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Correcting the correction
In a correction in this month's Sport Aviation magazine, about an article about me in the January issue which mistakenly included a picture of his airplane instead of mine, my RV-10 friend Gary Speketer stated:
"The funny thing about that engine hanging was that he advertised to the locals that on Saturday folks could come and learn how to hang an engine. I showed up along with others and as it turned out was the only one who had done it before, so I became the instructor for the day."
Well, for the record, no, that's not really true. Here's the cast who showed up that day.
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That guy down in the right (kneeling) is Pete Howell who built his RV-9 and hung an engine. The guy taking the picture was a neighbor on the ramp who built several RVs and hung engines.
But it seemed the suggestion was that I had somehow misled people about learning how to hang an engine. We had, actually, an excellent set of instructions for doing this. The Illustrated Guide to Engine Hanging is an outstanding reference from the RV builders in the Tampa area. Here's a little piece I wrote on the advance planning involved.
We didn't just show up that day and say "let's hang an engine. I wonder how?" I had done research on it and we knew what we wanted to do. But, frankly, one thing I did learn is that if you're going to hang an engine, try not to have TOO many people there who've done it before because you can end up with too many instructors who may have different ideas on how to do it. Remember: It's still your project and you are the one in charge.
Hanging an engine is a matter of (a) the will to do it and (b) the strength to do it, once you study how to do it. The "how" is not difficult -- in terms of the order in which things must be done -- it's the actual doing it that's a challenge.
Since this little demonstration, the guy on the left -- Warren Starkebaum -- has hung his engine, the guys on the right -- Brad Benson and Vince Bastiani -- hung engines and are now flying their RVs.
I don't want to minimize the contributions of everyone who showed up that day in the learning process. I don't want to overstate anyone's contributions either. I'm grateful for all of the accumulated wisdom -- experienced or not. By the way, at least three -- and maybe four -- of these guys are engineers of some sort. I'm just a writer. Always have at least one engineer in your work party.
Insert engineer jokes here.
Post script: Oh, by the way, Gary is an EAA tech counselor, so he was good enough to give the plane a once-over. The only tech counselor of the four or five who looked at it over the years who actually left me some paperwork.
