Dean Wilson ‘40 Special’

[Logtrucker 44]

Dean donated his last airplane to Lewiston Idaho EAA chapter 328, however like most of our shops and hangers were out of room. So we need to sell.   Some specs, WS 45’ fuselage OA  15’10” inside cabin W 37.5”, headroom 37.5”, power 40hp continental, 0 smoh  new prop. No paperwork.  $15,000 Or best offer.    Jack.   509 254 3068

[Logtrucker 44]

Correction——inside width and headroom both 35.5” not 37.5” as stated,   Sorry.

[1avidflyer 1983]

Wow, did I read that right?  45' wing span?  Guess that is why it only needs 40 HP.   Do you know empty and gross weights JImChuk

[akflyer 1427]

If I remember right... wasn't that engine out of the first plane he ever owned?  Didn't he track it down, then designed the plane around that engine?  

15K is cheap for that bird!

[saskavid 47]

Interesting airplane for sure. Very interesting airfoil profile from what I see in the pictures. Structure  seems to share a lot of mechanics with the ellipse. How the wings fold and the front wings pins pull...streamlining of the struts and the airframe. A very cool piece of work. The workmanship looks just exceptional. wonder how it performed or does perform?

[1avidflyer 1983]

Was just looking at weight of the Continental engine, and this is what I found on Wikipedia.    That means a Jabiru 4 cylinder would be just a little less weight on the nose.  Hmmmm.  I see the plane's paperwork is still up to date as well, no airworthiness certificate yet though???  Wonder if the plane was ever flown?

A40-4

Single ignition, 40 hp (30 kW) at 2575 rpm, dry weight 144 lb (65 kg),^[2] Steel backed connecting rod inserts

A40-5

Dual ignition, 40 hp (30 kW) at 2575 rpm, dry weight 156 lb (71 kg)^[3]

[Logtrucker 44]

Glad to see you guys chimed in, I was privileged to have my Mk 4 in Deans shop for about a year while he was building it, we helped each other, of course, ‘who got the best of that deal?’ All of your thoughts and recollections are as I know them. Has it ever flown? All I can tell you is one Monday morning after we had checked out the engine, static RPM etc. I removed some wheat stubble from the axles. Beautiful work and engineering!

[Willja67 144]

I'm hoping that you might be able to pull it out and spread the wings and get a bunch of pics both overall and of little details.  There's an awful lot to be learned from a master just by looking at his work. 

[ChrisBolkan 130]

Here are some pictures i took of it in Deans shop. I was very impressed with it. He made the prop that is on it in these pics. I took a picture of the jig he used to make the prop. Pretty cool.

[saskavid 47]

So I'm just going to throw this out there... I am wondering how much like the ellipse the structure of the wing is on this plane? The ellipse wing being somewhat complex in that it had to be "skinned" in a full jig if I am remembering this correctly. This is such an aerodynamically neat plane on so many levels...

[ChrisBolkan 130]

This plane just has regular rectangular wings but it looks like he copied his Elipse wing struts.

[Logtrucker 44]

Dean called to tell me that the wingspan was 35’ instead of 45, embarrassing, to make such a blatant error. At 90 hope I’m not getting ‘Biden-Itis’. Weather has kept us old guys from getting the airplane out and taking more pictures with the wings out etc, but it’ll be warmer soon so don’t forget it’s still for sale!

[Cloud Dancer 69]

What's the story on the air worthiness certificate? Did it have one at some point? The only thing I can think of keeping this from selling is it must be a dead end to get it legal maybe? Such a pretty airplane, a shame it's hanger flying only.