Friday, March 16, 2012

The Doyles go flying.



Warm temperatures and calm winds made yesterday an ideal day to test fly the Stearman. It was a pleasure to see Chuck Doyle take his Stearman out for a flight.  The first hour is on the tach and we're poised for the second flight once the winds settle down. As the flights continue we will shoot some video and in flight photos to share with you all here on the blog. Thanks for checking in! 








Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Stinson(s) Progress



Both the V-77 and SR-8 are moving right along. The wood shop is getting down to the particulars on the doors and window frames. The floorboards, stringers and bulkheads have been fabricated and fitted.



New firewalls were fabricated and fitted. 


The SR-8 panel will be quite original. We took the original, cleaned it up and will be laying it out based on Stinson factory photos. By "cleaning it up" we welded up numerous holes and got rid of heavily modified spots to accommodate modern instrumentation. Quite a bit of time was spend getting the panel back in order.


The original panel in the V-77 is made out of phenolic. We are using it as a pattern to fabricate new out of aluminum. This airplane will be nice and custom.

Almost all the small pieces and sub assemblies are back from cad plating, chrome and power coat. Once all in place some serious visual progress will be happening. We'll be sure to put another update up where there is more to see. Thank for checking in.