wings

Airplane owners are an interesting group.

That is my observation. I surely do not know a huge number of airplane owners, but the ones I have known are at least interesting.

My father is a case in point.

Airplanes are regularly inspected. That is why there are a lot of 50 or 60 years old planes in the air, flying safely. The inspector tells the owner what has to be done (the owner probably knew ahead of time) and the a certified mechanic is required to do the work and sign off before the plane is considered air worthy.

But, of course, there is a loop hole.

If you do the work before the inspector sees it, and if he passes it (I am being terribly sexist here to suggest that all inspectors are men, so scold me), then you are free to go. And, you don’t have to pay a high priced certified mechanic working in a certified shop.

Dad’s plane needed the wings fabric redone. Most of the older planes were made with a fabric covering a very light frame, both on the fuselage and the wings. Now they use Dacron because it is strong and can be shrunk if necessary with a heat gun if there were any wrinkles. I have no idea of what they used before Dacron.

That surface was covered with a foul smelling material called “dope”. Obviously the name has been around a long time. I would guess it was some sort of lacquer.

So Dad’s plane needed new fabric and he did not have a good place to work. So, being the inventor he was, and a general contractor at the same time, he built a rather narrow two car garage on the back of the old house. The garage was 2 cars deep (still with me here?), and then he put a second floor, which we always called the “tower” on top of that garage.

That gave him a large space to work on those wings. Entry to that space was by a narrow stairway so the wings had to get in and out some other way. Memory evades me on how that was done. Probably with dad's ancient Case back hoe some how.

So dad had his space and spent the winter carefully and lovingly putting new dacron and dope on these Piper wings.

Later when the remodeling of the house got a bit more involved he converted the space into a decent apartment where heand Mom lived for a couple of years. I put some formica on the counter tops for them.

After my sister bought the place, some rather serious structural problems showed up (dad was famous for cutting corners -- except on his airplane). Sis had the entire roof removed and replaced with scissor trusses (now she has a vaulted ceiling), making it into a very nice living space for her. But that is a different story.

This was far from being the most inventive thing Dad came up with. How about a two engined truck or a trailer with an engine or a folding scooter to go in the airplane, but I'll go there later.


But the "tower" where sister lives all began with the need to “refab” those wings.