by Jack Cox

"It flies just like a heavy Luscombe," he said. "Come on down and try it."

That was all the invitation SPORTSMAN PILOT needed to set in motion a mad dash to the airport and a subsequent 30 minute flight from Milwaukee to the Chicago suburb of Naperville to see Gar Williams' newly-restored 1928 Cessna AW. For an ol' Luscombe lover like me, he couldn't have chosen a more appealing analogy to extol the endearing charms of his latest aeronautical treasure. He also owns a couple of Luscombes and knows how I go into automatic drool everytime I'm in sight of 'em!

Gar is well known to all you antique buffs as the craftsman responsible for one of the most beautiful and authentically restored Cessna Airmasters to ever grace the sky. He's flown it all over the U. S. and has a house full of trophies and awards to show for his efforts. Like most antiquers, Gar does extensive research into the history of each of his projects - not only the airplane itself, but also the company, the designer and even the life and times of the nation into which the airplane first saw the light of day. It's part of the fun of messin' round with the Golden Oldies.

Since the Airmasters were the evolutionary end of a line of fabric covered, cantilever winged monoplanes extending back to the Model A prototype of 1927, it was only natural that Gar would become interested in the ancestors of his 1940 Airmaster. There were a whole passel of 'em, but the AW of 1928 had a particular appeal. That model was powered by the 110 horsepower Warner radial engine . . . and it just so happened he had a garage full of them. In the course of collecting enough 165 Warner spares to "last me the rest of my life", as he puts it, Gar had also picked up a bunch of 110, 125 and 145 stuff. He had the makings of an engine, so why not try to scare up an AW airframe to restore?

Why not, indeed!

The first step in his quest was a visit to my office at EAA to look at the FAA microfiche listing of all U. S. civil aircraft. It didn't take long - there were only a half a dozen early (pre-Airmaster) models listed. Subsequently, he wrote to everyope on the list offering to buy their airplanes.

One of the owners who answered his letter was a Braniff 747 captain from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. His old Cessna was a Wright J-5 powered BW registered as N6442, Serial Number 138. He had purchased it a half dozen or so years before in Midland, Texas where it reportedly had been stored since 1932. Willing enough to talk about the BW, the owner was not, however, interested in selling. He planned to restore it and had, in fact, already begun cleaning up the fuselage.

Gar, nevertheless, persisted, exchanging letters with the gentleman for about a year . . . and then one day the fateful message arrived. For peersonal reasons the BW had to go. A price was mentioned . . . and before the day was done, Gar had a deposit winging its way to Texas.

The retrieval of the Cessna is one of those stories antiquers love . . . as long as it doesn't happen to them. As an employee of a major airline, Gar has a pass to fly all over the place - but still has to be back at work on Monday morning. Consequently, he planned to retrieve his prize over two weekends. He would drive his car and trailer down to Texas one weekend, leave it with friends and fly home. The following weekend he would fly on a pass back to Dallas, load up the airplane and drive home to Illinois.

The hotbed of antique activity in the Big D area is Justin Time airport. Gar called a friend who lives there, Dick Hardin, and made arrangements to leave his car for the week. Dick was happy to oblige . . . but was curious about just what sort of treasure Gar was intending to liberate from the Lone Star State.

"A Cessna BW," Gar volunteered.

"Oh no, there aren't any of those around here," Dick assured him.

"Well, it turned out the airplane was just 13 miles from where he lived," Gar recalls - with a devilish grin. "Dick was very pleasant about it when I got there but there were antiquers in the area who were very upset that I had snatched an airplane right out from under their noses."

Once home, Gar launched right into the project. An inventory of what he had whisked away from the Texans revealed some incredibly good fortune. The metal parts were in extremely good shape. The steel tube tail surfaces simply needed cleaning up and some paint before cover, and the fuselage was even better. Apparently, the previous owner had meticulously hand sanded it from stem to stern and had preserved all that effort by applying a liberal coat of zinc chromate. The biggest job Gar had to tackle was chopping out some tubes at the rear of the fuselage that someone, somewhere down the line had added . . . in accordance with ancient factory supplemental drawings . . . to install a tailwheel. Gar was going back to a tailskid, so out came the extraneous structure.

But then came the not-so-good fortune.

According to Gar, the wlng is 90% of any of the old cantilever Cessnas. If you've got problems there, you've got BIG problems. For those of you not familiar with the structural details of the huge hunk of timber that sits atop the fuselage of the early Cessnas, a brief description is in order before we proceed . . . otherwise, you will not fully appreciate the monumentality of what Gar was about to attempt. First, it's big - 40 feet 6 inches long and weighing in at nearly 500 pounds! Worse, however, is the internal complexity. All-wood cantilever wings were not unusual in the 20s. Fokkers had used them since the Big War and that American classic, the Lockheed Vega, was another prominent example. Most consisted of a couple of deep box spars covered with plywood to form a torsion box. The Cessna wing was, however, a different breed of cat. It had the usual double tapered box spars bridged by ribs and compression members - but torsional loads were handled by a veritable cat's cradle of drag and anti-drag wires . . . double sets at the top and bottom of each bay. In the center section, 14 inches separated the top set of wires from the lower ones! (One doesn't need the services of an A&P to work on this thing . . . a cabinet maker who moonlights as a piano tuner would be more appropriate!)

This construction method allowed Cessna to cover its wings with fabric instead of the usual plywood.

Only after uncovering his wing did Gar really know what he would be doing with all his spare time and vacations for the next five years . . . minus one. Mercifully, the big front spar was in good shape, but the rear one was pretty badly damaged - apparently from hangar rash rather than an accident. The boom was really lowered, however, when Gar began inspecting the ribs. Every one of them was broken . . . every single one! Between the left and right halfs, he was able to salvage an example of each different size (remember, this is a double-tapered wing) to use as a pattern. A complete set of new ribs was manufactured and fitted to the spars. Further, both laminated tips had to be rebuilt. Only the hardware was useable as it came from Texas.

To get all this back together accurately, a very elaborate jig had to be built . . . fortunately, Gar owns a rather large hangar . . . and provision had to be made for turning the monster over during the reconstruction. A lash-up incorporating his chain hoist was devised so Gar could flip the wing over unassisted - and it worked every time but once. Working alone one day, he gingerly hoisted it up and was just about to ease it over center when the mechanism slipped. A desperate grab netted Gar nothing more than a two finger grasp of a 3/8 inch bolt - but it was enough to hold the wing in a precarious balance. He could hold it there, but he couldn't pull it back down. If he turned loose, the wing would jack-knife into the hangar floor, smashing itself to smithereens

The day . . . and the wing . . . was saved by some heart rending screams for assistance and Gar's wife's rush to the rescue! With their hangar only a few feet from their back door, Mary Alice was there literally in seconds.

Now, folks, all this reads easily enough, even with an amusing anecdote thrown in for comic relief. In real life, however, it wasn't very funny at all. Gar Williams is as intelligent and conscientious an antique airplane restorer as you can find, but the rebuilding of the AW wing was such a horrendous undertaking that after 4 years of it, he was completely burned out. One day he simply put his tools down and walked away . . . for the entire year of 1979!

He wasn't sick of airplanes - just the AW. That year he moved to the other side of his hangar and completely restored a Luscombe 8A he had found sitting forelornly a few miles from his home

So multifaceted is the story of this restoration, that we have jumped over quite a bit in ordex to relate the problem with the wing in the proper sequence. We must go back almost to the beginning to pick up the thread of some equally interesting happenings . . . one of which turned out to be a detective-style investigation worthy of the intellect of a Sherlock Holmes.

First, however, we must introduce a new player to the plot. In the course of his historical research on his Cessnas, Gar had made the acquaintance and had become good friends with Eldon Cessna, son of Clyde Cessna, founder and namesake of Cessna Aircraft Company. Eldon was there and intimately involved in the development, marketing and racing of the early Cessnas. Still very much interested in aviation and possessed of an astounding memory, he was to become Gar's invaluable advisor on the project.

Now, as you will recall, the airplane Gar bought from the 747 captain was a Cessna BW, N6442, Serial Number 138 . . . or was it?? (You've probably been wondering how the BW became an AW, right?) Well, there were no data plates, N numbers, etc., with or on the airframe when Gar bought it - but, as yet, he had no reason to question its registration. Then one day as he was stripping varnish off the wing's interior, he came across what was obviously a factory stencil on the rear face of the main spar. It was faded and not easily readable, but could be made out as "20-3-8", The last two digits were offset from the "20" as if affixed at a different time. Gar copied them down and mailed them to Eldon at his home in El Segundo, California. The reply was prompt - the "20" meant serial number 20 and the "3-8" was the month and year of manufacture - March of 1928.

It wasn't that simple, however. Cessna had begun its numbering system for the cantilever monoplanes with 112. "20" was actually 120 . . . which meant the 9th airplane off the production line.

So, what was with this Serial Number 138 business??

Getting back in touch with the previous owner brought a part of the answer. When purchased in Midland, there were no records with the airplane - no numbers of any sort. The 747 driver had a picture of a BW - N6442, Ser. No. 138 - so, finding that number available on FAA's books in Oklahoma City, he applied for and obtained same.

Gar, now convinced he had Serial Number 120, N4725 instead, cancelled the old one, re-applied for Ser. No. 120, etc., and received same.

Are you sure you have all that straight? There'll be a pop quiz at the end of the article, you know.

O. K., now to the engine. With the airplane came a Wright J-5 . . . in several baskets. This was why the previous owner had registered the aircraft as a BW - that model had come equipped with the J-5. (The same basic airframe had been certified with a variety of engines, each with its own model designation - AA, AW, BW, etc.) Right off, Eldon was insistent that Gar not use the J-5, It made the airplane nose heavy, he said, and was of sufficient diameter as to severely restrict forward visibility. "Use one of your Warners - make it an AW," he advised. Practical considerations aside, he pointed out, the AW had quite a lot of history behind it - which would be impressive in the records Gar would ultimately be presenting judges to authenticate his restoration. AWs had won a number of races, including transcontinental events, and one was even flown to Siberia and back.

There was no getting around it - the airplane had to be restored as an AW.

The 110 Warner engine was built up using the best of the parts and pieces from half a dozen engines Gar had coilected over the years, plus some new stuff he had on hand - bearings, bushings, pins, etc. All tolerances were to new specs. Nevertheless, a few modifications were made in the interests of reliability - heavier 145 Warner valves were installed, but the weakest set of valve springs Gar could find were fitted to them. The 110 has a history of breaking its valve train parts, caused, Gar believes, by valve springs that were too stiff. When normal wear occurred, the small amount of slop allowed the tight springs to exert stresses in directions they weren't meant to, ultimately resulting in a failure. With his weak springs Gar will restrict his rpms to avoid valve float as a tradeoff for, hopefully, no valve train breakage.

The old Scintilla mags also came in for some modernization. The original outer cases were retained but much later - and more reliable - internal parts were installed.

When Gar ended his one year hiatus in early 1980 and began working on the AW again, the major structural members - the big parts - were essentially rebuilt. What remained was covering and attaching all those zillion small things that go on with tiny little screws . . . probably the least-liked part of any restoration or homebuilt project. Here, Gar was aided immeasurably by a purchase he had made in 1977 - a legitimate Cessna AW (Ser. 196). He had heard a rumor at Blakesburg to the effect that there was one in Connecticut in Stafford or Stamford . . . and owned by a square dance caller. When he returned home, Gar got out his atlas and looked up the two towns. Stamford was a good sized college town; Stafford was just a typical small town, so it just seemed more likely that a square dance caller would live there.

Now, as you've seen, hard core antiquers are pretty good detectives - and the following is a perfect substantiation of that claim. Late one night, Gar picked up his phone and called the Stafford, CT police department. After convincing the duty officer he was sober and this was not a crank call, he asked a couple of pointed questions.

"Do you know anyone in Stafford who likes old airplanes . . . and is a square dance caller?"

"Oh, you mean Don Swift.''

Nothin' to it, folks . . . just takes a little brass and a lot of imagination.

Gar called this Don Swift and, sure enough, he was the owner of an AW and, yep, it was for sale, Gar bought it and has used a number of components off it on Serial Number 120. The complete landing gear assembly from 196 was utilized and its Hamilton Standard ground adjustable propeller made the Warner installation possible for 120. Further, all the wood parts in the fuselage of 196 were used as patterns to make new ones for 120.

Finally, the day came when it was time to cover up all those years of work, In keeping with the covering practices of 1928, Gar used Grade A cotton . . . but stopped a little short of using all nitrate dope. The clear coats are nitrate, but butyrate color coats cover up that highly inflammable material.

"I had no choice in what color to paint the airplane - all the early Cessnas were red," Gar recalls. He contacted Neil Carlson of Randolph Products for assistance in determining the exact shade of red Cessna used in 1928. Neil has in his personal possession all the color charts from the old companies of that day, so was able to zero in on Cessna Red in short order. It turned out that the color was a dead ringer for the Pontiac Red Randolph stocks today.

"If you are satisfied with being 99.9% authentic, then I recommend the Pontiac Red. The difference between it and the original isn't worth the trouble to mix a special batch," was Neil's considered opinion.

Gar agreed to accept the Pontiac Red, but still had a problem in his efforts to have the airplane as authentic as possible, The originals were finished in just 4 coats of dope - 2 clear and 2 of color.

"That would result in a finish about like three ought sandpaper - and I just couldn't end up with something like that . . . after all that work."

Gar appealed to Eldon for a solution - and got still another benefit from his experience and prodigious memory.

"Well, just consider it a show airplane - we used to spiff 'em up a bit when we took 'em to the big shows."

So, a "show" plane it is, You can see the tapes and the weave in the fabric, but there is a gloss to the finish. Cessna painted the entire airplane with dope in '28, even the sheet metal - but Gar used Randolph's acrylic lacquer on his and it matches perfectly with the doped surfaces.

Eventually, the day came when the FAA had to be called in to make the new/old bird legal for the first time in nearly 50 years. Gar's restoration work sailed by with flying (pun intended) colors but a couple of paperwork snags were encountered. The AW was built without the kind of firewall we are accustomed to seeing today - it has something like a splash shield, an aluminum sheet between the engine and mount. FAA didn't like it, but after seeing substantiation that this was the way the airplane was certified in 1928 (ATC 72), they gave it a reluctant stamp of approval. They would not, however, go along with omitting the "N" in the registration number. The airplane left the factory wearing 4725 - this was before the days of even the old "NC" prefix. Gar agreed to paint on N4725. He also had to install new metal-to-metal seatbelts - but is still looking for the original Nicholas-Beazley belts. If he finds them, they will be installed WITH the new ones . . . one for authenticity, one for the FAA.

In the late '20s, Cessna bought its hardware from, where else, the local hardware store! Things like brass and blued screws, brass safety wire, brass hose clamps, etc. The specialized "aircraft" stuff was obtained from Nicholas-Beazley, a sort of early day Wag-Aero or Aircraft Spruce and Specialty. Gar was able, through a lot of searching around, to obtain much of the small stuff at hardware stores . . . and a lot of the more specialized items from outfits that supply the antique automobile trade.

A number of parts were made by Gar - the pins in the control surface hinges and the landing gear, for example. The originals were not clevis pins but, rather, long pins with cotter pin holes in each end. Gar cut his from chrome moly rods, drilled them out and had 'em heat treated and cad plated.

In discussing the upholstery, we need to recall that the divisions of labor were a little wider in 1928 than today. Airplanes like the AW were expected to be purhcased mainly by business concerns, so the bossman was provided with rear cabin seats of then popular grayish-green mohair . . . while his chauffeur/pilot had to make do up front with a more spartan Fabrikoid seat covering. Gar was able - again through the antique auto suppliers - to match the mohair and very closely approximate the Fabrikoid (a plastic impregnated cloth). Sometime after it was installed, Eldon Cessna visited Gar and spent several hours very closely inspecting the AW. His only comment on the substitution for the 52 year old Fabrikoid was . . . "The weave is a little too close together."(!!)

Gar says if he is that close on the authenticity of his restoration, he must be in pretty good shape!

The AW's wheel and brake assemblies are what have come to be known as "Jenny" wheels - 26x4 clincher, spoked jobs made by Kelsey-Hayes, Cessna made up brakes by modifying 1925 Model T mechanical units and incorporating them (the internals) by means of adaptor plates to the wheels. Gar followed the procedure precisely. A friend in Minnesota found the rear end of a 1925 Model T out in the woods somewhere, got the brakes out of it and did the machining necessary for Gar to install them on his Jenny wheels. The slick tires are still made by an outfit in Pennsylvania - but don't come cheaply.

A real problem area involved the door handles and brake arms. They were aluminum castings on the originals . . . and Gar was unsuccessful in finding any. As a last resort, he machined the parts on a lathe, polished them, then sandblasted each so they would look like castings.

Gar's trial by wood and tube and fabric and ancient engines finally ended on Jan. 24, 1981. That day he flew the AW for the first time. No serious problems were encountered and he has been piling up time ever since, working out very minor bugs . . . mostly in carburetion . . . as he goes along.

Although offered the opportunity to fly the ol' bird early in March of this year, I refused. It would be a callous disregard for the years of incredible labor - not to mention our friendship - to unnecessarily risk the AW before Gar has a shot at the trophies at Oshkosh this summer. I did, however, enthusiastically accept a right seat ride and the opportunity to do a few turns to feel out the control system.

The Warner is not equipped with a starter or even a primer, so hand propping can be quite an exercise in cold weather. When it's really frigid, Gar removes a couple of plugs, squirts in some gasoline, replaces the plugs and starts swinging the big Ham Standard. It was in the 40s the day we flew, so it fired right up after some pumping on the lever-type throttle as the engine was pulled through.

Gar is very careful to avoid putting a side load on the tail skid as he taxis - and when going from grass to pavement and vice-versa. The skid has a replacable pad and judging by the wear it has already experienced, will probably have to be replaced prior to Cshkosh . . . but he doesn't want to have to repair any structure before then.

Acceleration on the take-off roll isn't exactly breathtaking, but the tail comes right up and the lift-off comes before you really expect it. Gar had the prop blades pitched too flat at the time we flew it - it allowed 100 rpms over redline on climb out, Even throttled back to the proper numbers, however, it was obvious the thing was climbing at a rapid rate. The nose wasn't very high, so the AW seemed to be sort of levitating in a rather flat attitude. When we leveled out for cruise, it became obvious why . . . just like a Luscombe, the AW cruises with its tail high. The nose comes down so low that the view ahead is quite good for a radial engined antique. Without a speed ring, you can see a lot between cylinders.

At 1850 rpms the AW indicated about 100 mph - roughly 10 mph less than it should when the prop is properly pitched, according to Gar.

Taking the controls - the AW is fitted with sticks - I tried a few turns. The elevator was about as expected for such a long fuselaged ol' bird - well damped aerodynamically and fairly heavy when actuated. Trimmed out, the AW just bores holes in the sky with very little in the way of pitch change, even in a little chop. The rudder was not as expected. It is effective, but requires more pedal travel than you would expect for what it does. The ailerons were the surprise - a very pleasant surprise. Most airplanes of the 1920s and early 1930s I have flown frankly have lousy ailerons - stiff in feel and rather ineffective. The AW's are fairly light and are quite effective.

When you bank into a turn, however, it quickly becomes obvious that in 1928 Cessna had not yet introduced the aileron and rudder to each other. Banking to the left, the wing wants to keep going right on over! And even when you feed in enough right stick to stop the roll, you have to sit there stomping on lots of top rudder to coordinate the turn. To the right, you have to lead with the rudder and keep it turning with it - and coordinate with aileron. It's all rather awkward at first, but something we've found (with other old airplanes in which we have more time) that one can quickly become accustomed to. Like most planes of its era, however, you certainly don't want to stall in a turn in the AW at low altitude.

Over the years, the author has pointed out a hard fact of life concerning old airplanes that bears reiteration here: most airplanes built before World War II WILL stall and they WILL spin. To be certified, those aircraft had to recover, HANDS OFF, from a 6 turn spin within two turns. And since airplanes were capable of such gyrations, pilots were required to initiate and recover from spins . . . in fact, not just recover, but recover on a prescribed heading, to the right and to the left! In spite of such training, however, the stall/spin fatality rate was quite high prior to 1940 - largely because too many got into spins too low to recover. In the very late 30s and after World War II, designers began limiting up elevator travel, interconnecting controls, etc , to lessen the lightplane's propensity to stall and spin . . and, consequently, took the spin training requirement out of the private pilot's curriculum. The message, then, should be obvious: if you are a pilot trained in the past 20 years or so and have never done spins, you better find an instructor who can teach you before you get involved with antique airplanes. The old birds are wonderful machines; they are beautiful, nostalgic, excellent investments and all that, but if you aren't properly trained and don't give them the respect they demand, they'll bite you, no question about it.

Gar Williams and others like him will never try to pass themselves off as Super Pilots, but when you check into their flying backgrounds, you'll find them DIFFERENT than yours, if you are a recent pilot. Gar, who is 44, soloed in 1953 when he was 16 - in a 115 hp Super Cub. He bought his first airplane a couple of years later - a J-3 - and has subsequently owned a succession of tail draggers - particularly Luscombes. He restored a number of them - including a complete rebuild of a Meyers 145 and the Cessna Airmaster he currently owns . . . all this before getting around to the AW. The Computer Production Manager for United Airlines in its home office in Chicago, Gar lives at Naper Aero Estates, an airport community just west of the Windy City. He and his wife, Mary Alice, have two children, Gail and David. The children, in fact, got Gar into antique airplanes. They started coming along during the time he owned the 2-place Meyers, so he began looking for an economical 4-place with good performance. The Airmaster filled the bill . . . and the rest can be learned by reading the inscriptions on his many plagues and trophies.

The author can recall a time when conventional wisdom had it that the days of all wood, one-piece, cantilever winged antiques were definitely numbered. Who had a work space big enough to handle 40 foot wings? Who would spend the time and money to build a complicated jig and rebuild such a wing, knowing that the bills would far exceed the value of the airplane when finished? (They were, you see, selling for a couple of thousand bucks - or less - licensed and flying 20-25 years ago!!) "Naw, don't fool with those old Cessnas, Kari Keens, Vegas and the like; they're good for nothing but kindling wood," we used to say.

Well, we never dreamed of the prices antiques of all types bring today . . . and we wouldn't have believed there were craftsmen around with the perseverance of a Gar Williams.

I'm glad we were wrong.