Garrison Melmoth

{{Short description|American homebuilt aircraft}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}} {{Use American English|date=June 2021}}  {{Infobox aircraft | name = Garrison Melmoth | logo = | logo_size = | image = Peter Garrison Melmoth Test Flight.jpg | alt = | caption = The Melmoth undergoing initial test flying in its earliest configuration | long_caption = | other_names = | aircraft_type = Homebuilt aircraft | aim = | outcome = | related = | national_origin = United States | manufacturer = | design_group = | designer = Peter Garrison | builder = | issuer = | status = sole example destroyed 1982 | owners = | primary_user = | more_users = | service = | major_applications = | proposals = | prototypes = | number_built = One | construction_number = | civil_registration = | military_serial = | radio_code = | requirement = | aircraft_carried = | flights = | total_hours = | total_distance = | construction_date = | introduction = | retired = | first_flight = 6 September 1973 | initiated = | in_service = | last_flight = | expected = | developed_from = Practavia Sprite | variants = Garrison Melmoth 2 | developed_into = | preservation = | fate = | predecessors = | successors = | concluded = }} The '''Garrison Melmoth''' was an American homebuilt aircraft that was designed and built by Peter Garrison. The project was commenced in 1968 and it first flew on 6 September 1973. The aircraft was designed and built from scratch, drawing on Garrison's previous experience working on the Practavia Sprite. The Melmoth was destroyed on the ground in 1982, when another aircraft hit it.<ref name="Plane and Pilot">Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', page 142. Werner & Werner Corp, Santa Monica CA, 1977. {{ISBN|0-918312-00-0}}</ref><ref name="Flying01Aug2003">{{cite web|last=Garrison|first=Peter|url=http://www.flyingmag.com/pilot-reports/pistons/melmoth-2-personal-airplane|title=Melmoth 2: A Personal Airplane|work=Flying|date=August 1, 2003|accessdate=2012-09-04|archive-date=27 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120827082844/http://www.flyingmag.com/pilot-reports/pistons/melmoth-2-personal-airplane|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/aircraft/international-aircraft-directory/homebuiltkitbuilt-aircraft/garrison-om-1-melmoth.html |title=Garrison OM-1 "Melmoth" |publisher=PlaneAndPilotMag.com |date=2008-12-16 |accessdate=2012-09-04 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924073907/http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/aircraft/international-aircraft-directory/homebuiltkitbuilt-aircraft/garrison-om-1-melmoth.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Design and development== The aircraft was designed as a research project that would comply with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) experimental-amateur-built rules. It featured a cantilever low wing, a two-seats-in-side-by-side configuration enclosed cockpit under a bubble canopy, retractable tricycle landing gear and a single engine in tractor configuration. Garrison spent over 10,000 hours building the aircraft.<ref name="Plane and Pilot" /><ref name="Mel2">{{cite web |url=http://www.melmoth2.com/texts/TwoMikeUniform.htm |title=Melmoth the First |last=Garrison |first=Peter |publisher=Melmoth2.com |date= |accessdate=2012-09-04 |archive-date=23 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180723062526/http://www.melmoth2.com/texts/TwoMikeUniform.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Garrison explains how the aircraft's name was chosen, "I christened it Melmoth, after the Byronic protagonist of the nineteenth-century novel ''Melmoth the Wanderer'', who sells his soul to the devil for, among other valuable considerations, the ability to travel about at will in space and time." ''Melmoth the Wanderer'' was written by Charles Maturin and published in 1820.<ref name="Mel2" />

The aircraft was built from aluminium and incorporated exceptional fuel capacity for an amateur-built of its era, including two {{convert|35|u.s.gal}} wingtip tanks and a {{convert|41|u.s.gal}} main tank, with a total of {{convert|152|u.s.gal}} of fuel carried, giving a range of {{convert|3400|mi|km|0|abbr=on}}. To make use of the long endurance an autopilot was fitted, for comfort the cockpit was {{convert|48|in|cm|0|abbr=on}} in width. Its {{convert|23.083|ft|m|2|abbr=on}} span rectangular wing with an aspect ratio of 6:1, employed an NACA 65A316 airfoil, mounted double-slotted flaps and adjustable-incidence ailerons. The engine was a Continental IO-360-A producing {{convert|210|hp|kW|0|abbr=on}}, driving a Hartzell constant speed propeller of {{convert|76|in|cm|0|abbr=on}} diameter. Control was via center control sticks.<ref name="Plane and Pilot" /><ref name="Flying01Aug2003" /><ref name="Incomplete">{{cite web|url = http://www.ae.illinois.edu/m-selig/ads/aircraft.html|title = The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage|accessdate = 3 January 2012|last = Lednicer|first = David|authorlink = |year = 2010|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100420012244/http://www.ae.illinois.edu/m-selig/ads/aircraft.html|archive-date = 20 April 2010|url-status = dead}}</ref>

The Melmoth was registered with the US FAA in the ''Experimental-Amateur-built'' category.<ref name="FAAReg">{{cite web|url = http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=2MU|title = N-Number Inquiry Results|accessdate = 4 September 2012|last = Federal Aviation Administration|date = 4 September 2012|archive-date = 5 March 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160305082148/http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=2MU|url-status = dead}}</ref>

Over time the aircraft was modified to include IFR avionics, an automatic fuel tank selection and cycling system, airbrakes, a stabilator T-tail, a turbocharged engine and built-in oxygen.<ref name="Flying01Aug2003" />

A follow-on design, the Garrison Melmoth 2, was commenced in August 1981 and first flew on 1 November 2002. The Melmoth 2 bears the same registration, N2MU, that the original aircraft wore.<ref name="Flying01Aug2003" /><ref name="FAAReg" />

==Operational history== The aircraft was intended for long flights and in 1974 Garrison and his partner Nancy Salter flew the Melmoth to Guatemala, a flight on which they became lost looking for Guatemala City. On 5 August 1975 Garrison and Salter flew from Gander, Newfoundland, to Shannon, Ireland, nonstop in about 11 hours. On 3 July 1976 the two flew from Cold Bay, Alaska, in the Aleutian Islands, to Chitose, Hokkaidō, Japan. In 1980 they flew to Mexico, Central and South America.<ref name="Mel2" />

The Melmoth was destroyed in the summer of 1982 at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, when the pilot of a Cessna landing with engine problems lost control of the aircraft and it impacted the Melmoth waiting for takeoff clearance. Garrison reported, "its seven-foot propeller missed me by a foot, but chopped most of Melmoth into scraps". He went on to take note of the damage, "everything that I built was destroyed. Everything that I bought off somebody's shelf—the engine, the avionics, the instruments—survived...I kept the remains for a year, and then, after salvaging what I could, sold the empty hulk to a metal dealer to be shipped to Taiwan and converted into heaven knows what. He paid me $54.30 for it."<ref name="Mel2" /><ref>{{cite web|last=Wilkinson |first=Stephan |url=https://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2003-10/right-flyer |title=The Right Flyer|work=Popular Science|date=October 8, 2003|accessdate=2012-09-04}}</ref>

{{cquote|Melmoth is entombed in memory. We have two children now and much to do, and I rarely think about the old airplane, the 2,000 hours we spent in it, the 350,000 miles of prairie and ocean and mountain that slid beneath its white wings. Animals and men still live who heard it drone overhead and perhaps glanced upward; trees and stones remain that were once brushed by its shadow. They forget; but if I murmur the words "Two Mike Uniform" I can still feel the tremor of the roaring engine and sense the vast surrounding space of flight. I can resuscitate for a moment feeble shades of the fear and relief, the fine tension I would feel before flying and the lassitude afterward; and I can still taste the indefinable affection that filled me when, after hours of flying, with a final glance at the cooling airplane I slid shut the hangar door. - Peter Garrison<ref name="Mel2" /> }}

==Specifications (Melmoth) == {{Aircraft specs |ref=Plane and Pilot and Flying<ref name="Plane and Pilot" /><ref name="Flying01Aug2003" /> |prime units?=imp  |genhide=

|crew=one |capacity=one passenger |length m= |length ft=21 |length in=4 |length note= |span m= |span ft=23 |span in=1 |span note= |height m= |height ft= |height in= |height note= |wing area sqm= |wing area sqft=94 |wing area note=(configured with tip tanks)<ref>{{cite web |last1=Garrison |first1=Peter |title=Wing Geometry |url=http://www.melmoth2.com/texts/Wing%20geometry.htm |website=Melmoth2.com |access-date=16 January 2022 |archive-date=16 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416171127/http://melmoth2.com/texts/Wing%20geometry.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> |aspect ratio=6:1 |airfoil=NACA 65A316 |empty weight kg= |empty weight lb=1500 |empty weight note= |gross weight kg= |gross weight lb=2800 |gross weight note= |fuel capacity={{convert|152|u.s.gal}} |more general=  |eng1 number=1 |eng1 name=Continental IO-360-A |eng1 type=six-cylinder, horizontally-opposed aircraft engine |eng1 kw= |eng1 hp=210

|perfhide=

|max speed kmh= |max speed mph=211 |max speed kts= |max speed note= |cruise speed kmh= |cruise speed mph=203 |cruise speed kts= |cruise speed note= |stall speed kmh= |stall speed mph=75 |stall speed kts= |stall speed note= |never exceed speed kmh= |never exceed speed mph= |never exceed speed kts= |never exceed speed note= |range km= |range miles=3400 |range nmi= |range note= |endurance= |ceiling m= |ceiling ft=21000 |ceiling note= |g limits= |roll rate= |glide ratio= |climb rate ms= |climb rate ftmin=1800 |climb rate note= |time to altitude= |sink rate ms= |sink rate ftmin= |sink rate note= |lift to drag= |wing loading kg/m2= |wing loading lb/sqft= |wing loading note= |power/mass= |thrust/weight= |more performance= |avionics= *auto-pilot }}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category}} {{Peter Garrison aircraft}}

Category:Homebuilt aircraft Category:Single-engined tractor aircraft Melmoth Category:John Wayne Airport