A perfectly pleasing Piel Emeraude

David Wiebe’s experimental amateur-built Piel Emeraude was one of the frequent fliers during the 2020 Antique Airplane Association/Airpower Museum‘s (AAA/APM ) Invitational Fly-in. Its sleek lines and pretty paint scheme make it look like a modern flying machine, but it’s more than half a century old. 

It’s fairly rare to see a Piel Emeraude at fly-ins these days. David is proud to preserve his Emeraude CP-301A (N21456, s/n 1102) in airworthy condition – not only to keep another legacy homebuilt flying, but as a personal tribute to his late father, Gustav “Gus” Wiebe, who built it.

Back in the early 1960s, Gus, 41, was married and running his own business, Wiebe Wood Products, when he started building the Emeraude. 

“Dad built it entirely from plans. He started it in 1963 and finished it in October 1964. It took him 11 months to build it, while raising nine kids,” recalls David. “Dad passed away in 2012, and I just inherited it and restored it back exactly like it was when he finished it. It was the only airplane he built from plans.” 

Lifelong Interest 

Gus’ father worked for Boeing, and Gus naturally developed a lifelong interest in aviation, starting with building model airplanes as a boy growing up near Wichita.

“Dad had an airplane before he got married, and then he and my uncle bought a PA-11 in 1959. We haven’t been without an airplane since,” says David. “Of the nine kids, all four of us brothers fly and I have one sister, Helen, who used to fly. My mom’s father, Dick Hensley, worked for Al Mooney at Culver in Wichita, and Dick also did wood working with my father, so we all pretty much grew up with aviation.” 

A cabinet maker by trade, Gus had been working with wood all his life. Eventually, people started bringing wood airplane parts to his shop, such as wings for Bellancas, and wing and tail sections for the early Mooneys.

“That’s kind of how our airplane business evolved, and probably why he built his own airplane. He thought about several designs, including a Jodele and even a Flying Flea, but that idea went away pretty quick,” David recalls with a chuckle. “Then he decided on the Emeraude.” 

Emeraude Design

The prototype was designed by Frenchman Claude Piel, and the Emeraude first flew in 1954. Manufactured in several countries, including France, the plane has an all wood airframe structure, covered in fabric. Its cantilever wings with elliptical trailing edges enhance its aesthetic appeal, and a beefed-up, more streamlined version — the Super Emeraude — was certified for aerobatics. The design eventually led to the development of the CAP-10. 

Priced at $60, Emeraude plans were advertised by Falconar Aircraft of Canada to the homebuilder’s market in the 1960s, touting the airplane as an “Easy to Build, Easy to Fly, Proven Aircraft.”

Generally speaking, the Emeraude has a wing span of about 26 feet, a length of about 21 feet, and weighs around 896 pounds empty with a maximum weight of 1,440 pounds. Powerplants on various plans-built models have included 75, 85, 90 and 100 hp Continentals, and the 115 hp Lycoming. 

Looking at the Emeraude head-on, it has a rather broad profile. The side-by-side cockpit measures 42 inches wide, which, David says, is “wider than a Cessna 172. It’s fairly roomy, but it’s designed for shorter people, that’s for sure — somebody tall would have a problem fitting in there.” 

The fuselage is all wood, with a truss type structure, and the turtle deck is formed from bulkheads and stringers. The inside of the cockpit, from the seatback forward, is all plywood covered and the outside is comprised of wood gussets covered with fabric. The tail has a wood spar and ribs, and the stabilizers are covered with plywood and then fabric. The elevators and rudder are only covered with fabric. 

“Originally, the wing wasn’t completely wood-skinned per the plans, but Dad decided it really wasn’t that much more weight to skin the whole wing with plywood, so he did that and made it one tough wing,” says David. “It also originally had doors that kind of swung forward like a clam shell and he didn’t like that, so he designed his own sliding canopy. I still have the receipts he kept when he bought all his materials, and I bet he didn’t have $2,500 in the whole dang airplane!”

N21456 Construction 

David, an A&P/IA, owns Wiebe Air Repair at Rucker Airport (SN34), southwest of Wichita. He’s been working on airplanes for nearly 50 years, starting with the Emeraude.

“I was 14 years old then and I had to go help him sometimes. I remember one night he was building the box spar and we were out in the yard — we’re talking a 26 foot long spar, because the wing is all one piece — and it was dark and I was helping join one side of the spar,” chuckles David, recalling, “Dad kept saying, ‘lift it up! No, put it down!’ So we finally got it together and then we planed the other side so it was square.”

“It’s quite a construction,” he continues. “Probably the toughest part was building the spar, because it’s all laminated and has a top cap and a bottom cap and a web in between. A lot of times I’d go to the shop and see something done and I’d wonder, ‘how did he do that?!’ Because that wing is huge and all one piece, and he had to have help to turn that thing over! He must have had somebody just show up and help.”  

Maiden Flight 

While Gus was building the Emeraude, he had to take care of a personal aspect of the flying project.

“Dad got his pilot’s license back in the 1940s, and I remember he had to go fly with the instructor again and he had to go to the FAA to take a checkride because he only had one eye — he’d lost one due to an injury.”

That visual impairment didn’t slow Gus down. He was determined to finish the Emeraude in a “full steam ahead” mode, and he flew its maiden flight on Oct. 28, 1964. David well remembers the process leading up to that momentous day.

“The FAA had to come and look at each piece before he covered it — like the wing, he’d skin half of it, they’d come look at it, then he could finish it. There were a lot of parts that he could haul and carry into the FAA office for inspection, and he would do that,” recalls David. “Then after Dad put the airplane together, they looked at it and then they came and stayed on the ground and watched him fly it. He had to wear a parachute, and what good it was going to do him, I don’t know! He also had to take it to VNE (around 160 mph) and make sure it didn’t have any flutter problems. I remember that day pretty well.”

Easy on the Eye and Wallet

The Emeraude is not only easy on the eye, it’s also easy on the wallet.

“It flies really nice, and it’s got real light, smooth controls. When Dad first built it, he used a 90 horse Continental from a salvaged Cessna 140A. Then he decided to put a 125 horse Franklin in it, but it never did fly the same — it seemed like it just wasn’t right. Then I talked to him about putting an O-200 in it and he really didn’t want to, but said ‘okay.’ So when we restored it, we put the 100 horse Continental in it and it flies just fine on that. It cruises between 125 to 130 mph on a 100 horse engine — where are you going to find more efficiency?”

With two people on board, the Emeraude can take off in 1,000 feet. With one notch of flaps, it does a little better.

“For takeoffs, just let her fly and whenever the tail wants to come up, it will. On approach you want to be about 80 mph and about 70 coming over the fence, and then just let it bleed off and it’ll just land itself. Three point landings are pretty docile. The fuselage tank holds 21 gallons and the O-200 burns about 6.5 gph, which gives about a three-hour range.” 

Time Flies

As David and his family journeyed to the 2020 AAA-APM Fly-In in nearby Ottumwa, Iowa, the realization dawned on them that a “full circle” type of milestone was in the making.

“What’s cool about this is that it was 53 years ago I flew with my uncle, Landvis Fern, in the Emeraude up to the 1967 EAA fly-in at Rockford — and we landed here at Ottumwa.”

Little would 15-year-old David have imagined back then that more than half a century later, three generations of Wiebes — Gus, David and his three brothers, Jimmy, Mark, and Donnie, and David’s two sons, Matt and Paul — would all have had their hands and feet on the Emeraude’s delightful controls.

There’s a good chance this Piel Emeraude will be flying well into the future, perhaps introducing another generation of Wiebes to the sky.