 This is called a simple, no clutter panel.
In 1986 while my '31 Ford A Fordor's engine was being rebuilt, the car became a test and break-in stand for the Piet's engine. I drove it more than 2400 miles, including a hot but trouble-free July trip from St. Louis, MO to Lake Geneva, Wl and back. The occasion was the first-ever combined World Meet of the Model A Restoration Club (MARC) and the Model A Ford Club of America (MAFCA). Six hundred A's on one parking lot - talk about availability of Pietenpol powerplants! Three and one-half years after he acquired the engine, Howard was ready to fly his beautiful new "old" airplane. In dawn's light of May 17, 1988, after one practice run down a grass strip on a flood plain of the Mississippi River, Howard opened the throttle of his new Pietenpol Air Camper and lifted off in 350 feet or so. Another Model A engine was successfully performing as an air borne powerplant! The airplane Howard built and now flies was designed in the late 1920s by Bernard Harold Pietenpol from Cherry Grove, MN. Pietenpol was a very practical man who believed reliable, simple, fun and safe airplanes could be built of readily available materials and compo nents. After a number of experiments, he concluded that a Model A powered wood and fabric airplane with a parasol wing would safely carry a pilot and passenger. Some aeronautical experts of the era believed otherwise, and said so in widely read journals. But that didn't stop Mr. Pietenpol. In fact, he later designed another successful airplane powered by a Model T engine. But that's another story. The Air Camper's straightforward design looks fairly conventional for its time. It's mostly fabric and wood with many small metal fittings and lots of wire and turnbuckles. The 5 x 28 foot wing contains an 11 gallon gas tank. Although Pietenpol made his tanks of terne plate, Henderson used heli-arc welded aluminum. That's one of the
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