By Steve Zoerlein, EAA 1011500
About 25 years ago, one of my best friends, Ron France, EAA 1127878, was restoring his third UPF-7. He and his dad have been in the Waco community for more than 40 years, and it was an honor to help during the final assembly stages. Through Ron, I acquired my Waco project, NC32091, from famed UPF-7 restorer John Shue. The aircraft had been in its third major accident in 55 years in a field in Pennsylvania during the spring of 1996.
John wanted to restore it and keep it for himself, but business and life got in the way. The project was stored until I acquired it in 2013. After taking inventory, I began production of the center section and upper wings, followed by the lower wings, which were finished in the spring of 2015. The entire restoration, with the exception of the engine, was done completely at my house. Having a complete woodshop and all the woodworking tools are a must for a restoration of this era aircraft.
In February 2015, I scheduled the rebuild of my Jacobs R-755-B2 engine with Radial Engines of Guthrie, Oklahoma. Out of all of the things I learned during the restoration, the week I spent with its mechanics participating in the reassembly was the most rewarding. We began assembling the engine on a Monday morning. On Friday morning of that same week, it started on its first try and ran for five hours on a test stand.
Shortly after getting the project to my home, I ordered all of my sheet metal from the engine cowl back, to include the firewall, cockpit coamings, baggage door, and a few pieces for the tail. I cannot overstate the importance of doing this early. The turnaround time on most of those pieces is months, not weeks, and you need someone familiar with Waco aircraft and drawings. I chose David Wenglarz of San Pierre, Indiana. Everything I ordered from him was spot-on correct.
After wrapping up the wings, it was straight into the fuselage. I ordered new cables and collected or manufactured cable guides and began the task of fitting and rigging the flight controls. The instrument panel, electrical, and pitot-static system started to take shape here also. The formers and stringers were attached to the fuselage frame, and finally I had something that looked like it was part of an airplane.
I spent the next few months cutting and fitting the cockpit coamings, front door, windshields, baggage door, inspection accesses, and a step into the rear cockpit. Once satisfied, the fuselage was moved up to my garage for covering and painting. I’m fortunate to have a garage large enough to fit a 20-foot spray booth. Eight months later, I had the fuselage painted and up on the landing gear. From May 2016 until the first week of June 2017, I finished painting various metal pieces from the firewall forward, hung the engine, rigged the controls, attached the center section, installed the fuel tanks and fuel lines, and finished painting a stripe down the side of the fuselage. During that first week of June 2017, family and a few friends helped move the project to its new home at Poplar Grove Airport (C77) in Illinois.
For the next three months, I spent every day off at the hangar, bringing all the pieces together to form a restored 1941 UPF-7. After a few scary high-speed taxies with Ron, we discovered that it didn’t track straight at high speeds. Once we remedied a couple of issues with the rigging, we settled on September 7, 2017, for the first flight. I had recently spent three days in Florida with my good friend Evan Dumas getting some stick time in a UPF-7. With his blessing, I returned to Illinois to prepare for my first flight.
The first flight was a bit nerve-wracking, but once in the air I began to relax, and it finally started to sink in what I had accomplished and what others before me have accomplished in a restoration such as mine. With the exception of the rudder trim tab needing some adjustments, the airplane flew hands-off in straight and level flight. Toward the end of the flight, just before the first landing, my eldest daughter hopped in a chase plane with a camera to document the first flight from the air. I have no regrets and would do it again, but I still love being married to Patti, my wife of 35 years.
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