A recent Barnstormers ad caught my eye.  Eric Herzog of Texas is selling a Continental A40 that had been “mounted on a ultralight Cub and my father sold the aircraft and kept the engine.  It has a single magneto, both mufflers and unknown motor mount.”

I can’t do much with an A40 right now, but the ad did get me thinking about FRED engine options.  Eric Clutton’s original FRED has been through many different engines:  a Triumph motorcycle engine with a chain redrive, a Scott Flying Squirrel two-stroke, a converted Lawrance radial APU, a small Franklin, direct-drive and redrive VWs and, today, a Continental A65.  The variety of engines certainly shows the versatility of the airframe.

While most FREDs continue to fly with direct-drive VW engines, clearly there are many other possibilities.  Modern, four-stroke light aircraft engines from Rotax and HKS are also suitable, of course, but their high cost somehow seems at odds with the FRED spirit.  Small auto engine conversions—Suzukis or smaller Subarus—ought to work just fine.

Continental A65s sometimes become available even today as owners “upgrade” their classic taildraggers for more power and an electrical system.  Other small, oddball old engines—early Continentals, Lycoming O-145, Franklin 2A-120—can sometimes be found inexpensively simply because so few aircraft can use them.  Who knows, maybe you’ll even find a British Pobjoy or French Salmson in the back of a dusty barn?  FRED’s old-time charm cries out for a radial and Eric Clutton is fond of saying that FRED was designed and built with 1930s technology, so why not?

Of course, for the true pioneers among us, there is another option.  If you are building your own aircraft from scratch, why not build your own engine?  Ron Webster of Leicestershire , England, did just that, building two prototype five-cylinder Webster Whirlwind radial engines and one seven-cylinder in which, rumor has it, he flew a little.  His test airframe was, of course, a Clutton FRED, G-BMOO to be exact, resplendent in 32 Squadron RAF colors.

How about you?  What engine do you have, or plan to put, in your FRED?  And what would your dream engine be?

Photo:  Ron Webster cranks up G-BMOO’s Webster Whirlwind homebuilt 7-cylinder radial with his patented “Web Spinner” starter.  Courtesy of Lynn Williams.