WE'RE HAVIN' FUN! I hope to be done for Oshkosh 2000. Hope to see you there!

Cert 6/96, flown 18 mos. in primer. "Outstanding Workmanship" award OSH 98. Full IFR/Appr GPS, STEC50 AP,"essential bus" electrics, Servo/spring aileron trim and "header always full" fuel system. BASF "Extreme Rainbow" Paint.

"Outstanding Aircraft" award Sun'N'Fun 99, People's Choice and Judge's Choice at both the 1999 North Central Lancair fly-in and the 2000 Iron Mountain fly-in

I finally locked in a registration number for my project... having missed my birthday plus first-name initial (77M) by a day or two, I was equally as pleased to accept a number that illustrated my engine of choice and the fact that this is all experimental... "Thirteen Bravo X-ray" has a pretty nice ring to it. About this same time the engine is in the middle of an overhaul, with the side housings presently out for surfacing and porting and a single replacement rotor housing being sourced. All other overhaul components are in hand and I hope to have the long block completed by sometime in February '01.

Jeez, lots of time between that last update and now, but this project has been on hold while I help Ted Noel finish his (v8) Eagle-540-powered Lancair IVP. It's been an amazing task and we're just about ready to fly. A few glitches with the powerplant have held us up but we're just about through them. A first flight report will be published on the LML as soon as it's performed. Then it's back to my 360. Yay!!!

2007 now and still no progress on my kit. I have, however, in the meantime, dramatically updated the tool collection and knowledge base. Hopefully both will make things progress quicker once I actually start building again. First major tasks are to relocate to my new property in Mims, FL, on the east coast, put up my 36x55 shop and sell the Fort Myers property in order to build a new house as well. I now have all the requisite engine components to complete the build-up, including moly-coated side housings and ceramic-coated rotors. Picked up a new e-shaft and have the complete gasket/spring/seals set ready to install. I've also gathered several instruments along the way, a Rocky Mountain micro-encoder, a G-meter, airspeed indicator, GRT Engine Info System, and I have my RWS EC2 (engine computer) on hand as well. Now that I have the complete machine shop I'm planning on re-doing the o/c links for the nose gear (beefier & with bushings) as well as tearing out the inner gear door hydraulics and replacing them with lightweight mechanical actuators operated by the wheels on retraction. I'm also going to be manufacturing my version of Dick Reichel's geared pitch trim system and so will probably remove the trim tab from the tail to lighten the elevator and go with the original spring-bias system for it driven by the DR trim wheel. I've also got a similar design worked out for the ailerons and rudder, so there will be no trim motors to deal with anywhere on the airplane. Lighter and less complicated is better. I've also kicked around the idea of changing the flaps to a semi-fowler type like those found on the Legacy. I'm obviously a long way from there, but it gives me something else to look forward to. I've also secured the drawings for the L-360 winglets courtesy of an LML friend from "down under"... so am planning on incorporating them into my aircraft as well. Should be fun.

(added 2/6/00) Progress going slow. Custom work really slows a project down

We hope to finish the entire project in less than a year and will then think of ferrying it back ! Any co-pilot out there?

We would like to meet/see as many other Lancairs (especially partly built ones) and discuss problems, solutions, ideas and innovations. Input of any kind will be greatly appreciated.