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Hello All,
From the Fearless Aeronca Aviators email is the following:“Ken Hunter was a welder in the Navy and did a lot of metal fabrication/welding in civilian life. As close as we have been able to ascertain, he got one blue print and started out from there. He had an engine failure on final many years ago and rebuilt the aircraft adding amphibious floats. It never flew with the floats on it. Ken calculated he didn’t have enough lift for all the weight so he added 2ft wing tips to the wing. I asked him how he arrived at the size of the wings tips and he said “it was as much as I could add and still fit in the hangar”. He dutifully paid $105 a month rent to the airport and then they decided he needed to have an aviation policy on the aircraft. He objected and so he removed the floats and pulled the plane out of the hangar. They parked it unsecured on the east end of a T hangar where it sat for 5 or 6 years. Then the airport board decided it was an eyesore and had it moved to a storage area a 1/4 mile away. It’s been sitting there for another 5 to 6 years and the storage facility had an offer on it without the O-470 engine so they asked me to figure out how to take it apart for transport.
The wings were easy and they wanted to know what to do with the fuselage because the gear was so wide. You saw my suggestion to put tires under the belly and wench it onto a car hauler. It worked flawlessly. Took me just as long to put it back together as it did to take it apart.
I don’t believe it will ever fly again. The fellow who bought it is in his 80’s and had it placed behind a large garage out of sight of the highway. He said he wants to put a small motor in it to turn a propeller, but the condition of the structure has rendered it a bird house, which appeared to be what it had become.”
I have pictures but don’t know how to attach them. But the airplane is complete. The F-A-A member who posted the story re-attached the wings. The airplane is currently has an “experimental” data plate. The airplane is definitely rebuildable. For pictures please contact me via email at:
Jim Holdeman
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