The Propeller under the Bed: A Personal History of Homebuilt Aircraft by Eileen A. Bjorkman

Author:Eileen A. Bjorkman [Bjorkman, Eileen A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2017-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

Fig. 7.1. Ed Lesher’s Teal, 1960s.

Like Arnold, Lesher calculated that a fifty-horsepower engine would be optimum for setting records, but he, too, found no suitable engine that size. He instead cannibalized Nomad for its hundred-horsepower Continental engine. The larger engine was a good compromise: it reduced performance at the lower speeds used for distance records, but it increased performance during the pursuit of speed and altitude records.

Years later when Arnold read about Teal, he wondered if Lesher had read his student paper. Teal contained many of my father’s design features: the storage of the majority of fuel in the wing, an extra fuel tank in the fuselage, drag-reducing retractable landing gear, and simple instruments. Lesher had even come up with the same wing-surface area.

With all the extra hardware needed to drive the rear-mounted propeller, Teal was heavy. Even without frills such as lights and an electrical system for night flying, Teal weighed 680 pounds empty, compared to Heinonen’s 551-pound HK-1 and Arnold’s optimistic 438-pound design. However, Teal flew faster than Heinonen’s airplane owing to the lower drag, which offset the weight penalty. As for the pilot, Lesher’s first idea was to find a jockey-size aviator, but he instead decided to fly for the records himself. This gave him an incentive to lose weight; and besides, he didn’t want to design and build the airplane only to have someone else fly it and earn the record. Everyone knows who Chuck Yeager is, but who remembers the engineer who designed the X-1 that Yeager used to break the sound barrier?

Teal first flew in 1965; and by 1970, Lesher had set all the records he pursued, except for straight-line distance, the record my father coveted.

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