"Better to Fly Ugly than Sit Pretty"
These words, uttered by one of our stalwart local member/volunteer's, may best describe the return to flying status of RLT's personal Interstate S-1A "Cadet".
For those that may not know, some five years ago an apparent tornado touched down at Antique Airfield shoving the doors in and blowing part of the roof off of hangar #2. The result was Interstate NC37381 was banged up pretty good. But now after overhauling the prop, recovering the rudder, attending to other damages incurred and mounting a new cowling (courtesy of Kent Pietsch) the Cadet has emerged from the hangar and taken to the skies with a new moniker, "Rudolph"
Ben Taylor is to be credited with the lion's share of work involved in getting NC37381 back into flyable condition.
Though not as pretty as before the Cadet seems to have picked up almost 5mph in cruise. We attribute this to the tighter cowling installation of Kent's cowling. Plans are after the AAA/APM Fly-in to paint the cowling and re-install the wheel pants that were damaged some time before the tornado incident. But that's another story.
Enjoy this short video of the second flight after getting "Rudolph" back to flying status.
Finally a Big "Thank You" to Kent Pietsch for the cowling and to Ben Taylor for all his hard work.
Brent Taylor
