The Church Midwing JC-1 , a.k.a. Church Mid-Wing Sport , is a midwing racing aircraft designed by James Church using the fuselage of a Heath aircraft.
7-465: The Church Midwing was designed to be an affordable homebuilt aircraft. Church marketed kits for $ 190. The open cockpit midwing aircraft featured windows in the wings for visibility downward. Built to be a pylon racer, a Church Midwing placed third in the 1930 National Air Races. The Church used many parts from the Heath Parasol design. In 1931 the prototype was modified with an installation of
14-658: A Henderson four-cylinder motorcycle engine. This was the prototype for a series of single and two-seat recreational craft that utilized the Clark Y airfoil. In 1929 Modern Mechanix magazine published the plans in a series and the plans were reprinted in their "1930 Flying & Gliding Manual," which in turn has been reprinted periodically by the EAA ( Experimental Aircraft Association ). Although Heath died in 1931, his Parasol designs remained extremely popular, being economical to build and operate as well as easy to fly. Subsequently,
21-633: A 38 hp inline air-cooled Church designed engine and a cowling modification to accommodate the cylinders protruding upward in the pilot's line of sight. A 1931 advertisement placed by Heath in Popular Mechanics extolled the virtues of its first-place finish with its parasol configuration, compared to the Church's midwing planform. Data from EAA General characteristics Performance Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Heath Parasol The Heath Parasol
28-507: Is an American single or two seat, open-cockpit, parasol winged , homebuilt monoplane . In 1926, Edward Bayard Heath , a successful American air racer and the owner of an aircraft parts supply business, built the first example of the Heath Parasol, a small, single seat parasol winged airplane using surplus wings from a Thomas-Morse S-4 , a World War One fighter trainer, mounted above a steel-tube structure fuselage and powered by
35-636: The Heath Company of St. Joseph / Benton Harbor Michigan sold nearly 1,000 kits on an installment basis. Fewer than 50 aircraft were factory built, but several hundred were completed and flown by homebuilders during the Great Depression . Heath is remembered today for having helped pioneer the homebuilt aircraft industry and for having introduced the kit concept of packaging the materials needed to build an aircraft. When it ceased producing aircraft kits to concentrate on electronics ( Heathkit ),
42-505: The Heath Company sold the ATC (CAA Aircraft Type Certificate) for the LNA-40 (ATC-487) to the EAA, who continued to sell original plans to potential homebuilders. Except for the prototype, the wings consist of two solid spruce spars, built up wooden ribs, compression struts, and internal drag and anti-drag bracing. The Parasol's empennage is built of wood and is externally braced. Depending on
49-614: The model, the fuselage was built of wood, bolted steel tube, or welded steel tube. The wing, empennage, and fuselage are fabric covered. Two five gallon fuel tanks are typically installed at the root end of each wing, the fuel being gravity fed, sometimes to a small collector tank behind the firewall. The only tools necessary to assemble one of the Parasol kits were a pair of small pliers, screwdriver, hacksaw (with plenty of blades), hammer, small hand drill, chisel, center punch, file and drill. A variety of powerplants could be fitted, including
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