Bud Dake, The Monocoupe Man - Monocoupe Restoration Resources

BY JACK COX
The Antique Reserve Grand Champion at EAA Oshkosh '90 was Bud
Pake's 1941 Monocoupe 90AF/L . . .
which put a lot of knowing smiles on the
faces of veteran vintage airplane enthusiasts. Bud is himself a veteran of
the hobby, and for those who know him,
the reaction was, 'That guy has been
bringing beautiful airplanes here for
years . . . it's no surprise he won a major
award."
There was, however, some confusion
at Oshkosh '90 regarding the Monocoupe. A lot of EAAers probably walked
right by it thinking, "Well, I see Bud
brought his flat engined 'Coupe back
this year - looks as good as ever." What
50 NOVEMBER 1990
they didn't realize was that the airplane
had been totally rebuilt since they saw
it last. They kept on walking because it
had been finished in the same yellow
and stock Monocoupe red trim as before . . . and because it had looked so
good when Bud took out his pocket
knife and began stripping fabric off it
three years ago.
Bud was born in Rolla, Missouri, but
has spent most of his life in and around
St. Louis. He became interested in aviation at an early age, but did not receive
encouragement from his parents, who
thought flying was a dangerous endeavor . . . so he got involved in building
race cars and dragsters instead. That
was a lot of fun but not very profitable,
so Bud eventually took a job with
McDonnell Aircraft. Factory work, even
on something as fascinating as airplanes, was a grind, however, for someone who had been accustomed to less
structured work and work rules, so soon
he left to start up his own business rebuilding and repairing automobiles.
"With the heavy traffic in a large city,
there's never any lack of business," he
says with a wry grin, "so, you can work
as much as you want to."
That, of course, translates into something like ". . . being your own boss
means you can determine the amount
of time you want to spend on fun things
*ft.
like airplanes and flying."
After he and his wife, Connie, were
married, Bud finally realized his ambition to fly. He bought a Cessna 140 in
1967 and soloed it that year. It was also
about then that he became aware of
Monocoupes. Based at the Creve
Coeur Airport on the west side of
Greater St. Louis, he naturally came
into contact with Jim Harvey and Basil
Mullins, both of whom owned flat engined 'Coupes, but at first he regarded
their airplanes as no more than fabric
covered machines similar to his 140.
However, after seeing Bill Hutchins'
flamingo pink Clipwing blasting around
the pattern at Rockford in the late '60's
and reading an article on John McCulloch's Little Butch, he realized that
Monocoupes were something special.
The next time he saw Jim Harvey's
1948 90AL-115, he looked it over very
closely. . . noting the legendary robustness of the airframe and all the standard factory speed fairings that had
helped make Monocoupes the terror of
their horsepower class in 1930s air racing. His show of interest quickly got him
a ride in Jim's 'Coupe . . . and his conversion was instantaneous!
"I just couldn't believe what a tremendous airplane it was. It was so
much faster for the power than my
airplane, you could do aerobatics and it
had such a solid feel. . . well, after that
I just had to have one."
Wanting one and having one were to
be separated by several years, it turned
out. Monocoupes were too expensive
for him for a time, and, actually, there
just weren't that many of them for sale
even if he had been blessed with a bulging bank account. Like a lot of Monocoupe lovers, Bud initially satisfied his
urge by buying the next best thing . . .
a Luscombe. He owned a couple of
them in succession, finally ending up
with a really nice 90 hp 8F with flaps
and every factory option. He really
loved the Luscombe but being quite tall,
was never totally comfortable in it. And
. . . it wasn't a Monocoupe.
All through this terrible period of
Monocoupe deprivation, from the late
'60s and into the early 70s, Bud was
keeping a little subtle pressure on one
of the owners of the Creve Coeur
'Coupes. Basil Mullins had bought his
NC38922 in Chicago in the late 1950s
and had always kept it hangared and
well cared for... and having been converted along the way to a 135 hp
Lycoming, it was a highly desirable
airplane in Bud's eyes. He wanted it
badly .. . but being a card-carrying
Monocoupe lover in his own right, Basil
was not ready to sell it.
The airplane had been built in Orlando in 1941 by Universal Molded
Products, one of several firms to own
the Monocoupe manufacturing rights
during the 1930s and 1940s, and was
a
^oHewccu^t
#•
Bud and Connie Dake
SPORT AVIATION 51
one of 44 new 90 Franklin powered
Model 90AFs built before the onset of
World War II shut down civilian aircraft
production early in 1942. The 90AF was
a redesign of the earlier Lambert powered 90A, differing mainly in the switch
to cables to actuate the ailerons. Earlier
Monocoupes had a big pushrod running
up one side of the cabin. After World
War II, Monocoupe was sold again, this
time to Robert G. Sessler & Associates,
and was moved to Melbourne, FL.
There, the 'Coupe was re-engineered
once again, this time to take the 115 hp
Lycoming O-235. 10 of them were built
before the company's doors were
closed for good. This set the precedent
for using all the increasingly larger 4-cylinder Lycomings that would come
along in the '50s and '60s . . . and was
how Basil's 90AF had become a 90AL
with a Lycoming O-290D in the nose.
One of those 10 postwar 90ALs would
also play a significant role in Bud and
Connie Dake's life . . . but that's getting
52 NOVEMBER 1990
ahead of the story.
Bud kept after Basil and, finally, in
1972 he was able to buy NC38922. He
had to sell his beautiful Luscombe to do
it, but at long last he was a Monocoupe
owner! He and Connie flew the airplane
for a couple of years, then took it apart
and refurbished it from stem to stern.
The fabric was still in good shape, so
the work was directed toward replacement of all the hardware, cables .. .
anything that was subject to wear. For
nearly 15 years the Dakes would fly
their Monocoupe some 1,300 hours . .
. going everywhere with it, doing aerobatics, giving rides and just plain flying
for the sheer enjoyment of it. With its
modern engine, Bud says the 90AL has
been the best of all worlds . . . it is a
legitimate antique that allows them to
park on the show line at fly-ins and compete for trophies, and at the same time
it is an eminently practical transportation piece, always ready to go at the
touch of the starter.
Somewhat paradoxically, however,
the more enjoyment the 90AL provided,
the more it churned up in Bud the desire
for another airplane. It only served to
whet his appetite for the ultimate
Monocoupe . . . a 110 Special, or as
Monocoupe aficionados call them, a
"Clipwing." A lot of the trouble began
when John McCulloch took him for a
ride in his Clipwing, Little Butch, and
as Bud tells it, "After that, I was ruined
for life . . . I had to have one of those,
too."
For those of you who have not yet
been exposed to the Clipwing Monocoupe legend, that wicked little device
was the invention of one Johnny Livingston, a very successful racing and
air show pilot in the late '20s and early
'30s. After the 110 Monocoupe (110 hp
Warner) was introduced in 1930, Johnny
and other pilots literally mopped up with
them in the stock classes at the National Air Races that summer. The following year, he showed up at Cleveland
He even had a set of absurdly tiny
wheels and wheel pants he would install
once at a race site for the competitive
events. The result was a racer probably
capable of around 175 mph . . . as opposed to the 130 or so of a stock Model
110.
Unfortunately, however, Johnny had
painted himself into a corner. The modifications nullified the airplane's type
certificate, thereby taking it out of the
stock racing classes in wnich he had
been so successful and put him up
against all-out racers that were much
faster for the power. Nevertheless, he
was still able to cop a couple of seconds
and a third at the 1932 Nationals. Not
content to be an also-ran, however, he
decided to have his own all-out racer
built (by Cessna) for the 1933 season,
so he sold his Clipwing Monocoupe to
Jack Wright. Wright promptly sent the
'Coupe back to the factory for further
improvements and to have it certified in
the short wing configuration so it could
once again race against factory builts
. . . and spent that summer blowing off
everyone in sight! He was clocked at a
speed of 180.47 mph at Chicago in July
and set an official world speed record
that winter in Miami for airplanes of the
Clipwing's power and weight with a
passenger aboard of 169.9 mph.
In 1934 Wright and John Polando entered the Clipwing in the MacRobertson
London to Melbourne race, but were
forced out after various misadventures
with Middle Eastern bureaucrats. The
airplane was later sold to Ruth Barron,
who was killed in it near Omaha. The
with his NC (later NR) 501W considerably warmed over and proceeded to win
six races, place second in two others
and win three dead stick landing contests. All told, he went home with
$6,180 in prize money . . . at a time
when the average U. S. steel worker
was making about $600 per year!
Determined to blow away his competition in even more dramatic fashion in
1932, Johnny had his 110 cycled back
through the Monocoupe factory for
some special modifications, the most
obvious of which were the installation
of a then-new 145 hp Warner, a streamlined landing gear . . . and a wing cut
down from the standard 32 feet to 23.2
feet. An absolute fanatic and intuitive
genius on aerodynamic drag and rigging, Johnny further improved the
airplane himself by fairing in every
juncture on the airframe and ensuring
that every flight surface . . . and even
things like the tail wires . . . were at the
optimum angle of incidence for speed.
SPORT AVIATION 53
'Coupe was on fire when it crashed and
the belief has been that a cigarette ignited the highly flamable nitrate dope
used to finish the fabric in the cabin.
Johnny Livingston .. . yes, he was
Richard Bach's inspiration for the name
Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was
also a crack aerobatic pilot, and before
selling his Clipwing, carved a new niche
for the design with the high speed air
show routine he was able to do in it. All
Monocoupes were grossly overbuilt.. .
there has never been an AD note on
the airframe of any of them . . . but when
the one-piece 110 wing was clipped and
the already beefy wing struts were cut
down and mounted at a really acute
angle, the resulting Clipwing was about
as indestructible as an airplane can be.
With the 145 Warner, there was virtually
nothing Livingston could do to hurt i t . . .
and the resulting aerobatic show he put
on, featuring then-incredible vertical
performance, really made more of an
impression than the aircraft's ability as
a racer. As a consequence, when other
sportsmen began placing special orders for factory built, certified Clipwings,
it was mostly for use as an aerobatic
airplane rather than as a racer.
All told, five type certificated Clipwings were built before World War II and
two more afterwards, including the very
last Monocoupe to go out the factory
door (just an hour or so before the
sheriff arrived to padlock the place, incidentally!). The most famous of them all
was Woody Edmondson's Little Butch,
in which he won the 1948 International
Aerobatic Championship in Miami.
Woody created the Ultimate Mono-
coupe by installing a 185 Warner and
the longest Aeromatic propeller that
would fit on the snub nose of the little
brute. One of my most vivid recollections of the late 1940s is seeing Woody
dive on the Asheboro, NC airport, level
out right on the deck, roll inverted . . .
then push to vertical and do rolls until
the tiny Clipwing was completly out of
energy. We were well into the modern
age of high power-to-weight aerobatic
airplanes before I would see anything
like that again. Now retired Eastern captain John McCulloch would later acquire
Little Butch, and after nearly two decades of flying it as a sportplane and
doing occasional air shows, he donated it to the National Air And Space
Museum. (John, incidentally, is currently resurrecting the third Clipwing to
be built . . . the one originally constructed for Monocoupe president Clare
Bunch.)
At that time, in the early 1970s, there
simply weren't any Clipwings on the
market for Bud to buy. Only three were
active .. . Little Butch, N36Y; NC15E,
which had been restored by Dick Austin
of Greensboro, NC and subsequently
sold to the founder of the Levitz furniture chain (who later donated it to the
EAA Aviation Foundation); and Bill
Hutchins' N16E. None were for sale . . .
and Dick Austin had acquired the
paperwork for those that had crashed,
intending to build new airplanes literally
around their nameplates.
It appeared that Bud's desire for a
Clipwing would go unfulfilled . . . unless
he chose to go the route of Dallas Warren, who had built up his own Clipwing,
N2347, using a 90A fuselage. The more
he looked into this angle, the more it
began to appeal to Bud. For starters,
the cabin and, especially, the tiny doors
of a factory Clipwing were really too
small for a person his size, and using a
much wider late model 90A fuselage
with its wide, round bottom doors would
be infinitely more desirable and practical. Ultimately, Bud made the decision
to build up his own 110 Special, and
one evening in the fall of 1976 he picked
up the phone and answered a Trade-APlane ad he had been carrying around
in his billfold for almost a year and a
half. It was an offer by an Odessa, TX
owner to sell a damaged 1948
Monocoupe 90AL . . . for a reasonable
price, it turned out, so Bud bought it
over the phone.
Not wanting to make a career of
building up the airplane, Bud quickly
marshalled his friends and resources
and began work on the various parts
and components that would be needed
to make the conversion. The stock
90AL wing was found to have been destroyed in the accident it had suffered
in Texas, so Harmon Dickerson was
!
o
given the task of building up a totally
new clipped wing. The major damage
to the fuselage frame had been in the
cluster where the right gear attached,
so that was turned over to Harold Lossner of Des Moines, who Bud considered
to be one of the best tube men around.
Harold cut out the old cluster, welded in
another and went over the entire fuselage frame pounding it back into alignment. When Bud went to retrieve the
fuselage, he and Harold plumb bobbed
it through all axes and found no measurement to be more than 1/16th of an
inch out of perfect alignment.
When John McCulloch heard about
the project, he told Bud the airplane
would just have to have a 185 Warner
. . . a conviction he held so strongly that
ultimately he let Bud have his own
spare 185. (This was a much appreciated sacrifice that would be repaid
in years to come . . . John's current
Clipwing project will be powered by a
now rare 185 Warner that he got from
. . . who else . . . Bud Dake.) The Clipwings that had been converted to the 185
Warner had used Cessna Airmaster
bump cowlings, which were also very
hard to come by. Fortunately, however,
some fellows in Bloomington, IL had
tooled up to spin new ones and Bud
was able to buy one complete except
for the bumps. He had to use Cessna
195 bumps, but they worked out fine.
On the advice of John McCulloch,
Bud bought a set of new Cleveland 6:00
x 6 wheels and disc brakes, but rigged
them up to work off the stock heel pedals, which he prefers over toe brakes.
He also retained the tiny tailwheel that
is so characteristic of the Clipwing
Monocoupe - and which he also had on
his 90AL. The Aeromatic prop was sent
to Univair, who overhauled the hub and
built new blades.
All this build-up for the start of the
restoration/conversion took about a
year. "Every time I needed something
for the airplane, someone would say,
'Hey, I've got just what you want,'" Bud
recalls, "until one day, there was nothing left but to begin putting the thing
together." The airframe was covered
with medium weight Ceconite and
finished in hand rubbed butyrate dope
. . . twice. Bud was just not satisfied with
his first cover job on the fuselage and
every time he looked at it, it offended
him a little more. One night he simply
walked out into his garage shop,
opened up his pocket knife and walked
around the fuselage, slitting the fabric
as he went. The second time around he
got the fabric on the way he wanted it.
The Clipwing was painted black with
orange trim . . . including the three
stylized M's (for Monocoupe) in echelon
on each side of the fuselage that are
said to represent teals, the fastest
members of the duck family . . . after
which the classic pinched down aft fu-
selage of all Monocoupes was supposed to have been patterned. Don
Luscombe, the entrepreneur who
founded the Monocoupe company, is
said to have believed this fuselage
shape was responsible for his airplane's
speed.
The Clipwing's hand rubbed finish
has been a source of amazement for all
who have seen it. If there has ever been
a better finish on an airplane, I've never
seen it. Most observers assume it is
polyurethane with several clear coats
over the color... but it is nothing more
than old fashioned butyrate dope and
an incredible amount of elbow grease.
Factory Monocoupes were known for
the quality of their finishes, so Bud was
simply continuing the tradition.
When it was finally completed in
1981, the Clipwing was licensed by the
FAA as a homebuilt. It does not sit well
with Bud to be classified as a replica at
fly-ins, but having a Repairman's Certificate that allows him to do all the maintenance, repair and annuals is definitely
a plus. In this age in which finding a
mechanic who knows how to work on
tube and fabric airplanes and radial engines is getting to be pretty difficult, the
Repairman's Certificate is probably the
thing that makes an airplane like Bud's
Clipwing feasible to own.
First, you build a Clipwing Monocoupe . . . and then you have to fly
it. Particularly with a 185 Warner on
SPORT AVIATION 55
- CO
^
the nose, the 110 Special is one of the
hairiest beasts the government ever
certified. This is due mainly to the fact
that the big engine effectively blocks
most of the forward visibility. To land
the airplane, the pilot must carry a slip
right down to the runway in order to see
much of it. The touchdown and rollout
are strictly by feel and peripheral vision.
And bad as it is from the pilot's seat,
the view from the passenger side is
downright awful. With the airplane in a
left slip and the pilot hunched over trying to peer around the engine, the passenger simply never sees the runway
ahead. This was the experience Bud
had when the time came to fly his Clipwing . . . a couple of right side rides in
Little Butch.
"I guess I was a little psyched out for
the first flight. After riding with John
McCulloch, I couldn't figure how I was
going to land the thing. And, of course,
I had heard all the hangar talk about
Clipwings .. . how they would bite you
at the slightest provocation and how all
of them had ended up on their backs at
one time or another. It really had me
worried."
It was bad enough that Bud had all
this on his mind when he taxied out for
his first flight in the Clipwing, but things
got worse .. . much worse . . . shortly
after liftoff. The newly overhauled
Aeromatic prop wouldn't shift out of low
pitch initially, and when it did, it flopped
all the way to the high pitch stop and
56 NOVEMBER 1990
stayed there. When he throttled back
through 1,600 rpm, the whole airplane
began shaking so badly that ".. . the
pitot tube was just a blur!" At some point
during all this mayhem, the oil in the
prop hub blew out and streaked back
onto the windshield . . . so Bud had to
make his first landing peeping out
through the swing-out side window. It
was an exciting ride, but went surprisingly well. After cleaning up the
airplane, replenishing the oil in the prop
hub and readjusting the counterweights, Bud went up again and flew
the airplane for about an hour. He
hasn't had a problem with it since.
As it was finished up, the Clipwing
was a beautiful airplane. As are all
Monocoupes (and J-3 Cubs), the interior of the cabin is doped fabric. This
bit of austerity is counterbalanced by
lush leather seats and an instrument
pane! and floorboards of birch plywood
". .. stained until my wife liked them and
finished in a clear liquid plastic I bought
in a hardware store. I thought it would
scratch easily, but the stuff has turned
out to be virtually indestructible."
The airplane does not have radios.
"It's strictly a 'map in the lap' airplane,"
Bud says. "That's flying to me, just
being up there with your airplane and
the elements. I don't fly for business,
it's strictly for fun."
Bud has subsequently installed an
Apollo 618 loran in a spare instrument
hole, which works great despite the fact
0)
that the Warner does not have a
shielded ignition.
When he bought the 90A from which
the Clipwing was built, Bud got the
wheel pants and all the original metal
fairings. Some of the fairings were
used, but the rest, including the pants,
are so hard to come by today, that he
put them on the shelf in his shop and
used fiberglass replacements instead.
Asked about the flight characteristics,
Bud says, "I wouldn't say the Clipwing
is an easy airplane to fly around the airport, because you can't see out of it that
well. . . especially when you put the tail
down to land. The vertical tail is so small
that when you add power, say when
you're turning base to final and you feel
you are a little slow, it just wants to fly
sideways. You add rudder . . . and the
ball zips over to the wrong side of the
cage. It's best to slip it in and keep your
turn going right to the ground, then kick
it out just before it touches. You land it
3-point and keep the stick in your lap.
On grass it's a pussy cat, but it's
another story on pavement. If you've
got a right crosswind, especially on hard
surface, where you have to keep the
right wing down, then you can't see the
airport. I just try to stay out of these
situations as much as I can. When I've
got a right crosswind, I'd just as soon
land downwind so I can see.
"I've done loops and rolls in the
airplane, but I don't snap it and I don't
intend to ever spin i t . . . not with those
tiny tail surfaces. It has the fastest roll
rate of anything I've ever sat in. You
can do slow rolls with just a minimum
of stick movement and it turns the world
around as nice as can be."
Bud and Connie flew the Clipwing for
a year and about 50 hours, taking it to
Oshkosh, Sun 'n Fun and other fly-ins
.. . then in 1982 disaster struck in a
most bizarre way. An Ercoupe pilot
landed at Creve Coeur one day and for
some reason, got out and left the
airplane sitting with the engine running.
In a few moments, the throttle jiggled
open . . . and away it went across the
airport and right into Bud's hangar door.
The Clipwing and the 90AL were inside
and the Ercoupe's prop chewed through
the door and into the Clipwing's right
wing. The impact slammed the Clipwing
into the 90AL, putting a big dent in its
lower cowl, damaged an aileron and
smashed the elevator against the back
wall of the hangar. Miraculously, the
prop did not damage the Clipwing's
main spar, even though it ripped up
wood on both sides of it. Apparently, it
struck the strut and strut attach fitting
and bounced past the spar before getting into the wing again. In any case,
the wing had to be virtually rebuilt . . .
only after the 90AL was repaired so the
Dakes would have something to fly.
Needless to say, the Ercoupe episode
was something Bud and Connie would
just as soon forget about today. The
only positive thing that came out of it
was that Bud repainted the 110 Special's wing in a scheme he likes better
than the original . . . black with orange
leading edge scallops.
During the 1980s, Bud was able to
indulge his fancies in some additional
sportplanes. He had always wanted an
open cockpit biplane, so for a time he
owned a single seat Great Lakes with
a 185 Warner. Connie didn't think too
much of that, especially when she had
to drive to a fly-in, so eventually the
Great Lakes was replaced with a 1931
Waco QCF-2 powered with a 220 Continental. It has two seats . . . and, in fact,
room for three if the two in the front seat
are well acquainted.
The Clipwing Monocoupe satisfies
Bud's need for speed, but he also
savors the joys of low and slow flying.
For that he has a big ol' 1930 Stinson
SM8A, a four or five place (again, depending on the friendliness of the back
seat occupants) cabin monoplane. To
house his growing fleet of vintage
airplanes, Bud now has a 50' x 50'
hangar at Creve Coeur. This will accommodate five airplanes, and since he
currently has only four, obviously something has to be done to fill the remaining
void. A Waco Taperwing project has already been acquired for that purpose,
but it will be at home in the shop for a
while before it is ready for the airport.
With airplanes aplenty to fly, Bud decided in March of 1987 that it was time
to pull his old faithful 90AL out of service
for a complete restoration. The airplane
still looked good and flew as nicely as
ever, but the fabric was getting quite old
and the Lycoming was getting a little
tired. The engine, incidentally, was now
a 150 hp O-320 that Bud had earlier
installed to replace the 135 hp O-290
that was in the Monocoupe when he
bought it.
The first step was to strip the airframe
down to bare wood and metal. . . which
revealed several interesting facts. Bud
knew from the logs that the airplane had
been damaged by a company representative before it was ever sold. Apparently, it had been put on its back, then
run back through the factory for repairs
before being sold. Bud found that the
main spar has a splice on the left side
and the rear spar has one in the center
section. There are also some tubing
splices in the fuselage back near the
tail. With the Monocoupe's reputation
as a ground looper, it is rather remarkable that that there is no more damage
history in the airplane's logs. Between
his and Basil Mullins1 ownership of
NC38922, Bud can account for the past
30 years and he knows for certain that
no damage has occurred during that
period of time . . . other than that sustained in the encounter with the errant
Ercoupe.
Another fact revealed in the grand
opening of the airframe is that the
craftsmanship that went into the building of it was first class all the way. Bud
says that over the years he has closely
inspected a lot of Monocoupes and that
he has observed that those built from
about 1937 to 1941 are the best ones.
All the 90AFs he has seen have really
nice welding and the fairings are beautifully formed. Bud has all the original
metal fairings and wheelpants on this
airplane.
The fuselage was taken to a St. Louis
sandblasting firm that does a lot of aircraft work, including the city's police
helicopters, and was thoroughly
cleaned. After checking all the tubing
for internal corrosion, the fuselage and
all the other metal parts were primed
with epoxy and painted with Imron.
There is a lot of wood in a Monocoupe
fuselage . . . stringers, fairing pieces
around the upper and lower longerons,
manufactured in 1941 by a firm in
Downey, CA. One day just for the fun
of it, he called information and asked
for the number of the Darnell company
in Downey .. . and found that it still
exists (its a Canadian firm that manufactures wheels and castors for the
aviation and aerospace industry). He
was given the number of a midwest distributor who, in turn, gave him the
number of a St. Louis dealer. .. and in
nothing flat he had several brand new
castors in hand for both the 90AL and
the Clipwing . . . for only about $17.00
each. Bud says they last about 50 hours
on the Clipwing and a little longer in the
90AL, but at such a reasonable price,
who cares? Despite its small size, the
tailwheel unit is very responsive on the
ground and allows the airplane to land
slowly at a relatively high angle of attack,
so Bud wouldn't think of replacing it with
a larger Scott or Maule tailwheel. "It just
wouldn't look like a Monocoupe if you
did," he says. The only fault he finds
with the tailwheel units on his two
Monocoupes is that they cannot castor
to allow the airplanes to be pushed
backwards. Bud has a little device that
he slips around the end of the tailwheel
bolt to drag either airplane in and out of
his hangar.
The 90AL has Cleveland wheels and
drum-type brakes off a Tripacer, but has
them set up to operate mechanically
through the original heel pedals in the
cabin. They work well, he maintains,
with little difference in feel and braking
effectiveness between them and the
hydraulically operated Clevelands on
the Clipwing.
When all the structural work was
done, the airframe was covered with
Ceconite and finished pretty much like
the Clipwing was . . . Cooper products
in the build-up and Randolph butyrate
dope for the finish. There were no clear
coats used . . . just hand rubbing until
the finish looked like yellow glass. The
metal surfaces were painted with DuPont Centauri. As noted earlier, the
airplane was finished in the same factory yellow paint and red trim combination that it was in before the restoration.
The only change was to add red scallops to the wing leading edges, as had
been done earlier on the Clipwing, and
to play a little word game with the manufacturer's name on the vertical fin. It
was a common practice in the 1930s for
the factories to use the vertical fins of
their products as a sort of flying
doors. All of it was replaced.
location and sometimes the company
logo there to entice new customers. The
around the cabin and covering the
billboard, with the company name and
As already noted, NC38922 has the
same tiny factory tailwheel that the
Clipwing has, which is actually just an
off-the-shelf industrial castor. Bud
noticed on the Monocoupe drawings he
"Monocoupe
has that the specified castor had been
58 NOVEMBER 1990
St.
Louis
built
Monocoupes
Corporation,
had
Lambert
Field, Robertson, Missouri" on both
sides of the vertical fin . . . so in the
same location and in the same type
style, Bud had his painted to read,
"Monocoupe Corporation, Dauster Flying Field, Maryland Heights, Mo."
"Dauster" was the person who owned
the land upon which Creve Coeur is
now located and Bud says a lot of local
pilots use that name for the airport. Just
above "Dauster Flying Field" in small
white letters is "1941 90AF S/N 845
based at ..." This is, of course, to
satisfy the FAA's requirement for data
to help identify an airplane that might
be suspected of some nefarious use.
Up close, the white lettering stands out
and is easily read, but from a good distance away it becomes virtually invisible
.. . which allows the original look of the
airplane to be retained. You can read
the white letters from much further away
than you can those stamped on a little
metal data plate, so both the letter and
spirit of the law have been met.
Inside the cabin, new floorboards and
a new instrument panel were installed.
Bud has always had radios in this
airplane because it is often used for
transportation as well as just for pure
fun. The old, heavy avionics were removed and replaced by a typical "sport
aviation package" . . . a radio (Narco
Escort II), loran (Apollo 618) and Mode
C transponder (Terra, with an Apollo
encoder). The loran is tied into the
airplane's old low freq long wire antenna and works well with i t . . . as well
as retaining the 1941 look. Largely as
a result of the lighter avionics and fabric
(the old cover job was Irish linen, with
a coat of enamel over dope), the 'Coupe
came out weighing 50 pounds lighter
than it had previously been. The new
empty weight is 1,050 pounds.
The engine had only about 1,000
hours on it, but Bud decided to do an
extensive top overhaul. All the cylinder
assemblies were replaced. In deference to the fact that the Monocoupe,
like most sportplanes, will spend 98%
of its existence in a hangar, the cylinder
bores were chromed. Bud has several
propellers for the airplane and uses
them according to the mission he is to
fly. He had his cross country prop, a 74"
x 59" metal McCauley, on the airplane
at Oshkosh this past summer. Those of
you who remember the article on Jim
Younkin's Mystery Pacer (March 1989
issue) may recall that Bud Dake's 90AL
was one of the inspirations for Jim's
clean-up of his Pacer. There will be a
race between these two airplanes at
some point in the near future, so while
he had the Monocoupe down for restoration, Bud took the opportunity to do
some clean-up in the engine compartment. It consisted mainly of building an
entirely new, extended cowling with the
air outlet closed up a bit, and a really
tight set of baffles. The effort apparently
produced some benefits, because with
the same propeller and tach that was
on the airplane prior to the restoration,
the max rpm in level flight and full throttle has gone from 2,625 to 2,700, and
the airspeed is higher than it has ever
been. Just how fast will have to wait
until the Mystery Pacer has been challenged.
The newly restored 'Coupe was flown
again shortly before EAA Oshkosh '90
and, of course, was flown to Wittman
Regional Airport for the EAA Convention in late July. When it headed home
to St. Louis a week later, the load was
a little heavier because it included the
much deserved Reserve Grand Champion Antique award.
Now. . . bring on that Mystery Pacer!
SPORT AVIATION 59