Piper Cub

Fixing an aeroplane is not easy work! The plethora of parts that make up an airplane would make you want to saw your head off from the headache it gave you.

I headed down to New Smyrna Beach airport today with Jeff and Nick from the Sport Aviation Club. I told Nick the previous day that I had wanted to come down and work on the Piper Cub that they were restoring. (That plane was bought in 1946. It is almost 68 years old!).

Moving on, when we got to the airfield, I was led to a hangar which stored the Cub and in there was a guy by the name of Warren. He used to work on airplanes such as the Extra 300, but now he is doing something else and only works on the weekends to help the club with the Cub. So, I introduced myself to him, and he gave me a slight tour of the hangar and its planes. Explaining things to me as we went on. We hav two cubs. One didn't have an engine and the other one was completely taken apart to be restored. But soon, it was work time and the first order of the day was to clean up the hangar as it was very, very messy. And when I mean messy, I mean frogs, big bugs, and all sorts of things making a living in the hangar. Warren said they found a huge spider while working on the plane last week.

So, first we rolled one of our Cubs out onto the tarmac. Then we repositioned the fuselage and the wings of the other cub. Then, came the best part. We had to start sweeping the hangar. Mind you, I'm not very handy with a broom. But after some good sweeping, we managed to clear the hangar and it looked impressively neat.

Then, Jeff and Nick went to do an oil change on our flagship plane in the next hangar, the Pitt S-2B,an aerobatic aircraft. And that red and white airplane is a beauty. Its one of the main reasons why I joined the club. I want to be able to fly that plane one day. Warren then led me to the Cub and gave me my first task which was to clean the tubular frame of te airplane. He wanted me to clean the plane up with MEK, a rather strong chemical. We needed to remove the old glue from the tubes so that we will be able to do more work on the plane. And after a good wiping, and many torn gloves (I was told to change my gloves the moment I saw any holes in them), I got the job done. But that was pretty much all I did for the day because by the time I finished, the sun was already up and in a few moments, it would be shining right into our hangar. And a midday Florida sun is like putting yourself into an oven. It is that hot here. So after doing a few more things, we called it a day. Jeff, Nick and myself headed for McDonalds while Warren went to do some flying.

The McDonalds here isn't very impressive. I had to wait for about 10 minutes for my burger. Back home, 2 minutes was the most. And when I got it, I was rather disappointed. It looked scrawny. It really is ironic because here I am at the home of McD's and it wasn't what I thought it ought to be. Sigh... I miss Malaysian McD's.


My new favorite club =)

p.s. Congrat's to Vettel and Torro Rosso. What an amazing job!