Using his degree in electrical engineering
and tying that in with his passion for aviation, Nick started his own avionics repair
station. By the mid-1990s his business had
grown substantially, so much so that he
bought a Cessna 150. Eventually Nick
became partners with Jim Prince in one of
Miami’s largest air repair stations—
Peninsula Avionics. Although Nick was
happy with the success of his business and
flying his little Cessna anytime he liked, he
had always wanted to own a taildragger.
“My dream airplane is a Citabria,” Nick
said. “I couldn’t afford that, so I looked at a
J- 3 Cub—I couldn’t afford that either. I
looked on eBay and saw a Taylorcraft L- 2
project listed at $4,500 dollars—now that I
could afford. I knew nothing about L-2s or
Taylorcrafts, but it looked like an average
tailwheel airplane to me, so I made the deal
over the phone sight unseen and drove to
Georgia to pick it up. Had I known what I
know now, I would have abandoned that L- 2
project on some dirt road in Georgia and
come back empty-handed. I don’t think I
could have bought any tougher project than
this one.”
Arriving back in Miami on Christmas
Day 2001 with his dilapidated project in tow,
Nick felt as though he had made the mistake
of his life. He had no idea what an L- 2 even
looked like let alone if he even had all the
parts to put one back together. Undaunted
by the seemingly impossible task, Nick
remembered what the old glider mechanics
had taught him about never giving up as he
dove headfirst into his project. The first
thing he found was that the L- 2 didn’t have
quite the popular following or spare parts
availability of a J- 3 Cub. Nick knew he had
to be creative as he turned his attention to
the World Wide Web.
REDUNDANT RESTORATION
Because Nick had not yet seen what a finished L- 2 looked like, he went back to his
glider rebuilding roots and followed the
woodworking fundamentals he had learned
at an early age. Nick also instilled in himself
a high level of patience because he knew
that he was going to be working on this airplane solo for the majority of the process.
Nick started on what he calls the “easy
parts”—the ailerons.
“I stuck with these because if I messed
them up it would be easy to rebuild them,”
Nick said. “I proved myself right because I
rebuilt them twice.”
With the ailerons finished, Nick began
the long tedious task of building wing ribs.
This process alone took him about six
months of bending and gluing rib compo-
nents together before he glued them all to
the leading and trailing edges to form the
wings. Nick admits, though, that he had to
figure out a simpler way of covering the
wing leading edge. Old-school methods
meant wetting down the plywood sheeting
and bending it over a jig using old rubber
tire tubes.
L- 2 HISTORY
Taylorcraft TG- 6
L is for “liaison,” and the L- 2 designation was assigned to Taylorcraft. The L- 1 designation went to Stinson,
the L- 3 to Aeronca, the L- 4 to Piper, and the L- 5 went back to Stinson with its second generation L-bird. All
of these aircraft were built to serve in our nation’s military during World War II. Most were sent overseas
to spot for artillery, haul wounded soldiers off front-line battlefields, or carry VIPs around the battlefront,
along with a dozen and a half other uses by military personnel. All of these liaisons, nicknamed collectively
“Grasshoppers,” fulfilled a much-needed duty.
Of all the models listed above, the only one that remained stateside was the Taylorcraft L- 2. Designed
and built by C. Gilbert Taylor—the man responsible for the famous Taylor Cub that eventually became the
J- 3 Piper Cub—the Taylorcraft L- 2 proved it could adapt to anything the U.S. military threw at it, including
having its engine removed and replaced with a third seat. With a shortage of gliders and glider pilots, the
U.S. military turned to Taylorcraft for help. The L-2s were converted into three-seat glider trainers known as
the TG- 6. Easy to fly and cheap to build, these gliders helped train hundreds of men, some of whom ended
up flying the bigger versions over the beaches and hedgerows of Europe during the D-day invasion.
