OK, let me tell you a little story.....
Yesterday morning, I headed over to Crosby, TX on the east side of Houston, to a little private strip named Dunham Field to do a Tech Counselor visit for an RV-6 builder by the name of Chuck Elsey. It was a short flight and a wonderful place to visit - dew in the beautiful grass as I dropped between the trees and touched down and rolled to a stop. Chuck welcomed me to the field and said "before we take a look at my project, I'd like to show you another airplane, over here in the owner's hangar".... He opened the back roll-up door, and in the shadows, tucked behind a Cessna, I saw....THIS:
My jaw dropped as I walked around and saw THIS painted on the canopy skirt....
I realized suddenly that I was in the presence of history....this little tube and fabric airplane was described to me as Van's first homebuilt - the heavily modified Playboy that eventually beget the line of airplanes we all build and fly today. Chuck can probably fill in more details than I can, and he is the one that took these pictures (all I had with me was my cell phone, and the pictures were pretty bad), but from what I understand, the airplane has gone through several owners, and currently is in a partnership. It is down right now waiting on a new prop after the original was bent in a ground loop. It seems that Van had created an Experimental propeller from a Sensenich that had been cut down and heavily re-pitched, and the current owners can't get a shop to touch it - so they are looking for something that will give the airplane the same magic that it had with the original.
I was just astounded to find this little gem sitting in a hangar near Houston - never thought I'd see the progenitor of so much flying metal right in my own back yard.
For a few more pictures, take a look here
I sure would like to find out more of the history of this craft - I bet others know a lot about the path it took to Dunham Field - and maybe they can share that knowledge here!
Paul
Yesterday morning, I headed over to Crosby, TX on the east side of Houston, to a little private strip named Dunham Field to do a Tech Counselor visit for an RV-6 builder by the name of Chuck Elsey. It was a short flight and a wonderful place to visit - dew in the beautiful grass as I dropped between the trees and touched down and rolled to a stop. Chuck welcomed me to the field and said "before we take a look at my project, I'd like to show you another airplane, over here in the owner's hangar".... He opened the back roll-up door, and in the shadows, tucked behind a Cessna, I saw....THIS:
My jaw dropped as I walked around and saw THIS painted on the canopy skirt....
I realized suddenly that I was in the presence of history....this little tube and fabric airplane was described to me as Van's first homebuilt - the heavily modified Playboy that eventually beget the line of airplanes we all build and fly today. Chuck can probably fill in more details than I can, and he is the one that took these pictures (all I had with me was my cell phone, and the pictures were pretty bad), but from what I understand, the airplane has gone through several owners, and currently is in a partnership. It is down right now waiting on a new prop after the original was bent in a ground loop. It seems that Van had created an Experimental propeller from a Sensenich that had been cut down and heavily re-pitched, and the current owners can't get a shop to touch it - so they are looking for something that will give the airplane the same magic that it had with the original.
I was just astounded to find this little gem sitting in a hangar near Houston - never thought I'd see the progenitor of so much flying metal right in my own back yard.
For a few more pictures, take a look here
I sure would like to find out more of the history of this craft - I bet others know a lot about the path it took to Dunham Field - and maybe they can share that knowledge here!
Paul
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