46 MAY 2020 ÇPlane&Pilot
and, oh yeah, a bunch of Boeing and
Airbus models, too. Apart from the heavy
iron, these planes, while loved by many
pilots, are niche models (with the pos-
sible exception of the Zenith, actually).
They all use leading-edge slats to lower
stall speed substantially. The Courier,
for example, can maintain control down
even slightly below 30 mph. Find a bit of
a breeze, and you’re hovering.
The most popular light GA planes ever
still feature pretty vanilla leading edges,
and that was certainly true of the 175.
Bushman, who runs a super-cool
refurb shop in Oregon, Ragwood
Refactory, told Plane & Pilot all about
the slats project.
“The leading-edge slats were truly a
mega challenge because never in history
could we find an example of a Cessna like
this running slats. It was going to be a
first time. We looked at all the manufac-
turers on the market supplying slats to
the experimental world and made phone
calls to multiple companies and ended up
with Randy Apling at Carbon Concepts
[carbonconceptsak.com], a company in Alaska that
makes some really cool and light mods for bush planes.
“Randy had agreed to adapt his current kit for Piper
Super Cubs to a Cessna wing but made it very clear that
he didn’t know what it would do or if it would benefit
the Cessna wing like it does [a] Super Cub’s.
“After about a month, Randy sent a kit to the shop
with all the parts needed for the installation on Jeff ’s 175.
“Everything, including the placement of the slats, was
a unknown, so we just had to go off of what the PA-18’s
running slats were doing.
“When you do something like this, there is no road
map because it’s never been done. You have to make
every decision along the way; as you move forward, you
become more and more educated on it, to the point of
almost obsession.
“That said, we eventually got to a point we were happy
with the installation, the placement and the attach
method of the slats.
“Next, we had to develop a flight test plan for the first
flight. With safety foremost in mind, we made conserva-
tive decision to progress slowly, and that meant staying
on the ground until we knew more. So at first, we did
high-speed taxi tests that we filmed to analyze later.
“We then progressed to short ‘flights,’ never leaving
ground affect. At that point, we reviewed the videos
to make sure there was nothing unknown happening
without us being aware of it through the flying manners
of the plane.
“Eventually, we got to a point where we felt safe to do
a first test flight. It was extremely positive. On the first
flight, we found a very significant stability in slow flight,
and we had dropped stock stall speed by 21 mph! The
new current stall speed out of the box was 35 mph—the
175’s book number is 55.
“We both believe that with refinement, we will be able
to drop that even lower. Both Jeff and I walked away from
the test flights confident in flying around at 40 mph, 15
mph below the book speed! The stall was a very subtle,
so much so that the action of the stall itself was almost
enough to break the stall.
“We are still early on in the testing and have more
flights and testing to explore the envelope. But we both
feel very confident it will have been worth all the work.
But the bottom line at this point is, where we are now
with Jeff ’s build, we have an airplane substantially out-
performing others in its class for a much smaller budget.”
Bushman and Whiteley are continuing to conduct
flight tests of the neo-Skylark, and to say the results are
promising is a huge understatement. The airspeed they’re
currently using as a reference for final approach is 45 mph,
which sounds better in knots, if you ask us, at 39 knots.
We’ll keep you updated online on the progress of this
coolest Skylark, which Whiteley plans to take to the new
mecca of Lower 48 backcountry flying, the 2020 edition
of the High Sierra Fly-In, scheduled for Oct. 14-20 at
Dead Cow Lake.
It won’t be the only cool plane in attendance, far from
it. But it’ll be a star, for sure, a dusty one by show’s end,
but a start nevertheless. PPOwner Jeff Whiteley (left) and restorer Kyle Bushman pose in front of Whiteley's rugged
and (almost) ready Cessna 175, now a big-tired taildragger with remarkable slow flight
capabilities.