Tom Martin and Wayne Hadath.  Photos submitted by Nico Meijer.

Paul Siegel's Rocket

  Wow!  Paint design by www.schemedesigners.com
Paint by Texas Aerocolor in Brady, Texas.

John Meyer's Rocket

John Meyers, HR II, N 5800 constructed between October 1998 and still in progress.  First flight was January 6, 2006 at Chino, CA.  Home is Sequim , WA

Note:  John provided several of the flying videos that are linked to the homepage.  Very cool.  Thanks.

Return to the homepage:  http://www.vincesrocket.com/

Wolfgang Meyn's F-1

Hi Guys, 

Well, # 77 passed the inspection. I hope to get her flying by the beginning of August. I am still solving some “minor” issues and therefore won’t make it to OSH.  Wolfgang

Cal Brubaker's Rocket

Danny Melnik's F-1

First engine start July 2006

Joel Taylor's single seat F-1

Hi Mark,

30 hours, multiple T & G's later, we're in sync. You forgot to tell me the approach angle was on par with the space shuttle . . . Short final is a thrill and I like it!    24 x 24 equals 264 mph cruise. Haven't run it full bore yet until I get the prop balanced, but I know I'll get over 270 at the top for sure!   Fly safe,  Joe

Dennis Teale's F-1 Evo

   Ready for paint...hopefully flying in a month or so  Dennis Teale  Western Australia Evo # 135  

And now flying.

What a clean interior!  Wow!

12-3-06: Randy's new scheme.... looks nice!

Wes King's F1

Dave Bockelman's F1

Wayne Hadath's F-1

9-28-05:  Fellow Builders,   It finally arrived!  The day of first flight. C-FAUH, an F1 Rocket, became an airplane.  Test pilot: Jerry Younger (Brave Soul)  IO-540 by Aerosport  Power (stock 260 hp), Hartzell 3 Blade, and F1 Parts Kit. The test flight took place with out incident. Jerry Younger's comment upon completion of the test flight ” What a beautiful airplane to fly but I do think it would be extremely difficult to do a rate one turn. Way too much fun!" The airplane tracked well from taxi to landing. No bad habits, a delight to fly”.  It is too bad so few people get to experience a day like today. Well done Mark Frederick. Thanks for all who helped in any way.  Wow, this is way tooo coool!  Wayne

Loren Harmon's F-1

 8-09-05:  N614SL made her maiden voyage at 0815 EST today at Adrian, MI. We  flew an hour and 5 minutes and the airframe and engine both  performed well. There are a couple of EFIS glitches to resolve,  but I'm sure I'll get it figured out. Thanks to all of of you for  your ideas and inputs on the web and in person.   Loren Harmon

     11-07-05:  Loren dropped in at Hepler airport and I took the opportunity to snap a few photos.  Nice plane.   Vince

Greg Connell's F-1

< the typical empty photo 'cuz the Rocket is long gone.

Thought you might want to see the pictures of my new Rocket!!.....This is right after I Flew it home from the paint shop in fort Pierce Florida to Trenton, SC-Twin Lakes Airpark(S-17)....Feel Free to post them any where you want....keep up the good work on an a great web-site!!

Greg Connell
F-1#62....N179GC

Greg sent a copy of a formation card that some of you might find useful.

Danny DeWit's F-1

Tom Hahn in Greg Connell's F-1

Man, look at that stainless steel fairing around the front windshield... nice work.

5-27-05: Greg Connell's F-1 coming back from the paint shop.  One of the few really ugly days in South Florida. Yes, that's polished stainless around the windshield. Only running 16.5 in. to stay back with the RV-6 taking the picture. ( that lasted about long enough to get the picture) 

Now, there's a paint scheme that a guy like me could fall in love with.  Vince

Howard Rhode's Rocket with new paint

  5-23-05: An inflight image taken returning from the paint shop. The band behind the cockpit is polished metal.  I think I am 98% pleased which is OK.   Howard

There are several more shots, and a pirep from Howard on: Rocket Pilot Reports Page 2

Les Featherston's 3rd annual Rebels' Bluff Fly-in

05-07-05: Les had about 30+ planes at the fly-in.  High winds out in the Kansas City area kept a few pilots on the ground, but the local weather was beautiful.  A very tasty BBQ lunch was served.  Lots of flying was going on... including some low passes by a few, OK.. most of the pilots. 

A nice aerial shot of N206KT.

The two Rockets had center stage.

Here's a nifty series of pics that Ed Rathbun took from the back seat.  You can see the approach to Rebel's Bluff.  What you can't see in the first picture is the flock of buzzards that constantly circles the trees on short final.  Yikes!  The following pictures show the AOA and ASI doing their work as the Rocket slows and flares.

Mark Esterhuizen's F-1 Rocket

“Dizzy Miss Lizzy”

Photos of C-GKRE after flight no's 4 & 5 with Norman Younie, builder extraordinaire.  Bart Lalonde's own IO540, Hartzell 3-Blade, base/clearcoat paint by Ron Bisonnette (painter for Victoria Air Maintenance - 3-time golden wrench winner).  Amazing ship.  Lovely beyond description. FAST.    Mark Esterhuizen

Bill Tew's F-1 Rocket

5-4-05: At 7:45 am this morning, under a cool overcast and calm winds, N5491W  "slipped the surly bonds of earth".  Test pilot Johnny Hutchison pronounce it "a solid aircraft with excellent handling - no surprises".   

First flight lasted 30 minutes with attention focused on temps - oil temp settled in at 175, #1 cylinder (hottest) reached 410 on climb out but returned to 355 at cruise.  Everything else was in the green.   After cool down and under-cowl inspection, N5491W flew again for 1 hour to continue the ring setting process.  The KTM custom balanced IO-540 with an MT prop is smooth as silk.  

Special thanks to Mark Frederick for designing such a truly magnificent aircraft and always being there to answer my seemingly endless question and to all the "Rocketeers" who freely offered  their advice and experience.  

Bill Tew
F1 Rocket #81 N5491W
Carroll County Airport KDMW)
Westminster, Maryland

Jim Anglin's HRII

4-21-05:   Now I am only waiting for the inspector who is waiting for my registration which should be here any day.  She runs real sweet and I can't wait to cob the throttle on the active runway.  

I weighed it today and it came in at 1144 lb. with no paint or seats, and the tail wheel only weighs 23 lb.    Here is the latest pic. - it's a Harmon Rocket II through and through.     Jim

Painted photos from 5-20-05.  First flight 5-08-05.

Jim Wining's F-1

4-4-06:  Jim has a very fine F1 with many nifty mods that really make it shine.  Jim shortened his gear legs by 2 1/2 " and changed the wheel alignment to eliminate the camber and toe.  He has a modified elevator bellcrank that gives more stick travel thereby lightening the pitch forces, his tailwheel is completely different with a taller stance, he has the BEST rear seat rudder pedals that you'll ever see in a Rocket.  Jim also changed the trailing edge of his elevators to a folded trailing edge instead of a riveted trailing edge.  This should also make the pitch forces lighter. A flopper canopy also is a mod from the standard F1.

2-26-05:  Jim, Dave Rossiter and I got to fly side by side yesterday as we were leaving the Richmond, KY RV fly-in.  We were flying side-by-side at something above 24/24.  My ASI was reading 252 mph and Dave and Jim reported seeing 220+ on their ASIs.  Well, well, that proves it... my Rocket is 32mph faster than theirs.... LOL!  

Seriously though, I knew that my ASI reads too high, about 10+ mph.  Dave and Jim apparently read a bit low.  Ground speed on this virtually windless day showed 207 knots.  Woo hoo!

I won't say who was pulling ahead of whom.... it was VERY close, not more than a few mph's separated us.  All I can say is that I think that the two-blade Hartzell was overtaking the 3 bladers in this short, unscientific test.  But, OH! the fuel flow...OUCH!  

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Dave Rossiter's F-1

Dave Rossiter has serial # 001, IIRC.  He has a juiced up engine with 10:1 pistons, Airflow injection, electronic ignition, etc.  His N-number is N666ZZ... a devilish N-number, I suppose. 

I got to talk to and fly with Jim Winings and Dave at the Richmond fly-in on Feb. 26, 2005.  I kept gigging at them by saying " Hey, do you want to come see the fastest Rocket on the ramp?" and pointing towards my plane.  LOL... I'm lucky that they didn't beat the tar out of me.  Anyway, it was a fun day and it was very nice to meet Dave and get to fly with them.

Vince Sei's F-1

Ok,  Sorry to clutter peoples boxes but I'm like a new parent.  Here are the pictures of #115.  First plane I have ever built.  It would have never come together with out all your good inputs and patience with all my questions.  And to Bob, Randy and Vince for their web sites which kept Mark from going insane;  without them I would have had to call him every day.  Now hopefully starts the fun part.  Only 1680 hours in 19 months ..  I really need to get a life.

The other Vince

There's more stuff about Tom's plane below.  Scroll about 2/3 of the way down this page.

Reed Somberg's Rocket

Vince Frazier's F-1H Rocket Crazy Horse flies!!!

10-8-04:  Some digital cameras have a delay while they focus.  Here's what you get when you take a photo of a Rocket fly-by when using such a camera.   DOH!

Ready to go!

Jim Truitt's RV-8A chase plane. John Crabtree also chased in his RV-6.

Smoking an RV-8A

Fighting the urge to do a few rolls.

WHEW!

 WOOO HOOOO!!!

  Tammy's happy!  She should be... it's really her airplane!  I'm just the builder/pilot.

   Vince and John give the traditional (for us anyway) post-flight double high fives.

After a successful first flight, it's important to drain a few adult beverages.   Several more met their doom at Hornville Tavern after dusk.

Did I shut everything off?

Crazy Horse flies!!!

10-08-04:  No, not crazy horse flies that you find in a barn yard,  not even Crazy Horse the notable P-51....  I'm talking about MY Crazy Horse Rocket.  It flies!  (Well, it's not quite a Mustang... but it's as close as I'll get unless I hit the lottery!)

About 6 weeks ago I realized that I was 99% done with the plane.   I began an insane schedule and long hours of work to finish up that last 1%.

Assuming that the plane was 99% complete 6 weeks ago, multiply the time I've spent since then by a factor of 100 to estimate the amount of time the other 99% took.  Exactly 1.22 gadzillion hours.    Hmmmm, simple math.  Who knew these things took so long?

BTW, I started this project in 1999.  The website soon followed.  Hoards of adoring fans came next (I wish).  Soon, I had people calling me for advice (What were they thinking???!).  But now.... I've finally flown one!!!  Now, I can pretend to be an expert and have real BS to back it up!  ;-)

My stupendous friend and fellow RV repeat offender, John Crabtree, has been helping all along.  We had put 0.6 hours on the engine previously while calibrating the GRT EFIS (very nice BTW) and EIS.  We had a few things to fix. One was an oil leak at the vernatherm base gasket which just needed to be tightened a bit more.  The other was to remove the two washers that I added to the oil pressure relief spring.  I had wanted to make sure that the newly overhauled engine had plenty of oil pressure.... it did!  110psi at 1200 rpm.  We all agreed that was probably a bit too high so out came the washers and the relief valve had the same number of washers that it had prior to the overhaul: none.

Ahh, I digress, here's the flight report:

John and I did the final checks this afternoon. Then we did a full power run-up for one minute.  The CHTs went up. Up to 405 on the highest cylinder.  Not good, but not too bad.  Oil temp took much longer to come up and didn't really get warm until after the flight began.

After the run-up, I had settled down a bit and decided to do one last quick taxi, brake check, watch the temps for any upward trend, etc.  The  temps had dropped a bit and there was a small crowd gathered around, including my wife.

I wasn't paying any attention to them.  None whatsoever.   John was ready in his RV-6 chaseplane.  Grant, Bud, and Gene were manning the rescue vehicle, a four-wheel drive Ford pickup filled with fire extinguishers, axes, shovels, etc.  Tammy (my wife) and Margie (John's wife) were doing whatever women do (worrying probably).  I don't know.  Like I said, I was busy.

I lined up on Hepler's 2400' turf runway 27 and started easing the black knob forward.  Everything sounded good, strong, smooth acceleration.... hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I pushed the throttle the remaining 75% of the way????   I'll have to try that in the future because I was already flying by then.  Heck, I wasn't in any huge hurry to find out whether the torque would cause problems, so a nice smooth takeoff felt pretty good.  I suppose I used 800', maybe more before breaking ground.

It's right about then that the usual thought goes through my head: "Well, now we're off.  I'll worry about coming back down later."

Seeing as I had only used partial throttle to takeoff, I figured I'd better bump it up a bit.  YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAA!!!!  It's like stomping the gas on my dad's 2002 Corvette.  Very smooth, and very powerful.   By now I was passing through 1000' and picking up speed rapidly.   I really don't have a clue as to climb rates, altitudes or speeds, because my eyes were glued to the EFIS engine page.  I was much more concerned
about the temps than the climb rate.  Man, I can tell you that the climb rate and airspeed were just fine and I didn't need a gauge to confirm it.

The oil temp and pressure were fine, fuel flow and pressure was good, CHT's were climbing.  I dropped the nose a bit more. I was somewhere around 1500 - 2000' (Who knows? I was busy).  The CHT's peaked just above 400.  The highest peaked at about 445... plenty hot, but they came back down PDQ.

I heard John making his radio calls as he was taking off after I cleared the area a bit.  Our plan was for him to stay on the ground until I was about a mile out.  Our emergency field, Interstate 64, is about 2 miles from the field, so I was past the point of turning around.  BTW, you bet I'd use that highway if needed!  It's lightly traveled and doesn't have a 20' deep ditch at the end of it like our runway does!  The other end of our runway has a 4' berm just across the road that runs perpendicular to it.  Yikes!

As I leveled off and picked up speed, I started feeling out the handling and double-checking the rest of the gauges.  Everything was in the green... although the oil pressure was lower than I wanted to see. I immediately cursed myself for taking out the washers.   I plan to reinstall one washer tomorrow.  (More on that at the end of this section)

By now, I had time to scroll through the EFIS screens and see how fast, how high, etc.  I was tooling along at 165mph and John was rapidly closing the gap.  John pulled in close to check for oil leaks, etc. Not seeing any, he whipped out his trusty digital camera and told me to just maintain straight and level for a minute.  I took a moment to wave at him, only to see a look of disgust on his face.  I knew immediately.... dead batteries in the digital camera.  DOH!

We were over the interstate between Poseyville and the Wabash river, temps were OK, so I told John it was time to do some stalls.  Les Featherston had warned me that the pitch feel would be quite heavy at slow speeds.  DAMN!  He was right.  The first power off (well pretty low power anyway), no flap stall took forever.  As I let the speed slowly bleed off from 90 to 80 to 70... I started thinking "Geez, I'm gonna pull a muscle in my arm doing this."  The pitch feel was that heavy! Yes, I had the trim all the way nose up!  (FWIW, it's an RV-4 tail with manual trim. I had nearly full fuel and nothing in the rear seat or baggage.)  Now, I know why you see Rockets at Oshkosh with huge, custom trim tabs.  (I later remedied this problem by adjusting the elevator trim to have more nose up throw than nose down.  This helped greatly.)

I took my other hand off of the throttle and continued pulling.  I don't recall the IAS at the break, somewhere around 70mph IIRC, but I do know that there wasn't much of a break, just a lot of turbulence slapping the stick around.

Temps were still OK, so I pulled on a notch of flaps (manual flaps, my design, work great, would NOT trade them for electric ever, never, no way, no how) and tried again.  Much the same.  A little more aggressive stick handling gave a small break somewhere around 66mph IAS.

Then full flaps.  Since the temps were OK, I switched on the flight instrument screen and observed 63mph IAS at the mild break.   No wing drop, just a small burp and pitch downward.

After the stall series, I noticed that the ground was somewhat closer than before.  John said he thought I dropped a thousand feet during the series.  Could be.  We were definitely sinking fast.  Hmmmm, a 1226# Rocket does sink a heckuva lot faster than the 1000# RV-6 I've been flying.

John and I turned 180 degrees and started back towards Hepler.  We were back up to 150 IAS or so, when I decided that I'd give her an acceleration check.  I gave the black knob a push forward to about 1/2 or maybe 2/3 of full.  Things got noisier.  My head got pushed back.  John started flying backwards.  It was awesome.

John and I began setting up our approach to the airport.  Everything was looking OK, handling was good, etc.  I decided that I'd let down for a practice approach down runway 9 at about 120 IAS.    Looking good, feeling rock solid, probably could have made a nice semi-downwind landing, but this was just for practice.  Or it might be a little tease for the crowd on the ground.... he, he, he.  As I passed the small crowd of upward turned faces, I pushed the power up and YEEEHAAAA!!! up we went.  The floor of the Evansville airspace is 1700' and Hepler sits right under the northwestern edge.  John always busts my chops when I encroach on their turf, so I had to put the nose back down and be a good boy.

A corkscrewing 360 to the left put me on a proper downwind for runway 27.  I started pulling levers and setting up for the real landing.  Man, rock solid is the only way to describe how she feels in the pattern.  I was getting about 85-90 on the approach and the LRI (Lift Reserve Indicator) was sliding slowly toward the red (stall) line.  I think I could have crossed my arm and legs and taken a nap.  Rock solid.  The crosswind that was making the windsock stand  out was barely noticeable.   I recalled that the mild chop I encountered earlier in the day when flying John's RV-6.  With the Rocket's heavier wing loading, it was gone.

As I crossed the threshold, pulled a little more power, and started a gentle flare, I was still getting that rock solid, smooth power feel. The wheels brushed the grass just as I gave the stick a healthy tug.  I expected a bounce and then a tailwheel touch, but got a slightly more nose down attitude instead and no bounce whatsoever.  I gave the stick another firm tug and got the most perfect wheel landing I have ever made.

Dang, now I'll be expecting that kind of smooth landing every time!

As I taxied back to the waiting crowd, I noticed for the first time that I was fairly drenched in sweat.  Hmmmm, and it was only 70 degrees out.

I pulled up onto the concrete pad next to the hangar.  I could tell that my wife was greatly relieved.  Me too.  Then we took some photos and popped some cold beers!  Woo hoo!!!

I do have some comments about the EIS/EFIS combo.  They really seem to work very well, but they have their quirks.  One reason that I wasn't able to monitor the airspeed, altitude, etc as much as I wanted was because the "Cruise oil pressure" warning was set too high and the EIS would not leave that display page.  That meant that I had to monitor the engine parameters on the EFIS screen.  Yeah, I know that the EIS and EFIS are supposed to do that for you... but I wanted to see the data with my own eyes.

Since the EIS was effectively locked on one page, it was actually somewhat of a distraction.  These bugs can be ironed out.  It behooves anyone using this system to really get the darned thing setup BEFORE
flight.

I also got a "Fuel flow too high" on the EFIS each time I put the noise lever forward.  Hmmmm, need to reset that number to a higher value.

So, first flight a success!!!   I can't wait to see how fast she'll go with full throttle... I never had more than about half throttle on this flight... no kidding!   Hmmmm, and it was showing 220 mph IAS at that!

Once again.... WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!

Many Thanks to John Crabtree, Les, Tom, Harry, Fred, Mark, John.... man, I could name a hundred guys but mostly Thanks go to my ever patient wife, Tammy.

Vince Frazier

Low oil pressure comments:  My cruise oil pressure was 50 psi at 200 degrees F oil temp and 2300 RPM.  This is too low.

My engine started life as an O-540-B2B5 with a fixed pitch prop.  During the overhaul, we added the goodies to make it an IO-540-C4B5.   Lycoming's overhaul manual and their parts manual show that there are 4 different oil pressure relief springs for these engines.  According to Sacramento Sky Ranch's website, when you switch from a fixed pitch to a CS prop, you need a different spring.  I called the Lycoming tech line (1-800-258-3279, press 1 for tech help) and the gent explained this all to me and said that the different spring would very likely cure my low cruise oil pressure (50psi) and get it up to 80psi where it should be.  That's good news.  However, it would be nice if seemingly trivial info like this were in the overhaul manuals!

10-17-04:  

FWIW, Here's some raw data for an engine with 2.6 hours SMOH. I don't recall if these numbers were 100% full throttle or not as I was varying power a bit.  Whatever, this is what I wrote down:

Full Rich, 2600 RPM, 23.5 MP, 6100' altitude, 73F OAT, Fuel Flow 22 gph (probably not accurate), Fuel pressure 28.0, oil pressure 99, oil temp 196, IAS 210 mph (no glfs or wheelpants)

EGT 1209, 1248, 1252, 1234, 1248,1211

CHT 311, 349, 327, 328, 339, 327

Raw data.... I don't claim any of it is or isn't accurate.... that's why there's a testing period assigned to these things!

Stalls with full flaps, power off 62mph IAS, no flaps about 67 IAS. Lots of sink, plenty of buffet, breaks straight ahead.

In 20/20 hindsight it would seem that I would have written more stuff down at various conditions.... well, all I can say is that there are plenty of distractions in the first few hours of a new plane! For example, the oil pressure, which was only 50 at cruise, is now 99(or more) at cruise. This was the result of changing the oil pressure relief spring per Lycoming's recommendation. Now, it's on the verge of being too high! ACK!

I can't wait to fly some more as soon as the wx clears a bit.

Vince

A Report From My Wife, Tammy
(for women only)

Ladies, have you ever been working in your kitchen and you couldn't find what you were looking for?  Well, if your husband builds airplanes then it's probably out in his shop somewhere.  My husband has a penchant for kitchen utensils.  He claims that he always asks me first.  I guess it must be while I'm sleeping.

Vince started building  an RV-4 back in 1987.  Coincidentally, that is when I began to notice the strange disappearance of my kitchen utensils... such as my ice picks, both of which have been MIA ever since.  Then I caught him with my turkey baster.   Who knows what it was used for, but it was oily and smelly and I never want it back.

My electric carving knife gets more use making foam seat cushions than it ever does carving turkey.  I suppose he can keep that item too. 

Even my expensive Pampered Chef utensils are not safe, even though I strictly forbade him from touching them.  I found him with my fancy Pampered Chef dough roller, rolling out some fiberglass resin.  Lucky for him that the resin was between to layers of saran wrap and he didn't mess up my roller or I'd have messed him up.  'Nuf said on that one and he bought his own roller from Home Depot the next day.

Recently, I found my potpourri crock pot under the engine of the plane.   I almost didn't recognize it since he had covered it with tin foil.  There was a Dixie cup full of fiberglass resin warming up in it!!  YUCK.  I told him to get his own $#&*@  crock pot and leave my stuff alone!   I'll be glad when he gets this dang airplane done!  Tammy

Vince replies:  I'm glad she doesn't know the full extent of my thievery!  And because I'm so thoughtful, I always get her some new kitchen utensils for Christmas.  Yes, nothing says "Love" like new kitchen utensils.  They cost less than jewelry and last longer than flowers.  Am I a great husband or what?