Clifford's Story on "Happiness"
by Clifford Hatz
I don't have any memories of my dad building or test flying the first Hatz CB-1. I was far too young. He started building before I was born. first flew- it when I was only -4 or 5 years old.
Dad first powered it with a Continental 85. He flew it for several years on the 85 until he got a chance to sell the 85 to Harmon Lange for his Davis homebuilt. He sold the 85 for the same price he could pickup a high time Lvcoming 150.
He installed the 150 Lycoming and ran it until we sold it at auction several years ago.
The 150 had a lot of time on it so the new owners. Ray Marvin and his family have removed it for overhaul. I don't know if they have it back in and going at present.
"Happiness". or as dad always called it "The Homebuilt", went through several modifications as time went by. Besides the larger engine, it started life out with a rigid landing gears and soft Cub tires. I don't know for sure when this was done. but it was done before its first rebuild. He installed Cub type shock cord gear, using same shock cord as J-3 Cub. Worked out real good.
When we pulled it apart for its first recover, we did quite a bit of modifying on it. We redid the stick and torque tube assembly. For some reason it always sat off of center quite a bit.
I don't recall the reason it was like that, but it was. We had to deepen the belly stringers quite a bit with the new centered stick installed.
We also made new cockpit cowling and turtle decking. a lot higher than he had originally. The only reason for this was to reduce cockpit wind.
Before we had, a chance to assemble it, my brother fell through the ceiling in the shop and landed on the fuselage smashing the new turtle deck and fabric. My dad was at the Annual AAA/APM Fly-In at the time and I was planning to go later that same day. I was worried he was going to be pissed off when I told him what happened. But when I told him what happened he took it real good. Maybe it was 'cause he was in Blakesburg and it is hard not to be in a good mood at Blakesburg.
Well we rebuilt the turtle deck, recovered top of fuselage and put it together ready for flight again. I think we had snow on the ground so with the help of Marty Schrnunk and Wayne Podeweltz we built skies for it and Marty's Hatz at that time.
It looked good and flew good for a couple of years until the new cotton grade A fabric went bad. So we took it apart one more time for cover. This time we used the new Stits HX90 fabric. for it is light weight. We made a mistake by finishing the color in dope instead of Poly dope and had bad luck with the bond.
Also at that time when we uncovered the ailerons we found out the wood was in really bad shape. I don't know the reason, but we never recovered the ailerons when we did the first recover.
So instead of building new wood ailerons. dad decided he was going to build aluminum ailerons instead. As far as I am concerned that was one of his smartest ideas ever.
It solved the problem of sealing the gap between wing and aileron which never looks good when done with tape or even fabric tape. He ran piano hinge on the aluminum ailerons. I guess you could do this with wood ailerons as well. Aluminum also solved the problem of covering ailerons, which in my humble opinion is the worst job in all of airplane recovering and I have recovered a lot of airplanes.
Dad made a form and corrugated the aluminum himself using a little press. Didn't take very long at all.
Airplane was all assembled at the time we put the ailerons on. I am not sure of the reason but we put ailerons on unpainted. I suppose we were just in a hurry or something.
It flew for a year or so until the orange dope started coming off in big pieces off the wings and center section. I guess we didn't fix that right away, but for a freshly recovered airplane it was really looking like a piece of crap.
After awhile we did our best to recondition and repaint the wings and center section. Don't remember how we did it for sure. but we got the dope to stick pretty good this time. We also removed the ailerons and painted them at this time. It looks good to this day. In fact, now that Ray and his family own it, it looks better than it ever did.
I am going to end this story by saying "The Homebuilt" served dad and my family well for the 25 years or so we owned it. It made most every local Fly-In and breakfasts and several long X-C's to Sun and Fun and National Biplane Association Fly-Ins, and probably a million or so trips to Blakesburg to see you guys and to attend Fly-Ins.
"The Homebuilt" is in real good hands today and I am sure will serve the Marvin's well for as long as they decide to keep it.
Clifford Hatz
Merrill, WI 54452
