Vernon Asper's Defiant Project
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The Defiant is a home made, 4-place,
twin engine, canard-style, airplane built entirely out of fiberglass and
foam. The "kit", as we call it, comes in a mailing tube, because the only
thing you can buy for it is the plans. Everything else has to be built
from scratch. My set of plans arrived in July of 1985, just a few days
before my first daughter Alicia. Here they are together:
As Alicia grew, so did the airplane. Here is a picture of her at age
3 months, "teething" on what will some day be a throttle lever.
At that time, I was in graduate school in Massachusetts, had very little
money, and was living in a small cottage with no garage and a basement
with bare earth floors and walls; not good workshop material. I was forced
to set up "shop" in the attic which was almost tall enough to stand up
in. Here is a shot of me in my "shop" over ten years ago.
In spite of the conditions and limited tools, I was able to turn out
all of the little bits and pieces of hardware which go into the making
of a glass plane, including (from left to right) the brake pedals, canopy
latches (above), control sticks, rudder linkage, bellcrank bearing supports
and miscellaneous attache points and hinge parts.
After graduation, we moved to Mississippi where I landed a job on the
research faculty of the University of Southern Mississippi (A GREAT School!!).
The University was renting a lovely hangar as a warehouse, but was only
using about a third of it, so I was able to move my project in there. Imagine
going from an attic loft where I couldn't even stand up to a 3,000 sq.ft.
hangar with all the tools you can imagine! Needless to say, that really
moved the project along! Here is a photo from the summer of 86 showing
the various bulkheads and center section spar set up to "simulate" an airplane
cockpit. That's Lindell (my wife) sitting in the left seat and Alicia peeking
over the seat back on the right. Lindell is the best wife a pilot/homebuilder
could dream of! She has her pilot's license too and is as anxious as I
am to see the Defiant fly, so she is VERY supportive of the project.
Here's a closeup of Alicia getting some "stick time."
After building the fuselage bulkheads, we moved on to the canard (forward
wing) and main wings. These are built by cutting suitable shapes out of
solid styrofoam, cutting them in half to insert a shear web and spar, gluing
them back together and then glassing the outside surface. I don't have
any photos of us (Lindell and I; didn't I tell you she was great?) cutting
the cores because we only did it when we were alone and there were no distractions.
Only once did I tell her to cut the bottom side of the template (it's done
in two passes starting at the leading edge each time; once for the bottom
and again for the top surface) and she messed up and cut the top. Fortunately
I "messed up" too and we both cut the top, so we didn't ruin the part.
Here are photos of the canard aft and forward halves and then the whole
(24' long!) thing, balanced on my knee after final glassing. Yes, that's
Alicia sitting on it, just for scale.
next we moved on to the wings, which were made the same way as the
canard, but at about this same time, I moved the project out of the big
hangar and into the two-car garage of the house we had just bought. (Note
that when we shopped, we looked for a "nice garage with a suitable house
attached; gotta have those priorities straight). This photo was taken of
Alicia and I standing in our new yard with the right wing leaning against
my leg. Looks kinda rough here, but it'll be smooth once I do the finish
work.
Now that the wings and canard were finished, it was time to build the
actual fuselage around all those bulkheads I had built the previous year.
To do this, I turned a long workbench upside down on the floor and attached
the bulkheads (also upside down) onto it at the proper height and spacing.
Like most of the alignments, this was all done using a builder's transit
and careful measurements to make sure it was all true. Once the bulkheads
were arranged, it was a "simple" matter of sheathing the whole thing in
foam and glassing it. Of course Alicia loves to climb on anything. She's
about 2 1/2 here. Notice the wings hanging on the wall, covered with old
sheets; gotta conserve on space when you're sharing small "shop" with the
family car.
Once the outside skin of the fuselage was complete, we flipped the
fuselage "tub" over and were able to sit inside and make airplane noises;
just like flying! Note the smiles and the addition of Jennifer, who arrived
1.5 years after Alicia and at about the same time we started on the wings.
Now we were ready to build the fuel "strakes". These are actually the
wing-shaped sections which are just forward of the main wing, but are actually
part of the fuselage. The plans called for scratch-building these, but
the results of this approach are generally kind of lumpy unless you use
tons of filler. To avoid this, I made molds from some existing pieces and
used these molds to make my parts. While I was at it, I made two extra
sets to use for bartering, and ended up with a set of landing gear and
some other nice parts. Yes, that means I had to make twelve (12) of this
monstrous (9' long) vacuum-bagged pieces. To get the epoxy to flow out,
we insulated the garage and heated the whole thing to 110 degrees F during
the cure. Note the vacuum pump and the thermometer. We (yes, Lindell was
critical to this operation as usual; I told you, she's great!) were really
glad when they were finished.
That year (1987) we decided ton incorporate the family project into
the family Christmas card, so we carted everything out into the front yard
and placed it all in reasonable locations. Those are "winglets" attached
by c-clamps to the ends of the wings, and those are elevators laying in
the grass below the canard. Alicia and Jennifer are peeking over the top
of the instrument panel. You know, it felt at that point as if we were
making progress....
The next step was to build the turtledeck (the canopy and rear fuselage
cover). This involved setting the plexiglass bubble in place so that it
would clear my head, stretching some straight 1x2's from there to the rear
firewall, and covering the whole thing with foam and then glass. Here I'm
glassing the top of the turtledeck.
Next, we installed the fuel strakes which we had built earlier. Here
are Alicia and Jennifer sitting in the right tank. Good thing they aren't
overly sensitive to fiberglass dust...
After the fuel tanks were finished, we sponsored "flip the bird" party
at our house. I served hamburgers and shish-kabobs and all the guests were
"permitted" the honor of helping to flip the fuselage over so that I could
smooth off the bottom. Jennifer (age 3 by now) loves to climb...
Of course, every now and then, we have to drag all the pieces out in
the front yard, assemble them and take some pictures. This was the first
time we had actually mounted the wings and we were relieved (surprised?)
that all the holes lined up and they bolted right on. The triangular object
hanging down from the "chin" of the plane (between Jennifer and Alicia)
is the "rhino rudder" which is pretty ugly, but also very effective because
it's forward of the center of drag and right in the prop blast.
Now we can install the engines and start hooking up the plumbing and
controls. For reasons which seemed good at the time, I decided to use automobile
engines. The specific model I chose has been used by many other builders
and comes from Ford LTD's or similar cars. This engine, like most car engines,
doesn't develop much power until it is running at about 4,000 RPM. This
is too fast for a propellor (it would tear it up), so you have to use a
reduction unit to slow things down and turn the propellor at about 2,700
RPM while the engine is running at 4,000 RPM. You can see the reduction
drive in the photo; it's the blue thing all the way at the front. To install
the engine onto the airframe, I arranged the engine where the plans say
the thrust line should be and just fit some tubing from there to the firewall
and weld it all together.
Here's a closeup of the engine showing the reduction drive on the front
and the radiators mounted behind the engine. Well, where would you put
them? It's kind of crowded and there just isn't any room up front where
you'd expect to find one. Sure was exciting (and loud!) the first time
I fired it up.
Part of the reason it is loud is because the headers I built (no, I
couldn't buy them "off the shelf" because I couldn't find a supplier) have
no mufflers attached. Here they are after coating with Jet-Hot
coating.
To build a cowling, first cover the engine in plastic, then pack it
all up with foam and then carve away anything that doesn't look like a
cowling. The humongous spinner (which I also built from scratch) is intended
to get the air flowing around the cowling smoothly and into the rear intakes.
Once the foam was shaped and smoothed out using drywall compound, I
painted it, coated it with mold release and then covered it with several
layers of fiberglass. When that cures, it's smooth on the inside, rough
on the outside and strong enough to sit on as Alicia and Jennifer demonstrate.
The final product shows the NACA scoop intakes, the air cleaner holder
on top, and the considerable clutter which typifies my garage. It's a small
space; what do you expect?
This process is repeated for the rear engine, making me wonder if a
single-engine plane might have been more practical. Part of the reduction
drive has been removed here, just to make it fit in the garage with enough
room to walk around. Note here the large, aluminum radiator (covered with
cardboard to protect it), and the new set of home-made headers.
You can't see it on the last picture, but the carburetor sticks up
higher than the turtledeck, making for a challenging cowling installation.
I "hid" the carb by building a neat racing scoop on the top of the cowling
as you can see here. This covers not only the carb, but also the air cleaner
and some ducting with some room left over. On the bottom, there is a really
big scoop which will bring air in to the radiator (I hope). Everything
looks kind of patchy at this point because of the filler I use to smooth
out the fiberglass weave.
Throughout the project, I've been pecking away at the interior too.
Here you can see the instruments (all electric because I have no vacuum
system), the little stick on the left which you use to steer the plane,
the engine computers (on the upper right) and a portion of the incredible
amount of wiring required for this project.
Now, 10+ years after starting the project you can see that both the
girls (photo from the summer of 1995) and the plane are growing up. When
I started the project people asked how long it would take and I told them
"five years" and I still stick with that answer; I think I'll finish it
in yet another five years, so I'm still on schedule, right?
(Last updated 7/31/97, but still out of date, sigh.....)