C-90 powered Pietenpol Air Camper built by Alan James

Dear Grant,

Many thanks for all the BPA Newsletters received over the last two years. They are always eagerly awaited and usually end up being read from cover to cover (several times) on the day received! We'd like to renew our membership please and therefore enclose funds to cover two years subscription and overseas postage.

A colleague at work has access to the Internet via his PC and one day offered to search on "Pietenpol" for me. It was really exciting to be able to view the BPA information and to get full color, full screen pictures of Pietenpols on the office desk. It's enough to convert even a computer-phobe like me (Chris) into an active user. So much that the "wallpaper" on my recently-acquired Windows95 equipped PC is now an in-flight picture of the superb Pietenpol Air camper G-BUCO, built by Alan James a few years ago. We've both had the good fortune to fly in this aeroplane on several occasions. The picture is available as a postcard from the PFA (the UK equivalent of the EAA) and a copy is enclosed for you. Hopefully, next on the PC agenda will be a Pietenpol based screen saver.

Progress with our Air Camper continues steadily, albeit rather slowly. All the fuselage woodwork is now finished and varnished. The empenage is also just about finished, apart from varnishing, which we're hoping to complete before Autumn. Over Winter we're hoping to complete the wing ribs and then progress our way through the rest of the wing woodwork, although assembling the wing will need to await construction of a new garage, which could delay things a bit (a lot!) Many other parts are available as well. We have quite a collection now of various hardware, instruments, seat belts, metal fittings (including the undercarriage, engine mount and controls) and propeller.

A big event a few months ago was the purchase of a Continental O-200 engine which had been lying in a barn for the last eleven years. It was removed from a cattle-damaged (!) Rallye Club aeroplane and although it looked grim did actually turn over OK. This impressed me (Chris) no end, but my wife, Fran the skeptic, rightly pointed out maybe the propeller flange wasn't actually connected to anything else inside the engine!

Anyway, we proceeded to buy it and it's now in the process of being stripped and overhauled by a local specialist. Fortunately, the engine did have plenty of parts inside it -- most of which were in (ie; overhaulable) condition! All those real Pietenpol enthusiasts probably cringe at the thought of a Cont. in place of a Ford Model "A," but for us here in the UK, the Cont. makes a lot more sense -- and even those are fairly hard to find at a reasonable price. We're very pleased with our find, particularly as it's a Rolls Royce built version!

Well, we'd better sign off there. many thanks for all the work you put into the producing such a fine newsletter for us all -- it's very much appreciated. Keep up the good work!

Yours sincerely,
Chris and Fran Barley

Another web page by Grant MacLaren