has been cancelled as the replacement for the T-37. The
main goal of the design is to provide jet performance at low
cost. The Squalus will have a normal operating speed of 300 kts
and a maximum speed of 315 kts. Stall speed is 67 kts. The price
of the aircraft is about $1.6 million each and direct operating
costs of about $170 per hour. The USAF version would have an
improved tactical navigation system, better ventilation, a service
ceiling of 40,000 feet instead of 25,000 ft and an ejector seat.
The USAF version would sell for about $2 million. |
| COME ONE! COME
ALL! to the Great Oyster Fly-In and Gathering of Stelio Frati
Aircraft at the Rosegill Farm Airstrip on November 1. The Oyster
Festival parade begins at 12:00 noon, so plan to arrive by 11:00
or so. This year's airshow will include even more daring and
unique oyster-related acrobatic maneuvers: Bill Mahaffey will
EAT 16 RAW OYSTERS while doing a ROLLING THREE-SIXTY in his Staggerwing
Beech, José V. Martin will DO THE UNSPEAKABLE to a poor
wing-walking oyster in his German Bücker Jungmann biplane,
and Parke Smith's ever-popular INVERTED OYSTER BITE in his French
CAP-10 aircraft. For refreshments, Sara Scott, Katherine Scott
and Brook Wilkinson will serve their famous Oyster Lemonade.
Accommodations: freshly-cut grass awaits your tents and sleeping
bags. In case of rain, tentless campers should be prepared to
supplicate and grovel before Meredith Scott. For the evening
entertainment, we will have the Oysterettes, the famous troupe
of belly-dancing oysters. |
His Falco isn't finished yet, so Paul Miles brought
his F-14 to Oshkosh instead. As part of the Navy's three-plane
team, Paul and his friends put on quite a show. Paul flew in
the "missing man" formation with the WWII Grumman fighters
and reports that it was a thrill of a lifetime. Trivia: with
a takeoff weight of 56,000 lbs, the F-14 is the equivalent of
thirty Falcos. |
| "Canard canard"
from the August 1986 issue of Aerospace America cites
the case of several studies which sought to prove the superiority
of the canard. In one such study, the "computer-based analysis
program kept telling them to increase the size of the canard
and reduce the wing area. When they were through, the optimum
design featured a canard that was roughly five times the size
of the wing." The article concludes that the "supposed
advantages of this nose-mounted airfoil have proven largely illusory
for light aircraft." |
One of the first responses to our "Go from
Kits to Falco in 13 months" ad in Flying came from
an inmate at Leavenworth prison, who -- we assume -- has more
that 13 months available. |
| Calling fuel outage
accidents a "general aviation disgrace," the October
issue of Aviation Safety reported that of 169 fuel exhaustion
accidents in 1982, 50.4% crashed within one mile of the destination.
Others statistics: 16.5%-2 to 5 miles, and 9.0%-6 to 10 miles,
8.3 %-11 to 20 miles, 7.5%-21 to 50 miles, 4.5-51 to 100 miles,
and 3.8% over 101 miles. |
 
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