Stinson N9178H Photographs |
Home > Williams Aircraft Collection > Stinson Gullwing > N9178H Photos | |
My aircraft is N9178H, which is currently undergoing restoration. Here's a collection of photographs while it was flying and of restoration stages: This was right as I picked up the airplane from its former owner in Harnett County, North Carolina in the winter of 1996. At the time this was the biggest airplane I'd ever flown and the first radial - pretty intimidating. It didn't help that I couldn't do a good ground runup (bad brakes) and that there were three intermittently bad spark plugs that had a tendency to cause puckering power coughs in the air. On the takeoff roll during a transition flight. The proportions are very nice for a large aircraft. The cowling is a bit long, especially as compared to the earlier SR series Stinsons, but the extra space comes in handy when it is time for maintenance. This shot was also when the engine sump gasket was still leaking oil, so the puddle is bigger than normal. This angle shows the "gull" profile in the wing. This is what the aircraft currently looks like, with patched but unpainted cowling and windshield taken out for replacement. It will be disassembled shortly for a full overhaul. The interior is pretty messy with all the kick panels taken out and the main instrument panel cluster removed. The windshield is also removed for replacement in this photo, hence the tarp. Here's an inside detail on the kind of patching that's being done on the cowling. Almost all of the rear corners of the cowling were cracked and trashed by wear. The riveted patches are either augmenting the existing cowling metal or replacing it entirely. Unfortunately some of the rivet patterns have gotten messy trying to pick up existing holes. Here's the outside of the same patch: Some aren't so ugly, where we could do flush patches:
|
||