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"EA Contender For The Oshkosh 500 Race Prop extension, gear reduction, alternator, starter, drive shaft, tunnel through main •par, Buick engine, and a very proud Shirl Dickey.

by Robert R. Black (EAA 220708) 4246 So. 1060 East Salt Lake City, UT84124

As a member of the local EAA fraternity, I'd been hearing rumblings for some time through the local EAA grapevine about an interesting new homebuilt aircraft being built in the Salt Lake area. After some snooping around, I contacted Mr. Shirl Dickey, the designer of an aircraft he calls the "ERacer". It's a derivative of a Long-EZ and is a two-place, side-by-side airplane. It is unique in that it uses an aluminum Buick V-8 located amid ship, driving a shaft to an aft mounted gear reduction unit, and controllable pitch prop. It also incorporates a fully retractable landing gear. Shirl is an engineer working for ESystems in Salt Lake City, UT and also the proud builder of one of the nicest VariEzes I've seen. The following is an interview I had with Shirl about his new design. Black: How long have you been working on this project, Shirl? Dickey: Well, I started it in April of 1984; it's been about eighteen months. Black: What is the plane constructed of? Dickey: I followed the same construction process as I did when building my VariEze. Urethane foam core for the fuselage, Styrofoam for the wings, covered with fiberglass, both unidirectional and bidirectional. Everything is the same quality as used in the VariEze. Black: Your cockpit is side-by-side and it's located ten inches farther aft, closer to the center of gravity, than a Long-EZ.

Dickey: That's right. It's forty-one and a half inches wide at the shoulder and

Dlane, Shirl, and E-Racer, Canard installed for pictures only.

the pilot has nineteen inches of hip room, as does the passenger, for a total of thirty-eight inches across at the bottom. It could have been wider at the hip if I hadn't made the center console so wide. I also have a wide instrument panel and a center mounted control stick. Black: What about your wings? Dickey: Byron McKean from McQueeney, TX built the wings. He did a first rate job on them. He's interested in building an E-Racer also. Black: What do you think the total construction time will be? Dickey: I plan to have it at Oshkosh

this year. I will have about two thousand manhours in it by then.

Black: What do you expect your total expenditures to be on this project? Dickey: I will get it in the air for less than $10,000, mainly due to the fact that I'm using an automotive engine. Black: How much do you have in total engine costs? Dickey: I bought the core for $50 but my investment in it is now about $1000. Black: Tell me about your engine. Dickey: Well, I built this engine up with reliability as the number one priority and horsepower as number two. I decided not to overstress it by obtaining a lot of horsepower at high rpm, so I have limited it to the factory rated

speed, 5000 rpm or less. I have modified a lot of things on the engine. I have SPORT AVIATION 19

Main spar and wing attach area, Buick engine gear reduction.

replaced the pistons with forged aluminum pistons, replaced the rods, which are normally cast steel, with forged steel Chevy Rods. I installed a Buick 300 crank to increase the displacement. With .600 inches of additional stroke and .030 inch over bore, it takes the displacement from 215 cubic inches to 266 cubic inches. Black: Where did the E-Racer concept come from? Dickey: The whole concept was inspired by the Oshkosh 500. The race committee is offering a prize called the "Downey Prize" that was the initial motivation for the project. The Downey Prize rewards performance and efficiency of aircraft that use a non-air cooled engine, such as a water cooled auto engine. That got me thinking about how I could incorporate a water cooled engine into a canard style aircraft. I'm partial to canards anyway. The more I thought about it the more feasible it became to put a water cooled engine into a modified Long-EZ airframe. Some of the key elements that I discovered when I started investigating the concept were that a canard configuration would allow me to locate the engine on the center of gravity and a reduction drive and conrollable pitch prop on the aft end. The result was that no penalty, such as having to add ballast to offset the heavy engine, was required. The engine is a little heavier than an air cooled engine, but mounting it on the center of gravity means that it will have no effect on flight dynamics. The thing that makes this possible is the canard configuration. I'm trying to get the project into the air as proof of the concept. That concept being that a canard airframe with a midmounted automotive engine and a remote mounted gear box results in a viable airplane. When you attempt to mount a liquid cooled engine on a con20 MAY 1986

ventional design, you end up with the weight far ahead of the center of gravity and to compensate, you either put ballast in the tail or you give up some of the essential things needed for a successful liquid cooled engine installation. The reduction drive is usually eliminated resulting in a direct drive set up and that compromises performance. The weight of a controllable pitch prop is unacceptable and so a fixed pitch prop is used further compromising performance. Another problem with putting the engine on the front of a conventional airframe is that it's hard to find a place for the radiator. It usually ends up sticking out into the wind, creating additional drag. Another compromise with front mounted engines is the tight cowling

usually required. This compromises the location of the carburetor and the efficiency of the exhaust and a number of other things. All of the problems encountered on conventional designs went away with the mid-engine canard design. With a mid-engine, side-by-side design like I have here, I've already paid the drag penalty of the cross sectional area at the cockpit. I've put the engine behind the passengers but in front of the main spar. This gives me a lot of volume to accommodate the engine and there is enough room there so that I didn't have to relocate any of the basic elements on the engine. I can keep the carb in the stock location, use a tuned exhaust and the stock water pump and distributor. This drastically simplifies the conversion of an automobile engine for an aircraft application. Another benefit that I have with this design is that I don't have to make a complicated adaption for the reduction drive. I can remote mount the reduction drive unit and not affect the basic engine. Black: Speaking of reduction drives, what type of unit are you using? Dickey: I searched all over before I found what I wanted. It's a unit that has been proven in SK style boats for a number of years. Black: You used to race SK boats for awhile, didn't you? Dickey: Yes, and that boat racing influence is quite evident in this airplane. The layout is very similar to what you'd find in a V-drive boat, basically an engine driving a shaft to a gear box and then from the gear box to the prop. It was nice to find a gear box off the shelf and fully proven in high horsepower applications. It has water jacket cooling so that I can cool it and dissipate heat build-up in the gear box . . . and it was relatively cheap.

Roomy Interior with plenty of room for full IFR panel, and big passengers and pilot.

Black: By itself, how much does the reduction drive weigh? Dickey: When I got it out of the box, it weighed 42 pounds. The prop adaption added 8 pounds, so I've got about 50 pounds of gear box. Black: What is your gear reduction ratio? Dickey: One of the benefits of this gear box is that I can select from a number of gear ratios. When I bought the gear box, I bought two different sets of gears. The one I'm using now is a 1.75 to 1 gear reduction. I also have a 2 to 1 gear set. This means I can run my engine at 4800 rpm with a prop speed of about 2750 rpm. If I want to develop more horsepower I can run the engine to 6000 rpm, install the 2 to 1 gear ratio and the prop speed would be 3000 rpm.

Black: This leaves your prop still within safe limits of use, doesn't it? Dickey: That's right. I can deliver the additional horsepower that's available at higher rpm. Black: What is your weight penalty with gear box, radiator, liquid cooled engine and other things not normally connected with aircraft engines? Dickey: Total engine weight is 252 pounds. It's an all aluminum Buick V-8, ready to run; add 50 pounds of gearbox, two 5 pound Harrison heat exchangers from a General Motors air conditioner, the drive line weighs 14 pounds, that comes to 326 pounds, less starter and alternator. Add the starter and the alternator and that comes to 350 pounds. I have an engine of 250 horsepower running at 4800 rpm. This installation is lighter on a horsepower per pound basis than air cooled, direct drive, aircraft engines. Black: Why is it that this is lighter than an equivalent powered aircraft en-

The NACA scoop shows the radiators on the belly. Two radiators are stacked with more than enough room left over for anything else needed. Small NACA scoops will be on both sides of the bird to allow direct air flow over the engine to provide even more cooling.

gine? Dickey: Most aircraft engines are direct drive and they have to develop their power at a much lower rpm and about the only way to do that is with a lot of cubic inches. This Buick is developing just under one horsepower per cubic inch or about 250 horses out of 266 cubic inches. If you look at an IO-540 Lycoming, which produces 260 horsepower, you have about the same horsepower comparison. The IO-540 has 540 cubic inches to produce the same power that I get with 266 cubic inches but it's much heavier. Now the reason that I can produce that kind of horsepower is because I do it at a higher rpm. Black: What do you project the per-

formance of your E-Racer to be? Dickey: I think that if it measures up to its potential, in other words, if the engine actually does produce 250 horsepower and I get equivalent drag of a Long-EZ, which I should have, or less, due to the retractable landing gear, I should get 260 miles per hour at sea level. Black: What kind of fuel consumption do you think you'll see at 260 miles an hour? Dickey: At full power, burning .4 pounds per horsepower per hour, I'll burn about 16 gallons an hour. Black: Now does this put you in reach of the Downey Prize with fuel consumption, speed and range? Dickey: The Oshkosh race is actually horsepower limited when you analyze the formula. For any given drag configuration you can only generate a certain amount of horsepower before you overburn. I figure for the Oshkosh 500 the most horsepower I can produce and not overburn is about 180. Black: At that power you are just going to be loafing. Dickey: That's right. I can back off the throttle, trim it out and set the mixture right for the absolute best fuel economy. I'll also be running a controllable pitch prop which will help me to develop the best fuel economy.

Black: You have raced in the Oshkosh 500 before, haven't you? Dickey: Yes, my wife, Diane, and I raced my VariEze in the 1984 race just for the experience.

Black: I thought you raced a Cozy. Dickey: No, I raced Nat Puffer's Cozy

in the 1984 CAFE 400. Black: What kind of prop are you

Up, up, and away, gear up, sleek and pretty, looks like its going 200 M.P.H. doesn't it?

going to use? Dickey: Well, there is a fellow who SPORT AVIATION 21

was once the chief engineer at Hoffmann who is now in his own business. I'm thinking of using one of his props — he calls it the MT variable pitch prop. This is an electrically controlled unit and is the same type prop used on the Voyager. Black: What kind of set-up do you use for your retractable gear? Dickey: I have retractable gear which is of my own design. It is hydraulically actuated. Right now I am using a hand pump but eventually I'll use an electrohydraulic pump. Many people look at the Long-EZ design and think, "Wouldn't it be neat to come up with a retractable gear set up?" In the Long-EZ design, it's almost impossible. There's not enough room in the fuselage or anywhere else to put the retract mechanism. In the E-Racer design, it's wider back in the engine compartment, there is more than enough room for the gear retract mechanism. I designed a simple leaf spring style gear strut and retract mechanism which retracts upward and outward into the strakes. The strakes will contain the gear legs and wheels within their envelope. It's kind of unique in that the lower surface of the gear leg is flat and when it's retracted it will nest up in the strake and will not require a gear door except to cover the wheel. There will also be a door on the gear leg which closes up the opening in the fuselage. I've tried to design it to be as simple as possible and as light as possible. It turns out to be only slightly heavier than a standard Long-EZ gear. The landing gear legs are made up of fiberglass and Hercules unidirectional carbon fiber. Each leg weighs 9-1/2 pounds, for a total of 19 pounds. A Long-EZ strut weighs 24 pounds. I have to add the linkage, actuators and pump, which is another 7 pounds. This comes in real close to the weight of a fixed gear, so I'm really not paying much of a penalty for the retractable gear. Black: So you benefit from the gear, due to the reduced drag. What are your plans for this design? Is it going to be available to others? Dickey: Right now it is not my intention to get into the plans market, primarily due to the product liability problem that is affecting the industry. I'll have to wait and see if the demand is great enough; if it is, then I will find a way to provide plans or something. Right now, this is a technology demonstrator. It's an airplane for my own personal use and is also intended to compete well in the Oshkosh 500. Beyond the 500, it has terrific potential to be a great high speed cross country airplane in the same vein as the Glasair and Long-EZ. Black: With the kind of speed you are talking about, you are going to blow the Glasairs right off the map. Dickey: That really doesn't break my heart! Black: Any words of advice to would22 MAY 1986

Rear view of cowlings and prop flange.

be designers and builders? Dickey: For years people have wanted to put automobile engines in airplanes and for those same years a lot of people have tried and a lot of people have failed or had only limited success. A lot of people ask me what makes me think that I can succeed where others have not. Well, it's not the automobile engine that's the problem. Millions of automobiles in use all over the world can't be wrong. The problem is the configuration they have been trying to use. Black: You are talking of the airplane configuration, right? Dickey: Yes, a conventional airframe does not lend itself to a heavy engine of any kind, air or water cooled. The aircraft engine as we know it today is really an outgrowth of the configuration it's been forced to be used in. When you put an engine on the nose of a conventional airplane, you begin making compromises. The compromises that have developed on aircraft engines are: they have gone away from water cooling to air cooling and direct drive to save weight, and then to high cubic inch displacements to develop the needed horsepower at a slower rpm. All this strictly as a function of the airframe they are being put in. What I'm telling you is that the airplane layout has determined what the engine will be. Black: Instead of designing the airplane around the engine they have been designing the engine around the airplane? Dickey: That's right. What I have here is a different configuration. I'm using an airframe configuration which allows me to put the engine in the middle of the airplane not on the nose or tail but right on the center of gravity. With the engine on the center of gravity, I can run it at its optimum speed, use a gear box and constant speed prop, which allows me to take full advantage of the available power and there are no penalties, in terms of ballast or com-

plexity, required. Black: Is there anything else you'd like to say to close this interview? Dickey: Yes, I'd like to close by asking a question. "Wouldn't you really rather fly a Buick?" I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan to follow the progress of the ERacer with more photos of the finished product and with a pilot's report after it flys. From what has been said, this year's Oshkosh 500 should see the first real contender for the Downey Prize. For those wanting further information on the E-Racer project, contact Shirl Dickey (EAA 140368) at his home at 1646 Allegheny Dr., Salt Lake City, UT 84123. He will be glad to respond to your request (a stamped self-addressed envelope would be appreciated).

Diane and Shirl doing some hangar flying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Robert Black came by his aviation interest naturally. His father, Reed Black, is a pilot and owns a 1956 Tri-Pacer, which Robert is currently restoring. Born in Mesa, AZ in 1951, Robert acquired the aviation bug very early and earned his pilot's license in 1979. A machinest by trade and a real estate salesman, he has a Pietenpol Air Camper project on hold until the Tri-Pacer is completed. Somehow, he still finds time to assist Shirl Dickey with his E-Racer. He sums up his situation by saying, " . . . too many different planes and not enough money — how do I reverse the situation?"