The Kinner K-5 engine was supposed to have been “overhauled”, but when Peck took it apart he found everything from glass beading media in galleys to cracked cases.
motor, etc., but we were missing all the small parts that tied the big ones together. The big parts, like the wings and fuselage, were in great shape, but we were going to have to replicate dozens and dozens of things that were missing. And we didn’t know what a lot of them even looked like.”
A Brief History
Considering 8989’s long, erratic history, it’s pretty amazing 28
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
that any of it existed, much less the small parts. From the time it was built, it went through a long line of owners, each of them adding their bit of damage or modification. In 1952, when the airplane last flew, the chapter written by the last owner was typical of the airplane’s life. Follow these 1952 logbook dates closely: •August 14. Previous owner flies one hour, probably with the buyer.
•August 15. New buyer finalizes the sale and flies one hour with previous owner. •August 16. New owner takes possession and flies an hour. •August 18. Logbook says, “Ship damaged in wind storm—right landing gear + right wing + aileron damaged.” Hmmmm! Wind storm damage. Rrrriiiight! The airplane was taken home for repair, and receipts for parts and materials date as late as 1972. Unfortunately, the owner/restorer died in 1973, and the airplane became the stuff of legends; the airplane was in a barn owned by a widow who refused to sell it. But it wasn’t bought for lack of trying: Lots of potential buyers lined up at her door, but she just wouldn’t part with her loving husband’s prized possession. Finally, the late B ud Dake, Monocoupe luminary, kept after her until she understood what he meant when he said that the best way to honor her husband would be to finish the airplane and get it back into the air. So, in the late ’80s, Bud became the proud owner of the sole-surviving Monosport and put it on display in the museum for long-term storage in what looked to be a complete, but uncovered, state. It wasn’t until Glenn Peck started working on it that it became apparent that, somewhere in time, many boxes of small parts had gone missing in action. Glenn says, “Bud had a new set of wings built, but we’re not sure the airfoil is exactly right because the original wing was in such sorry shape and only a couple of photos survive. It had been stored outside, so it was barely good for patterns. Regardless, I didn’t have to worry about the basic wings. However, most of the brackets and linkages for the control system were missing.
“ The fuselage was also good, completely primed and painted, and any repairs done. So I had the basic fuselage and it looked like an assembly job, not a restoration. But just about everything else about the fuselage was missing, and some of it, like the window/ door trim, was hard to figure out. For those, I made up a pattern on the workbench and cut out the aluminum window and door fairings in a single piece with a router. As for fuselage sheet metal, we only had the top piece of the cowling and the nose bowl, but we figured it had to be similar to the Velie in concept and just went from there. “The saving grace for everything on the outside was photos. We only had five of them. But I pored over those with a fine-tooth comb, and we got most of the details right. The interior, on the other hand, especially the instrument panel, was very much an unknown because there were no photos of the interior or instrument panel. We only had one ‘possible’ corner of the panel visible through a window, so we built from there. “We were told that the instrument cluster in the middle of the panel that came with the airplane was supposed to be original equipment, but we can’t prove that. However, we do know what the panels looked like in the models before and after the Monosport. We also know they used some of the same, unique mechanical control units on the dash that controlled the spark advance and mixture. We had one original of the same type vertical slider control that was in the Curtiss Robin we had previously restored, and we made the others. The panel details were all assumptions on my part, and if anyone reading this has photos or information that corrects what we’ve done, we’d sure
like to know about it.” The control system is something of a Rube Goldberg invention, especially the way the control stick and push rod system for the ailerons work. Often, systems such as these result in heavy controls, but Glenn says, “The controls are neither heavy nor light. Somewhere in the middle, but the airplane is surprisingly responsive, considering the era in which it was designed.” When it came time to cover and paint the airplane, Glenn wanted to use modern materials but maintain a vintage look. He explains, “I used Poly-Fiber throughout, cover and finish, but when I was finished shooting the color, I didn’t wash it or wax it. If you wash and wax 30 days later, it glosses up. I did neither so it still has some residue from the solvents evaporating on the surface that
makes it look like a very old, but cared for, dope finish. If we want it to shine, all we have to do is wash/ wax or buff it, but I really prefer the ‘old airplane’ look it has now.” Apparently, the judges at Oshkosh ’13 agreed with Glenn’s taste and gave the airplane their highest award for the category. Monocoupes were a passion to both Bud Dake and Haswell Ogle, the Monosport’s last owners, and the award is a fitting tribute to them both. Glenn summarizes flying the airplane by saying that you’ll be okay “. . . as long as you remember that you are no longer in 2013 but 1929, and you’re pretty much along for the ride. It’s something of a time machine and you find yourself asking, ‘Didn’t Slim used to fly the mail along through here? I think he even bailed out right over there.’ But that was before he was famous.”
www.VintageAircraft.org
29