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Past Projects

C-140A

Doug purchased This C-140A (Betty) while he was an apprentice. He was lucky enough to be working for David Sproule at the time who specializes in restorations, specifically war birds. David allowed Doug to use the shop after hours to do the restoration over about one year. Doug then got his PPL With Bob Salway to train him. Doug flew over 500 hrs on Betty before he sold the pretty little C-140A.

Bellanca Cruise Master

Phil Whitehead purchased this Bellanca Cruise Master specifically to restore it. The entire restoration took Two airplanes to make one good one and 7 years of work. The old Wood wing Bellanca's are truly works of art, which also means they are extremely labor intensive in terms of a restoration and maintenance perspective. Once the restoration was complete Doug Purchased half, to join a partnership with Phil. This beauty won the Top Bellanca at Oshkosh 2017! Doug purchased Phil's half in 2019. Since then he flew it to Oshkosh again and to Montreal and back during 2020. its an excellent traveling airplane and has plenty of room for Dougs tools on the much needed rescue missions.

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In December 2020 Doug started the process of developing an STC to install an MT propeller. This is purely to get rid of the obsolete Hartzell which has a very pricey 5 yr AD inspection. sadly the airplane is still down, but he received approval and is now awaiting the factory to manufacture the prop in February 2022! 

Murphy Moose

Chris Hodgsen purchased this partially built Murphy Moose kit. A lot of sheet metal, composites, and rigging were done from scratch on this aircraft. We also changed some systems from cable/pulleys set up to hydraulic actuation. Chris flys the Moose off of his small private airstrip on one of the local Gulf islands.

Harvard

This Harvard has quite the history from active military flying to many mishaps where the aircraft was partially rebuilt several times. Unfortunately, the last accident at ZBB left it in pretty bad shape. However, Tom Rogers was ambitious enough to purchase it and take on the long process of rebuilding once again. Sealand Aviation currently has the main components and will work their sheet metal magic. We are looking forward to the rest of the process and re-assembly.

Rockwell

A forced landing with this Rockwell Commander caused the pilot to set it down in a field just short of YPK. The field was very soft, as you can see by the deep grooves in the grass. we retrieved the aircraft and managed to get it back onto YPK property without disassembly. We did the necessary inspections and repairs on the field. Amazingly the only damage was a broken ground wire on a micro switch in the RT gear well!!! A lucky day for the owner!!

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Another incident was the gear up landing at ZBB. We were able to get the airplane back up and the gear down within a couple hours so the airport could resume regular service. Then the real work started. As with most gear up repairs we assumed the worst. However, we were very surprised to see that the belly didn't have a scratch on it. The steel steps behind the wing were sacrificial and kept the belly from sustaining any damages. As with any sudden stoppage the prop and engine were to be sent out for repairs and overhaul. In the end this airplane was re-assembled with new/repaired/and overhauled components. Since then the airplane has sold to a happy owner in Ontario. 

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Sadly, the owner, Rolland Boisvert passed away soon after the sale of the airplane. We got to know Rolland over the years as a very kind person who truly loved aviation. He will be missed by many. Our condolences go out to his family and friends. Happy flying forever more Rolland!

C-180 GRUM

GRUM was rebuilt by owner Dennis Pilarinos. Beegles aircraft services in Greely CO was responsible for the beautiful work accomplished during the restoration. Doug and Dennis then flew commercial airlines down to Greely in order for Doug to complete the annual inspection due to the fact that it took almost 1 year for the rebuild, the annual had expired while in the USA. once re certified Doug and Dennis flew it back to BC with the bare minimum instrumentation, patch work paint and brand new IO-550. Dennis then had Canada West Avionics remove the old panel and instruments and install the new Garmin glass. Port Aircraft interiors then took care of the beautiful paint job and interior. All this was done in record time in order for Dennis to make it to Oshkosh 2019.

Yak 50

Geoff Latter Came into my office one day and asked "how hard would it be to import an aircraft from Australia"?. I had never done this before but I told him anything was possible if he was up to the challenge. And if anyone was up to a challenge like that its Geoff. One year later we had a yak 50 show up in a container from Australia. The aircraft was beautiful, and is one of 2 in Canada and one of aprox 23 world wide still flying. We unloaded the beautiful machine and reassembled it to an airworthy condition in two weeks!! However, about 8 months after that, we finally had the C of A from transport Canada. luckily Geoff was up for the challenge and hes currently flying and training in preparations for the air show circuit.

Extra 300L

Wilson Aviation has been lucky enough to work with Mark Cunningham in maintaining his Extra 300L since 2019. The most recent project has been the 1000 hrs inspection. This inspection requires a full disassembly of the air frame into its sub components in order to check for de-bonded bushings and composite structure overloading. A LOT of coin tapping was involved. Luckily only two loose bushings were found in the horizontal stabilizer. Since Mark flies this machine for competition aerobatics he puts the air frame through the full range of punishing aerobatic maneuvers which is why we had to provide a very diligent,  thorough inspection.

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