If I only had a plane...

Homebuilt Pietenpol Sky Scout

My friend Marc bought an airplane yesterday. It's a homebuilt wood and fabric monoplane designed back before WWII. Oh, and the engine doesn't come with it. He has another source for an engine. So Monday evening we drive up to Goheen airport North of Vancouver (Washington) to start taking it apart in preparation for hauling it home. Marc and I meet in downtown Portland so we can save a little gas. We spend two hours loosening bolts and disconnecting guy wires so the final breakdown will be easy. We come back Tuesday evening with a medium size truck and a flat bed trailer.

They already have the engine off and hanging from a front end loader when I got there. It takes just over an hour to break down the airplane, load it up and tie all the pieces down. It was handy having three people to take the wings off: two to hold up the wing and one to fight the bolts out of their holes.

Disassembled Pietenpol

At least that's what I tell myself. I spent three hours driving there and back to spend 45 minutes working on this project. When I drove downtown Monday evening traffic was a bit jammed up going into downtown Portland, but it was only a couple miles and was expected. Tuesday evening it started raining and traffic came to a stop at 185th, a good ten miles from downtown. I decided I did not want to deal with creeping traffic for that much distance, so I took Cornelius Pass North to Highway 30, thence South to the St. Johns bridge, across North Portland (look Daddy, those people are black!) to I-5 and then North.

When I left, I am wondering if it might not have been shorter to drive up to Longview to cross the river, but I don't have a map with me. I know we are already quite a ways North, Longview can't be that far. I'll just go ahead and drive up there, then I'll know. Turns out it was another 25 miles. Got to drive across the Lewis and Clark bridge, an enormous 2 lane edifice. It must be a zillion feet high and five miles across. Of course it isn't, but it sure looked that way. Took me an hour and a half to get home. If I'd had an airplane I could have flown to the Hillsboro airport, which is only two miles from my house. It's only 25 miles. It would have taken 15 minutes in even a very slow airplane like Marc's Pietenpol.

Lewis and Clark Bridge, with Mount St. Helens, Washington.

The sharp eyed among you will notice that the airplane pictures are of two different airplanes. The first one is a similar aircraft fully assembled. The setting is similar, though the hanger we were in was much dirtier. The second one (of the yellow plane) is the pieces piled outside Marc's house. And that is Mt. St. Helens in the background of the bridge picture. The plane and the bridge are from the same era.


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Update September 2016 replaced missing pictures, removed dead link.