That smiling face up there is Frank Lamm's as a Piper Colt makes its first takeoff after a complete re-do.

Frank Lamm rolls out of bed every morning, grabs a cup of coffee, opens his back door and walks about thirty paces to a hangar full of airplanes. Some of them even belong to him.

Welcome to Grasspatch Airport, situated near Lovettsville, VA where Frank has made his home since 1977. You'd have a hard time finding it from the ground. You make a left off the hard road onto a country lane, hang a right onto a dirt road for about a mile and then turn into a driveway. Across about two acres of open field there's a nice house just inside the tree-line. Except for that wide swath cut through the trees to the left, you'd never suspect there's an airport there, much less a hangar behind the house. But there it is: every pilot's dream.

"It's for my pleasure, technically," Frank grins, "but I have quite a few friends that keep their airplanes here." And, Frank is too modest to say so, but the place has spread on its own. "A neighbor actually had his airplane here for awhile, but then he bought the property next to me and built his own hangar, so he taxis off the end of the runway over to his farm. There's a fellow that has a 310 Cessna across the other road. And although we don't have a connection to his property, we did cut a clear path through there and smoothed it off in case we ever had to abort a takeoff.."

Frank's grasspatch has turned into a business over the years, dealing in general maintenance plus restoration of classic old airplanes. "Since I retired (out of American Airlines 767s in 1993) I got my A&P license and my inspector's license. I did that by rebuilding my Luscombe Sedan (see bottom of page) with (fellow airline pilot and Wright Brothers builder) Ken Hyde back in the 70s. And on the basis of that, Ken signed off my experience level required before you go for the A&P." Now, Frank's doing the same for others.

There's no question that the place has a definite "family feel." Two of Lamm's "Grasspatch Fliers" were in the shop the day I dropped in, helping to get the Colt finished for some good-time flying and eventual resale. Jan Hunshamer, a rural mail-carrier, started getting interested in airplanes when she moved across the road from Frank in 1991. She's now a private pilot with her own airplane and, under Frank's tutelage, is becoming an expert with airplane fabric.
Jim Greer, a retired air traffic controller, has two airplanes of his own at Leesburg, VA, but says his love of the older airplanes is the big draw to Grasspatch. Both of them work for Frank part-time and as partners in the Colt, and both are heavily involved with the older planes. And there's plenty for them to do. The shop is big enough for at least four aircraft. The group's project Colt only takes up about a quarter of the floor space on the right.