Does anyone know about the Wheeler Express?

Kristen Rose

Filing Flight Plan
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GmaKissin'
I am looking for information on the Wheeler Express aircraft(s), specifically the earlier years.
 
There is a flight test article on the cafe foundation’s website. Very unfavorable view of the aircraft’s flying qualities. Rudder and elevator control issues in certain circumstances.
 
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There is a flight test article on the cafe foundation’s website. Very unfavorable view of the aircraft’s flying qualities. Rudder and elevator controller issues in certain circumstances.
PDF attached.

Ron Wanttaja
 

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  • Wheeler Express Performance Review.pdf
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My neighbor has one. I can try to put you in contact with him if you want.
 
I co-owned one until a tornado destroyed it along with 3/4 of the John Tune airport in Nashville on March 2, 2020. We did not build it, so I don't have much on technical details. Ours was a series 90 and did not have the cruciform tail that apparently caused some issues on some of the other models. It was roomy, fast (IO-540), a little twitchy on the controls, but it was a fun plane.

There's a forum for the Express owners/builders that is still sorta active: http://www.express-builder.com/viewforum.php?f=1

Where the plane was parked:
hangar-location.jpg

Where it ended up:
N882GK-tornado-2.jpg
 
Interestingly, a safety seminar I attended a couple days ago highlighted a Wheeler Express accident that resulted from low speed maneuvering, with the (original) cruciform tail design listed as a contributing factor.
 
Charles R. Gietzen7/25/1990, Lynch WY.

Understood.
 
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Unfortunately, my father's case was labeled as pilot error. The subsequent accidents that caused fatalities were noted to have tail issues as well, but the cause would be mechanical issues and not pilot error. I hope that this search will finally put Ken Wheeler into the spotlight. How can he not answer for the irresponsibility that occurred on the first model which was all done or directed by Wheeler himself? I may have been young when my father's plane crashed, but I'm an adult now and will seek justice and correction. RIP Charles R. Gietzen 7/25/1990, Lynch WY.
I'm sorry for your loss.

1. Pilots of experimental aircraft have a great deal of responsibility in understanding what they are flying.
2. A design that results in a difficult to control aircraft is not a mechanical issue.
3. Guess who's ultimately and legally responsible for the airworthiness (IE: lack of mechanical issues) of an aircraft? The pilot.

Unless "Wheeler" forced your father to fly the aircraft, or committed some sort of fraud, I'm afraid you are tilting at windmills.

Again, I'm sorry to hear of any pilot's death, and I'm sorry you had to deal with it personally, but I fear you will be causing yourself even more pain by going down this road.

Not a lawyer, just a pilot and experimental aircraft builder
 
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. I do know that it was not pilot error..... it was overloaded to save a buck.

This statement in its present form is contradictory. The cruciform tail was found to have issues, and redesigned but IMI there wasn’t any fraud or malfeasance on Ken Wheelers part. Sorry for your loss but fatal accidents happen despite everyone’s best efforts even with established, standard certificated designs. The E-AB world can be even more unforgiving and many designs require significantly more focus and situational awareness to operate safely. I don’t know the details of your father’s accident but blaming Ken and wanting to extract some sort of justice isn’t going to bring him back or serve the GA community.
 
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I'm sorry for your loss.

1. Pilots of experimental aircraft have a great deal of responsibility in understanding what they are flying.
2. A design that results in a difficult to control aircraft is not a mechanical issue.
3. Guess who's ultimately and legally responsible for the airworthiness (IE: lack of mechanical issues) of an aircraft? The pilot.

Unless "Wheeler" forced your father to fly the aircraft, or committed some sort of fraud, I'm afraid you are tilting at windmills.
Company demonstrator aircraft. Pilot was presumably employed by Wheeler; was flying to to Oshkosh 1990. It's not in the NTSB report (SEA90FA146), but seem to recall at the time, the thought was that the aircraft was overloaded with marketing material in addition to the pilot and two passengers. Pilot had 750 hours in the aircraft, 13 in the past 30 days. Aircraft was observed to spin in. Some speculation the pilot was performing aerobatics was based on the pilot's pre-flight comments, but the NTSB notes this might have been just a joke.

Only 21 accidents in my 1998-2020 database not enough for any real conclusions. Just about the same number of accidents over the time period as the Vans RV-10.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Company demonstrator aircraft. Pilot was presumably employed by Wheeler; was flying to to Oshkosh 1990. It's not in the NTSB report (SEA90FA146), but seem to recall at the time, the thought was that the aircraft was overloaded with marketing material in addition to the pilot and two passengers. Pilot had 750 hours in the aircraft, 13 in the past 30 days. Aircraft was observed to spin in. Some speculation the pilot was performing aerobatics was based on the pilot's pre-flight comments, but the NTSB notes this might have been just a joke.

Only 21 accidents in my 1998-2020 database not enough for any real conclusions. Just about the same number of accidents over the time period as the Vans RV-10.

Ron Wanttaja
Interesting. The OP certainly is shotgunning blame. It was a mechanical issue, a design fault, and he was forced to fly out of W&B.

750 successful hours by this pilot kinda kills the "design fault" and the other two are both called out specifically by regulation as the pilots responsibility. Even assuming it would be 100% just, I don't know how you could win that one in court. Steep hill to climb.
 
I do not plan to seek any type of court or legal things. I am seeking the justice for the two pilots who were wrongfully labeled as being in error. I am seeking a chance to understand the earlier version of the plane for a documentary I am making for my university and would like to ask pilots about their experiences. My apologies if my words came across wrong in my previous statement.

Overall, after I clear the pilot's names, I would love an apology in person......which should have been done 32 years ago in my opinion.

**Please do be safe in the air. I will seek my answers elsewhere.
 
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Interesting. The OP certainly is shotgunning blame. It was a mechanical issue, a design fault, and he was forced to fly out of W&B.

750 successful hours by this pilot kinda kills the "design fault" and the other two are both called out specifically by regulation as the pilots responsibility. Even assuming it would be 100% just, I don't know how you could win that one in court. Steep hill to climb.
Pilot background on this is interesting. 750 hours in the Wheeler, but 1274 total time with just a Private ticket. Which meant he had just ~500 hours at the time he started flying for Wheeler.

Probably not hired to perform flight test, with just 500 hours and no Commercial. If he had been involved in sales, that would make sense...shepherding people on demonstration flights.

Unfortunately, here we end up in a gray area regarding true responsibility. Sure, as the PIC, everything was ultimately his responsibility. But his employer probably assigned him to fly the plane to Oshkosh, and told him he'd be carrying two passengers along with a lot of marketing material. His job may have depended on his taking the flight as ordered. Sitting in a nice comfortable chair in front of the computer, a defiant response is easy. Not so easy if the wrong decision would have resulted in unemployment.

Another factor is *where* the accident occurred... about eight hundred miles from the takeoff point (nominal 1600 nm range). From looking at a diagram of a Wheeler, it looks like the fuel tanks are slightly forward of the CG. So the CG would have been shifting aft as fuel was burned. But enough of a CG shift to make the plane depart controlled flight?
wheeler express lowres.jpg
So it certainly was a perplexing accident. The question is, obviously, had flight test been performed with a full cabin load and low fuel state?

Ron Wanttaja
 
Unfortunately, here we end up in a gray area regarding true responsibility. Sure, as the PIC, everything was ultimately his responsibility. But his employer probably assigned him to fly the plane to Oshkosh, and told him he'd be carrying two passengers along with a lot of marketing material. His job may have depended on his taking the flight as ordered. Sitting in a nice comfortable chair in front of the computer, a defiant response is easy. Not so easy if the wrong decision would have resulted in unemployment. @Ron Wanttaja

I would have to say that unemployment would have been better than the result that happened, especially if the pilots felt otherwise in fear of their life or their job.... I also appreciate your mention of a defiant response while sitting in a comfortable chair at a computer. If you mean to say "sitting at a computer retrieving data for an assignment" then thank you. Otherwise, I would appreciate any personal negative comments to yourself.
 
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I do not plan to seek any type of court or legal things. I am seeking the justice for the two pilots who were wrongfully labeled as being in error. I am seeking a chance to understand the earlier version of the plane for a documentary I am making for my university and would like to ask pilots about their experiences. My apologies if my words came across wrong in my previous statement.

Overall, after I clear the pilot's names, I would love an apology in person......which should have been done 32 years ago in my opinion.

I have grieved long enough and appreciate the chance to speak freely on this forum.
Ok, I’m definitely confused. Can you clarify what you consider to be justice? Who should apologize for precisely what? what is the injustice? You aren’t being clear.

Ntsb inspectors don’t call out pilot error as an insult to the pilot. If a pilot takes off in a plane not capable of the flight they are attempting, then, by the definition of pilots responsibilities defined by the Faa, it is pilot error. That doesn’t mean the pilot should be looked at in a bad light. Everyone has made an error at some point in their life. It’s unavoidable. Unless something obviously broke, the ntsb usually calls it pilot error. It’s not a judgment of the person. Even if your father was pressured into making the flight Ron suggests is possible, and I completely agree with, it was still pilot error. The Faa specifically trains us on the dangers of external pressures and how they effect our decision making. That doesn’t mean your father was a bad guy, or a bad pilot. I tend to agree that the ntsb tends to use pilot error as a catch all. But I also understand why they do.

I probably shouldn’t have typed all that before you answered my question, because I have no idea who you think has been unjust. You seem to be angry at multiple parties for multiple reasons, and I wonder if part of it is simply your lack of understanding of the process and terms used in investigations. I could be completely off the mark.
 
Kristen my worthless advice is take the leads offered in the posts above on finding more out on the Express and move on. You aren’t likely to find much sympathy or help here to absolve your father of the accident findings. As a group, we pilots are harsh critics of our own and there’s simply nothing to be gained for us since it’s not personal like it is for you. This might sound cruel, but it’s the way it is.
 
Unfortunately, here we end up in a gray area regarding true responsibility. Sure, as the PIC, everything was ultimately his responsibility. But his employer probably assigned him to fly the plane to Oshkosh, and told him he'd be carrying two passengers along with a lot of marketing material. His job may have depended on his taking the flight as ordered. Sitting in a nice comfortable chair in front of the computer, a defiant response is easy. Not so easy if the wrong decision would have resulted in unemployment. @Ron Wanttaja

I would have to say that unemployment would have been better than the result that happened, especially if the pilots felt otherwise and were forced. I also appreciate your mention of a defiant response while sitting in a comfortable chair at a computer. If you mean to say "sitting at a computer retrieving data for an assignment" then thank you. Otherwise, I would appreciate any personal negative comments to yourself.
I think he was referring to me, not you. But you certainly seem to be more interested in being angry than anything else.
 
My apologies for seeking answers or stating my opinion. This may not have been the forum I was seeking after all, as some of you have politely put it.

I understand pilots stick together, so thank you for that detail. I may have missed that in all my years.

Safe flying
 
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I think he was referring to me, not you. But you certainly seem to be more interested in being angry than anything else.
Wasn’t referring to either of you. I was referring to “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” by those who don’t accept that a pilot’s decision process can be affected by non-aviation factors. Yes, it shouldn’t be. But in the real world it is.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I think he was referring to me, not you.
Salty, if you felt my comment was directed at you, I apologize. You pointed out, quite rightly, that the safety of flight is solely the PIC’s responsibility.

I’ve just read too many accident reports where outside factors affected the pilot’s decision making. There is plenty to learn from these cases, but there are too many folks who claim that THEY would never do that. And thus they don’t recognize when such factors are working on them.

I always scoffed at people who ran out of gas. Until the day I put 14 gallons of gas into 16 gallon tank. The circumstances seemed logical at the time….

Ron Wanttaja
 
Salty, if you felt my comment was directed at you, I apologize. You pointed out, quite rightly, that the safety of flight is solely the PIC’s responsibility.

I’ve just read too many accident reports where outside factors affected the pilot’s decision making. There is plenty to learn from these cases, but there are too many folks who claim that THEY would never do that. And thus they don’t recognize when such factors are working on them.

I always scoffed at people who ran out of gas. Until the day I put 14 gallons of gas into 16 gallon tank. The circumstances seemed logical at the time….

Ron Wanttaja

Ron, agree 100%. The affects of external factors on ADM is no joke. This is why the FAA harps on it so much. Pilots have and continue to make bad, and in some cases fatal, decisions for all sorts of reasons which after the fact seem so cavalier to those who have never walked a mile in their shoes. However, that doesn’t absolve a pilot from his/her PIC responsibilities.

Based on what I’ve read so far on this particular accident, in my amateur opinion, while external pressure could have been a contributing factor pilot error still appears to be the actual cause of the accident and searching for scapegoats in the aircraft design or designer is simply going down a rabbit hole.
 
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Kristen, good luck finding the resolution you're looking for. As you've learned here, it will obviously be a difficult path.

If there were individuals who were responsible in some way for putting your father in the situation as Ron mentions above, you _may_ be successful in getting somewhere. But be aware that the Express design has gone through, I think, various ownership over the years, so from a legal, corporate, or an "official" acknowledgement you may not be able to find who/what you're looking for. According to a somewhat recent post a Chinese company bought out the design and ownership of Express assets which may further complicate things: http://www.express-builder.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=338
 
I know nothing of any of this but just wanted to point out the fact that many times the answer we get is not the answer we sought or in expected at all. Take, for example, the recent loss of a highly skilled & experienced pilot such as Dale Snodgrass. Hard to believe how that transpired!

This is part of the reason the NTSB takes so long in arriving at conclusions as sometimes what appears to be impossible is possible and what seems to be absurd is revealed as the truth. In order to get to the truth you have to be willing to accept all the information and not have a predetermined conclusion ...
 
Overall, after I clear the pilot's names, I would love an apology in person......which should have been done 32 years ago in my opinion.

Kristen, the NTSB often lists "pilot error" as the primary or contributing cause of an accident, especially when they can't identify the cause with absolute certainty. Sometimes it may be unfair, but often they're right. A classic example is an engine failure on takeoff. In such a case pilots are trained to land straight ahead regardless of obstacles, but pilots get killed with depressing regularity by trying to turn back to the airport without enough altitude and entering a stall/spin (Google "impossible turn). In this case the engine failure is the initiating factor, but the pilot's improper handling of the emergency caused the fatality. Not saying that's the kind of thing that happened here, just an illustration of how they work.

There are also quite a few aircraft that have, perhaps not deficiencies, but demanding handling characteristics that require special attention in some flight situations. In some cases those characteristics may not come to light until somebody just happens to put the aircraft into that particular condition.

Also, every homebuilt aircraft is slightly different, a situation that may be benign in one example may be dangerous on another example of the same design constructed by a different builder just due to normal variation.
 
I am not sure I have a keeper to answer to, but for giggles and transparency I will answer.

I believe that a good documentary shows both sides without bias. While I have bias being one of the pilots daughter, the others on this feed do not. I would prefer raw data and it can not get any more raw than this.

as I said, keep up the buzz. I love hearing from others outside of this platform talk about this.
 
as I said, keep up the buzz. I love hearing from others outside of this platform talk about this.

Then perhaps do us a favor and stick to talking about this outside thus platform then. Sadly I’ve seen nothing that points to anything but pilot error. There may have been contributing issues, but in the end no one forced your dad to fly an airplane in which he had over 700 hrs in. Pursue your goal, but please tilt at your windmill someplace else.
 
Keep the buzz up!!! This was not pilot error!

Do you have proof that you can provide to the group that proves this? Not trying to be confrontational but you've been insistent on this point and are now soliciting our help ...
 
I am not sure I have a keeper to answer to, but for giggles and transparency I will answer.

I believe that a good documentary shows both sides without bias. While I have bias being one of the pilots daughter, the others on this feed do not. I would prefer raw data and it can not get any more raw than this.

as I said, keep up the buzz. I love hearing from others outside of this platform talk about this.
I'm not an aeronautical engineer, have only flown a Wheeler for a few minutes (as a passenger), but I do have a pretty extensive database of homebuilt aircraft accidents.

The flight profile for this accident, *as a weight-and-balance* case, really doesn't match what is generally seen. What we're looking at is a takeoff from Tacoma, followed by hours of cross-country flight, terminating in a spin over Wyoming. The hypothesis (and PLEASE understand the definition of "hypothesis") is that the overweight plane's CG gradually shifted aft until it got so far back that the pilot could no longer maintain control of the aircraft.

In my basic analysis process, homebuilt accidents with CG or gross weight issues are very rare. They're rare enough that I actually combine CG and Weight and Balance accidents. From 1998 to 2020, I find 37 such accidents out of ~4550 total.

Four of them involved rotorcraft, which we'll leave out. I went through the remaining 34 cases. The NTSB reports on almost half of them (16) referenced the aircraft being out of the aft CG limit.

Here's a brief summary of the remainder:

- Three involved Christen Eagles performing aerobatics, as did another involving an RV-10.
- One involved a Baby Lakes biplane buzzing.
- Christavia, and a Zenair Zodiac departed controlled flight while approaching to land.
- Of the remainder, eight lost control during takeoff.

Note that the most-common scenario for CG-related accidents is takeoffs... bad CG issues manifest themselves early. Of the remaining, only one somewhat matches the Wheeler accident scenario. In this case the aircraft took off, flew for just ten minutes, then descended and crashed (no witnesses). It took off with a bad CG, it didn't transition into it over time.

So the CG hypothesis is pretty weak. Airplanes don't suddenly become uncontrollable when the CG goes aft of its limit. Their handling characteristics change, getting more and more "touchy." If it gets far enough aft, of course, it might be more difficult to control. But it's not an instantaneous thing. One would expect the pilot to notice the deteriorating condition. *If* the aircraft had an autopilot, and *if* the autopilot had been compensating for the changing load condition, the pilot may have been surprised by the response of the plane once he resumed hand-flying the aircraft. This scenario has caused accidents in the past.

But... of course, there is no proof. Did the Wheeler have an autopilot? The NTSB report doesn't say. Sure, they were around in the '80s, but not as complex and integrated as they are today. And, depending upon how it was implemented, it may not have caused a sudden divergence when turned off. Are there drawings that show the implementation. Are there any other facets of evidence? No.

Right now, as a "talented amateur*" accident analyst, I tend to agree with the NTSB's assessment: The Probable Cause was the pilot's failure to maintain control of the aircraft. It was *his* job to monitor and predict the CGs shift as the fuel was burned. The aircraft passed over countless airports where the fuel tanks could have been filled to return to a better CG. Joking about flying aerobatics in that condition does not give one a good feeling as to whether he flew the aircraft with the care it needed. Right now, you'd need evidence (not just speculation) as to *why* it wasn't pilot error. And I don't believe that evidence exists.

In truth, of course, *all* accidents are pilot error. Sometimes the pilot's only error was in getting out bed that morning. On occasion there are mechanical or other factors that can mitigate this to the point where the fickle finger of the Feds can be reluctantly persuaded to point elsewhere. But just don't believe any of those factors are going to be found, 32 years after the fact.

Ron Wanttaja
* talented amateur: ~60 articles assessing the causes of homebuilt accidents, instructor at a DOT training course for experimental aircraft accident investigators.
 
Most GA aircraft have an aft cg limit that provides some margin, say for example 10%. As the cg moves aft of the aft limit, the longitudinal stability will decrease and the airplane handling qualities in pitch will get “squarely” , once the cg gets to the neutral point, the margin is zero, and once it goes aft, any disturbance longitudinally will result in a pitch change without the ability to correct the situation. The elevator or stabilizer can not correct the pitching moment. So you are correct it is not instantaneously until the cg reaches the neutral point which is aft of the manufacturers set aft cg limit. Many Beechcraft have to be careful, because as they burn fuel, the cg does move aft. Most early V-tail drivers will compute a takeoff cg and and a landing fuel weight cg to make sure they stay within the envelope.

PS- I am an aeronautical engineer. :cheerswine:
 
I think it is time for Kristen to tell us what the NTSB overlooked in their investigation.

I am somewhat sympathetic to her life without her father, I lost mine at 13, and my Mom had 3 children to raise as as single Mom. We never expected an apology from the Doctor who miss diagnosed him weeks before he died suddenly.

My dad should have gone to another Doctor.

If the problem was a weight and balance one, your Dad should have either off loaded some cargo, or declined to be the pilot. In todays world, the estates of other two people who died in the crash would sue your father's estate.

I suspect that no one apologized to them for the loss of their family members.

It took me until I was 17 to come to terms with the distorted life of a single parent family, and focused on the advantages that I had compared to many of my conventional friends, mainly greater freedom, and greater responsibility. These two prepared me for a very successful life.

I also had the good fortune to develop close friendships with the fathers of some of my classmates, and they were very supportive in my endeavors, at different times of my early years. 3 of those "Pseudo Fathers" remained close friends until they died.

I really hope that your research finds something that eases your mind, so that you can put the past in its grave, and focus on the best future that you can find for yourself. There is a lot of future ahead.

Many bad things have happened to me over the years, but I choose the best way forward, and continue to enjoy life in the new direction.

Advice from the Geezer, one of the oldest pilots here.
 
I think your first step should be to talk with a trusted counselor about what you are actually trying to accomplish. Figuring it out on an online forum is a poor way to go about it. You certainly seem to be confused about your feelings and goals in this thread.
 
I'm guessing we'll get an "ejection handle pulled" soon enough ...
 
I'm a bit hesitant about jumping into this fray, but maybe I have a bit more data and info than much of the rest of this thread.

To start with, I have one of the earliest built cruciform tail Wheeler Express planes, built by me, and now flying 25 years and over 2000 hours. I have flown it through pretty much the full weight loading range, passengers and fuel. And I am quite familiar with its quirks.

In the early days of the Express, it was discovered that the cruciform tail (which comparatively IS small) was subject to one nasty behavior under certain limited circumstances. Flying slow, below about 70mph, with no flaps and full rudder, the tail will eventually stall due to flow blanking, leading to a very abrupt nose-over. And if the stall develops into a full spin, the smaller tail may not be able to effect a recovery. While that sounds drastic, it's not totally unusual - For example, the Cessna 150 will do the same with full flaps and slow uncoordinated flight. With the Express, less than full rudder deflection or flaps will prevent it. It's easy to avoid this regime. Two results were changing the rudder limit from +/- 25 degrees to +/- 20, and the design of the low conventional tail.

Operationally, the smaller tail simply means you keep the rear seat passengers plus baggage below 400 pounds, just like a V-tail Bonanza, and don't fly fully uncoordinated below 70 with no flaps. On the other hand, it is routine to hard side slip the plane at 80 with full flaps to lose lots of altitude fast. And I've never had any issue with elevator authority with any kind of loading. And yes, I have experienced the tail stall both in my plane and a friends, under deliberate conditions, and it is sudden, but in straight and level flight easily recovered.

As far as the loss of life and N210EX, the company demonstrator on the way to Oshkosh is concerned, other than that there was a "loss of control", what exactly led to it will never be known for certain. I would consider the theory of center of gravity shift due to fuel burn plus loading highly doubtful. As others have said, that type of behavior comes on gradually. And unless he handed over the controls, the company pilot Gary Mavrovic was likely flying. In regards to the possibility of acrobatics gone wrong being the cause, again, we will never know. But, what I DO know is this: Exactly one month before the accident I was in Tacoma and, with a friend, got a demo ride in N210EX, the very same plane, with Gary. And, without the legally required parachutes did barrel rolls and wing overs with us, much to our great surprise, and then landed with an astonishing hard side slip to lose altitude. So, I always thought the acrobatic angle was a real possibility, and bought my kits with confidence 7 months after the accident.

BTW, and I'm not absolutely sure of my memory and couldn't find it in print in my files, but my recollection is that of the three in the plane, Chuck was one of the aeronautical engineers who designed the Express, (if I'm wrong, then it was sales) so I'd be a bit careful about where to aim the arrows.

Reinhard Metz
 
N49EX I am curious if you still have your Wheeler plane, and if you would recommend them to someone interested in owning one? I am looking at one that is for sale.
 
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