As most of the club members know, after almost 51 weeks, I was finally able to sell my 1947 Aeronca Chief. I’m not sure why it was so tough to find a buyer. The airplane was well documented within the club. Most people had seen it at one flying event or another. The performance was well known, but still, it seemed extremely hard to find a buyer. I had only two people actually come and look at it. Thankfully, one requested a ride. This is when I knew that I had it sold. This fellow had told me about the short fields that he would be flying in and out of and wanted me to demonstrate the short field performance of the Chief. No problem, I thought. The Chief could get off the ground at full gross on a warm day in about 800 feet. Landing was even better. Coming over the fence at 55 mph with power on, it could be fully stopped in about 350 feet. A few of these landings and take-offs, and he was convinced that this airplane was the one he wanted. I thought, not bad since this guy was really looking for a Cessna 140 and had never seen or even heard of an Aeronca Chief.

Within a few hours, he had called back with an offer and we made the deal over the phone. A deposit was sent in the mail and a Bill of Sale was completed. Just one thing, though. The buyer had only about 80 hours of flight time and no time in a tailwheel airplane. He had asked if I would sit with him while he got the feel for it. I thought, no problem; the last thing I wanted to see happen was for him to bend the airplane that I was so fond of. Of course, I told him that in no way could I be considered an instructor and I would be there to save any bad situations that I could.

Lee came down from Grande Prairie on three separate occasions and I sat with him for a little more than 10 hours going over everything that I knew about the airplane. We did stalls and slow flight, short and soft field take-offs and landings, and a lot of taxi practice. I felt comfortable to sit beside him. I think that the Chief has a pretty good new owner.

It was a sad day when he flew it away. I had put a lot of effort into that airplane. It was a bit of a mess when I picked it up and it took the better part of a year to make her right again. I used it to get my recreational license and had a heck of a lot of fun in her. I will miss the feeling of comfort that I had in it, but now I knew that I could really shop seriously for a replacement.

My search for a replacement started just about as soon as I put the Chief up for sale. I started scanning the various web pages and talking to anyone that would listen. I knew that I wanted to remain in a taildragger (Stu wouldn’t let me live it down any other way) and it needed to be a four-place, but there were a few to choose from. There’s the Stinson 108 series, the Piper PA-20, the Cessna 170s, and the Aeronca Sedan 15AC. Now, right away I liked the look of the Sedan. It has the real classic lines that I like with the bowed wingtips and round curvy tail feathers. The trouble was that there just isn’t an overabundance of them out there, and if you do spot a decent one, the price tag is in the mid to high $60s… a bit too far out of my price range. Next, I really considered a PA-20. I liked the overall size of the Pacer. There are a lot of them around and with the converted PA-22s, you can get them with up to 160 HP. There’s even an STC for 180 HP. Next, I considered the Stinson 108. We have a pretty good showing of 108s in Carstairs. Jorn is rebuilding his 108-2 and has moved it into the experimental category. He is modifying the fuse to widen the cabin, installing an IO-540 at 260HP, creating a rear seat door, and expanding the cargo compartment. It will also be placed on a new set of custom-sized EDO 2670 floats. Richard Schmidt also has a 108-2. His has the O-360 conversion and is currently being rebuilt from the ground up, with a zero-time engine and loads of new parts. These two airplanes make it tough to keep up with, so I decided that two Stinson 108s were probably enough in Carstairs. Next to consider were the Cessna 170s. Most people that I spoke with really tried to convince me of the great things about the 170; especially the “B” model. Everybody said that the 170 was a really good airplane but the “B” was the one to have.

Myself, not really knowing anything about any one of these airplanes in particular, I went with the people that seemed to know what they were talking about. I liked the look of the 170; it has nice clean lines and is said to be fairly roomy. This is where I started my search. The first thing was to educate myself. I searched the net for any and all the information that I could gain on the 170 and I think that I started to get a pretty good handle on all the ins and outs of it. Now it was time to go out and find one.

Most of the sites that I use are out of the US. Occasionally there are a few that show up from Canada, but not too often. Usually, they were too far away to really consider. I called on quite a few and had pictures sent, but none seemed just right. I checked the COPA plane trade quite often and I just happened to go on the website the day that the new ads came out online. There was a new ad for a 170A and it was reasonably close by: Regina. I called right away, got a bunch of information that I wanted, and had some extra pictures sent via email. Everything looked pretty good. The price seemed reasonable as well, so I booked a time to meet to have a closer look for myself. I had originally decided to drive out to Regina, but Glenn Bishell had made a call for me and arranged a flight out with Cor and his Glasair 3. Now, this is a real hot rod. We averaged 235 mph ground speed and made it to Moose Jaw in less than 2 hours. What a ride. Moose Jaw is where I had arranged to meet the 170 owner, and he was on short final when we flew overhead. This was a pretty good-looking 170, but nothing really to write home about. It was, at best, OK. It needed a lot of TLC to get it into the shape that the Chief was in. The owner took me for a test flight and it ran strong with no surprises. It just wasn’t really reaching out and grabbing me. I did decide to make an offer on it anyway. I offered 5% less than his asking price, which I thought was more than fair. He said he would need to discuss it with his wife, and he would email me in the next day or so. He did, and made a ridiculous counter offer, and I decided that I didn’t want it anyway. Something about it just didn’t feel right to me. As it turned out, the best thing about that whole ordeal was the trip in the Glasair. Thanks, Cor.

After some more searching for the right airplane and thinking about the 170, I decided to change directions a bit. As I said before, I liked the look of the PA-20, and although pretty much everyone that I talked to about it said that between the 170 and the PA-20, the 170 was a far better airplane. I found a PA-20 on Barnstormers that looked really good. Great avionics, radio stack, and was even IFR certified. I had extra pictures sent on this one too, and all seemed to be really good. I arranged a time to meet with the seller and view the aircraft. Luckily, my wife Marilyn was willing to come along for the drive as this was going to be a long one. The airplane was in Spearfish, South Dakota. A trip to Mapquest.com showed me the best route and gave me the distance: 1475 km… one way… Yikes! Thank goodness for our VW Jetta TDI. Anyway, the drive down was uneventful. We traveled about 8 hours on Friday night before getting a room.

This would leave us with 6 hours in the morning, and we arrived in Spearfish about 1 o’clock. Eager to view the PA-20, I called the seller and let him know that we had arrived. He gave us directions to the airport where we would meet in about an hour, giving us time to grab a bite to eat beforehand. As the hour crept by, my excitement grew. The owner was on time, and we chatted while walking to the hangar. We walked through the door and around a J-3, and as the PA-20 came into view, I could hear Marilyn let out a sigh behind me. I’m not sure what decade the pictures were taken that he had sent to me, but it sure wasn’t this one. This airplane was in serious neglect. It smelled musty from a distance, and when we opened the door, it was overpowering. I decided to go over the logs as Marilyn had a closer look. She was awesome; things that I wouldn’t have given a second glance, she was pointing out to the owner. She’s a real tough negotiator, and I was glad that she had come along. The logs were well put together by the A&P, but the airplane was just a mess. We pushed it out with the help of the A&P and tried to start it, but the battery was dead. It amazed me that this seller would let me drive all that way and not even check to see if the darn thing would start. I hand-propped it, and it seemed to run good enough. The A&P was at the controls, so I leaned in and talked to him about the whole thing. It was good to talk to him away from the seller as he confirmed all of my concerns. We shut it down and put it back in the hangar. The seller wanted me to make an offer, but I said I wasn’t prepared to, and thanked him for showing it to us, all the while grumbling under my breath over the huge waste of time it was. From there, we headed for home and got in another 8 hours of driving before finding a room for the night. The next morning we got away early and made it home about 2 o’clock. What a trip. We were gone a total of 41 hours and the trip counter in the car read just over 29 hours of running time. I sent the seller a ridiculously low offer and surprisingly enough, I didn’t get a reply. Oh well, my loss. The last time I checked, it was still listed on Barnstormers. The price keeps coming down too.

After the weekend had passed, I received a few calls from friends asking how the trip was and if I made an offer on the PA-20. Through some good conversations and some reasoning back and forth, I decided to keep my options open. Once again, I found myself looking at the 170s. Now, the whole time that I had the Chief listed, I had been looking through ads and searching the internet. There was a particularly nice 170A that came up on Barnstormers and I watched it as the weeks went by. The price was fairly high, but boy, was it nice. I even contacted the seller towards the end of the ad run to get some contact information before it disappeared off of the bottom of the page. One big problem was that it was out in Pennsylvania. The Chief didn’t sell and the ad for the 170 ended. Another month or so went by when the ad was reinserted on Barnstormers. I started to get excited at the chance to deal on it again and I watched the ad closely for the full 90-day run until once again it disappeared off of the bottom of the page. The price was the same and the pictures in the ad never changed. I even went as far as to print a few of them off. It gave me a visual while I was dreaming. Another few months went by and the Chief finally sold, yahoo! That kind of brings us up to date.

Now, after getting home from South Dakota and that whole ordeal, I renewed my search, called on quite a few 170s, and even arranged to go look at one in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, but it sold before I had a chance to go and look at it. That’s when the ad for the nice 170A reappeared. The price was lower, so I called right away. I discussed everything that I could think of with the owner and had several more pictures sent as well as the last few log entries. The next day, after reviewing the extra pictures, I called back with a few more questions. I got a really good feeling from talking to the owner and decided to make an offer. Seeing as how I didn’t actually view the airplane, this is probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done; especially after what happened in South Dakota. Anyway, we made the deal over the phone and I wired a deposit to him the next day.

Now is when I really started to sweat. Every possible outcome ran through my head, and there were more than a few sleepless nights. Now that I had the airplane purchased, I went to work on figuring out how I was going to get it home. That’s where I will continue in the next issue.