(Dec 2002) Some great progress on the Fairchild project this month. As you can see from the pictures below the empennage and the wings have been put back on the aircraft. New tires are on order along with some other material to complete the assembly. A new door for the access panel in the right side of the fuselage is being fabricated in our metal shop. Wheel pants will be put back on once the new tires are mounted. As you can see the photos were not taken on a picture perfect day but we were too excited about the progress to wait! 

(Feb 2003) A new, fixed pitch, propeller for the Fairchild was picked up this month at the Sensenich Wood Propeller Company. Beautiful work! It is an 86" propeller with a 61" pitch. The new tires and access panel are on and other miscellaneous detail items have been completed. After putting all of the fairings on, our staff has come to the conclusion that the Fairchild 24 has fairings on its fairings. Completion of the trim painting is a major next step. The project has been temporarily set aside as we are repairing, recovering, and repainting a blimp gondola and control elements for a customer. Part of March will be taken up preparing for the annual visit by SAS to Sun 'n Fun. The Fairchild project will probably not make it to Sun 'n Fun this year.

(July 2003) A burst of progress! Here are some of the latest photos.

The photo above and left is from the June 03 fly-in. You can see wheel pants, the new propeller, the antennas on the chin, an unpainted skullcap, and the cover on the battery access. If you click on the image you will get an 800x600 pixel version. In the photo on the right, Richard Long, one of the owners of the airplane is giving it a test fit. All of the internal door hardware (handles, cranks, etc.) have been installed.

Above, left is a view of the instrument panel from the open passenger door. Click on the left hand image and you will get an 800x600 pixel version. Above right is how it looks when you are sitting in the pilot's seat.

Most of the fairings are now in place. Mostly what remains is to run the engine for a final check and to complete painting the trim.

(Sept 17, 2003) This was an exciting day for yours truly, the SAS webmaster. The Fairchild had been run on Monday but it was shut down just minutes before I arrived at the field after lunch. Several attempts were made to restart it then without any luck so it got put away to cool off. On Wednesday morning I stopped by for a few minutes and found out that another attempt was going to be made to run the Fairchild. Of course, I volunteered to help move it out of the hangar for the attempt. After we got it out I was told to get in and crank it up! :-) We had no luck until Richard Long came along to help. He climbed in next to me. First he noted that in the excitement I had not turned a fuel tank on. Then he told me to pump the throttle once I started cranking. Not just once but multiple times. It worked! It also probably explains why it would not start a second time two days previous. There were different people at the controls. After the first start, I lost it right away as I pulled back too much on the throttle. The engine throttle travel has not yet been set up so it is easy to reduce the RPM below idle and then it just dies. No recovery is possible. A restart was more successful with more attention being paid to keeping the RPMs up. To exercise the engine, I was told to taxi the aircraft up and back along the length of the runway on the taxi way. Well, you didn't have to ask me twice! This constituted the first taxi tests we have conducted with the aircraft under its own power and it was great! The checklist we are working on has to be updated in regards to the starting procedure and pulling the propeller through prior to starting. The propeller needs to be pulled through to ensure that no oil has pooled in the bottom of the cylinders. The carburetor still needs to be set up for proper idle and the throttle travel has to be limited so you cannot pull the throttle back below idle. One cylinder is running significantly cooler than the other five and we want to understand that. The brakes work great and it turns on a dime with one wheel brake on and just a little power. It seemed obvious that we could have put the throttle to the firewall and we would have taken off! We want to get more time on the engine before we try anything like flying or even completing the various adjustments. It was already obvious that the engine ran better today than it had two days previous.

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Last updated on July 24, 2004