Oldest airplane being restored in the U.S.?

Flight Journal, Jun 2001

The Minnesota Air & Space Museum reports that after 76 years of obscucity in a garage near Chicago, a 1911 wood-and-fabric Steco Aerohydroplane is now being restored. After it had been discoveyed, Denny Eggert, president and founder of the museum, took a recovery team to rescue it. "It's the oldest aircraft ever recovered in the U.S.," Eggert reports.

James Stephens, a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, who lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the 1880s, built this one-of-a-kind Steco. With upper and lower wingspans of nearly 42 feet and 36 feet and an overall length of 31 feet, the plane rode on custom-built twin Burgess floats set 11 feet apart. The Steco's seven-cylinder Gnome Omega engine is still in mint condition.

If you'd like to help preserve a unique part of our aviation heritage, please contact Denny Eggert at (651) 291-7925, or write to him care of the Minnesota Air & Space Museum, Box 16224, St. Paul, MN 55116;

www.pioneerplanet.infi.net/~docwrite/.