Schweizer 1-26 Restoration progress.

By: Todd Schultz

Lancaster, CA

The work on #273 is progressing smoothly since I purchased it in May 2008. Initially I was looking for a glider

project that was in flying condition or wouldn't need too much restoration work to become airworthy again

and decided a 1-26 would be

something to look for after

Josh Knerr kept saying I

should get one. I came

across an ad on the SSA

website for #273 for sale out

in Silver Springs Nevada, just

east of Carson City. After a

brief conversation with the

owner I seemed convinced

that this was the glider I was

looking for but just to make

sure I flew up in the Bonanza

with my Dad and Josh to

take a look at it.

The life of a full time charter pilot doesn't give too much free time for long road trips so I drove up the next

afternoon after work with my Mom and we made sure everything was secure and hooked up to the Suburban

after fixing the trailer lights until dark. The trip home was uneventful.

My three week restoration idea has turned into a two year job so far. The fabric was in decent shape until it

all ended up on the garage floor. The skid had a big crack down the center and the wood stringers in the

fuselage were warped so those were the

first things. Stripped the whole cockpit

and fuselage down to bare metal and

painted everything green chromate. I

reinforced the top part of the nose

behind the instrument panel with

fiberglass laid over plastic tubes to give it

shape and a place to attach capacity

bottles.

That chromate looks great and I couldn't bring

myself to paint the whole fuselage a different

color so I just did the cockpit with high gloss grey

epoxy. The instrument panel is still the same as

when I got it. I plan to update the panel

eventually.

At the time of writing this, the fuselage and tail

feathers are complete and ready for silver poly

spray. The wings are ready for chromate after

another day of detail cleaning. The factory

trailing edges had a splice in the middle and were

a little bent up. I found new trailing edge stock and am working on that now also.

The plastic box around the tire was beat up and had been repaired a few times before so it didn't look all that

great. I made a foam and fiberglass mold from the old part and then made a new part from it. I may need to

practice composite work a little bit more but it should work just fine.

The fairing around the vertical fin to the

fuselage was in bad shape too. I fabricated a

new part from aluminum with rudder cable

exit holes. The goal of this project is to never

have to restore it a second time.

I should have everything painted in silver and ready to fly in the next few weeks.

As far as I can tell from the log books,

#273 was based in the Phoenix area for most of its life and was used by the SCSA for awhile in the late '90s in

California City. Then it went back to Phoenix for a few years and then to Silver Springs where it sat on the

trailer in a shed for the next few years. I'd like to find more history of this glider if anyone has it. The logbooks

are not detailed about anything before 1980.

The horizontal stabilizer covered on the bottom.

Wings ready for paint.

New trailing edges.

Cleaning around every rivet takes forever.

The new wheel well.

Just before covering the rudder.

First covering job.