Detroit Lakes with Dennis Jacobs' Electric Pietenpol, Ted and EAA Chapter

Walking over to Dennis’ hangar, Ted Kiebke showed us his plane called the SNB (Secret Navy Bomber) powered by a water-cooled Geometro 3 cylinder automobile engine he assembled for about $3800. This 1 litre 60 hp engine burns 2.2 gal/hr; with a straight stack exhaust, and a 3-bladed IVO propeller. It leaped to life on the first try!

ELECTRIC Pietenpol Experiment

 Dr. Dennis Jacobs, Physics, Moorhead State University shared some fascinating details on his electric Pietenpol project. A video of one of his experiments is found at the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3fmnq7f4mxmhqpn/MMHaCt0XNP

In the first part of the video, you'll meet "...some of the students at Moorhead State, who helped me with some of the initial research, giving a presentation to the local Experimental Aircraft  Association.  The two kids working with me on the testing are local teenagers who plan to go into aviation for their careers so I hired them to help me that day.  I also take them up flying quite a lot.  (The youngest is 14 and already checked out in 4 different aircraft.)  The van that the plane is hooked up to is an electric van with lead acid batteries.  I am jumping from there to the plane to run the electric motor and the off/on switch is on the van. (remember this is a basic budget operation)  The main problem I had that day was one of the connections was bad and had a major voltage drop and even melted one of the terminals on the battery.  I was not getting a true reading on the current the engine will be using but even with that the results looked pretty good."   

Even Dennis' 1948 C172 was an interesting plane to check out.

Dennis Jacobs (left) and John Blackner

Part of the Detroit Lakes EAA group, Fargo Air Museum volunteer Damien Gehler, and EAA 317 Chapter President Murill from Fargo joined the RAA-Winnipeg Area group to check out Dennis' electric Pietenpol. Photo Credit Jill Oakes.

Damien teaching us about the air filter on this float plane.

As we were leaving, we met Marlis and Lyndon Thompson arriving in their Super Cub on amphibian floats. Throughout the weekend, we’ve made a lot of friends within 30 minutes of I-29 (Route 75 in Canada) and look forward to dropping in to the Detroit Lakes fly-ins held every Saturday morning from about 9am til 11 am! 

Our American counterparts are getting their Passports in order and we hope to see them next year on the Canadian side of the Red River Valley checking out our projects.