Open-cockpit flying in Kentucky isn’t comfortable for
long after Thanksgiving. By April, the buds are starting
to pop, grass runways are flyable again, and it’s time to
be out aviating. So, Chris used those two dates,
Thanksgiving and April 1, as his working deadlines. He
would disassemble the airplane each Thanksgiving
weekend and work on a major part of the airframe during the winter with the goal of having it back in the air
by April 1. And those were hard deadlines, not “sorta
deadlines” like most of us have.
“When I bought it, it didn’t take much to get it flying
because the A- 65 ran just fine, although eventually, it
would need rebuilding,” he admitted. “That meant I could
fly it a while, and then my plan was to do the fuselage the
first winter, the wings the second, and the engine during
the third winter. In between I’d fly its socks off!”
Baby Aces, and their peer group, are the perfect
home-workshop projects because, among other things,
they were designed with the garage workshop in mind.
They are smaller, the components light enough an indi-
vidual can handle them, and finished components can be
easily hung from the ceiling of a garage and kept out of
the way. So, when Chris took the Ace apart, moving and
handling it was a no-brainer, as opposed to more compli-
cated airplanes.
“Rumor had it that the original builder, Kenneth
Yonts, worked for Waco,” Chris said. “When we uncov-
ered the fuselage, it looked as if it had been built by a
professional. Also, the cabane and wing struts were a
little heavier and looked suspiciously like Waco stream-
lined tubing.”
There was no serious rust, so he sandblasted every-
thing and gave it a coat of epoxy with no top coat. That
moved quickly, but the sheet metal took a bunch of
work. Although it had originally been expertly done, it
had lots of the dings that metal picks up when an air-
plane has been around that long. Chris replaced the
boot cowl metal, and the engine cowling was a little
beat up, but he had good patterns. The fiberglass nose
bowl was reusable, but there were some cracks that
needed to be repaired.
“When I was first starting out in aviation, one of my
mentors was George Wheeler. He taught me about
craftsmanship, and as I got into this airplane, despite the
dust and the age, I knew George would have appreciated
it,” Chris said. “Everything was high grade, old school
craftsmanship. The cables, for instance, aren’t
Nicopressed but are actually hand-braided. Absolutely
great stuff!”
On that first pass, Chris replaced the wheels and
brakes with 5.00 by 5 Clevelands and got rid of the metal
propeller.
“Wood props have so much more soul and fit the
character of this airplane so much better,” he said. He
also repainted it.
“The original owner had painted the airplane blue, but in my mind,
Aces are always red," Chris said. "So that’s how we finished the fuselage.”
Chris got it back together in time for April and had a ball in it that sum-
mer. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, he was ready for the
plucking-of-the-Baby-Ace ritual. It dutifully came apart and rolled back
into the shop.
“The wings were actually in pretty good shape, considering their
age,” he said. “Structurally, they were fine, and I probably could have
flown it another 2 0 years without touching them, but they looked so
much like high-quality furniture that I wouldn’t be doing them justice
by not making them as perfect as I knew they once were.”
He pulled all the fittings and repainted them and repaired a few ribs,
sanding and revarnishing the wood. “When finished, the wings looked
so good I almost hated to cover them, but April was coming,” Chris said.
“It was dirty and tired looking, but the
first time I looked down inside the cockpit
with a flashlight, I knew this wasn’t just
any homebuilt.” — Chris May
