Original Posted By: Jack
Andy,Asking questions is good, it is how you learn. But do stop and think, today youare objecting to a $1050 5th bearing on a Corvair, which will be in operationevery single revolution of the crank, but yesterdays question was on multi thousanddollar BRS that hopefully will never be used. Keep working toward a morebalanced perspective......------------------------------------------------I spoke with Andrew Pietenpol, BHP's Grandson on the phone for an hour last night. Subject: BHP lived in very hard times, in an area that was known for hard times. Neither he, nor his neighbors was ever prosperus by any national standard, Yet the man had the will to build and fly his creations. Andrew stated that his grandfather was a very, very tough guy who worked so hard he had a heart attack in his 40's. Few of us could fathom the chain of working days in the man's life. Maybe a guy making minimum wage has a much better chance of seeing the world through BHP's eyes. Read my take on Sterling Hayden's famous quote on being able to afford adventure here:
http://flycorvair.net/2012/02/03/sterli ... ----Andrew Shared that in 1946-50 it cost about $1,000 to build a Piet. By my guess,that was an astronomical amount of money in post war rural Minnesota, and earning$32K/year now makes one comparatively very wealthy today.-------------------------------------------------------------Here is my perspective: Aviation costs money. About the least expensive plane Ican picture has an all up cost of $10,000. Lets say that you take 8 years tobuild it, thats $1,250/year or $3 and 42 cents a day. If you smoke or drink coffee,you spend a lot more than this. Dont like to hear about 8 years? Want tochange that? Here is the easy way: Do nothing this year, and next year it willbe nine years. $20 a day for 3 years is $21,900. For that kind of money youcan have many airplanes. Being wealthy isnt the key, getting started is.-------------------------------------------------------------------Most people who quit, do so because they lost interest or motivation. Very fewpeople actually quit because they ran out of money. It this was the case, theprojects for sale would all have every bit of the detailed labor done, but younever see them for sale that way. Thus it is foolish to look for ways to savemoney, but spend little time figuring out how to stay motivated. Figuring outwhat "recharges the motivation battery" is much more important than looking fordeals For some of us it is hanging out with a guy wearing a sock money hatstanding bare chested in the prop blast at 35 degrees.-----------------------------------------------------------------When I flew my Piet to Brodhead in 2000, I worked as a GA A&P self employed mechanicand made about $12K in a bad year, $15K in a good one. To save money then,I did things like drive a 1986 Chevy truck. Today, 15 years later, I stilldrive a 1986 Chevy truck. 180 car payments I never made since then has paid fora giant amount of building and flying. --------------------------------------------------------P F Beck's Piet pictured here:
http://flycorvair.net/2013/01/11/pieten ... red-piets/ was built for $6,800 including the electric start Corvair. With a 5th bearing, this is still less than $8K. It has flown more than 250 passengers. It has been the door to Pietenpols for many people, and an inspirational example for cloning:
http://flycorvair.net/2013/01/17/nwe-pi ... --------If your piet has brakes, paint that cost more than $20/gallon, a radio, any kind of an interior, but it does not have a 5th bearing, then IMHO, you are making a value-judgment error. That is just my opinion, but it is based on a lot of observation. Read:
http://flycorvair.net/2013/04/20/risk-m ... ------This story was the #2 most read story on our main site in 2014:
http://flycorvair.net/2012/11/17/steel- ... accidents/ Read it and develop some values about where to put your money in your project. (The story is not against any method of construction, it is about how the right answer is situational and personal).------------------------------------------------------The comments that most people who are not yet flying a Corvair powered plane make about Piet's not needing 5th bearings are either not valid, or situationally not true, taken out of context. The only Piet motor we have built in 8 years without a 5th bearing is the one for "the last original" Bill Knight decided that it was vitally important that the engine stay externally as a BHP installation. (inside it is all modern stuff) We had a very specially inspected, nitride, low mileage crank prepped for the engine by Moldex Cranks in Detroit. The one that comes in most cores, is not nearly in this good condition. No local crank grinder and prep and NDT a crank like Moldex Read:
http://flycorvair.net/2013/01/16/gettin ... s-options/ To come to some conclusion like 'it worked for 45 years, it will work for me today' and then taking the crank to a local machine shop that destroys the radius in the fillets, ignores the critical fact that almost none of the cranks in the early planes were reground. They were original. Regrinding works just like new, but only when it is done by people who make it just like new. If you don't have that, you don't have what the early guys had, and you will not have the same results.----------------------------------------------------------VERY IMPORTANT: Isaac Newton didn't invent gravity. He didn't make anything. All he did was observe what was going on, and find a way of speaking articulately of it that allowed people a much better perspective on how things work. Connection: Builders occasionally talk about 'the ww philosophy" as is I invented something that didn't exist before. That isn't factual. In reality, I am just doing a tiny version of what Newton did, which is observe what is happening for a long time, see it though many sets of eyes, and then discuss it in an articulate way that allows builders to form a sharper personal perspective. That is where both this:
http://flycorvair.net/2015/01/12/though ... ollection/ and this page
http://flycorvair.net/2014/01/21/risk-m ... ence-page/ come from. -ww.Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.p ... ___Subject: Re: Pietenpol-List: Re: Frustrating day of study
