Uncle Jimmy, Popeye and Danielle.

My grandfather “Popeye” (James Haxton) has made a lot of things out of wood. I wrote a story about his carving last week. One other thing he made out of wood is an airplane.

The airplane is called an Aeronca AC11 and is from 1947. The plane is made out of wood, fabric, airplane “dope” and metal tubing. Aircraft Dope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_dope goes on wet and then dries hard. Popeye says, “It’s flammable, so don’t have the heater going when you’re using it or you’ll blow yourself to Kingdom Come. It dries fast, shiny and smooth. You have to use a lot of coats, then end with a color coat.”

Popeye said he wanted an airplane of his own and this was very affordable. He heard about it from an ad on the radio. It was in Sierra Vista. When he first bought it, he said, “It was disassembled in a carport. The wings and propeller were off. It was uncovered; just a frame with wooden formers to shape it.” The kind of wood he used to make the plane was aircraft spruce and aircraft grade plywood.  He’s not sure how much fabric he used because he bought a pre-made kit especially for the Aeronca. It was already cut out and sewn together. He got all the wood pieces together, slipped on the fabric parts and then put the dope on.

Putting the plane back together was “very very time consuming.” Popeye said it took him 5 years. But it was easier than the plane he had started, which was a Pietenpol. http://www.airventuremuseum.org/collection/aircraft/Pietenpol%20Aircamper.asp That one would have been a lot more work. He was already working on it when he bought the Aeronca. For the Pietenpol he had to make the wing spars and wing ribs by hand. That meant soaking each piece of wood, bending it into a form, and letting it dry. There was some of that to do with the Aeronca, but not as much.

Popeye painted the airplane yellow and blue. He said the design is “how it came from the factory.” He said he liked the bright yellow because other pilots could see him easily.

The plane can fly up to 12,000 feet. It can go up to 105 miles per hour. It has a 65 horsepower engine.

Popeye built the plane in Bisbee and Douglas. At the time he was an instructor at Cochise College, teaching in the Aviation Department. Popeye stopped flying the plane a few years ago and gave it to my Uncle Jimmy (Haxton), who still flies it today. Popeye and Uncle Jimmy fly the plane together when they are visiting. Popeye says, “It’s a really, really fun airplane to fly and to own.”

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