Avionics News June 2012 - 61

Working on many World War II-era aircraft is easy because removable skin gives ready access.

What they did not know is their hangar neighbor, the new owner of Courtesy Aircraft, was making a similar decision. Son of the founder, Mark Clark is a pilot and A&P with a passion for warbirds who expanded the offerings of the Cessna dealership his father founded in 1957. This was a pivotal time. General aviation was in decline, suffering from a weak economy, liability lawsuits and a general lack of interest among baby boomers coming of age as the “me generation.” Cessna shut down its single-engine production line, but the warbird market was growing through an infusion of surplus post-World War II aircraft, from the L-19 and O-2, to the T-34 and T-28. The notion of serving just one market has never appealed to either Polemarkis or Wright because, said the former, “that would not work.” Avionics Place serves aviation from light-sport and amateur-built experimental aircraft to store-bought airplanes and warbirds of all ages. The work divides almost equally between GA and warbirds, Polemarkis guessed. Both are cyclical, but their phases are usually syncopated. “GA is doing pretty good right now,” Polemarkis said. “Sometimes it’s the other way around. For years it was mostly warbirds with a little bit of GA.” By default, Wright became the warbird specialist, eager to tackle any challenge. The shop staff now numbers nine, but “for a long time is was just Tony and me,” Wright said. “I was doing all the bench repairs.”

When facing a system he had never seen before, Wright would dive into the manuals and learn it. Over time, the shop has built a comprehensive library, and most owners, he said, have a complete set for their airplane and share willingly. Learning the Aero L-39 systems provided a unique challenge: All the manuals and cockpit labeling are not in English. “It sure would have been nice having someone here who could translate Russian,” Wright said. Basic electronics test equipment met most of his needs, but Wright had no way to test and calibrate military-specific systems, like the T-28’s slaved compass system. Starting with discarded harnesses, he built the shop’s test rigs, complete with power supplies and indicators, to test and calibrate the various components. “Actually, the older technology was fairly reliable,” Wright said. “When you open it up, it just looks old, a lot of point-to-point wiring going everywhere, but there are not a lot of inherent problems with that stuff.” Time in military service, naturally, took its toll on potentiometers, switches, capacitors and tubes. New tubes are still available, “but we have a stock of old tubes; we don’t use them much anymore,” Wright said. Nor does the tube tester get much work these days. “We used to do a lot of repairs to keep the old stuff going, (but) we’re to the point now that the guys pretty much realize that if they buy an airplane with the old systems in it, it’s
Continued on following page
avionics news

•

june

2012

Avionics News June 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News June 2012