New here and have questions

[Paul Hester]

Hello All,

I have been reading here for a few days and want to know if anyone remembers this Taylorcraft. It flew out of Bainbridge, Ohio.

My dad owned it in the late 50' to early 60's. It is a BC12D that I spent more time in than I did in a car when little. Dad took the wings and tail surfaces off and towed it home backwards behind a pickup. He put it in the garage and stripped it and with the help of his friend Bob Hass from Bainbridge he recovered it and put all new insides he hand stitched. HE gave it a Super Cub paint job and flew it for a while before getting tranfered to Zanesville, Ohio
in 1962. After moving Dad did not have the time to spend on it so he sold it to a guy somewhere in Kentucky. That is where I lost track of it.

Dad passed away 4 years ago and I have been going through the boxes of canceled checks and paperwork dad had collected from 1958 on and no luck yet on finding any paperwork on the sale of the plane. I tryed tracing the N number but it comes back to a piper now. IS there any way to find out what happened to the plane after my dad owned it?

Here is a photo. I also have a colorized version of the photo that I did in photoshop as to the way I remember it. It was cream and Red like the new supercubs at the time. I will never forget the smell of airplane dope because the smell was still in the garage a year later.

[crispy critter]

Re: New here and have questions

That N# sounds familiar,my father said she same thing. Let us do a little investigating.

[mike lutz]

Re: New here and have questions

might try a serial number search on faa registry.gov/aircraftinquirery,maybe it will show up there with a different n-number. mike

[Paul Hester]

Re: New here and have questions

Wish I had the S/N

I was a bit young when Dad sold it.

I do know he flew the tcraft do the guy who bought it. Dad told me he was half afraid to sell it to him.

The guy could not land it and dad had to slip it in set it down on the grass beside the concrete runway.

He was sure the guy would ground loop it in a weeks time.

I knew this was the place to come to you guys now all the history of all the Tcrafts.

Paul

[mike lutz]

Re: New here and have questions

hi paul.just looked in a old a/c registerybook(1969)and it shows the serial number as 6921.at that time it was registerd to R C snodgrass
4809 Floyd st
South Charleston,WV.
I didnt find anything under the serial search.
Mike

[Paul Hester]

Re: New here and have questions

So it is possible it still lives somewhere.

That is cool

Thank you

By the way I spent 7 yrs in CAP and 6 in the Air Force doing flightline Nav / Comm work.

[crispy critter]

Re: New here and have questions

Paul,Charleston,WV is not too far from me. I'll try to look into it a little more for you. I also recall someone talking about T-craft project that was in a flood on a private field located on an island in the middle of the river in South Charleston. Maybe we can get lucky.

[Paul Hester]

Re: New here and have questions

Thanks Crispy,

I sometimes wish I had been older when dad had the taylorcraft, I like most had too many other things on my mind at 16 when I could have gotten my ticket. Are you ever too old to solo?

I have somewhere a BW photo of me standing in front of the right main gear of the tcraft before dad recovered it. I must have been all of 4 or 5 years old in that photo, It was all one color with a single stripe that started from around the grill and ran all the way back the side. Looked very much like the original paint that I have seen in old adds for the tcraft.

Bad thing is I don't even know if he was the original owner.

[crispy critter]

Re: New here and have questions

Paul,you are never to old to solo. Are you a pilot now?

[Paul Hester]

Re: New here and have questions

No thats the thing, I have stick time in all kinds of aircraft and was even held a taxi ticket when I worked for Airborn on commercial frieght jets but never got around to getting my pilots ticket when I had the chance.

(I should have my tail kicked a thousand times for that)

And at 52 I wonder if I should now.

Stick time:

Aronca Champ
Cesna 150
Cesna 172
AT6
Waco UPF 7
Tcraft

Dad always said you were not a pilot unless you learned to fly a tail dragger.

[N74DV]

Re: New here and have questions

well.. My N number is 43122 and my SN is 6781. Since they went in numerical order on the tail number I would suspect that adding 140 (the difference between your tail number and mine) your SN would be 6921.

Hope this helps some.

[Pearson]

Re: New here and have questions

I have N43381 with serial number 7004. The difference between 43381 and 43122 is 259. Adding that to your serial number 6921 would mean my plane should be serial number 7030. Since it is not, either the serial numbers or the N numbers must not be sequential.

I hope this helps.

[N74DV]

Re: New here and have questions

hi paul.just looked in a old a/c registerybook(1969)and it shows the serial number as 6921.at that time it was registerd to R C snodgrass
4809 Floyd st
South Charleston,WV.

Richard,

according to this quoted post above the N numbers and serials were sequential at some point in time since I came up with the same number.

Also, you got my SN wrong. I am 6781 with 43122 tail number. Doing the math I come up with yours being 7040. You say it's 7004. According to the registration records online you ARE 7040. So.... the N numbers and serials are in fact sequential.

Hope this helps shed some light.

[Paul Hester]

Re: New here and have questions

Digging through stuff today I found Dad's Pilot Flight Record and Log Book type ap-3.
Indentification page entry Certificate issued Student 9 Jan 1947

First entries for 30 min flights in a taylorcraft N44132 dual instruction Jan 1947
Then in Feb 1947 in Taylorcraft N36012

Check out flight in Taylorcraft N43262 on April16 1947 must be when he bought her.

The last entry,
13 Aug 1960 From Bainbridge, Ohio to Russell, Kentucky -tcraft - N43262 -Cont - 65 - 45 minute flight Remarks are; Ferry flight to deliver aircraft.

So my memory is not as good as the log book shows.

[VictorBravo]

Re: New here and have questions

One of the most magical and mysterious things about aviation is that you can have the flying bug put into your system by your father in one decade, and come full circle to become a pilot yourself in another decade.

The sky is calling you with the help of your memories of your Dad, just listen.

The fact that you can still complete that circle, and get your Sport Pilot license in a classic Taylorcraft in 2008, is but another one of life's gifts, courtesy of old CG Taylor smiling at you from the clouds.

All you have to do is ask yourself how your Dad would feel now, looking down from above, if you went off and finally became a Taylorcraft pilot.

Now I never met your Dad, but I'll bet my last dollar that I know the answer... everyone else here knows it too

The Taylorcraft is a patient and confident teacher. It knows that sooner or later you will hear it's call, and now you have. The only thing that all of use here know that you don't know, is that what the T-craft teaches goes far far beyond just learning how to fly.

Bill