Well that took a long time!

I don't post much on LinkedIn, but having a lot of former work contacts here that may wonder where I have been, I felt it was a good way to give an update on the last few years of "work." This is the very high level overview of what it took to turn a pile of parts back into a really fun flying airplane.

Over 4 years ago Julie purchased a 1974 Citabria 7GCBC as a project. I like to say it is her airplane and my project. It had been partially restored and seemed like a plausible project. to knock out over a couple of years part time. "It's over half done..." I recall thinking. In reality it was an erector set of parts, damaged fiberglass, unknown logbooks and missing maintenance records that would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000hrs of labor to restore to like new condition.

I started with the wings. They had been partially assembled, but not exactly according to the legal process required by the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC). The right wing was a pile of parts and after sorting, cleaning and priming, it started to go back together per the instructions with the STC. The left wing was my 3D blueprint to follow all while double checking with maintenance manuals, parts guides, restoration forums, and my mechanics (Airframe and Powerplant A&P and Inspection Authorized IA). With the right wing reassembled, the left wing came off to be torn apart, cleaned, prepped and reassembled. I installed new leading edges to stiffen up the wing for better performance and handling.

After the wings were assembled, it was time to work on fabric. This airplane is covered in a dacron cloth rather than aluminum skins. It's a modern version of the way airplanes have been built from the very beginning of powered aviation. The new products, Stewart Systems in this case, are much easier to work with. Unfortunately, I decided to get started on the fabric work right about the time Covid hit. Which meant no training classes were available. Fabric work and painting were new to me and I was not going to enjoy the luxury of attending a training seminar to gain experience. So I built test frames and test airfoils and practiced on those until I felt I could start on actual aircraft parts.

The ailerons and flaps were already covered, but the person who covered them didn't recall much of the detail of his work, so I tore off all the cloth and started over. It was a good way to start on a small portion of the plane and test the waters of fabric work. The cloth is glued to the surface of the part and then wrapped around and glued to itself. All using appropriate glue for the system and adhering to strict overlap and placement requirements. Once the fabric is attached to the part, you shrink the fabric in stages using a hot iron. It's baggy and loose one minute and a few passes of the iron later and it is a nice tight fabric surface. The fabric work is very rewarding. You start with the frame of a part and at the end of the day you have a nice tight fabric control surface or airfoil defined. It isn't without its challenges. Compound curves can take a really long time to glue and shrink the fabric into place, but patience and attention to detail pay off and eventually yield a nice well fitted curve.

After the control surfaces, I moved on to the wings. Covering one side, then the other. Shrinking, cutting openings for fittings, more shrinking. This is a tedious process. Not terribly difficult, but high attention to detail for long periods of time in order to produce clean straight lines. Once the initial fabric is on, then tapes get applied over wear areas, seams and other places requiring reinforcement. With fabric on, tapes applied and access port patches completed, the wings are ready for cleaning and then paint.

The painting process turned out to be fairly brutal. I was very fortunate to gain access to a spray booth owned by ACI Jet at the airport in San Luis Obispo. It was large enough for the wings, but small enough that I could only do one wing at a time. This meant a bit less efficiency than would have been nice. The paint is a waterborne system and has pretty long drying times. It made for slow progress, especially when the temps were low or humidity was high. Again, the process is tedious. I worked out that between cleaning the wing of all glue bits and then each round of cleaning, painting, sanding, cleaning, painting, sanding, etc... I covered every square inch of every painted surface about 45 times. When it seems like it is taking forever and you do the math, you realize why it is taking forever.

I spent about 4 months in the paint booth pretty much six days a week except for when temp/humidity didn't allow me to paint. The painting is a terribly stressful phase of a project like this. As you get closer and closer to being finished, the impact (visually) of mistakes become greater and greater. One tragedy I faced was painting a silver trim stripe on the wing and having a paint failure. The paint catalyzed into foam and ruined that stripe. I then had to spend days sanding it off and fixing it. A full week of work on a 4 inch by 10ft stripe and nothing else. Those things will test your grit and mental health. It's absolutely crushing to leave the paint booth with a beautiful looking paint job and arrive the next day to find it ruined.

In early January I painted the last few small parts. 600 or 700 hours of cleaning, sanding and painting in the paint booth and it was behind me. Relief doesn't adequately describe what I felt that day.

A few days later with the help of friends and mechanics, we put wings on the airplane for the first time in 12 years. Despite seeming so close to the finish line, it took nearly 3 months of full-time effort to finish all of the detail work on the airframe as well as addressing a few Service Letters and changes that needed to be made. Additionally, because the logbooks for the aircraft had been seriously damaged in a fire, nights were spent researching the history of the plane and all Airworthiness Directives that needed to be reviewed. Without ensuring their compliance, the plane couldn't be signed off as airworthy.

In late March I met for a final inspection with the IA that had been overseeing the restoration. We went through all of the paperwork, filing new paperwork where required and making sure all T's were crossed and I's dotted. A final inspection of the airplane and she was once again legal to fly.

As much as I wanted to test fly it for the first time, I had been so consumed with the work on the airplane that I had not had adequate time to get proficient in a similar plane. Not enough to warrant jumping in and facing whatever potential surprises might await me. My friend Ben is a very qualified pilot and instructor who trusted my work enough to take it for a first flight.

On March 27, with a partial load of fuel and a thorough preflight Ben taxied out under overcast skies for first flight. Standing there a half mile away, we could hear the engine come up to full power and shortly thereafter she climbed away from the ground. He performed a series of tests that I had laid out in a test card for him to just check basic handling and characteristics. After 15 minutes or so, he came back with the report that it flew perfect. Hands off, straight ahead stalls and no bad behaviors. We inspected it thoroughly for anything loose or leaking and then he went up for a second flight with a few more tests before Julie hopped in the front seat to take HER plane up for an hour of touch and goes.

I did manage to fly it that day. We had a storm approaching and it was getting a bit nasty when they finished. Ben and I took it up for 3 takeoffs and landings before I decided to put it away with winds gusting to nearly 30kts. It flew great and I didn't need to prove anything about flying in strong conditions.

Since March we've put about 40hrs on the plane. The engine is still running strong despite sitting for 12 years. Hopefully it lasts a long time before needing to be overhauled. We've had a few minor issues to be expected as part of the teething process, but nothing serious or terribly expensive.

It proved to be a much, much harder restoration than I certainly expected. It's not a kit plane. Every step of the way, it required figuring out what your next move was and typically was not something that was readily documented. It took longer to restore than a typical kit plane takes to build. At the same time, it's been an amazing experience to bring an airplane back to life. I've learned so much about the plane, the process and myself.

Despite being an accomplishment that I'm very proud of, it definitely was a team effort. From the original owner that started the restoration to my friends and mechanics that helped along the way. The airport community was critical to getting it done with some level of sanity. Nothing like needing a bolt on a Friday afternoon to finish some task and knowing it will be Tuesday at the earliest before you can get it. Then one of your hangar neighbors comes through with what you need (Paul, Kurt, Jim Thanks!)

It was a very busy couple of years dedicated to this project. With the plane flying, it's probably time to start a new chapter.