Courtesy Dan Baxter
Father
Dave Baxter (the father in the father-son duo) says, “I
wanted to fly airplanes since I was a little kid. I logged a
lot of time in a big fir tree out behind my house when the
north wind blew. And when I was 10 years old I used to
give my money for rides in airplanes—they didn’t have
fences around airports then. But I never thought I’d own
an airplane or learn to fly.”
But Dave was lucky enough to live close to Flabob
Airport and EAA Chapter 1 in California. That’s where he
started taking flying lessons when he was 22. He also met
aircraft designer Ed Marquart there and did welding for
Lou Stolp, designer of the Starduster Too. Dave bought
plans for a single-place Marquart MA- 4 Lancer biplane
and started building it in 1966. He and his wife and children lived just around the corner from Flabob, and Dave
says he “got a real education in aircraft building there.”
As Dave’s sons grew up, he acquired his second project—the Starduster Too. He started it in April 1985, and
both of his sons, Dan and David, helped him build it.
N96576 (S/N 1332) received its airworthiness certificate
on June 22, 1989. Dave has flown it to Oshkosh eight
times so far, and his wife, Donna, has accompanied him
on five of those visits. Twenty years have gone by, and
he’s logged more than 2,200 hours in it—and a portion
of that time he’s spent giving rides to other folks who
were building Stardusters, to help them acquire a feel
for the plane.
Today, Dave is a go-to resource for builders and pilots
who want to learn more about the Starduster Too. “I’m
on the Aircraft Spruce board for the Starduster,” he shares.
“My goal is to help people enjoy the airplane and not get
hurt. There are a lot of these airplanes that have issues,
and they go from one owner to the next and don’t get
fixed. [For example,] a short motor mount makes for an
excessively aft CG with minimum fuel. And the landing
gear location was too far forward on the early airplanes.
Some have been wrecked or damaged, and if they’re not
repaired correctly, they can be a handful.”
Son
Dave’s son, Dan, was imbued with the experimental
aviation spirit from an early age and was his father’s
shadow for many years. The two flew together quite a
bit in N96576, and Dan took some formal flying lessons
in the early 1990s. Together with his dad, he started
building his own Starduster Too in 1992, but the project
was delayed for a while. Referring to his son’s airplane,
Dave explains, “We worked on it a couple of years; [he]
changed jobs, moved, and then in 2004 I told my son,
‘Man, if you ever want to fly that airplane, we’re going
to have to do something.’”
“There were the occasional moments
in the hangar, sitting in a chair and
looking over there at the airplane . . .
Wow! That’s my airplane! It just kind
of hits you.”
—Dan Baxter
Dan nods his head in agreement and chimes in,
“Then we found the engine, and that helped make it a
reality. So we went full tilt after that, every weekend and
evening for two and a half years solid. I couldn’t afford
to buy building materials and pay for flying lessons at
the same time, so I decided to finish the Starduster first.”
All told, it took them about four years to complete the
biplane. Best of all, Dan enjoyed the advantage of his
father’s extensive knowledge, experience, and hands-on
work to facilitate the project.
They were able to acquire a basic fuselage that someone
else had started, which saved them some time and labor.
Father and son built up other components from scratch,
such as the landing gear, I-struts, and even the aluminum
fuel tanks, which Dave welded. They routed the wing ribs
