SUMMERVILLE, Pa. (EYT) – Russ Hoenig is the type of guy who has always had a knack of knowing how machinery works and a thirst for knowledge, both in his work and elsewhere.
(Photos of Russ Hoenig and his “weathervane” by Ron Wilshire.)
That may be part of the reason there is a mounted Stinson Aircraft 108 built in 1946 that appears to be soaring out of his wooded property along Olean Trail in Summerville. It can’t really fly without an engine, but everything looks realistic enough to catch a traveler’s interest who will stop by to ask questions.
While it’s not the ninth wonder of the world, it’s close enough for in the middle of the woods.
“The end result is that thing’s been up there for five years,” Russ said. “It’s not a real airplane and more like a weather vane in the woods. My daughter who lives in Michigan calls it a ‘Stinson on a stick’ because it’s a Stinson aircraft. It was built in 1946 and went down in 1985.”
The Stinson 108 was a popular general aviation aircraft produced by the Stinson division of the American airplane company Consolidated Vultee, from immediately after World War II to 1950.
“My job at Owens-Illinois Corporate was to solve problems at the individual plants for corporate and international, but the problem with that is I never really got to work with my hands up there,” explained Russ.
“I like to build things, take things apart, and put them back together. In retirement, that’s been my hobby, besides history.”
Race cars are another one of his interests, and he has also published some books, including a history of the Clarion O-I Plant.
His work in finding an appropriate “weather vane” also took some detective work.
Surprisingly, there are a lot of aircraft junkyards throughout the country, and Russ had an idea of what kind of aircraft he would like to reconstruct. And, he wasn’t about to pay a lot of money.
“I went to a place in Clintonville that had two semis full of engine parts. He (the owner of the junkyard) said they were worth zillions of dollars, and I could buy all today, and only today, for $5,000.00. I thought: ‘Well, you know, I can do that, but how would I tell my wife Cathy that our entire front yard would become an aircraft junkyard?’
“Cathy’s pretty lenient, but that’s asking a lot. I wasn’t going to give him five grand. After some time, I told him I was looking for a metal-skinned airplane, non-airworthy, that I could take home and take it apart and then put it back together.”
Finally, the owner got the idea and said there was one airplane in the back behind the building that Russ could look at.
“He (the owner) didn’t remember how or where he found it or how he got it. The FAA keeps records of airplanes, and when I got their information, it had crashed in Virginia. It had been first sold to someone in 1946 in the Southern Great Lake area. It had been sold maybe a dozen times in that general area.
Russ negotiated and offered the owner $500.00 for the plane, instead of the $5,000.00 he wanted for the mountains of aircraft parts.
“There were three young guys in Virginia who paid $100.00 for it, and they were going to use it to learn how to fly. One of them said he should have known something was wrong because when he stepped on the step, it fell off. So, I told him when he was out here, ‘You can see your step is welded back on, and it won’t break this time.’”
“I came home after seeing it and went right out to the airport, and there was a guy around Venus by the name of Pete Hall who was a US Retired Air Force pilot – a refueling pilot – and he had three or four hangers. He was also an endurance glider pilot, and he would take off from his little airport up by Venus, and he would land in Florida, so he knew what he was doing.
“He was the maintenance supervisor for Kahle’s Kitchens and had all these airplanes and airplane parts and he had his own airport.
“Pete took a tilt bed truck from Kahle’s, and I took my trailer with me and loaded the airplane out there and brought it home. Pete thought Cathy was going to shoot him when we pulled in the driveway. We put it right on the front side lawn because it was so wet by the horse barn and for two years it sat here.
“There was no windshield, no doors, and they may have been stripped. It was severely bent, and it was full of insulation that the mice had eaten up, dead mice, and all kinds, so I cleaned all that out. I started to think about things I needed to do to bring it shape and life as a weather vane.”
Russ’s ability to build things, take things apart, and put them back together would be severely tested with this new project.
Using his connections, he searched everywhere for parts, and if he couldn’t find them, he would locate a craftsman who could make new parts. There is an extensive network of pilots and plane enthusiasts who helped Russ on his journey.
A small group of friends were on hand two years ago when the plane was hoisted on to a metal pole.
“We lifted the thing up, and we moved the scaffolding and the doors were off, and we inserted the inside of that thing. You can see in the video inside the sliding plate because nobody could tell me how to find a center of gravity of an airplane without an interior or an engine. I knew where it was originally on the plane, so I took a guess.
“I asked Carnegie Mellon University to give the question to their engineering department. They said they couldn’t find it, so I thought: ‘Okay dead end. I’m just going to figure it out and take a chance if it falls off because it’s got a sliding plate in there.’ When we lifted it up and dropped it down, I was nervous as a cat.
“While we were working on it, the door blew which is just screwed on, and I just got that back on in the last couple weeks.”
Five years later the weather vane airplane is still doing its job, remains standing, and you can tell which way the wind is blowing.
Russ looks up proudly at the plane on a stick and admits would like to add a jet to his display.
Most people would not be all that surprised and simply say: “Well, that’s Russ!”
Copyright © 2024 EYT Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution or retransmission of the contents of this service without the express written consent of EYT Media Group, Inc. is expressly prohibited.
