Sept 20, 2010: Growing Old Gracefully

[xoxoxoBruce]

A friend emailed me some snapshots of Jim O'Hara, his wife Mitzi, and their plane. I Googled them to find the the real story, as emails tend to be misleading if not down right bullshit. Guess what, it's twue, it's twue.
From the email;

Jim O’Hara is a member of EAA chapter 493 in San Angelo. He is a retired college professor (I believe in Aeronautical Engineering) who learned to fly when he was about 60 years old. He's now 81 years old. 15 years ago, he began construction of a 2/3 scale P-38. Using information he obtained from various sources about the P-38, he drew up a set of plans using a computer aided design program. Jim and his wife Mitzi built the entire aircraft by themselves. I've been fortunate enough to know Jim for almost the entire 15 years that he's been working on his "project." He first flew his plane in July of last year, and has just completed flying off the time (I believe it was 50 hours). He designed the plane to have a small jump seat behind the pilot for his wife. She's tiny, and it's a good thing; the jump seat doesn't have much room.

Bet he isn't sitting on the porch of the control tower snarling, get off my runway ya whippersnappers!
That's what I call growing old gracefully.

Link

[gvidas]

What does "flying off the time" refer to? How long it took to make vs. how long he's spent flying it?

[SPUCK]

Originally Posted by gvidas

What does "flying off the time" refer to? How long it took to make vs. how long he's spent flying it?

No, I believe you have to fly an "experimental" plane for 50 hours before you can use it like any other private plane. For those first 50 hrs you are only allowed to fly it within a certain distance of its home port and you can't take it into certain commercial airports, carry a passenger, etc., etc.


That's a really nice scale model. I wonder if it's safer to fly than the original.



Twin engine planes have one engine that is a "critical" engine, in that if it's the only one running the plane is very treacherous to fly. Something like the rotational direction of the air leaving the propeller hitting certain flight surfaces. This makes the controls behave poorly. It allows one to make a small mistake and find themselves in a flat spin or some other often fatal configuration. The original P38 was designed so BOTH engines were critical. If either one quits the other is nasty to continue with.

Hence, I wonder if that aspect was designed out on this one.

I also wonder what the engines are.

According to a story in the San Angelo Standard-Times, his engine selection was described as particularly tricky. “He tried pre-war inverted inline engines, but parts were scarce. He settled on horizontally opposed engines (220 hp Continental 360s) from a scrapped Seneca that landed with its wheels up.”

[monster]

This story reminds me of Nirvana's BIL

Cool plane/project, though.

[footfootfoot]

The P-38 is the most coolest plane ever.
Now he needs that Korean dentist to make him some scale machine guns.

[BrianR]

Spuck, I have to take exception to what you said about the P-38's single engine characteristics.

It was a nice airplane even on one engine, you just had to know how to handle it. see here.

[xoxoxoBruce]

* Flakitis - A serious and sometime fatal disease commonly found in engines returning from enemy lines. Loss of manifold and oil pressures, followed by spasmodic coughing,wheezing, are general symptoms.

[footfootfoot]

I seem to remember that the props turned in opposite directions to balance the torque, not sure what the has to do the this conversation other than you are not allowed to say anything negative about the most coolest plane ever

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, counter rotating props but the engines were the same. The GM Allisons just had to change the firing order to run the opposite way.
Oh, and it won the Pacific war, so it's got that going for it.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

... you are not allowed to say anything negative about the most coolest plane ever

word

[spudcon]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yes, counter rotating props but the engines were the same. The GM Allisons just had to change the firing order to run the opposite way.
Oh, and it won the Pacific war, so it's got that going for it.

I thought the Enola Gay won that.

[xoxoxoBruce]

How do to think the Enola Gay, or any of those Superfortresses, got any further than Midway?

[spudcon]

Subway?

[Pete Zicato]

No way!

[Happy Monkey]

Is there a sundial around here?