RIP N132EA

[lutorm]

It's been a while since I posted anything here, I haven't had a lot of time to spare for airplanes for a while, and now it looks like it won't be for a while. Back in February, we were notified by the airport that a security guard had driven his truck through the hangar door and into our Sonex N132EA, which in turn was pushed partially through the hangar wall (missing the Taylorcraft in the next hangar over by mere inches.) The damage was severe, wings bent, fuselage buckled where the wings attach, the tail crushed and bent. It would essentially have to be rebuilt all over. We just settled with their insurance company for a total loss, the airframe will be donated to the local EAA chapter for educational purposes, and the co-owners will walk their separate ways. I recorded a video of the damage for posterity.

Some of you might recall our experiments with building a custom intake plenum (see this thread) for our Aerovee a couple years ago. This has worked very well and have shown much better mixture distribution than the stock intake. We were just in the process of upgrading the engine to EFI, too. Since we won't have any use of the plenum parts, if anyone wants to continue experimenting with them I'd be happy to donate them to a new Aerovee owner for the cost of shipping. We also have a ton of Brad Penn oil left over, but I suspect the cost of shipping them from HI will make it not worth it.

[mike.smith]

Makes one want to cry! What a shame.

[lutorm]

The plenum has been claimed.

[jowens]

So very sad. I'm sorry for your terrible loss.

[lutorm]

So I actually still have the parts for the custom intake plenum if anyone wants them. We'll be moving across the world in a week so they'll be going in the trash unless someone's interested in continuing the experiment. PM me if you want them.

[thomas]

PM sent. Thanks, Paul