Waco YKS 6 Words of Recognition
I never wanted a Waco cabin. While I think they are beautiful planes they were just never something I envisioned adding to my collection.
One day I was as Sonoma Valley Airport looking for a hangar when I spotted a red biplane wing through an open hangar door. I wandered over to the hangar and met retired United Captain John Reed, his wife Carol and hangar partners Woody and Mike. I asked John about the Waco and we had a great time getting acquainted and admiring his plane which he’d had restored over twenty years earlier. Every time I was in northern California I stopped by to visit and the cabin began to grow on me. John hadn’t flown it much, it had 58 hours on it since restoration, and it was a time capsule.
As we became friends John mentioned he’d like to sell and I kept thinking about the plane. Eventually we agreed on a price. My friend Jared Calvert made the three minute flight from Schellville to Sonoma Skypark and after it was ensconced in my hangar I began to contemplate how to bring this practically new airplane to its full glory. N16576 had been a Coast Guard plane during the war and the engine logs indicated it had been overhauled several times. Despite its low time the engine looked old and tired and 58 hours isn’t much flying over 22 years. I decided to overhaul it and sent it to Caleb Curry at Radial Engines Ltd in Guthrie, OK. While the engine was off I polished the propeller and cleaned the firewall and engine compartment. After five or six hours cleaning the fuselage I asked Jamie Lyons to work his magic on paint polishing and restoration while I masked off the interior and polished the control pedestal, wheels and other bits and odds.
Two decades of not leaving the ground much had allowed the felt seals in the main gear to permanently dry out. Oren Redsun built a contraption to hold the fuselage in place while we pulled the gear legs off and sent them to Jon Nace to be overhauled. He’s the master – I now have four sets of his gear. We discovered some broken fittings in the rear bench seat mechanism and Oren fabricated new ones. There were also some broken support pieces under the rear fuselage and we repaired them. Oren added ADSB to the ship while I touched up some chips in metal parts, cleaned latches, bolts, screw heads, fairing trim and other pieces. The glittering new engine arrived and we discovered the engine mount bushings were unobtanium so we came up with a substitute and hung the engine and prop. Before installing it we replaced all the hoses and put new tires on all three wheels.
Nearly two years after buying the plane from John it is ready for its first flight. I don’t think the second 58 hours will take nearly as long to accumulate as the first!
Like so many of my planes it’s a story of friendship. I was looking for a hangar and found a new friend John Reed. And I discovered his Waco cabin along the way and was first intrigued then slightly obsesses with it. It’s a time capsule. A brand new restoration with 24 years of sitting and not flying much. I haven’t re-restored it as much as cleaned it up and brought it back to the condition John dreamed of when he and Russ Harmouth were restoring it.
Originally I bought it with one of John’s hangars which would also provide storage for my UBF. But the airport owner claimed reversion rights to the hangar and our deal fell through. But visiting John over the next few months when I was in town I kept looking at the YKS. It became the itch that I needed to scratch. And it was a 1936 model. I had a 1933, 1934 and 1935 Waco so it seemed logical, somehow, to just keep going…
This is mid 1930’s Art Deco executive transport. It’s big. It’s comfy. It’s beautiful. It drips oil on the floor and demands to be flown. It lands like a sofa on wheels. It doesn’t go anywhere fast but it goes there in style.
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