Expert Technical Services Consulting

TROUBLE WITH YOUR AIRPLANE PROJECT?

Uh Oh! What an Oopsie!!

Welcome to GW’s aeronautical help page – a directory to educational/informational and consulting help. GW is not an FAA DER, but he can engineer things for you nonetheless, and his talents go far beyond those of most DER’s.

Long Association with Aircraft – As a grade schooler, GW sanded steel tube airframe members for his Dad, who rebuilt a wrecked J-5 Cub and taught GW stick-and-rudder flying in it. As a junior high “punk”, GW crawled into the tail of a Cessna 170 to buck rivets for his Dad, who rebuilt this wreck into a fine aircraft as well. GW’s education was aeronautical engineering (like his Dad), and he spent 20 years in aerospace/defense new product development work, doing missiles, deception gear, and other aircraft equipment items.

Engine Cooling – An engineer with experience at heat transfer and fluid flow can help solve your overheating problem in high-power-setting climb conditions. Testing and analysis services are available.
To contact GW about engine cooling system work, click here>: Expert Technical Services

Fuel System Changes and Testing – GW is an engineer with both experimental and STC experience from professional work done at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. This included ethanol and ethanol-gasoline blends in spark ignition piston aircraft, and biodiesel/jet-A blends in turbine aircraft. The cold start problem with neat (E-100) or denatured (E-95) ethanol is easily solved by means of a start fuel canister feeding the primer pump, instead of it drawing from the main fuel supply. Gravity feed systems must often be converted to pump-fed systems to safely use ethanol. FAR 23 requires a flow delivery test to verify such changes.

To contact GW about fuel system help, click here:   Expert Technical Services

Fixed-pitch Propeller Installations – GW is an experienced aerodynamics engineer who wrote his own computer code that simultaneously solves both the actuator-streamtube model and the blade element model for a simple but accurate prediction. The same basic analysis applies to wind turbines. These analyses are inexpensive, and match flight performance rather well.
To contact GW about propeller (or wind turbine) work, click here:   Expert Technical Services

Structural -- A qualified engineer, GW is familiar and experienced with metals, wood, and composites.
For structural help, click here:   Expert Technical Services

Plus, he invented and used in the field (ca. 1984) a significant improvement to the low density ceramic tiles on NASA’s shuttles: A very structurally robust low-density fiber-reinforced ceramic composite. As a ramjet burner insulator, it held a steady-state gradient of 14,000 F/inch against a 4000 F flame zone, and yet also withstood the extremely violent pressure oscillations of rich blow-out.
For heat transfer help, click here:   Expert Technical Services

Flight Performance Prediction -- An engineering specialty, steady or transient.
To contact GW about this, click here: Expert Technical Services

Just want to understand aerodynamics? Click here for [educational services] page: Educational Services

Here is a summary of GW’s alternative fuel modifications and STC experiences in aircraft:

At Baylor University for Max Shauck –

Ethanol-or-avgas PA-25 Pawnee airframe STC and O-540 engine STC

Trainee’s mixture control travel safety limiter for ethanol-or-avgas

C-152 Dynamometer testing with avgas and ethanol in IO-360 engine

Flight testing in PA-25 and C-172 of avgas, ethanol, and blends

Experimental ground test of biodiesel-jet fuel blends for PT-6A engines

Twin Otter into and out of FAA “experimental”, for biodiesel flight tests, including materials compatibility demonstrations, and a plan limiting inspection teardowns to a “hot section”-only on the exposed engine.

Effective inexpensive field test for cold fuel deposition checks using a chilled bucket of ethanol – safety precautions are quite different from those for cryogenics! Do NOT attempt this yourself! Contact GW about it – click here: Expert Technical Services

As an independent consultant –

SAE Paper 2002-01-1539 “Use of Alternate Fuels in Light Aircraft”, presented at a Wichita, KS, meeting: SAE Paper

Identified application of automotive fuel rail / return line technology to eliminate vapor lock in aircraft burning ethanol-gasoline blends (in an unpublished paper you can see here)

Gasoline-ethanol fuel blend quality control testing (ethanol, water, and gasoline content) by very inexpensive means and without sophisticated equipment (in an unpublished paper you can see here)

A very simple set of tests an untrained pilot can use to safely fly and refuel with ethanol-gasoline blend fuels, thus avoiding phase separation risks (in an unpublished paper you can see here)

Unpublished paper dealing with most of these practical alternative and blend fuel topics: Unpublished Blend Paper