Paul Dye
Paul Dye, KITPLANES® Editor at Large, retired as a Lead Flight Director for NASA’s Human Space Flight program, with 40 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.
Simple Days
Whenever I get a chance to wander through the EAA Museum in Oshkosh, as I did last week, I like to stop and pay tribute to the older, early planes that represent the roots of homebuilding. Sure, there are all sorts of neat high performance and record setting airplanes - but these simple planes that harken back to an earlier era are what got this whole "experimental aviation" thing going for us.
Extreme Fun
To some, extreme sports are jumping off mountains with a wing suit, snowboarding off cliffs, or mountain biking on a razor's edge ridge in...
Care and Feeding
One thing about having multiple airplanes around - it takes a considerable amount of time to keep them all happy and healthy. (Hint -...
Drilling a Straight Hole in Aluminum.
One of the fundamental skills a builder needs to develop on just about any airplane project is drilling a clean, straight, well-centered hole in...
Shop Memories
It doesn't take long for a brand new shop to generate its own memories: holes drilled in a once-pristine worktable, aluminum shavings collecting in...
Eating the Elephant
Everyone has heard it before, expressed in various ways - you build an airplane the way you eat an elephant, one bite at a...
Leaving Lakeland
Sun 'n Fun is rapidly receding into the rearview mirror as the first major fly-in of the year draws to a close. We hope that you've enjoyed the coverage by our intrepid group of contributors - regular pilots and builders like yourselves, peering into the nooks and crannies of the show for those who couldn't fit it into their schedules, or who couldn't make it past the weather in northern Florida.
Tail Chase!
I've ben watching these two airplanes chase each other around and around on top of the EAA trailer now for two days - every...
Clever New Gascolator
Flyboy Accessories is showing a new fuel filtering device in their booth at Sun 'n Fun - a gascolator/fuel strainer that mounts into the...
Playing Hooky – Going to Class!
I'm sure I won't get much sympathy from readers, but after four days at a show like Sun 'n Fun, I've sort of had...
