Paul Dye
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.
Perspective
Take a look at these beautiful pictures, taken over the town of Truckee (CA), just north of Lake Tahoe, at the northern edge of...
Favorite Tools
I was working on a part for our Xenos the other day - a fairly complicated bracket to hold an idler bell crank that...
Ultimate Instrument Proficiency Check
I fly a lot of new experimental aircraft, which means I do a lot of flying with the latest technology when it comes to...
Ahhh…Weather
There are a few fundamentals when it comes to aviation weather that many pilots never really get taught. These have nothing to do whatsoever...
Error Chain
Forty-amp Catch-22. Accidentally bumping the alternator switch uncovered a circuit-breaker problem.
Sorta' Old School
It turns out that next week I am going to do some flying with an old friend in his old Twin Comanche. No, it's...
Awww Nuts!
The picture sort of speaks for itself, doesn't it? A long-ago completed stabilizer for our Xenos motor glider project, carefully stored in the hangar...
In Case You Missed It
The New Old Aero Engine!
ULPower takes a different approach to air-cooled, horizontally-opposed, direct-drive engines. By Steve Ells.
Vacuum Bagging for Homebuilders
Pleats, punctures and vacuum loss, oh my! Patrick Thomson addresses all of these potential problems and more in the last installment of his series on vacuum bagging at home.
Supermarine Aircraft Mk 26B
Quick and nimble, with distinctive elliptical wings: The Spitfire was a classic WW-II fighter plane. Now a 90%-scale kit, true to the original, makes this inspired design available to the homebuilder.