BEST OF THE BEST - CHARLIE SUNSHINE’S BREEZY

When I visited AERO Friedrichshafen in April this year, I met a most interesting man Carl-Friedrich Schmidt who had built his Breezy aircraft and this is his story.

- Carl-Friederich Schmidt

When I undertook my flight training in the mid-1980s, I only wanted to fly ultralights. They fascinated me with their simplicity and the original spirit of flying. Over the years, I learned to fly increasingly complex aircraft. Only after many years as a flight instructor and freelancer in commercial aviation did I finally go back to the roots. I stumbled upon an old photo of the first Breezy on the internet and immediately wanted one. So, I acquired the drawings and in 2005 I flew to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh where I saw and flew a Breezy for the first time. It was even better than I imagined. Flying a Breezy is like swimming naked!

The fuselage

I started by building the fuselage and looking for Piper wings. Four years of sawing, grinding and welding. The plans call for the use of SAE 4130 steel tubing. After consulting with my engineer Ingo Luz, I decided on the German equivalent DIN 1.7734.4, which is about 15 percent more tensile and three times as expensive as 4130. The material does not harden during welding, which means there is no need for heat treatment. I chose the next larger dimensions for diameter and wall thickness, the weight gain was negligible, but the reinforcement was enormous. The whole fuselage weighs about 70 kilograms (154 pounds) but turned out to be so long that I had to chop a hole in the back wall of the garage. I built jigs, ground the tubes for optimal fit and tacked the parts with a TIG welder.