Taking a plane apart goes quickly! The real time will be spent putting it all together. After stripping the fabric from the airframe, the framework turned up to be in surprisingly good condition. Even the fabric was ok, but the old paint job made it look bad. When too much dope is layered on to the fabric, it does not make things better, it tends to peel off in large pieces and makes the plane look like it is about to fall apart. However, stripping dope off fabric is generally not a good plan. It is less time consuming to get new fabric and start from scratch.

While the plane is under restauration, we are also planning some upgrades.

The old wings were designed for 14 gallon tanks only and we cannot upgrade them, so Al is building us a new set of wings that will have 18 gallon tanks and modern fuel gauges in each wing root. Each wing will have two new hand built sitka spruce spars, and among other things, around a thousand rivets!

The pilot  seat was not adjustable, so we sprung for a new seat frame that is, so shorter pilots can bring it closer and longer legged ones can move it further away from the panel. It should also make getting in and out a little easier.

We are still deciding on a paint scheme. I like the idea of a San Jose Sharks theme. I wonder if the FAA will let us install a shark fin? Ideas welcome.