By Barbara A. Schmitz
Ellen Northam, of Tipp City, Ohio, grew up hearing about a 1946 Aeronca 11 Chief her mother purchased before she and her husband were married. She had brought the Chief home in pieces, many tossed into laundry baskets, and they rebuilt it in her grandparents’ basement and garage, flying it from about 1968-70.
But Ellen never got to see the airplane in person — she only saw it in family photos — as they sold it before she was born and her mother died when Ellen was only 5.
“I heard about this airplane from my brother as I was growing up,” she said. “Later, my cousins would tell me they were allowed to play around the plane when they were 3 or 4 years old.”
Last May, she mentioned the Chief to her husband of about 1 1/2 years, Bill Knisley, an A&P mechanic and Vintage judge, and decided they should see what had happened to it. It didn’t take long to discover it was still in the FAA registry, so they wrote a letter to the current owner. They got a call back within the week.
“He said it was in pieces and that they hadn’t done anything with it since he had purchased it,” Ellen said. But he did have a data plate and the logbooks, so they bought it and drove to Iowa to pick it up in June 2024.
There was no fabric left on the plane, and the N-number was gone. Looking again at the FAA data, they saw a name they recognized, Joe Kokes, who also was a Vintage judge like Bill.
About two months ago, after Bill and Joe discussed AirVenture business, Bill put Ellen on the phone. “I asked Joe if he had ever owned a Chief, and he said yes. I told him that before it was his airplane, it was my mother’s.” A few days later, Ellen received a picture of the tail number that he had kept.
On Tuesday night, he and others presented her with the N-number. “I was all over the place,” she said, overwhelmed with emotion.
In her research, Ellen learned that the airframe had only about 800 hours on it. It had changed hands several times after her mother sold it, and by the time Joe acquired it, it was again in pieces, with no fabric attached.
Ellen said she asked Joe why he kept the fabric so long. He told her, “I don’t know, but I felt I had to.”
Ellen isn’t sure why her mother sold the Aeronca when she did, but said she has a good idea. “It was right before they were getting married, and my dad had a Bonanza that needed some work,” she said. “They sold the Chief likely because they didn’t have the money for both.”
Both Ellen and Bill also have connections to other family planes. They fly a 1947 Bonanza that belonged to Ellen’s dad, as well as her father-in-law’s Piper J-3 Cub.
“But my goal is to fly the Chief to Oshkosh and land on the dot.”
Photo caption: Ellen Northam is surprised and overwhelmed as she is presented the N-number from her mother’s Aeronca Chief. From left are Bill Knisley, her husband; Ellen; Doug Smith, a Vintage judge who also works for the Mid America Flight Museum; and Joe Kokes, who had owned the same Aeronca Chief as Ellen’s mother and had kept the fabric with the N-number.