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.
Keeping Up
Keeping up with the Joneses is a grand tradition in the western lifestyle, or it least is has been for the last century or...
It's Just Homebuilding
Wandering through the Sport class pits this morning, I spotted parts, tools, and paper towels soaked with brake fluid under the left gear leg...
Injector Cleaning
Guess what we're doing here. If you own a fuel injected aircraft engine and do your own maintenance, you probably recognize the process--we're cleaning fuel injector nozzles.
Welcome to the Races!
Race week is here, and airplanes from all over have come to Reno, Nevada to see who is fastest - and the largest single...
Sure, I Planned That
Sometimes its just fine to be lucky when what you'd really like to be is good. Take, for instance, the rear corner of the...
Is That Bolt Hollow?
Why yes…yes it is!
One of the clever inventions we ran into at AirVenture this year was on display at the Click Bond booth. Click...
A Clever Gadget
One never stops learning! Although I have been working on airplanes most of my life, I still smile when I get to learn something...
Power up!
Boy, I am enjoying building "simple" for a change. Most of my airplane projects are fairly complex machines with multiple EFIS screens, IFR capability,...
Smoke Season in the Sierra
It's that time of year in the western United States--smoke from wildfires reduce the visibility in the mountains for the usual 100+ miles to...
Long Spar – Meet Big Squeezer!
One good reason to make lots of friends when you get in to homebuilding--sooner or later you're going to need a special tool, and...
In Case You Missed It
Booster or Bravado?
A few years back, during AirVenture, a person asked me what vibration testing had...
Yearly Condition Inspection, Part I
If you own a Cessna or other certificated airplane, you need to get an...
Kitfox Celebrates Forty, Too
To say that Kitfox has been successful since then is an understatement.
Ask the DAR
DAR Mel Asberry answers questions about when you need A&P signoff, re-certifying an airplane to make it an LSA (hint: cant be done) and pre-registration of an Experimental.