Mostly finished the refurbishment of our 1948 Cessna 170 Rag-wing. The plan was to make it airworthy and as pretty as possible in not more than 500 hours; we stopped logging hours some time ago! Famous last estimates and all … Now that’s done we wet rent it to carefully chosen taildragger pilots! In a couple of years we’ll think about repainting her, but for observation at more than 20ft, it’s a perfectly adequate paint job!
It’s nerdy but important to note the difference between renovation (make new) and restoration (put back like it was). We are working to get her safely flying and fly her. She is not show-plane pretty and not everything went back original, especially the panel. She does not fly on the C170 certificate of airworthiness, but rather on a permit-to-fly specific to this aircraft. This is a process managed by ILAS under IAA oversight, in many ways (but not all) similar to Experimental via EAA under FAA oversight in the US.
Recent Log Entries:
She flew! (15 January 2022) - The last engine run was in October 2021. Since then we’ve been waiting for paperwork to go between IAA and ILAS. This finally got sorted out the first week of January and on 15th January 2022, 5 years after her ground-loop in Florida on 10th December 2017, N4180V took to the skies as EI-AEN. Steering […]
First Engine Run (18 July 2021) - Just what it says on the tin. After much work including replacement of all plugs and the second complete set of fuel lines we fueled her up with 20L of 100LL Avgas and fired up the engine. There was no drama, a couple of minor weeping leaks from the fuel system so on the day […]
Wings and vinyl (15 May 2021) - Putting the wings on was a drama! So much so, that there are no photos. It took 4 of us about 5 hours to get 10 bolts installed with much bleeding and aggravation. After the wing war was won it was on to the vinyl. The only reason for changing from the original design was […]