On Saturday, November 9th, 2019 at private grass strip in North Texas KipAero's 1½ Strutter had its second test flight. This is a powered by one of our new production Gnome 100hp rotary engines. The Strutter is an authentic reproduction made and assembled by the crew at KipAero. The markings represent Strutter #9420 flown [...]
Over the last couple of months we have been working on something a little different. We have been working on the CAD design and manufacturing of reaction heating blocks for an innovative hand-held DNA testing instrument. The DNAiTECH, developed by Dr Murray Broom here in Marlborough will be used for teaching DNA, technology and [...]
Spring is here and they days are warming up, but the work is not stopping in the workshop. We are working hard to get all the components finished to start assembling two more Gnome engines which we will be running in November. Work has now been completed on the Front Cam Housings and the [...]
We have had a client supply us with Harrison valves from a Corsair, these have been stripped of the internals. Casting patterns were made off a original P40 Harrison valve and from these had new bodies cast. We have machined the bodies and also the fittings and then fitted the internals from the original [...]
This Oshkosh trip seems to be challenging us at every step. Firstly the weather over the weekend during setup caused a lot of havoc. We eventually got the Kipaero Bessonneau Hangar sorted and engine mounted onto stand. Because of the extra work needed in the hangar we didn’t get a chance to test run [...]
With only 2 weeks to go until Oshkosh 2019, we have been reminiscing on our time there last year. Here is a short video of Tony and Kip from KipAero running our Gnome engine on the test stand. We will be doing daily engine runs again this year in the Vintage Circle at the [...]
It is hard to believe it has nearly been a year since Oshkosh 2018 but it is time to do it all again for 2019. Tony is heading back over again to assist Kip and the team at Kip Aero to display our Gnome engines and their Sopwith 1 ½ Strutter that they are [...]
The workshop has been a bit noisy this week with Neil starting on the cylinders for the next 2 Gnome engines. Great to have the last of the major components coming together to allow us to move on the build stage.
We had some centre section wing attach fittings, brought in for a Fairchild F45 that is being restored here at Omaka by Jem Aviation. Corrosion was cleaned up on some of the original fittings but we needed to remanufacture some new fittings. These were then matched drill as per the original fittings. They are making great work [...]
We were recently asked to make a gearbox side cover for a 1915 Thor Model U. We took the original part to make the drawings. Once completed we machined the part up then matched it up to the gearbox to mark and machine out the hole in the right locations. Took a bit of [...]
