Clutton FRED

Nick Chittenden over at Trecanair has now posted five videos about repairing and restoring Clutton FRED G-BISG with more to come. Watch them all!

A closer look at G-BNZR.

This professional footage was filmed in the summer of 1992, at Newtownards, home of the Ulstrer Flying Club, to promote an upcoming air show. I recently dug out some old camera tapes featuring club members and their aeroplanes.

I have now done a new edit to highlight FRED and of course a much younger version of my good self!

While Eric Clutton sadly passed away in 2022, it has been something of a tradition on this site to wish him happy birthday each year, and today Eric would have been 97 years old.

When Eric left the UK for the USA to seek greener pastures and bluer skies, he ended up in Tennessee, where he was involved in various ways with the development of a number of homebuilt and ultralight aircraft. One fixture of the light aviation community in Tennessee is Mike Loehle, and I'll let him take it from here:

I took this photo years ago here at my airstrip back in the 1980’s. Eric worked for us back then at Ritz Propeller Company and later Loehle Aircraft in our “5151” Mustang prototype days and then I moved him to our prop shop. Eric travelled to airshows with us too. I wish I could find his great book on having an English Morgan three-wheel car! Such a funny book, lost mine somewhere in our office, I guess. I’m bad about loaning books, so who knows…? My airstrip in Wartrace is the home of my former Ritz Propeller Company, Loehle Aircraft, and now Loehle Coatings. There we developed the Loehle “5151” Mustang RG, Loehle P-40 Flying Tiger, Loehle Sport Parasol, Loehle Spad XIII, Loehle Fokker D-VII, Loehle SE5a, Loehle Spitfire Elite, Loehle KW-909 and Loehle Fun Machine, and Loehle Aeroplane XP. Some of our kits were experimentals and several were ultralights. Eric helped us with many of our kit designs and in our prop shop. As I run across more photos of our “colorful” Eric, I will forward them to you. Many more photos exist in my closed factory office.

November 3rd marks the 61st anniversary of the first flight of Eric Clutton's original FRED and almost 15 years that I have been running the Clutton FRED site. To commemorate this day, I am pleased to share news of a FRED that will soon take to the skies, Mike Dolphin's G-CMAY in the East Midlands region of England.

In his own words, Mike spent "47 years in a blue uniform", first as a non-commissioned aircraft engineer in the Royal Air Force and later as a full-time reservist flying instructor in light aircraft and gliders. He is also an experienced aircraft builder, having tackled many projects over the years including repairing and restoring gliders, building and flying a Europa in the 1990s, and, most recently completing a Jodel DR1050 in 2020 that he enjoys flying today.

Itching for a new project for his then empty workshop, a friend gave Mike a lead on a FRED project, mostly built but never completed in Perth, Scotland by Jack Cullen, who had recently passed away. Mike brought home an uncovered but "almost complete airframe, a bit grubby and in disarray but...very well put together. After 40 years inevitably some of the glue joints needed redoing and some biscuits and ribs needed remaking but on the whole a trouble free project."

After the more delicate woodwork of his Jodel, FRED's structure is quite beefy, "the expression over-engineered springs to mind" though Mike also points out that a friend once said "the FRED could be driven through a fence without damage"! Noting the optional cockpit access door supplement to the plans, Mike took advantage of this modification but even so, "being of a certain age" and 6' 1" tall, he says "it’s still a challenge getting in and out again with dignity."

The VW engine that came with the project, a Barry Smith VW conversion, turned out to have a seized main bearing. Mike was able to find a low-time HAPI 1835cc VW that runs well but "adjusting mixture control on the AeroCarb carburettor is a black art".

Familiar with the solvent-free, heat-activated, pre-painted Oratex covering system from his Jodel, Mike went with Oratex for his FRED. On a tight budget, he covered the fuselage in white fabric leftover from his Jodel, got a bargain on some silver fabric ("cheapest colour") from UK Oratex supplier The Light Aircraft Company (TLAC) at Little Snoring, and finished the tail with a "multicoloured harlequin effect using offcuts from the TLAC scrap bins." I am quite sure Eric Clutton would have approved.

Mike continues, "Rigged fully for the first time recently I have come to appreciate the cheeky charm of the design and I am now looking forward to flying him (Yes, it’s got to be a him) and I am already planning trips and fly-outs." Weight and balance checks including the CG range have been within norms at an empty weight of 251 kg (553 lbs). If all goes well that will allow a gross weight of 363 kg (800 lbs) for a useful load of 111 kg (247 lbs). Still remaining to do are further motor tuning, checking the suitability of the Ken Fern propeller, final rigging and complete checks including the pitot-static system, and final inspection.

If all goes as planned, G-CMAY should take to the air sometime in early 2025!

Today marks 59 years since the first flight of Eric Clutton’s FRED on November 3rd, 1963. Sadly, it is also the first such anniversary since Eric passed away in February of this year. Nonetheless, thanks to avid aviation photographer Derek Heley, a Londoner by birth but a Geordie by choice, here are some great shots of various FREDs spanning three decades.

Benjamin Mehalic, winner of the First Annual Eric Clutton Memorial Swap Meet & Fun Fly at the Coffee Airfoilers Radio Control Club in Tullahoma, Tennessee, smiles in a May 21, 2022 photo by Jonathan Holt.

While Eric Clutton passed away on February 6, 2022, he left instructions for his friend Jonathan Holt to continue selling his books and FRED plans to benefit the local model aircraft club Eric loved so much.  Plans and books are once again available and you can find the details at https://cluttonfred.info/plansbooks.  I’ll let Jonathan tell the rest:

We had the First Annual Eric Clutton Memorial Swap Meet & Fun Fly that weekend.  Our Club President, Don Cleveland, came up with the idea of “Buy It & Fly It”, which is buy the aircraft at the swap meet and fly it at the fun fly.  I came up with a criteria for judging which included content from the swap meet, effort it took to make it fly and doing it on the least amount on money.  Benjamin won the judging on all aspects.  It was fitting that it was won with a British fighter and a new generation of RC pilot to carry the torch.  It really is a perfect situation.

The young man is a club member that had only seen Eric in passing.  Eric was always gracious with his time and advice with young people in the hobby.  I’m guessing that may have came from his career as a school teacher.  I know you knew Eric from the full-scale aircraft world and so did I somewhat, but in the model aircraft world Eric was all about swap meets and building models from scratch.  He, like myself, took a lot of pride in being able to do that in as frugal a way as possible.  He would have really liked this event.