I've started adding up the time I've logged in recovering 80-Mike with the Stitts Poly-fiber process.

[Note: This is my story.  I'll try to keep it brief, but will probably be shamelessly self-undulgent anyway.  If you're not interested, don't read it.]

I grew up in a bush-flying family in northern Minnesota and Ontario, and have wanted to be a pilot my whole life.  I solo'ed on floats in an Aeronca 7EC Champ as a teen-ager, but then 30 years passed before I was able to fly again.

The last couple of years (1997 and 1998) I have attended the world's greatest aviation show, Airventure in Oshkosh, with my friend Bruce Boyes, which really fanned the flames.  The first year at Oshkosh we decided the best way to attend would be to fly there in our own airplane and camp under the wing.  We were not overly deterred from this dream by the fact that neither of us had a pilots license nor an airplane at that time...

On returning to Utah, Bruce signed up for flight school and got his Private Pilot license four months later.  We went up together in a rented Cessna 172 and he showed me what he had learned.  I was dealing with my mother's final illness and death at the time, but signed up for flight school as soon as I was able.  Through the stressful months that followed, flying helped me keep it together and also served in my mind as a sort of memorial for Mom, who had loved to tell the story of her own flight studies, including some very skillful instrument approaches.

In May 1998, Bruce and I flew down to Arizona with a friend in his Cessna 182 to look at a plane.  Bruce bought 8-Zero-Mike, a graceful classic Stinson "Flying Station Wagon" with a nearly-new major on the 165 HP six-cylinder Franklin engine, a new AirTex interior with re-done woodwork (yup, it's a "woody"), solid airframe, and slightly-cracked paint but reasonably good fabric (Ceconite, 1977).  I intended to become a partner in the airplane, when money (and flight ratings) allowed.

The feel of the controls on a Stinson is marvelous, very smooth compared to a Cessna.  Flying back to Utah with essentially no electronics was interesting, and Bruce (an electrical engineer) set about rectifying that, completely replacing and upgrading the radios.

In August of 1998, we flew to Oshkosh and camped under the wing of the plane.  It was fabulous.  I was ready for my Private Pilot check-ride, but hadn't managed to schedule it with the examiner yet.  On returning from Oshkosh, I got my Private, and worked with Dwight Burke in his Cessna 140 on a Tailwheel Endorsement, then took Ben Millward's Mountain Flying class in the fall.  I flew rented 172's occasionally through the winter of 1999, pulling money together for a partnership in 80Mike.

Meanwhile, Bruce put 8.50x6 "big tires" on 80Mike and started thinking about major improvements, including "Super Tips" on the wings, a Stitts Poly-fiber process fabric and paint re-cover job, and even swapping the Franklin for an O-470 to make it a true "Super Stinson".  Slightly bashing one wingtip on a sapling at a backwoods airstrip precipitated the Super Tip upgrade and the discovery that the fabric was painted with enamel over the butyrate dope, and hence not properly repairable.  (This also explains the paint cracking.)  Hence, he disassembled the wings from the fuselage and started stripping the fabric for Stitts re-covering.  But all this grew to be too much, with unexpected opportunities/demands of his business, and he offered the whole kit and kaboodle to me last week.

So, at this writing, 7/20/99, I'm the proud new owner of three very large pieces of an airplane, a couple dozen medium-sized pieces, and hundreds of tiny pieces (the fabric is retained by glue and stainless-steel screws on a Stinson.)  I plan to re-cover and paint 80Mike, and have a marvelous time flying it in the back-country of Utah and the surrounding states.

Stay tuned, I'll update this once in a while as I make progress.
-Russ

ps. Tech notes: Daniel Fish did the image work above for our Oshkosh 1998 T-shirts.  This included digitally photographing 80Mike in front of a green hangar door and assorted PhotoShop wizardry, such as subtracting the hangar door and compositing the plane onto a sunset sky he photographed and correcting various reflections, as well as creating a "path" of the Stinson Flying Station Wagon logo for high-resolution rendering and compositing.  Wow!