Obsessions, etc.

[Galvin]

I found a Byron Staggerwing for sale in my favorite hobby shop up in Everett, WA about a year and a half ago and I bought it thinking a friend of mine would want it. It turned out he was in the middle of moving up to the Canadian border so I ended up with it. Although it was nominally flyable, it wasn't just bad, it was horrible.

When we were restoring three full size Lockheed Constellations I said that their respective conditions represented three possiible outcomes: restoration, ressurection, and restaurant.

Knowing at the outset what I know now about THIS project, I would have used it for firewood. But I never was that smart.

After coming withing about a sixteenth of an inch of just chucking the whole mess in the trash on three separate occasions, I finally have gotten it to an almost complete state.





For some reason the left side of the dummy P&W R-985 AN1 looks rusty in the photo. It isn't. It is as shiny on the left side as the right. I replaced the firewall (the wood used still had the bark on it, Well, maybe not that bad but bad enough).



This thing is freaking huge. The wingspan is 76" and it weighs 22 Lbs.



The previous owner had stuff sticking out all over the airplane. I stuck it all in the baggage compartment.

Most serious lapse of judgment in this project? Adding a complete interior. Blue foam seats, foam wall trim, full IFR panel and throw-over wheel yoke, rudder pedals, belts and shoulder harnesses, etc. Even a scratch built old timey mike and WWII style HS-38 headset. I must have been nuts.



Kind of hard to see but the interior is complete down to a blanket and a 1947 "Life" magazine on the rear seat. There is a different 1947 "Life" magazine in the right hand map pocket too. The left hand map pocket, the pilot's sidemap pocket contains....what else? Maps, of course.



The Byron retract mechanism comes up into the cockpit so I just hinged part of the floor and the front seats tip back enough to allow the gear to operate freely when it retracts. Nobody is looking in the cockpit while it's flying anyway. Tailwheel goes up right smartly with the mains and all have working doors.

I can't wait to sell this thing and see the last of it.

[trimtab]

I think it looks great!! Think of your project as museum quality. . . .which it really is.

I suggest you contact Raytheon, for instance, to see if they would be interested in a flyable display model for Wichita, or perhaps a Beech employee might be interested. A display model indicating that it's capable of flying is far more dramatic to the eye.

Last year, at the WRAM Show in NYC, Nick Ziroli had his giant scale Staggerwing on display with Navy colors and a sailor dressed in whites as the pilot . I mentioned to a person manning the booth that their novel display of a sailor/pilot was historically accurate. Many sailors (enlisted men) were pilots back then and one of the most famous was Floyd Bennett (although he wasn't alive when the Staggerwing was introduced).

A few years back, I restored a B-17 as a display model for a collector (Memphis Belle, 72" span). On the navigator's table, I placed a map which prominently displayed Berlin. It was actually cut out from a map of Massachusetts where a town named Berlin is located.

[jetmex]

That is some beautiful work, Dave!

Just out of curiosity, why don't you want to keep her?

[Galvin]

The map in the map pocket of this one is actually a 1/6th scale map of Korea.

I was going to put a 1/5th scale figure of Indiana Jones in the pilot seat but the retraction setup precludes having any sort of pilot.

Why do I desperately want to see this thing as a pair of disappearing tail lights?

Simple answer is that I bought it knowing that one of my oldest friends (junior high school vintage) really wanted one but the planets got seriously misaligned before he could buy it off me. I really didn't want to start it to begin with but since I had it and since I had all this money in it..

It has been a giant plug in the pipeline of all the military airplanes I have waiting to build and have not been able to get to for over a year and a half.

I was in the middle of seriously modifying a Global "Rare Bear" Reno Racer back into a stock military Bearcat when this Staggerwing project brought all the others to a parade rest and I'm itching to get back on track.

Now I have waited so long that Global has already come out with their own Navy Bearcat version of the Rare Bear kit. Mine will still put it in the weeds though.

Add to that an untouched Great Planes P-6E Hawk ARF I plan to modify into a Navy Goshawk, a Hangar Nine Hellcat ARF I am going to do the super scale number on, a Scorpio Hellcat kit just to have something to fly, a Nakajima Hayate in the same scale as the Hellcat so I'll have something to chase around the sky, a second GREAT flying Alfa MiG that will get massaged like my first one, and a couple of 1/6th scale FW-90As and a Top Flite FW-190D-9 I took in trade for the 87" Dave Platt Spitfire (flyable) that I bought along with the Staggerwing and I am feeling more like I should be spending every waking moment getting these things done rather than just enjoying one at a time.

Not only that but when the 76" Global P-61 Black Widow shows up next month (back ordered) I may drop everything again to get that one going. The P-61E day fighter with natural metal finish, long bubble canopy, and four gun nose would be just different enough to be cool, don't you think.

Getting rid of the Staggerwing should do a lot to break the log jam.

[trimtab]

I saw this P-61 Black Widow at Warbirds Over Delaware last summer. It was HUGE, LOUD and awesome* (*an appropriate use of the word in this case). www.pbase.com/slwinder/image/46086673 Here's a photo gallery showcasing many of the planes.
www.pbase.com/slwinder/war_birds&page=all

Back in the summer of '99, we toured the Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading and were allowed a sneak-peak at the Black Widow restoration project. It was a quiet day and the volunteer worker allowed us into what was then a secure area set aside for the project. Here's a recent photo of the plane. They've come a long way since our last visit.
www.maam.org/p61/p61_rest.htm

[Galvin]

That is a great looking and sounding bunch of P-61s.

I just got the Advanced Scale Models P-61 ARF in the mail after much worrying about whether or not ii would measure up or whether it would require a lot of modification to look like the real thing. I was overjoyed to discover that it is VERY well done and I plan to complete it with a minimum of mods, just different markings and detailed cockpits.

It is probably one of the best ARFs I have ever encountered.


BTW: I brought the brightness of the Staggerwing cockpit photos up with Photshop and there is far more detail visible.

[Galvin]

Well, just a little update on the Staggerwing saga. I hung it up in Tim's hobby shop up in Everett, WA and hung a price on it I thought would be high enough to insure that it would be there for a long time.

I guess I should have put a higher price on it because it went relatively quickly to someone who just had to have it. Thankfully the new owner is absolutely dead set against the idea of ever flying it. It is slated to occupy the place of honor on a grand piano in his house and he even got his wife to agree to it.

The price it went for? Well over a grand.

Price of the original white elephant when I got it....$450

Cost of parts and supplies I needed to restore it...Don't want to think about it.

Monetary profit from selling it... probably negative.

Increase in local rep as builder by going crazy on it and doing it up the way I did...Priceless.

This model has definitely gotten good press in these parts and I suspect will loom large in the old legend for quite a while, judging from the reactions of the many people that saw it.

I'd rather have the money though.