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Photographs of N500BD with the V-Tail replaced with a conventional vertical fin and horizontal tailplane with elevators:
A 5:30am start in the workshop today, continuing with the forward windscreen mounting flanges, with all three flange parts now joined together and anchor nuts installed throughout. In addition, I have also been able to countersink all of the attachment screw locations.I had hoped to close the forward windscreen sheetmetal parts out earlier, however, I had to wait for the tooling I needed to arrive. With the new countersinking Microstop and drill bits on hand, I was able to flush rivet all of the anchor nuts and frame screws. The all came up quite neat and tidy which I was happy with. During lunch I went and purchased some more AlumiPrep in preparation for cleaning down the metal surfaces, which will then receive a coat of Alodine.Over the coming days, I will be making an effort to clean down sections and to alodine those areas, bit by bit until it is all done. Closing out the day today, I got my spare canopy out of the box and placed on the aircraft and secured it fore and aft with masking tape. I then took the aircraft outside where I gave it some hot Australian sun, to help shape the canopy to the airplane. Will be taking some more time to study the canopy cut and procedures.The aircraft prior to being sold to the owner in Canberra, approx August of 2019. Advertised as a BD5T and with a Solar T62 APU engine included.
From the information I have available, it was purchased by a person in Canberra, who then sold the Solar T62 APU to a company in the US and exchanged for the Noel Penny Turbines NPT301-4 engine. The person in Canberra had the aircraft between August 2019 and December 2021, and during that time undertook little additional work on the aircraft. Unfortunately, due to serious health issues, he was then forced to sell the aircraft on to myself in December of 2021.
Photos below are of the aircraft as found in the driveway of the previous owner in Canberra.
The aircraft loaded onto the car trailer (having collected it from Canberra, ACT), we had to stop at the local Bunnings hardware store to purchase 100mph tape to ensure the canopy did not let go down the highway!
Photos of the aircraft having arrived to my facilities at Bankstown Airport, and then unloaded.
A major milestone has been achieved today, with the sourcing of partial original manufacturers documentation for the NPT304-4 engine. Not everything, but enough to start reverse engineering things.
These documents give clarity to important parameters that will enable the team to assemble an engine start control panel, along with associated accessories. Without these documents, we were in for a major headache as we tried reverse engineering the engine control computer and accessories.
The documents are confidential reports to CMC from Noel Penny Turbines, regarding their prototype experimental NPT301-3 and -4 engines. These engines were produced under contract between NPT and CMC, for the development of the CMC Leopard experimental corporate jet project. NPT went bankrupt in around 1990, and CMC followed not long after.
The only repository of documents that I have been able to track down was Volvo Aero Engines, which acquired the intellectual properties and engineering assets of NPT. Volvo subsequently sold off their small aero engines division to an Italian company, which now produce gas turbine power generators. After months of enquiries to these businesses, none are willing to supply documents – I would say legal liability concerns etc.
So, how did I manage to find these critical documents? It turns out, that in the UK there is a backyard engineering community that focus on getting old aircraft jet/turbine engines working. Some they mount to test stands, others they mount in cars, motorbikes, go-karts and trucks!
As it would turn out, there are some youtube videos of a Go-Kart with a NPT301 installed in it, and after some internet sleuthing and facebook stalking, I was able to track down the guy who owned the Go-Kart. He had acquired one engine from CMC during their sell-up, and with it obtained sufficient documentation to determine the operating limitations of the engine, along with electrical diagrams and other critical information.
Welcome Mike, it’s great to have you part of the community! Our next step is to get you into building your own BD5!
