The Andrew Smith AJ-2 - N9AJ

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UPDATE: Last week, I finally ventured out to the registered owner's address and met him. His residence is in a beautiful, secluded area with prominent "NO TRESPASSING" signs and absolutely no AT&T wireless service whatsoever.

As I proceeded up his long, winding, remote driveway, I thanked myself for having the presence of mind to provide my significant other with the owner's name and address should I later find myself chained in the basement dungeon of a madman, feebly professing my innocent love for his airplane while enduring unspeakable acts of torture.

Fortunately, this measure was completely unnecessary, as the owner proved to be a very kind and courteous individual. His name is Mike. He confirmed he owned the magnificent AJ-2, and he indulged me with an update on its current status.

He explained that he befriended Andrew Smith and got to know him well before he passed away. Although Andrew's military history of flying F4U Corsairs off of carriers in the Pacific theater was the part of his history that I found most noteworthy, Mike feels that Andrew's soaring accomplishments were even more impressive.

Apparently, Andrew won multiple Open Class National soaring competitions, and was the second American to win the World Gliding Championship in Leszno, Poland.

Andrew's experience with gliders clearly translated into the exquisitely efficient design of the AJ-2. Indeed, according to Mike, Andrew once claimed that the total drag of the airplane was approximately equivalent to a 12"x12" square piece of plywood being pushed through the air.

This paid off in cross-country competition. Andrew and the AJ-2 won a cross-country race that emphasized efficiency known as the Oshkosh 500. They won not just once, but each of the eight years they entered.

Finally, to put an end to the complete and total domination, race organizers changed the rules so the AJ-2 was no longer competitive.

Andrew apparently was interested in donating the AJ-2 to a museum, but ultimately ended up selling it to Mike before passing away in 2004. Mike now has it stored in his hangar at a nearby airport in rural Wisconsin.

He added that in addition to the aircraft itself, he obtained a vast quantity of plans, diagrams, and three-ring binders of handwritten calculations and data that AJ used to design it. He described many of these sheets as artwork, worthy of framing and hanging on the wall.

After purchasing the AJ-2 back in the early 2000s, Mike still has yet to fly it. But he thinks it will likely happen later this summer when he completes the removal of a wing modification. This project should return the AJ-2 to its standard/original configuration.

I provided Mike with a printed copy of this very blog entry and my contact information, and asked him to please contact me prior to his first flight for some more detailed historical discussion as well as an opportunity to photograph it both on the ground and in flight.

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath. While he was friendly and courteous, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he opts to keep his project the private endeavor that it's been thus far.

But I sure hope to hear from him. The story of the AJ-2 is interesting all by itself, and the story of its return to the air is one that I really hope to document.

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Spend enough time snooping around small rural airports, and before long, you'll unearth some interesting finds. On a sunny summer day in 2008, I unexpectedly happened upon one of only two or three airworthy Percival EP-9s in the world. I felt fortunate to document that aircraft for the world to see. This year, I was able to further document it with a full photo shoot. I even got to fly it for a bit. All as a result of sticking my nose in forgotten corners of sleepy little airports.

A similar discovery occurred back in 1999. I was flying out of Ann Arbor and decided to pop into Al Meyers airport down in Tecumseh, just for fun. Not a whole lot was going on that day, so I decided to have a look around. Peeking into the main hangar, I discovered one of the nicest-looking airplanes I'd ever seen - what I would later learn was the one and only Andrew Smith AJ-2, manufactured in 1981.

Fortunately, I had a camera. Unfortunately, it was a very cheap camera unaccompanied by any sort of knowledge or talent. These are the photos I was able to shoot in the hangar:

Lacking the foresight to examine the dataplate, I left the airport not knowing what aircraft type I had just photographed. I wouldn't learn much more about it for nearly ten years.

A few years ago, a friend found some great info about it in the October 1981 issue of Sport Aviation. Jack Cox interviewed A.J. himself and shot these photos of the beautiful airplane:

The interview revealed that the aircraft was designed as a cross-country touring aircraft. It had two seats. The passenger seat was intended to serve as a baggage area when only the pilot was aboard. The engine is a Lycoming IO-360. It makes about 215 hp and has a custom, "one-off" McCauley constant-speed prop. Long-range cruise (55% power) reportedly resulted in 200 mph and 40 mpg. Normal cruise (75% power) was said to be 250-255 mph and about 23-24 mpg.

At one point, A.J. raced it in an air race called the Oshkosh 500, a race that rewarded the most speed for the least fuel. He won the race with an average speed of just under 218mph while burning only 19.2 gallons to cover the 500 mile long course.

For the airframe, A.J. utilized techniques developed by the Germans in WWII. It consists of bulkheads spanned by balsa and foam. The wing is one piece, designed to be easily replaced with an updated version that contained retractable gear. The updated version was, to my knowledge, never manufactured or mounted. The wing pictured uses a NACA 64212 airfoil, 12% thick, with a constant section and a .5 taper ratio with no twist. The lack of twist produced undesirable stall characteristics, so A.J. added stall strips and rigged the ailerons up a quarter of an inch, providing an effective twist.

The airplane has a T-tail that also uses NACA sections - 9% for the horizontal, and 12% for the vertical. The tailwheel is a Henry Haigh locking version mounted on a Wittman-type tapered rod spring.

The AJ-2 is now registered to an individual in rural Wisconsin. An individual I hope to meet. With any luck, the AJ-2 will receive the full photo shoot it deserves.

In the meantime, I continue to scour the web for additional photos of the aircraft. Here are my latest finds: