Excerpts from vanagon: 10-Nov-95 Tragic story: Wonder what f.. by Mark
McCulley@halcyon.co 
> Quoting from today's AP newswire:
>  
> +-----
> For 18 years, Charles Cooke dreamed of flying the plane he slowly, lovingly
> built on weekends in his garage. The day his dream finally came true, it
> killed him. The 71-year old retired engineer died in a fiery crash Tuesday
> on te plane's first flight. His dream of flying his own plane first took
> shape in the garage of a home in the Santa Cruz mountains 18 years ago. He
> took bits of plastic foam, glass fiber and wood and painstakingly crafted
> them into a plane, spurning manufactured kits to build each piece his own
> way. A Volkswagen engine provided the power. He planned to fly the yellow,
> 12-foot aircraft to the Experimental Aircraft Associatin Exhibition in
> Wisconsin nexxt July to show off his pride and joy, and toak the talk of
> pilots. But Tuesday, only seconds after he took off from Watsonville
> Airport, something went wrong. The engine seized up, white smoke poured out
> and the propeller stopped. The pilot tried desperately to loop back to the
> runway but lost altitude too quickly. The little two-seater crashed through
> a picket fence, slid down a hill and flipped over, smashing into the back
> of Inez Tucker's barn and bursting into a ball of flame...
> +-----
>  
> Imagine, working 18 years on this project only to have the engine seize on
> the first trial run. What a sad tale. Wonder what happened...
Even though many vw engines have been used in home bulit aircraft, they
aren't well suited for aircraft.  Apparently the main bearing aren't
designed to have any axial load.  Imagine having a huge propeller trying
to pull the crank right throught the end of your engine.