William Wynne

"The Corvair Authority"
5000-18 HWY 17 #247
Orange Park, FL 32003

May 25, 2011
Corvair College #20-June 3, 4, 5
New Corvair Flyers
Corvairs To Oshkosh

Corvair College #20

Corvair College #20 is coming up at Hillsdale Municipal Airport (KJYM) in Michigan June 3rd, 4th and 5th. The host of this event is Roy Szarafinski. Below is the registration link to Corvair College #20. It will only be held open till midnight Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday. After that you will have to wait a full year for another Corvair College in the central U.S. Roy has a tremendous event planned and we are looking forward to having a great time. Remember that to attend you have to register, and this is absolute last call:

https://cc20.wufoo.com/forms/corvair-college-20-registration/

New Corvair Flyers

Jim and Rhonda Weseman’s Fisher Celebrity

Jim and Rhonda Weseman are the some of the most thorough builders you can imagine. Anyone who owns one of our Zenith Cowling Kits or Baffle Kits will attest to their craftsmanship.

In person, their plane exhibits magnificent quality. But this just scratches the surface of their planning for their first flight: Their work on this front goes all the way back to 1975! It was that year that they developed what has become their best known product in aviation: their son Dan. When it came to the first flight, mom and dad turned the keys over to Dan, who covered the flight without even breaking a sweat. In the picture below you can see Dan at the controls of the biplane.

The Corvair in this airplane is a 3,100 cc engine which of course features the fifth bearing developed by Jim and Dan. With a very close look you can see that the engine is actually a reverse rotation motor, built this way because Jim's a real traditionalist, but he does like to have a number of details on his plane that set it apart from more mainstream Corvair builds.

Above is a view of the Celebrity coming in on final approach off the end of their runway in Florida. As evidenced in the photo, it was a perfect day for test flights.

More information is available on their JSWeseman.com Web site.

Dave Gardea’s Zenith 650

Above is a good photo of Dave Gardea's Corvair powered Zenith 650. Dave is a veteran of Corvair College #17, and his engine is a 2,700 cc powerplant that features a Weseman bearing and a Warp Drive propeller. His installation utilizes all of our components specifically manufactured for Zeniths. His plane is the 45th Zenith to fly on Corvair power.

Above is a photo of Dave sitting in the cockpit after the flight. This is a good photo illustrating the superior turnover structure of the 650 model. There is a very popular film of Dave's first flight on YouTube at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5faPk9pdivM

Oshkosh 2011

The end of July will see us headed back to the Pietenpol Gathering at Brodhead and on to Oshkosh. Brodhead is the weekend before Oshkosh, and is a small noncommercial event in rural Wisconsin. At the event in 2010, we took the opportunity to perform a weight and balance on 13 different Pietenpols there. This data was used by myself and Ryan Mueller to write a series of articles that appeared over the past year in the Brodhead Pietenpol newsletter, available at the www.Pietenpols.org Web site. We're going to continue the collaboration measuring performance numbers this year. We look forward to seeing a number of old friends at the event. Doc Mosher called to say that I will be speaking on Saturday afternoon. I have made it to 14 of the past 15 years at Brodhead. It is my favorite weekend on the aviation calendar.

At Oshkosh, we will have a regular commercial booth adjacent to Zenith on the main row in the North Aircraft Display area which features all the homebuilt aircraft. For the past few years, we have had our own booth to meet Corvair builders and flyers from all over the world. As usual I am assisted by the other Corvair All-Stars, Mark Petniunas from FalconMachine.net, brother Roy from RoysGarage.com, and Dan Weseman, from Fly5th Bearing.com. The four of us are the long allied industry leaders in the Corvair movement, and we stand ready to assist anyone interested in learning about, building and flying a Corvair. As usual, I will be giving the Oshkosh forums on Corvair power. We have not yet received the schedule but we will publish it on this site when we do. Oshkosh remains a great week to meet old friends and make new ones, cover any question on the Corvair, get a chance to meet some of the other people who are already flying them, and make a plan to take your place in light aviation.

Zeniths to Oshkosh

One of the key features of Oshkosh this year will be a tribute to Chris Heintz, the designer off all the Zenith aircraft. There will be a special dinner held at the homebuilders pavilion in his honor. You can read more about this event at this link:

http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110323_zeniths.html

Joe Scheibinger is the man behind all the organization for this event at Oshkosh. We have known Joe for a number of years and he is the right man for the job. I would encourage anyone planning on attending the event to contact Joe and offer him any assistance that you can make available. We have already done this ourselves, as I would not miss the opportunity to play any role in honoring the life's work of Chris Heintz.

If you would like to see a film made by Dr. Andy Elliott, whose zenith 601 XL TD aircraft now has 325 hours on it, check out this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Piu78XzI4

Andy suggests we watch it 480p in the expanded window.

Andy flew his Zenith to Oshkosh two years ago, but has said he is coming back in 2011 specifically for the events centered around Chris Heintz. I am trying to organize a strong showing of Corvair powered Zeniths for the event. We can have our own row reserved in the Zenith parking area. I'd like to use the event as an opportunity for people who are building Corvair powered Zeniths to get to know those who are flying in. In addition to the regular social interaction that goes on in our booth at Oshkosh, any Zenith builder who wishes to offer ground transportation or assistance to those flying in, please e-mail me at WilliamTCA@aol.com and we will get it organized.