Aviation wasn’t always a way of life for this
couple, but that changed when Barbara heard
Gilbert’s desire to learn to fly. She secretly
visited a local flight school and asked how
much it would cost for an average person to
learn to fly. She quietly saved her money and
bought a gift certificate for Gilbert. “When he
opened his gift that Christmas, he just about
dropped his teeth,” Barbara said. “He loved it.
When he finished (his training), I thought that
would be the end of it. Wrong! Once he had a
pilot certificate, he wanted an airplane.”
That desire eventually led the Pierces to purchase
Piper Clipper N5834H. Thanks to the time and
handiwork invested by the pilot and the gardener,
N5834H, aptly nicknamed Red Lady, became an
award-winning Clipper.
Wings and Engine
N5834H rolled off the production line in June 1949 with
a 108-hp Lycoming O-235-C1 engine. It had numerous
caretakers until the Pierces purchased it in December
1995. It was in good condition but covered with cotton, so Gilbert knew it wouldn’t be long before it would
have to be re-covered. Sure enough, the left wing failed
a punch test in 1999. They removed and re-covered that
wing and then painted it with Air-Tech polyurethane to
match the rest of the airplane. That allowed them to fly
to the SWPC convention in Denver, Colorado, that summer. During the next winter another project surfaced.
“The interior needed to be done, so I said, ‘For Christmas,
let’s give each other a new interior,’” Barbara recalled.
Another year, a split nosebowl for the Clipper was under
the tree, then it was a fuel flow meter, followed by Electronics International instruments, and an engine ana-lyzer…and the list continues.
During their flight to Denver in 1999, they both realized the Clipper was a bit anemic as they tried to ascend
to a cooler altitude. “Barbara looked at me and said,
‘Maybe we should put the [150-hp Lycoming] O-320 in.’
After I retired in May of 2000, we took off for Texas, where
my son, Steve, has his business,” Gilbert said. “He had a
basket case O-320-[C2B], and he sent the parts out and
got them certified so they’d be ready for reassembly.”
Though Steve had accomplished those preliminary
steps, Gilbert was in for a little surprise. “When Steve
was a kid his first car was a car we towed home,” Gilbert
explained. “I told him, ‘There’s the car, there are the tools,
there’s the book—if you need some help, let me know, but
I won’t get my hands dirty.’ When we got to Texas, he
had all the engine parts laid out, and he said, ‘Dad, here
are the parts, and here’s the parts book—if you need any
help, come get me. But I’m not getting my hands dirty!’”
Jim Koepnick
