The Vintage Mechanic ROBERT G. LOCK
Approaching a restoration project: Where do I start? Part 1 While instructing at Reedley College in the would have to get into the airplane and go fly it began to aeronautics department, I always had a project going at appear on the horizon. And the closer I got, the larger the my shop at home. Occasionally I would bring some of my looming test flight became. But let’s not get too far ahead class, who were interested, over for a tour in the after- and return to the focus of breaking the project down into noon after instruction ended. Thus it would not be considered a “field trip.” Invariably questions and comments would arise, such as, “How do you know where to start?” or “The project is overwhelming.” I agree that looking at a pile of old airplane parts is a bit overwhelming, but one has to look beyond that. So to identify the task at hand, as related to their questions, take the pieces of a rare 1929 biplane shown in Illustration 1 and turn it into a fine flyable example as shown in illustration 2. One problem with a project this size is Illustration 1 the amount of time (in years) that must be devoted to reach a conclusion. In this case the project was started in 1978 and finally concluded in 1989. There were times when Illustration 2 I did not work on the ship for six months, so the important thought was to end at a logical stopping point and make necessary notes to ensure there would be continuity when resuming. My answer to the question, “How can you do this?” was always that I break the project down into smaller objectives. The overall objective would be to produce an airworthy and good flying airplane, and that would be a long way off in the beginning. But as the project neared completion the realization that I 50
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