The oldest aircraft flown in to Oshkosh 2023 — General Aviation News

By Frederick Johnsen · August 30, 2023 · Leave a Comment

“It’s the oldest airplane on the airport that flew in.”

Pilot Andrew King is justifiably proud of the claim he makes for the 1926 Waco 9 he stands beside in the Vintage area at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023.

The biplane’s neatly-faired OX-5 engine clattered and chugged to get King and the Waco to AirVenture from Brodhead, Wisconsin, near the state’s southern border with Illinois, where the plane was restored.

The Waco 9 is a classic link in American civil aviation, enjoying popularity in the pre-Depression 1920s. Waco, like many builders of the era, took advantage of cheap stockpiles of surplus World War I Curtiss OX-5 engines, designing airframes that were compatible with the OX-5’s output of 90 horsepower.

The first Waco 9s of 1925 had unobtrusive ailerons on the top wing. By the time this airplane was built the following year, Waco had substituted big elephant-ear ailerons.

The Waco 9 has been credited with giving the Waco company the nationwide bona fides necessary to ensure the company’s ongoing success with later designs.

About 276 Waco 9s were built from 1925 to 1927 before the Waco 10 assumed dominance. This surviving flying example is a credit not only to its designers, but to restorers who brought this machine back to life.

Andrew is happy to talk about the machine that transported him to Oshkosh. It has a steel tube, wire-braced fuselage under its fabric skin, in the fashion of Fokker aircraft.

Those elephant-ear ailerons of 1926 are an improvement over the first Waco 9s: “It doesn’t bank as well” without the elephant ear style, Andrew says.

This machine was restored with a traditional tailskid and no wheel brakes. The skid served the purpose of brakes, gouging into sod airstrips to slow the ground travel of a landing Waco 9.

To reach Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH) for AirVenture 2023, Andrew obtained permission to land the Waco 9 on the grass ultralight airstrip.

Andrew, who hails from Vienna, Virginia, is happy to help restore and fly aircraft like the Waco 9 for its owner, Walter Bowe, of Sonoma, California. Bowe is the proud owner of 10 OX-5 aircraft, eight of which are flying. He has yet to fly this Waco 9. Since its restoration was finished in Wisconsin, this machine had logged only six hours by the time it came to Oshkosh.

This Waco 9’s restoration began years ago with efforts by Bob Howie of Decatur, Illinois, who had a new steel tube fuselage built for the project. When Howie died, his work lived on as the project was sold at about 70% complete.

“He deserves credit,” Andrew says of Howie.

New wooden wings and landing gear completed the job.

Andrew King grew up around Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in upstate New York.

“All I ever wanted to do is fly airplanes like this,” he says, referencing the vintage OX-5 Waco.

He calls himself a “specialist in old airplanes that don’t fly well.”

With a powerplant up front in the Waco 9 that is more than a century old, Andrew is mindful of his surroundings on cross-country jaunts. For instance, he reports he flies “around small ponds instead of going over them.”

And what he is telegraphing is a prudent pilot’s casual but continuous visual inventorying of potential emergency landing sites as he motors along in the vintage machine.

Bearing old CAA registration C2668 on its rudder and a petroleum company’s logo on the fuselage, this Waco 9 is an effective and tangible link to the exciting and evolving first quarter century of aviation. Vintage judges at AirVenture 2023 agreed, naming this restoration winner of the Golden Age (1918-1927) Champion — Bronze Lindy Award.