![]() ![]() “I could pull his out, roll my airplane to where I could work on it, and it all worked out really well. “I had a rolling table that allowed me to move the project around while Stans airplane stayed inside,” Galloway recalls. Having just completed Peternels airplane gave the building partners a definite leg up.īoth Peternels and Galloways RVs were built in a conventional T-hangar. It was tougher at first because there was much more to do.” But experience is the great equalizer. “I was surprised how well the fuselage went together. “It sure had a lot more parts than Stans,” Galloway notes. But by June of 2007, the fuselage kit arrived. Because of the lead times on the fuselage, Galloway says, there was a month of inactivity on the project. Next came the wing kit, which would set the stage for the rest of the project: nothing quickbuild. And didn’t take very long, maybe two or three weeks. He came to me and said, OK, its time to start yours. We finished his airplane and he was flying for six months. At that point I was committed to building two of em. It was our deal: Id help him build his airplane, and he would help me build mine. He got about halfway done, and another tail kit arrived in the mail. “Stan wanted to build one, and I said lets do it. The two were building partners at the time. Galloways name might be familiar if you recall the story we did in 2006 on Stan Peternels gorgeous and extremely well equipped RV-9A. (And, at that, the O-320 tends to be undervalued compared to the O-360, though that delta is narrowing.) Galloways Lycoming swings a fixed-pitch Sensenich prop, bought new from Vans. Even so, Galloway dismantled and inspected the engine, rebuilding it with new consumables in the end it cost him much less than half of what a new O-320 would. The engine is a used Lycoming O-320 that was once on another RV and had been converted with the usual higher-compression pistons that bump power to 160 horsepower-not a strip-and-paint junker. You wont find utility cart tires or minibike band brakes on the wheels. You wont find Ace Hardware bolts in the mainspar. ![]() In many respects, there’s little to distinguish his RV-9A from the 364 others that have flown as of early February 2008. It is, however, precisely what Galloway wanted. (Then again, when are these things ever?) It is simple and, without intending to sound unkind, it is austere. ![]() Its not IFR equipped, its not painted, and its not well and truly done. The airplane you see here was brought to this point for very close to $30,000, maybe a smidge over, concedes the builder. In the words of Maxwell Smart, would you believe $30,000?įirst, some disclosure. Builders have spent more on the construction of instrument panels-less the instruments. A tidy sum that represents the down payment on a kit or the engine alone for many “mainstream” kitbuilt projects. The airplane you see here, a straight-down-the-line Vans RV-9A, was completed in late 2007 from a kit for mind bogglingly little money. But to those who know him around the Santa Ynez (California) airport, his airplane-building skills and, more to the point, his fiscal self control are revered. Fred Galloway is a bricklayer not a financial genius. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |