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Paul Dye

Paul Dye
908 POSTS 26 COMMENTS
Paul Dye, KITPLANES® Editor at Large, retired as a Lead Flight Director for NASA’s Human Space Flight program, with 50 years of aerospace experience on everything from Cubs to the Space Shuttle. An avid homebuilder, he began flying and working on airplanes as a teen and has experience with a wide range of construction techniques and materials. He flies an RV-8 and SubSonex jet that he built, an RV-3 that he built with his pilot wife, as well as a Dream Tundra and an electric Xenos motorglider they completed. Currently, they are building an F1 Rocket. A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 6000 hours in many different types of aircraft and is an A&P, FAA DAR, EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor; he was formerly a member of the Homebuilder’s Council. He consults and collaborates in aerospace operations and flight-testing projects across the country.

The Nut Under the Cam Gear

4
Anyone that has disassembled and/or built a four-cylinder Lycoming is probably very familiar with a specific nut - the one hiding underneath the cam...

Funny Money

2
When I was a kid, way back in the 1960s, one of the toughest decisions I had to make was whether to buy a...

Mounting On a Curve

5
A long time ago, when homebuilders began installing Garmin 430s—the most popular IFR GPS/nav/com of the day—we were mostly left on our own to...

Nutsert Notes

3
Let me say right up front that I hate nutserts. Also called rivet nuts, threaded inserts or rivnuts. (I’m sure there’s a formal product...

You’ve Done Your Duty

2
Nothing lasts forever.

A Great Day to Burn Jet A

0
About the only good thing that you can say about these times of angst and social distancing is that flying a single-seat airplane puts...

In-Flight Weather: Practice for Survival

1
This was going to get ugly. Crossing southern Louisiana in the middle of the afternoon in late May is never pretty. Today was going to...

The Virtual Fly-In

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Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and in these days of social isolation from COVID-19, aviators who still want to congregate for community support...

Ride the Wave!

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Oh, for a sailplane on a day like today! I took off on a short after-breakfast flight to do a little post-maintenance test hop....

Turbine Temptation: Into the Air

8
No parts left—let’s fly!

In Case You Missed It

Titan 51 Revisited

10
Capturing the look (and at least some of the feel) of a legendary aircraft-one that tops many pilots dream list-was no small feat. By Doug Rozendaal.

Engine Failure!

0
Are you prepared?

Riveting Aileron Skins

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I was assembling the ailerons for my RV-7A and reached a point where I...

Cutting Aluminum on the Table Saw

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The first time I watched someone cut a one-inch thick slab of 7075...