FRED TURNS FIFTY

FRED TURNS FIFTY

Matthew Long shares more about Eric Clutton's early experimental design that has stood the test of time and is now turning 50!

ew homebuilt aircraft designs have stood the test of time so well that they are still emerging from basement workshops and garden sheds fifty years after their first flight. To the Pietenpol Air Camper, Luton Minor, Taylor Monoplane, early Jodels and a handful more we can now add Eric Clutton's Flying Runabout Experimental Design. November 3, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of FRED's first flight and, remarkably, Eric still owns and flies the original prototype FRED. Eric Clutton got his start in aviation in the Air Training Corps during the Second World War while attending Hanley High School in Stokeon-Trent, the school being renamed High School in recognition of a rather more famous graduate, celebrated Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell. Eric has been known to call himself Stoke-on-Trents other aeroplane designer with tongue firmly planted in cheek. In the post-war years Eric became a schoolteacher and an avid glider pilot resulting in numerous adventures including a collision with a daft sheep on landing. According to Eric, the sheep survived, but Eric stayed up all night repairing the glider so he could fly again the next morning. When Eric and his friend Ernest Sherry decided to set about building a powered aircraft, their gliding background was apparent even in the Goettingen 535 airfoil they chose

(Above) Eric Cluttons original prototype G- at the 1975 PFA Rally at Sywell in its WWI lozenge Baron paint scheme. (Photo: Stuart MacConnacher)
for the wing, courtesy of the Slingsby T.21B Sedbergh. Initial flights of the little parasol monoplane were conducted with a twin cylinder engine from a Triumph motorcycle, the very first true flight being on 3 November, 1963. A succession of engines followed, including a pre-war Scott Flying Squirrel from a Mignet Flying Flea, a Lawrance radial that had served as a GPU in a PBY Catalina, multiple Volkswagens, a small Franklin and finally the Continental A-65 that FRED sports

today. Most other FREDs have stuck with Volkswagen engines. Since Erics good friend Arthur Tabenor helped develop that winning combination of airframe and engine, the design is sometimes known as the Clutton-Tabenor FRED. With all the tinkering with engines and propellers to get the diameter and pitch right and the inevitable crack-ups, Eric quips, Before we finished I would get so practiced at this propeller making that I wrote a book on it! Propeller Making for the Amateur remains the standard reference for amateur builders on both sides of the Atlantic on carving wooden propellers. Over the years, FREDs design was tweaked as new features were added. The

Many owners have towed their aircraft to and from flying sites on its own wheels. A two hook arrangement can be attached to the rear fuselage so a trailer isnt necessary. Note folded wings. This is G-BMMF.

| NOVEMBER 44 LIGHT LIGHT AVIATION 2013 52 AVIATION MAY2011

FRED TURNS FIFTY

Built by a fellow schoolteacher, Les Millen from Kent, G-BKAF (above) features an enclosed canopy. Les once had to land in a school playing field because he had become uncertain of his position due to poor weather. He went to buy fuel in a can he carried for such occasions but on returning he couldnt remember the way back. No doubt the locals he asked the way to the local school on a Sunday morning with a can of fuel in his hand were quite bemused!

original removable wings were upgraded to quick-folding ones to facilitate solo rigging and trailering home on its own wheels. The all-moving angular vertical fin was joined by a more curvaceous option and some 30 years later a fixed fin option was added because, in Erics words, In my old age I wanted FRED to be less lively in rough air. Eric even added a small access door to make cockpit entry and exit easier for aging legs and reports, with typical cheek, I have made a point of taxying past the FBO here with the door open and the handicapped sign showing. Erics 50 years of adventures with FRED could fill a book, and, in fact, they have: Erics autobiographical An Aeroplane Called FRED. From convincing an unamused constable that his force-landed homebuilt plane really was called FRED to taking his little friend high above Cheshire, where it felt a bit like squatting on a very long and thin 12,000 foot pole, Eric and FRED have seen it all. In his early years, G-ASZY sported a trim red and white paint scheme, but was soon transformed into the FRED Baron complete with WWI German lozenge paint scheme and a fake Spandau machine gun. When Eric moved to the USA, G-ASZY became N4499Y, trading the Teutonic iron crosses and camouflage for RAF roundels and trainer yellow, but still sporting the Spandau, now perhaps a Vickers? The longevity of Erics original FRED is no accident as many of the little planes continue to soldier on. Tony Olivers 30-year-

Eric (left) poses with a friend and the FRED in Tennessee where he has lived for many years.

old G-OLVR recently sold on eBay and is being restored to flying condition by Philip Darnbrough. Down in New Zealand, which has had several FREDs on the register over the years, Evan Belworthy still flies ZK-FRD with its distinctive Fred Flintstone insignia on the tail, a plane which he began building with his dad Alan when still a teenager. Their modified FRED with a one-piece wing and cantilever spring landing gear first took to the air in 1979 and still flies regularly from their

farm strip in Cust, North Canterbury. Now in his eighties, Eric is slowing down but still doing a bit of flying. He has lived in the USA for many years, settling in the southern city of Tullahoma, Tennessee not far from Huntsville, Alabama where Werner von Braun and friends developed the rockets that carried Americans into orbit and to the moon. I left our green and pleasant (and wet) land for a more understanding environment aviation wise in the USA. The rain is also warmer.

NOVEMBER 2013 | LIGHT AVIATION 45

FRED TURNS FIFTY

LIFE IS STRANGER THAN FICTION! BY LloyD eDWarDs
Now coincidence can be quite amazing in life which is why I have written this short ditty of my flying experiences. It all began with G-BKZT, a Clutton FRED, a high-wing single-seat home build aeroplane. She was a rather tired, red vintage-looking plane, run on a shoe string. It was my friend Martins first go at open cockpit single seat flying. When he got involved with this group I was so pleased that he could now see for himself what I was experiencing in my VP-1 and he loved it too. I knew he would and we shared tales in the evenings over the telephone. The only thing that worried me was the way the group serviced and ran the engine side of things. Martin had more courage than me and flew it a lot but when I flew it I did so with great caution I flew it like it was going to die at any time. I mean, the propeller going around was a bonus. I flew it like a glider with every field below seen as a stepping stone for a forced landing. I never flew over a town or heavily wooded area. It was fun to fly, just not very reassuring mechanically. My twin brother Mark and I were due to go on holiday in a canal boat on the river Wey departing from Godalming. We were going with old friends we had known as teenagers. One night we moored up near an old priory only to hear many fire engines in the distance. We asked a couple on the tow path, what was up. They said a red aeroplane had gone down and the fire engines were looking for it. Instantly I thought of Martin! Mark said I was crazy; it could be any red aircraft. In any case how often is it a 'plane goes down, the couple must be mistaken. That night I could not sleep thinking about the strange happenings. We had no further confirmation of a crash and all was silent on the river. Next day I sat on the bow chugging along wondering and worried but silent, and as we rounded a bend, guess what? There she was FRED in a field! I didnt wait for Mark to moor up but leapt onto the tow path and shouted Martin! at the top of my voice. I tripped and slid face down, head first, plunging down to the base of the embankment. My face was covered in stingers and it hurt. Our friends on the boat did laugh. Martin had suffered an engine problem. One of the spark plugs had been drilled wrongly, missing the internal web casting in the cylinder head. The plug came out causing the engine to lose power. Martin added more and more throttle to keep flying and plan an emergency landing. Fuel from the faulty cylinder spewed out and ignited. At first he was going back to Fairoaks; then he transmitted he was going to land at a disused strip and then he transmitted Im going down! Martin certainly had a pub story now. He managed to swoop in just missing a fence and got out with a black face. By all accounts it was like some barnstorming film. He had camped the night in the field for fear of any vandalising of FRED. The group arrived the following day and were discussing how to de-rig the aircraft and, after tea and cake on the canal boat, get it back to Fairoaks. Such an amazing coincidence and a day I shall never forget! As getting in and out of an open cockpit is problematic for him even with the access door, Eric is hoping to see FRED go to a museum or private collection, preferably in the UK. Eric will continue flying his beautifully restored Luscombe. In the USA, Eric is probably best known not as FREDs designer but 'Doctor Diesel' for his long association with diesel model aircraft engines. Still, builders around the world continue to be drawn to FREDs simplicity, low cost and cheeky charm. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but with about 25 FREDs on the UK register (of which sadly only a small number are currently active) and a number of de-registered projects, a handful in New Zealand and at least a dozen more scattered across the globe, the total number completed to date is perhaps about 60-65. Even today, the FRED family keeps growing. You can read Greg Shepherds report in this months Project News about the completion of his FRED, started 29 years ago by a builder in Northern Ireland, and Abraham Leket of Israel started a FRED project a few months ago and is making great progress. Abe says, Looking at those $20,000-50,000 projects that take years to build, FRED is really the only project for the common people take it from me after almost 50 years building and maintaining flying machines. High praise indeed and a fitting testimony to Eric and FRED on their 50th anniversary. Matthew Long is the American editor of the fan site www.cluttonfred.info created in consultation with Eric Clutton. A long-time EAA and recent LAA member, he first discovered FRED while living in Darlington, County Durham in the 1990s. He now lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

Alister Sutherlands G-ORAS is a particularly fine example of the type. Living in the Highlands of Scotland, Alister has flown his FRED down to the LAA Sywell Rally.

46 LIGHT AVIATION | NOVEMBER 2013