Feb 05, 2020     A treasure trove of information - (2 hours)       Category: Research

A couple of weeks ago I received a thick envelope of documentation from Ray. He had collected some information on the plane and sent it to me. I could only give it a cursory glance when I first received it. It looked like there was some great information in there. I finally had a chance to dig into it and it's a treasure trove of information and history. In addition to Ray's notes on the plane and some of the structure, there are some of the original documents for the plane. For example, there is some paperwork that appears to be the original certificate of airworthiness by the Ministere Des Transports Secretariat General a L'Aviation Civile. It's typed on parchment and was stamped and signed in person. Typed! No computer printouts back in 1969. There's also a brochure that appears to be a business plan and aircraft marketing brochure. It is printed in French and there are some additional pages with the content translated into English. The brochure describes the flight characteristics of the plane as written up by a series of engineers and flight test engineers as tested by the CEV, which was the French Flight Test Centre. The comments were all very positive not unlike the magazine articles that were written about the plane at the time. Of course, as a sales brochure, they would have only chosen the positive comments but there is further reference to the full flight testing results. Something to dig into...
The brochure also describes the business goal of manufacturing and selling 15 planes in the first year and increasing the production to upwards of 100 aircraft per year by year six! Obviously that didn't happen.

This package also includes the documentation for the plane when it was imported into the UK and some of the paperwork required to get it to pass airworthiness. All in all, a very interesting and valuable collection to add to the aircraft's history.

  Dec 06, 2019     Found a machinist - (1 hour)       Category: Research

Nothing built today but I made some real progress anyway. After trying a few different machinists about getting some required pieces built, I found the ideal person. Pierre is a machinist, welder, mechanic, and engine guru. His background is building race cars and components for race cars. He's built some components for aircraft in the past so he doesn't shy away from that. He's got an amazing shop set up for his needs, including an engine dyno. He spent an hour with me showing me his facility and capabilities. While wandering through, something caught my eye. It was a telescoping shaft with a long splined section and a universal joint. Of course! It's a steering column and it, or something like it could be incorporated to replace the damaged torque tube and universal joint for the retract gear. The solution to my problem was lying on the table. It will end up being slightly heavier than the aluminum pieces that it's replacing, but it will be ideal for the application. If I had unlimited budget I could rebuild this plane to original specs, whatever they may be. Since I'm going to have to make some changes anyway, I'm treating these changes as further development of the airplane.

I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the shop area as there were too many race secrets lying about, but I've included a couple of pics of the dyno area.

Pierre is going to start by fabricating some new pins for the landing gear retract mechanism and then weld up some new forks for the gear itself. You know you're reached the right guy when you discover that he has sheets of 4130 in his inventory.

  Nov 04, 2019     Wheels and Brake Research - (4 hours)       Category: Research

For many days I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do about the wheels for this plane. I have to start thinking about it now because the original wheels were custom built for this plane and there's only one left. It's a beautifully machined magnesium wheel with integral drum for brakes. The wheel is about 9" diameter. The original tire was a 400 x 100 made by Dunlop Aero. Since there's nothing like that available now and because I need some new wheels to go with it, I had to do some serious research. Because the gear retracts, there are serious considerations to the diameter AND the thickness of the tire and wheel. The original tires were skinny things. And because of the the way the gear retracts, there is no provision to change the amount of travel of the retraction without serious changes to the levers and mechanism that operates the retraction. The landing gear retracts via a motor that only spins one way. You retract the gear by powering the motor and allowing the mechanism to raise the landing gear. When it's fully retracted you stop the operation of the motor and the mechanism stops in what I'll call top dead centre. When you want to lower the gear, you power the motor again and the mechanism continues in its original direction until you get to bottom dead centre. I'll post a video of it in operation when I get a chance. So the long and short of it is that I need some uniquely sized tires and wheels.

I eventually found some aircraft tires that are slightly smaller in diameter and marginally wider. And they don't cost an arm and a leg. Adding to that, I found that Matco (www.matcomfg.com) makes an huge number of different styles and sizes of wheels and brakes and I think I can make a set fit.

When the aircraft had its accident, the lower sections of the gear were damaged. One of the forks was twisted and the second one was ripped right off. So I needed to make some new forks anyway. I will make them to fit the Matco brakes and wheels. This will be an upgrade from how the plane was originally set up.

  Nov 01, 2019     Review and organization of Plans - (3 hours)       Category: Research

There are over 300 pages of drawings and calculations for this plane. They are all hand drawn and are in varying levels of completeness and detail. Of course, none of them are labelled and many are unidentifiable. In fact, some of the plans are definitely NOT for an airplane. Oh yeah, and to add to the mystery, any text is written in French and often in a cursive script. And let's not forget that all dimensions are in metric. I spent many hours reviewing them, identifying them when possible and sorting them into different folders. I created about 20 different folders and many more subfolders to sort them all. There's one folder called Unknown. I'm hoping that as I dig into the plane more, I'll be able to recognize more of it and identify the remaining drawings.

A lot of the drawings are for the machinists who built these beautiful parts. Few drawings are how the plane went together. Below are some samples.

All of these plans were provided by Christophe who is interested in the Dalotel. In Christophe's words,

"Being a bit familiar with the DM165 history, I was interested in following the restauration of this unique aerobatic aircraft.
When he (Ray) mentioned to me that he didn't have much materials to support his work, I inquired a friends of mine who the head of a aviation museum in France, mostly dedicated to french sport planes and gliders, and which preserve a lot of incredible archives. Amazingly, the museum just received all the documentation about the DM165 owned by Dalotel's family, including the drawings. This is how I got these and passed them on to Ray."

  Oct 27, 2019     Very cool components - (3 hours)       Category: Research

As I look closer at the pile of goodies that I'd acquired I have to admire and also shake my head at some of the pieces that were built for this plane. It was originally intended to be a club type trainer that they were going to mass produce. That idea fell through for many reasons. As I look at the machined components of this plane, I wonder who was the instigator of all this machining. Was it Dalotel, the designer of the aircraft? Or was it the company he had worked with to build the plane? It is obvious that someone highly skilled at machining was involved in the build of the plane. To think that this machining was done over 50 years ago, long before CNC machining, boggles the mind. This amount of machining certainly wouldn't have permitted mass production of the aircraft. Or at the very least, the design would have to be changed quite a bit to simplify the manufacture and reduce costs. It would be interesting to learn what this plane actually cost to build back in the late 60's and compare it with other costs as reference.

Attached are some photos of the workmanship. The ailerons are actuated by means of a torque tube. The splined connector is part of a universal joint to connect the aileron to the torque tube. Why a universal joint? I have no idea. There's no need for that type of movement. There are 80 splines machined into the outside of the coupler. This would permit quite a bit of adjustability during rigging of the airplane. Unfortunately the matching piece with the inside splines is missing, and only one of these couplers survived the 40 years since the accident.

The ball slides into the fingers on the end of the aileron. When the coupler is cocked 90 degrees to the hinge line it allows the coupler to slide onto the ball. When straightened out such that the coupler is aligned with the hinge line, it's then in the orientation for normal use. In that orientation there is absolutely no play in the rotational movement of the assembly. The fingers rotate smoothly over the ball and everything is a work or art.

Another piece of beautiful machine work is this extra fuselage subframe. This is one of the pair of subframe plates that the spars bolt into. More info on that to come.

  Oct 24, 2019     Project Home       Category: Research

Got the project home. It was a lot of work loading all the goodies that came with this project. A big thanks to my buddy Soren for the use of his enclosed trailer that I'd borrowed to haul everything home. I was grateful for all the space and protection that his trailer provided to haul the project the 10 hour drive home. Frustratingly it seemed that I had a headwind going to pick up the project and I certainly had a nasty headwind getting home. How does the weather do that

Despite headwinds, blizzards, and a few suicidal deer, I was able to get the SUV, the trailer, and the project home without any mishap. I should point out that Soren's trailer has been used dozens of times by various people to haul aircraft and aircraft remains to and fro. The trailer has been invaluable to many projects and Soren has always been generous with the load of his trailer. Everyone needs a friend like Soren.

The most painful part of the trip was having to stop at the border to pay taxes and duties on these items. Processing the paperwork was pretty quick and easy. It's just frustrating having to pay taxes on everything.

  Oct 23, 2019     Acquired project       Category: Research

I discovered this project on Barnstormers a couple of months ago. "For sale, the one and only, the prototype Dalotel DM-165." A tandem, low wing, retractable gear, aerobatic plane designed and built in France in the late 1960s. Only one was ever built.

What an opportunity or what was I thinking?

The more I looked into this plane, the more interesting I found it.

It all started with an innocent e-mail to Ray Ordorica, the fine gentleman who was selling this project. Ray had acquired it as a wreckage about 10 years ago and had it shipped from the UK to the US. It had an engine out, off field landing about 40 years ago and then sat in a hanger in the UK for close to 30 years. Since Ray got it he had done a great job rebuilding the empennage and had started repairing the left wing. Ray had also built all new ribs for the right wing. The right wing was seriously damaged in the accident 40 years ago so it needed to be built. As things happen for many of us, life got in the way for Ray (he's an author and adventurer) and his project stalled out a few years ago. Ray came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to get around to finishing it so he wanted to see it in the hands of someone else who might be able to finish it and get it flying. That someone else became me. I had some previous experience that would be useful for this project.

Ray's project was written up in Nov 2010 Sport Aviation, What our members are building/restoring. I've attached the article for your reading pleasure.