The Plane

My Aircraft is a 1969 Pitts S-1SE
The “E” is for experimental or non-certified

It was built by Keith Larkin during 1968 as a plans built S-1C in Freedom, CA. The orginal FAA airworthiness paper work shows receipts for an Lycoming O-290G APU, prop, bulk 4130 tubing, wheels and brakes. It received airworthiness status and registration in 1969 and apparently flew up until 1971 by the original owner. In 1971 is was sold to Bud Hines of California and it looks like from that point on the aircraft took on radical changes. Bud had purchased a stock Lycoming O-360 A4A (solid crank shaft) crate motor and set Vince DeLuca of air racing fame to build him a set of round wings. The first set was a sparcraft wing kit with routed ribs. Bud didn’t like the roll rate that the wings produced so he had Vince build him a set of stick built wings. He liked the roll rate on those wings better. He subsequently stated in the log books that they better matched the stock Pitts S-1S Wings. The aircraft had flown some Unlimited contests during the 70’s before you say “holy crap, UNLIMITED” (bear in mind Unlimited knowns back in the 70’s look more like hard intermediate or easy advanced sequences).

The aircraft had changed owners 2-3 more times between 1976 and 1988 most of its time has been spent in Florida but excursions to New Jersey, Washington Dullas area, and California. The last owner that flew the plane Lived in Florida and traveled up to Pennsylvania during the winters. This to me is bass ackwards I would live in PA during the summer and in FL in the winter but some people have their reasons. The aircraft was owned by this gentleman for about 13 years when the brake master cylinder attach mount broke during landing and caused a low speed ground loop that broke the right lower rear spar at the I-strut mount. I think this guy thought it was time to pack it in since he was 80 at the time. Can you imagine landing a Pitts as an 80 year old? He sold the plane to his nephew that runs New Garden Aviation in PA. The Along came Paul Musso. This owner bought the plane from New Garden Aviation intending on rebuilding the plane.

Paul stripped the plane down to the bare tube had the frame media blasted and epoxy painted reassembled and recovered the fuse and rebuilt and recovered the wings. He decided to put new rings and hone the cylinders on the engine and re-paint it the stock lycoming colors for reasons, I still don’t why. He installed new rings the engine was sporting mid 70 compressions. what ever the reason I now get compressions in the 78’s and 79’s out of 80. I bought the plane in Oct of 2005 and have spent $5K on putting a fuel injection and numerous other upgrades and installations. I re-mounted and re-rigged the wings made numerous fairings the aircraft has probably never had. Fabricated new aileron slave struts (old ones were round mine are streamline tube). All said and done I weighed the aircraft and found that I had only 788 lb empty. Now thats light!

I flew the plane for about 10 hours that summer until the #4 rod bearing let go and turned the engine into a lathe while I was flying of course. I made and emergency landing and 2 weeks later came with a trailer to pick up my plane. Once I got it safely back to my hangar I removed and disassembled the engine. I started in on the 2nd rebuild. I rebuilt the instrument panel and replaced most of the instruments. I made and new firewall out of stainless steel. Build a brand new engine cowling. Designed and installed a new SS 4 into 1 exhaust. Installed and new nose bowl and new carbon fiber prop. I also installed a brand new Superior XP-IO-360. Basically the firewall forward is brand new every nut bold wire ect. After all the modifications I weighed the new plane as is stands 780 lb empty with 8 quarts of oil.

• Long Fuselage 124 ¾”
• Superior XP-IO-360
• Precision Airmotive Silver Hawk Fuel Injection System
  
• Owens Composites Solid carbon fiber prop 76-62
• Matco Brake Master Clyinders
• Cleveland Wheels and Brakes
• Skytech Lightweight starter
• B&C Lightweight Battery
• Ceconite Covering with Randolph Forest Green and New Insignia White
• ICOM A-24 Handheld Nav/Com with PTT
• Raven Aircraft “christen style inverted system”
• Pin Hinges (which sucks I would like strap hinges but these work)
• Aviation Products Tail wheel with Taper Spring
• Vans Aircraft pressure recovery curve wheel pants
• RV-3 Gear mod
• Annular cowling aka (Wolf Cowl)