01/25/2026
Thought I would let the community in on a major project I have been undertaking that would not have been possible just a few years ago. Working with AI, I am ingesting all 148 newsletters into AI that represent a massive data trove of Thorp build knowledge and history.
Lu Sunderland had in 1986 taken newsletters 1-44, removed any articles not related to building or flying a Thorp to produce a manual (really a collection of articles) that he titled Building, Testing, and Flying The All-Metal Airplane. I have scanned and cleaned up that scan that I will be posting for the community to access. Additionally, I have pulled that into AI, and the information has been formatted to serve as a basis for a Thorp T-18/S-18 Technical manual.
The intended output of these efforts with be a Thorp Knowledgebase, an index of all newsletters and articles, and the Technical Manual. This will be an extensive effort to archive accumulated knowledge of our aircraft and our builders.
Once past the newsletters I will have the AI also look at other data like the 18 articles John Thorp wrote for Sport Aviation on Building the Thorp T-18 plus many other articles and builder websites. I have already for months been going to every major AI I run across asking it 'Tell me everything you know about the Thorp T-18 and Thorp S-18' then correcting it when I see misinformation.
I will be looking for volunteers in the near future with strong experience with the Thorp or other all-metal aircraft designs to help in editing and expanding on the Thorp T-18/S-18 Technical Manual.
As the owner of Thorp Aircraft, I am not allowed to directly edit the Thorp Wikipedia pages. If someone would volunteer to work with me on that as well, we can clean up some of the references on those pages.
