Our chapter (EAA9) decided recently to buy a Stearman aircraft project from Scott White. Scott is a local aircraft restorer who has restored several Stearmans. Here's one of the wings for a different project he's working on. Very nice! Our project didn't come with wings. :-(

Another wing in an earlier state of assembly.

Although there aren't many metal parts in the wings, they're sure expensive. The going rate is around $8000 for the metal components needed to build one set of wings.

This is the varnish Scott uses to seal the wood wings.

Here's our project. No, not the Stearman in the background...the pile of stuff on the floor.

Scott's Stearman is a work of art. Beautiful. Ours may look like this one day, although I suspect we'll opt for one of the more typical paint schemes.

Included are the tail feathers, metal around the fuselage, ailerons, a couple boxes of clamps, and some of the original instruments.

There were five of us to do the loading, so it went quickly. The landing gear which Mike, Brent, Greg, Clare, and Scott are looking at is beefy as all getout. Probably a good thing considering this plane was the Army and Navy's primary trainer for many years.

Brent loaded many loose parts into the back of Clare's truck.

The fuselage was placed on some carpet pads on the trailer. It's in pretty good shape, but some sections will need to be repaired or replaced.

With everything strapped down, we were off to KMRT to store the project (temporarily) in Clare's hangar. We'll have to find a permanent home for the project pretty soon.

We spent some time talking airplanes.

...and viewing Scott's Stearman. It's gonna be cool once it's all done.