| disturbing wing failures. Since
the company was out of business, Scott was at that time supplying modifications
for his own aircraft, as well as for owners of other Seahawks who'd heard
he was redesigning and modifying the plane. He was also publishing a newsletter
for those Seahawk builders. Then the NTSB asked him to look into the cause
of the failures that were occurring. He was sent to inspect some of the
aircraft involved. In one case, the NTSB had one of the broken wings sent
to the NTSB laboratory for X-ray examination. In each case that Scott investigated
(and some he didn't) it was determined that on the wings that had failed,
the upper spar caps were not being adequately bonded to the spar! Instructions
supplied with the Seahawk kits had been devoid of an inspection procedure
to ensure the bonding of the spar caps to the spar. Furthermore, the assembly
process outlined in the Seahawk instructions led the builders to unknowingly
assemble the wings without accomplishing the necessary bond! Some of those
planes flew as long as 200 hours before wing failure! Even then, to the
credit of the aircraft, the pilots were able to fly the planes to a safe
landing in spite of having lost a whole wing! After one such incident,
one pilot was able to fly his plane seven miles, all the way back to his
airport. In addition to the serious wing failures, the Seahawk had a difficult
time taking off from the water and when flown from the ground it would
not go more than 85 mph. Through tuft testing, Scott found that the airflow
around the pylon area was causing serious aerodynamic problems. This was
aggravated by a shortage of wing area. Also, the hull of the boat section
was too small to facilitate water take-offs, so he designed sponsons that
would be attached to the sides of the hull to add surface area. Designed
as airfoils, these sponsons contributed to the wing area and helped to
solve the problem. Although the basic concept of the landing gear was
The redesigned and heavily-modified
Glass Goose is now capable of cruising at about 140 mph.
|
good, the elements were under-designed and poorly engineered. These were redesigned and produced in stainless steel, and the control systems were dealt with in the same way. The pylon area was streamlined and scuppers were added below the propeller to duct the air around the pylons to the prop. The engine cowling was re-sculpted to improve aerodynamics and make it esthetically pleasing. While Scott was modifying his original Seahawk, the original company muddled through several ownerships only to finally be abandoned to the bank. During this period, Scott began to sell his modifications to the other 150 or so Seahawk kit owners. You can tell how appealing the pretty little biplane amphibian was to many | been completed and successfully
flown. Scott's manufacturing plant for composite parts production is located
on 12 acres outside Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas. The Glass Goose
is kept in a new, 5,000-squarefoot hangar at Lakeview Airport in the same
neighborhood. Scott thought that his dream aircraft had finally landed.
But as it turned out, there was yet additional redesign work left to do.
More Changes
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Look closely at the upper right wing. Do you see a great blue heron? I wonder who is going to clean the wing after this huge bird departs. |
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| homebuilders by noting the large number of kits sold even before the flight testing problems surfaced. When it became evident that Scott's modifications to his Seahawk were going to result in a very good aircraft, he negotiated with the bank holding the Seahawk assets, and eventually purchased the bones of that company. Those included rights, molds, materials, equipment, etc. Everything was moved from Pennsylvania to Texas, and the long process of learning how to produce composite parts began. Half the molds were no longer useable due to the design changes, and the rest had to be modified or replaced. Redesigning and building the new molds cost Scott a good deal of time and money. He depended on proceeds from his Dallas car wash business to supply the major part of the sorely-needed cash flow for his Glass Goose business. After years of work, the many details of establishing a kit manufacturing business were accomplished and the newly-named Glass Goose was offered for sale. There are currently 30 Glass Goose kits under construction, two of which have | were even less balanced. This led to flutter, and one day, when Scott had taken the plane up for a test-flight, he was forced to land the plane off-field. The aircraft was severely damaged, but Scott escaped unharmed. He claims that the phenomenal strength of the Glass Goose cockpit and a good four-point harness allowed him to walk away from the plane totally unscathed, but the event did set back the Glass Goose program somewhat. Following this event, a full engineering review was commissioned by degreed aeronautical engineers utilizing the best in computer analysis and laboratory testing. During this process it became evident that the unbalanced flaperons were the culprit. The wings survived a great deal more abuse in flight during the flutter event than should have been possible. While the engineering review was being held, the company was building a new plane. Scott waited to build the wings until he'd received the results of the review. After getting the green light from the engineers, Scott built the new wings, installed the new 'balanced' flaperons, and the | |||||
| CUSTOM PLANES - MAY 2000 | Page 2 |
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