On the other side of the shop are two outside projects, both of them classics. The one that catches your eye first is a 1940 Rearwin Cloudster, its big round engine free of the cowling, wings off, fresh white fabric covering the tail section.
For those not familiar with the breed, the Rearwin Cloudster was made famous by cartoonist Zack Mosely as the plane flown by his comic hero, Smilin' Jack. This one's cruise speed is about 115 mph..it's powered by a 120 HP KenRoyce engine swinging a wooden prop. The Cloudsters are 21.5 feet long, 7.33 feet high, and have a wingspan of 34.146 feet. With a 34 gallon fuel supply, they can cruise for about five hours and, at the end of the trip, settle in at a gentle stalling speed of about 50 mph. All in all, fit transportation for a cool guy like Smilin' Jack. (Inflight photo below, courtesy of Richard Woodside)

Just outside the front door is the airframe of a 1940 Porterfield, in for work on its landing gear and wings. If you didn't look closely, you'd mistake it for an Aeronca 7AC at first.

The Porterfield is easy flying; 50 HP, slow cruise. But if it's a nice day, what's your hurry, anyway? This one is for lazy times when you just want to go out, bore holes in the sky and think good thoughts.

Outside of the maintenance and restoration business, there are number of other gems at Grasspatch. In one hangar, there's a beautiful Tiger Moth. In another, the interested observer will find a Yak, a J2 Cub and a Christen Eagle..all, owned by friends of Frank Lamm.

While we were talking the mechanics of the business, I asked Frank for the difference between the old planes and the new..
"Well, the real modern ones now have gone to fiberglass and so forth..and that's something I've never dealt in; that would be a mystery to me. (But) sheet metal work on airplanes has been the same since they started riveting sheet metal together. You go back to the tube and fabric, everything is standard and the books they printed 30, 40, 50 years ago, as far as repair and technique, are still valid.."
When I asked him if there is any reason for a good old airplane that's been cared for to ever really be out of service, he surprised me with: "Yes. What it is, the problem there, is fabric has gotten so good that an airplane can be covered with fabric and sit outside or even inside and the metal can rust underneath it and you don't even realize it. In the old days, you replaced fabric every three or four years because it was cotton and deteriorated and you'd see it. Nowadays, you pull some fabric off that's relatively good and you'll find rusty metal."
I asked if the old structures are any different from what he finds in modern planes?
"No. I find them perfectly adequate. You could build an airplane today of the same type, using the same information as they used back then and it would come out pretty much the same way. You wouldn't have to change anything to make it safe or make it stronger."
When he was finished, I was glad I asked.

Rebuilding or maintaining old airplanes is a hard, exacting business that takes time, money and patience. So, when you get to the bottom line, why do it? I asked Frank if it's just the love of the old airplanes..and he grinned and said it was. I was glad I asked him that, too.

By the way, there's no unicomm at Grasspatch. Frank says he doesn't want to have to monitor it constantly. So I guess you might want to call ahead or, what the heck, just drop in sometime.

This has been the first article in what I hope will be a long series. Come back and see where we go next time.