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.
Pick a Little, Build a Little
Our twenty (plus) year old quick-build F1 Rocket kit came covered in a variety of twenty (plus) year old vinyl and plastic.
(Un)Boxing Day
Everyone knows that “Boxing Day” is December 26th (an old-world holiday that few celebrate on our side of the pond). This year, we celebrated...
Stewart Delivers
About ten days before Christmas, we fell into an incredible deal on an F1 Rocket kit (and a motor!) that was located in central...
Machine, Weld… Repeat!
The project was certainly educational, and those of you with lots of experience welding will chuckle at my expense.
How to Calibrate Angle-of-Attack on Garmin’s G3X Touch System
For pilots who fly with modern electronic flight instruments, having access to accurate, repeatable angle-of-attack (AoA) information can be transformative. But before you can...
Remembering Reno
Aviation just wouldn’t be the same without the races…no matter where they are held.
Stick Bushing
Things that move wear out. That’s buried in a law of physics I once learned having to do with entropy. In this case, that...
In Case You Missed It
To Launch A Light Sport
Author Bob Fritz got the bad news that he would likely not pass his FAA medical and was faced with a choice: Finish the RV he was working on and resign himself to flying with a partner, or try to find a suitable Light Sport Aircraft that he could build and fly solo. In this first installment in the series, he details his search for the right design and reveals the decision he ultimately made.
