Dick Edgington's "homemade plane made in his home"

Reporter's Note: I didn't know Dick Edgington, a Chinook resident who died in April, 2016. But I remembered hearing, at the time of his death, several people wondering "what do you suppose happened to that airplane he built in his house?"

Recently I ran into Dick's son, Danny Lee Edgington, and asked him about the plane. He said, "Well, it's not assembled in the house, though it was at one time." Asked if he would share the story about the plane, he said he would but added, "Right now the plane is for sale. We had better do the story before it sells."

So, I met Danny Lee at his dad's small house and got the main thrust of the story. The parts to the plane, as far as Danny Lee knows, are all there and Danny's been told by the designer of the plans, "it sounds like the plane could be completed in a fairly short time by someone who knows what they're doing."

RagWing 4 Midwing Sport

Replica: plans, not a kit

According to records and notes that Dick Edgington made while he was building the plane, he paid $74 for the plans in 2004. He bought the plans from RagWing Aeorplane Company, a South Carolina-based company started by Roger Mann. Mann is an ex-Air Force crew chief on the F-4D Phantom fighter. In 1991 Mann began selling plans for home-built aircraft. The particular plane Dick Edgington started was based on the Church Midwing home-built kit, first available in 1928.

One impressive part of Dick's building project was that he had to find all the building materials on his own. On the kitchen counter there is a stack of aeronautical supply catalogs, with Dick's notes in the margins of the catalogs or on pieces of paper stuck among the pages, listing the costs of supplies and when they were ordered. Danny Lee said, "My dad never used the internet. He would find supplies or parts he wanted in catalogs or by calling suppliers."

The designer of the plans, in information mailed with the plans, noted, "most people, working on the plane part time, complete it in about five years." The company's website gives the builder a clue about the skill level needed: "Building a Ragwing requires skills slightly higher than those skills required to build a radio controlled model, if you are confident in wood and light metal working, you should be able to complete one of our designs in a reasonable amount of time." Other information suggests about 350 man-hours are necessary to complete the kit-that's just over two months of full-time work on the project.

Building the plane

Danny Lee said, "One of the first things dad did was build a 12- foot long work bench and set it up in the front room of the house." Because a lot of the wood parts of the wings and fuselage had to be bent to a certain pattern, the work bench had holes in it. Wetting the wood piece to be bent, Dick would set pins in the holes, fit the wet wood to the shape needed and defined by the pins, then let it dry. Danny Lee has the original work bench in his shop. Other small 'patterns' and containers about the room suggest Dick had to make a lot of his own forms and templates to create the parts. Danny Lee said, "He used a lot of cottage cheese containers to store parts as he cut them or to hold hardware he would need at some point."

The wingspan of the plane is 26.6 feet and the plane is 16 feet long. During construction Dick did put the plane together in the house. Danny Lee said, "The plane was facing the south wall of the house. The wings stretched basically from the front room into the kitchen. The fuselage extended into a bedroom where the tail wings were added." How long the plane stayed together as a whole unit was not clear but most of the work could be done on individual parts, disassembled. The plane is now in pieces and can be transported without too much difficulty.

The pieces are not all completed. Danny Lee told, "A few years ago dad's eyesight began to fail. He loved to read and work on the plane, but when his eyes got bad he abandoned the project." Danny Lee said, "My dad once told me he had about $1500 in materials for the plane. I think that's underestimated, but that's what he told." As to hours his dad put in on the project, Danny Lee said, "Hundred and hundreds." Dick got the plans in 2004 and Danny Lee said, "He quit, probably, about four years ago."

Danny Lee recently talked about the status of the uncompleted plane with the designer who made the original plans. The designer said, "A lot of people got to about the same stage in building a plane, then ran out of steam for the project." Based on how Danny Lee described the status of the plane, Mann told him, "It sounds like someone who knows what they are doing could finish it in about three weeks with focused effort."

What's the future of Dick Edgington's plane?

Danny Lee said, "Buck Raty, a fellow tinkerer, pilot and car racing friend of my dad's, used to come and help dad with the plane." Danny Lee added, "My dad was a good welder, heavy equipment operator and mechanic. He was always making some mechanical toy for me or my brother when we were kids. He had a real talent for mechanics." Dick, according to Danny Lee, had also purchased plans to build both a one-seater aluminum-framed plane and a single-seat helicopter. Danny Lee said, "I really hoped he would be able to build the helicopter."

Danny Lee said he had no interest in finishing the plane and will sell it. It's the kind of item that likely would not move quickly at a yard sale. With help from local aviation enthusiast John Hebbelman, the plane, under the listing of "RAGWING 4 MIDWING SPORT KIT," is now for sale on Barnstormer.com. Barnstormer is an online source where all sorts of airplanes and related equipment is sold. The plane is described as a kit, since Dick Edgington accumulated the supplies and parts, including a 40 HP 2 cylinder Rotax engine. The asking price? $7,900.

As to the prospects of selling the plane, the designer said, "It's hard to say what would motivate someone to buy the unfinished plane. Someone may buy the whole thing for the engine. For another buyer the challenge of finishing the plane might be the motivator." It will be interesting to see if Dick Edgington's dream plane will someday take to the air.