Bob and Kathie Beaty`s GlaStar

I
Much
*
CKCOX
When a new homebuilt design hits the market and a lot
of kits are sold in a relatively
short time, there is a predictable lag of a couple of years
m
%.
or so while builders are slaving
away in their garages and
basements . . . then all at once,
it seems, critical mass is
achieved and at the next major
fly-in, a big bunch of the airplanes shows up for the first
time. There are always a few
early birds, of course, but Sun
'n Fun '99 saw the first large
SPORT AVIATION 57
influx of GlaStars and RV-8s. We've
had a considerable amount of coverage
on both designs here in Sport Aviation,
mainly involving the company prototypes, but we like to eventually follow
up with coverage of a customer-built
example to see how new designs are
doing from the builder's point of view.
There were a number of very nice
new GlaStars at Sun 'n Fun '99, any
one of which could have been the basis
for a good article. We had to choose
one, however, and we decided on Bob
and Kathie Beaty's just completed
N229KB. The GlaStar kit includes
everything needed to complete an airworthy example of the type, but the
finishing touches are left up to the
builder. N229KB stood out in several
respects: the overall level of workmanship was superb, the interior was
the most elaborate we've yet seen in a
GlaStar and the paint job featured
duPont's spectacular new chameleonlike ChromaLusion™ paint.
Since we're looking at the project
from the builder's standpoint, we might
as well start with the builder. Bob Beaty
was born in Columbus, Mississippi in
1948 and would eventually earn a de-
58 JULY 1999
gree in pharmacy from the University
of Mississippi. He began his working
career in an independent corner drugstore, later worked for one of the big
retail drugstore chains, then 12 years
ago he went to work for PharMerica, a
company based in Tampa, FL that provides pharmaceutical products and
services to long term care and assisted
living facilities. Bob is currently the
company's senior vice president of operations for the eastern U. S.
Always interested in aviation, Bob
learned to fly in 1976 at Stinson Field
in Aberdeen, Mississippi. He soloed in
a Cherokee 140, then became a partner
with several other pilots in a Cessna
150 in which he obtained his Private
license. Sometime later the group
bought a 1946 Aeronca Chief project
and spent about six months repairing
and recovering it. They flipped a coin
to determine who would make the first
post-restoration flight and, fortunately,
Bob says, he lost and a pilot with
some taildragger time won the toss.
Even so, he ground-looped the airplane on the first landing — the result,
it turned out, of an over-abundance of
toe-in of the main gear. After proper
Bob and Kathie Beaty
adjustment, Bob would get a tailwheel
checkout and flew the Chief about 15
hours before his business career moved
him away from Aberdeen.
The experience Bob gained in working on the Chief had been singularly
enjoyable . . . indeed, quite therapeutic, he found. It was so different from
his work in corporate management
that it seemed to magically melt away
Walk around N229KB and the trim color
constantly changes.
the stress of the workaday world. This
eventually led him to homebuilding
and the construction of a Kitfox.
"I flew it once and got relocated to
Colorado. A guy came up and asked
me what I would take for it and I told
him . . . and he ended up buying it. By
that time I had already seen the GlaStar
and wanted to build one, so selling the
Kitfox kind of gave me the seed money
to get started. I was impressed with the
GlaStar because it had such beautiful
lines and had such a wide performance
envelope. It had a low landing speed,
yet it was fast in cruise for a fixed gear
airplane with wing struts. I flew the
factory prototype and was sold on the
design. It was just a great flying airplane; as docile as a Cessna 150 or 172
but with much better performance. I
had friends who were flying Glasairs,
but as a Private pilot with about 200
hours, I felt the GlaStar was better
suited to my experience and skill levels. I just like fun flying; I'm not a big
cross country flier.
"I ordered the kit at Oshkosh in
1995 and the first shipment I received
was the metal tail kit. I had learned to
rivet in the workshops at Sun 'n Fun
and Oshkosh, so with Tony Bingelis'
books in hand for additional information, I began the project by starting on
the rudder. It was very challenging at
first, but it got easier as you got into
the process.
"One of the additional things about
the GlaStar that had appealed to me
was the opportunity to do some composite work. I had no experience with
this process, so when I heard the EAA
Foundation was building a GlaStar for
the Young Eagles Program early, I
went to Oshkosh and participated long
enough to learn how to laminate the
fuselage shells together and attach
them to the tubular sub-frame. I went
home and immediately started on mine
and it went very well.
"I had started the project in Colorado, and I began looking for an
engine while we were still living there.
I wanted a low compression Lycoming O-320 E3D so I could
use auto gas if I wanted to, and I
found one in Trade-A-Plane.
Wouldn't you know it, it was in
Longmont, Colorado —just 10
m i l e s away! It had been completely overhauled by IA Larry
Pickerell and everything had been
done really first class. The cylinders had been sent off to Firewall
Forward and the crankshaft went
to Rick Romans, Inc. in Tulsa.
The camshaft was reconditioned
by Aircraft Specialties Services
of Tulsa. It had good log books,
so I bought it for about half what
you would pay for a new
engine. Stoddard-Hamilton has a lot of engine bay
options you can buy — a
stainless steel exhaust system, a baffle package, air
induction system, etc. —
and I bought most of them.
One of the good t h i n g s
about them is that they
come w i t h detailed instructions for mounting. A
lot of the kit manufacturers
pretty well leave the firewall forward to the builder,
but in this case all the detailed installation instructions really helped me.
"About halfway through the building process, I was relocated to Tampa,
FL and had to get an additional 1 8
wheeler and load up my airplane and
shop. With the move and getting settled in a new home, I was out of the
building process for about six months,
but I finally got back on it. The last
big airframe job was b u i l d i n g the
wings, and riveting on the top skins
was something I couldn't do by myself. I needed a partner for that. Prior
to this, my wife, Kathie, was not really
into homebuilding or even aviation in
general, but she agreed to go to Sun 'n
Fun '98 with me and learn to use a
bucking bar in the riveting workshop.
That didn't work out very well, but
when we changed places, she turned
out to be a really good riveter. That's
the way we finished the wings, with
me doing the bucking and her operating the rivet gun. I bought her a Rosie
The Riveter T-shirt . . . but that was
just the beginning. She later enrolled
in ground school and did quite well.
She was the only person in the class
who was not a student pilot, however,
SPORT AVIATION 59
MARK SCHAlBLt
N229KB's beautiful leather interior
60 JULY 1999
so one night she came home and said,
'Hey, I'm taking flying lessons!' She
soloed in a Cherokee just two weeks
before Sun 'n Fun '99, so we are now
partners in the GlaStar and all our aviation activities. She will get checked
out in the GlaStar, ol'course, and we
look forward to enjoying it together.
"But, back to the construction. I
used a 3M structural double-sided
foam adhesive to install the glass in the
"My friend and F A A Technical
Counselor, Thurston 'Jaybo' Hinyub,
made the first flight in January of this
year. Unfortunately, he and his wife
were involved in a fatal aircraft accident
shortly afterwards. Ile really helped me
throughout the building process and I
will always be grateful to him. The airplane flew well from the start, needing
only a fixed tab on the rudder."
Bob's GlaStar was initially fitted
with a Sensenich 74/65 propeller, but
that proved to be too much pitch for
the 150 hp engine. When he consulted
Sensenich, he was told that the 74/65
propeller was best suited for a 160 hp
version of the Lycoming 320 series
and he needed a 74/61 for his 150 hp
version. They graciously traded even
with him and, as predicted, the 74/61
airplane. Some guys in Brazil tested
the process in the heat down there and
it worked very, very well. I also used it
to attach the vortex generators on the
wings. It's resistant to ultraviolet and
seems to be holding up really well. I
bought the modular instrument panel
from Stoddard-Hamilton and with a lot
• •••Hill
CENTER
TftNK
Lli
of assistance from Bernard Bathauer of
Eagle Avionics, Inc. ol'Brooksville,
FL, i n s t a l l e d the instruments and
avionics, including a new KX155,
Garmin GTX 320 transponder and a
Skyforce GPS. I'm currently undergo-
ing instrument training and 1 have
enough equipment in the panel to go
out with a safety pilot and practice
what I'm learning.
"Airlink Technologies, Inc. in Palm
City, FL makes some aftermarket parts
for the GlaStar that make it a lot easier
S S S S S S ^ »'(^f8s'
to upholster the cabin, especially up
around the t u b u l a r structure at the
wing roots, and I bought those and installed them. I found a guy who was in
1500
the upholstery business, Ray Lufto of
J and R Upholstery of Dade City, FL,
and he built the seats from scratch. We
came to Sun 'n Fun in 1998, went to
one of the commercial booths and
bought a couple of cow hides for like
one third the price you would normally
have to pay. We decided how we
wanted the seats to look and he did a
great job making them.
"Luckily, I also had a duPont technical representative living nearby, Dan
Woodford of Land-O-Lakes, FL, and
we quickly became friends. I assisted
him in the painting, and we applied the
basic white Imron 5000 at my house.
We rented a regular paint booth at an
airport to apply the trim, however. It's
a new paint called ChromaLusion™
and it changes color when viewed
from different angles . . . not just different shades of the same color, but
completely different colors. The solids
in the paint are five-sided and each
facet reflects a different color. It's really dramatic.
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SPORT AVIATION 61
proved to be a good match for the engine/airframe combination. It allows
the engine to turn up to 2,650 rpm in
straight and level flight. At the time of
Sun 'n Fun '99, Bob was still break-
ing in the engine, cruising it at 2,500
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62 JULY 1999
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rpm and 135 mph. Wide open, it will
ease up to about 140 mph.
"The empty weight came out at
1,250 pounds, which is very close to
the factory number. Gross is 1,960.
The stall occurs at about 47 mph with
flaps and 49-50 clean. It lands much
like a Cessna 152, but with its much
cleaner airframe is harder to slow
down. The controls have a very tight,
solid feel and you can make turns with
aileron only and the ball stays right in
the middle. It's very easy to fly, it's a
lot of fun and I feel very comfortable
in the airplane. I think it's a very safe
airplane for a low time pilot.
"I especially enjoyed the building
process. I'm a part of Corporate
America and I travel quite a bit. I'd
come home on weekends and the project would take my mind off all that. It
was a great stress reliever. After the
airplane was moved to the airport, I'd
go out to my shop on a Saturday
morning, look at that empty room and
wonder, 'What am I going to do with
myself?' I was really experiencing
withdrawal symptoms for a while.
"I've got to have some kind of project going on, and I think for my next
one, I'm going to find a basket case
Cub or Champ and restore it."
And while he's recharging his psyche in his shop this time around, he
and Kathie can always take a break
and go flying in their beautiful GlaStar. How much better can life be? ^