Just One Word: Plastics
The world's first all-composite airplane may fly again.
- By Stephen Joiner
- Air & Space magazine, November 2011
Leo Windecker’s proof-of- concept Fibaloy aircraft used fixed landing gear and aluminum control surfaces to cut down on development time and costs.
Fairfax Windecker
Decades before you could buy a mass-produced composite aircraft, Leo Windecker booked a Cessna 172 demo ride. After a hammering from turbulence in the south Texas sky, Windecker examined the airplane’s all-aluminum construction. “He was horrified by how flimsy it was,” recalls his son Ted, an aerospace engineer in Austin.
The eclectic dentist/inventor, who died last year, had experimented with glass-fiber-reinforced materials and contemplated molding recreational vehicles. Now he thought, Why not a plastic airplane?
“In our garage in Sugar Land,” Ted says, “Dad shaped a block of styrofoam like a Piper Comanche wing and coated it with a sealer, fiberglass cloth, and polyester resin.” Some of his patients, scientists at nearby Dow Chemical Company, provided advice and higher-tech Dow materials, and with their backing, CEO Herbert Dow, an airplane enthusiast, okayed funding for a composite airplane. “Dad never returned to dentistry,” Ted says.
Windecker envisioned a fixed-gear trainer. Herb Dow preferred a sportplane to rival the popular Beechcraft Bonanza—a fateful target market.
While Windecker’s sons, Ted, Bob, and Skipper, swept shop floors, organized tool bins, machined metal, and fabricated wing components, Leo and his wife, Fairfax, researched nonwoven unidirectional fiber and exotic epoxy resins. A patented composite, Fibaloy, resulted: lighter than aluminum, twice as strong. In heated vacuum molds, Fibaloy wings were baked as integral units—wiring, fuel lines, and plastic tanks enclosed—while the fuselage popped out in halves, to be glued together like model airplane pieces.
In 1967, a consortium of Midland, Texas civic boosters acquired Windecker Research. Successful real estate and oil men, most former military pilots, “they knew little about manufacturing airplanes,” Ted Windecker says. Rancher and land investor William P. Blakemore, with his huge financial clout, became majority stockholder and alpha-chairman. Ted contends Blakemore undercapitalized the project.
The first prototype incorporated fixed landing gear. But Windecker president Ken Smith mandated retractable gear, designed in-house. “In my opinion, that one decision alone killed the company,” says Dan Black, founding board member and former Air Force pilot. New engineers were recruited, mostly from Cessna. “Obviously, these people didn’t have a lot of experience designing retractable landing gears,” Ted says. Successive revamps failed structural tests and hemorrhaged money and labor, setting certification back by months. One exasperated gear component supplier finally asked, “What’s this for? A Boeing 747?”
Rivet-free and nearly seamless, the Eagle was an aerodynamic banana peel. Its fuselage displayed silhouettes of Bonanzas, Cessnas, and Bellancas—aircraft the Eagle outpaced in races above Midland oil fields.
Comments (3)
Are you sure it actually pre-dated the Wassmer?
http://www.pilotfriend.com/aircraft%20performance/Wassmer%20WA.51.htm
The chronology's not entirely clear from your article.
The Wassmer was definitely a production machine, but a little on the heavy side. (I understand that the engineers were conservative with a relatively untried material for aircraft use.)
Posted by Alan Rocker on September 20,2011 | 08:22 PM
Growing up in Odessa in the 60's and early 70's my family always attended the annual Air Show at what was then the Midland Air Terminal, now Midland International Airport. At that time the oil business was REALLY booming and MAF boasted that it had the largest fleet of general aviation aircraft in the world, most of which was oil business related of course. I remember going to these air shows and seeing the Blue Angles and Thunderbirds fly. I remember seeing Bob Hoover do his amazing routine in his Shrike and wondering why the thing didn't fall out of the sky. I remember seeing an F-104 Starfighter fly and then walking up to it and talking to the pilot. There were guards placed onto the the wings, which I thought was unusual until the pilot removed one and showed us the razor sharp leading edges that could easily give you a bad cut if you ran into it. And I remember being immersed in all things aeronautic, which sparked an interest that thrives to this day.
But I most especially remember the Windecker Eagle. My father and I both were fascinated with it and talked at length with Dr. Windecker about the plane. The surface of it was literally as smooth as glass and when it flew a demonstration the low friction enabled it to zip by with the engine barely audible at such a low power setting. I was amazed by your article to find out that William Blakemore was involved with the plane. I went to school with his son, James, and we are in contact today. Mr. Blakemore owned several airplanes and I got to fly in one of them, a Mooney MU-2.
I often wondered what happened to the Windecker corporation. I found out years later that it was acquired by, or at least did a lot of work for, The Company (CIA) by several people who knew the later history of the little airplane. I'm glad to know it had some sort of life, even if it wasn't a commercial success.
Posted by Jim Caldwell on March 9,2012 | 02:42 PM
"In December 1969, it won certification as the world’s first all-composite airplane."
Time and time again, GA seems to be completely unaware of the early developments in composites. The first certified composite aircraft was the Glasflügel Libelle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasfl%C3%BCgel_H-301
By the time the Windecker won it's certification, 9 different sailplane models had been certified and hundreds had been sold. Today, you will find those aircraft on many airfields, still going strong and their longevity is a testament to their construction.
Posted by J on March 4,2013 | 02:17 AM