Bringing her home

After quite a few e-mail exchanges with the owner Mark (seller) a deal was struck on the A-10.
Mark had inherited the aircraft from his father, and had made the reluctant decision to sell her as opposed to start flying her himself.

The A-10 was up near the Seattle area, which meant about a 4 hour drive from Oregon.

My father and I left early on a Saturday morning and made the trek up arriving a little after 8 am. I had never actually seen a Mitchell wing completed, except in photos, so I was first struck by how large the aircraft was.

The Mitchell Wing is designed so that the outer wing sections fold back upon the main wing section for trailering and storage. My new bird had a large blue custom made cover protecting the folded wing.

On cursory inspection the aircraft was definitely all there, nothing missing. It had been sitting for a while so it had the expected light oxidation in certain areas of the wing, engine, etc. But nothing in my mind that would kill the deal.

The cover on the wing did not look like it was coming off easily, so we were only able to peek under certain areas....but what I could see seemed to be in good shape.

After doing all of the paper work and handing over the money we set to loading her up on the trailer. Mark was invaluable in helping to make sure the A-10 was loaded and secured properly.
Thank you Mark. After loading, we were off back to Oregon for another 4 hour trek.

Unfortunately the weather was rainy up and down, so by the time we arrived back in Oregon everything was pretty much soaked. We arrived back late, so all we could do was throw a tarp over her and let her sit until morning.

I had initially thought that when I brought the A-10 back I could slide her into a 20' storage unit.
But the size of the aircraft, and the height sitting on the trailer would make this prohibitive.

I called a RV storage site in Creswell, which is coincidentally only a mile away from the airport I will be flying out of. They are normally full, but a long term client had just left, opening up a very nice, dry covered 40' slot.

One more trail to the RV storage and she was home. I immediately set out to remove the blue wing cover, which I thought would come off in a few minutes. This cover almost seemed as if it had been sewn on the wing.....so my few minutes ended up to be about an hour. I don't think that cover is going on again.

After removing the cover, I spent another hour meticulously drying off the wing and the rest of the aircraft. The wing and all looked very good, just a slight amount of oxidation here and there which will come off with the first polishing.

I was quite pleased at my purchase, and could see that Mark's Dad had really cared for his aircraft.

Next stage, getting her cleaned up.