When a family is immersed in all things aviation, it only makes sense that aviation can help heal the most tragic of circumstances.
That is certainly true for Bill and Michelle Scott, who just completed a 13-year restoration of a 1946 Cessna 120 in honor of their son, Sean, who died in an aircraft accident in 2007.
The couple brought the beauty to the 2021 SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo, where it turned heads and caught the attention of most people at the show, including those judging aircraft.
Dedicated to Sean’s memory, the restoration wouldn’t have happened at all, except for the close-knit general aviation community, according to Bill.
Bill grew up around aviation. His father “traveled three-fourths of the world” as a commercial pilot, he recalled, noting he was also an A&P mechanic. Enthralled with flying, Bill soloed a Cessna 140 at age 16 and earned his private pilot certificate at 19. An A&P ticket followed soon after.
Active in Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 37 in Miami, his first plane restoration was a 1941 Stinson 10-A given to him by another chapter member.
“Do you know how expensive free is?” Bill said with a smile.
He also restored a 1946 Bellanca Cruisair, a Vagabond, a Taylorcraft, and a Travel Air while working for Piedmont Airlines in Charlotte, North Carolina. While living there, the family was active in EAA Chapter 8, based in Stoneville, N.C.
Bill, his wife Michelle, and sons Sean and Ryan shared a love of flying and restoring aircraft. They also made the annual pilgrimages to the two biggest airshows in the country every chance they got.
Bill’s been to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 15 times since 1972.
“I’ve been to all but one SUN ‘n FUN and we came to this before it was called SUN ‘n FUN,” Bill recalled. “This show was originally the Southeast Regional show.”
The one year that Bill missed SUN ‘n FUN was the year Sean was born.
“He was born and my mom came up to help Michelle, so I told Michelle I could leave because my mom was there. She said no, I wasn’t.”
During our conversation at SUN ‘n FUN 2021, Bill and Michelle spoke with pride about their 36-year-old son Ryan, who “is an IT guru closing on his house this week.”
Ryan’s interests ran more toward computers and IT than Sean’s. Sean got the flying bug, according to his parents.
“Sean got along well with everyone, old and young. He built radio-controlled planes and modified Styrofoam gliders with wooden ailerons and lights,” Bill said. “One time a neighbor’s granddaughter showed up with a Barbie doll and asked if the doll could go for a ride, so he taped the doll to the RC and flew it.”
The family eventually moved to Pilot Country (X05), a fly-in community north of Tampa, Florida. In 2004, they bought a 1946 Cessna 120 (NC89658) that had not been flown for a year or two.
“This airplane belonged to a friend who had taken Sean up in it a number of times, and her husband — who I worked with at the airlines — passed away,” Bill explained. “The airplane sat for a year or two, and it needed a lot of work, so my son and I were helping her resolve her estate and I eventually bought the airplane. It took me a week to get the engine to run right to taxi it home from the front end of the airport under tie-down to my house and hangar.”
“We worked on it more than we flew it,” Bill said. “We started fixing items and flying it some, but we still managed to fly it for about 25 hours. When we went to do a quick annual on the Cessna 120, we found cracks in the vertical tail structure.”
“We finished those repairs in September of 2006 and then we got my son checked out and soloed in the 120. Our neighbor is a CFI, so he checked him out with the tailwheel endorsement,” Bill said.
In 2006, Sean was attending the National Aviation Academy in Clearwater, Florida. Home for Christmas break, he was out with the plane on Christmas Day and had fabric issues on the top of the right wing. At that point, he stopped and parked the airplane. Bill said he and Sean planned to take the wings off to repair them. Sean returned to school for the semester.
“Unfortunately, in August of 2007, Sean was PIC in a Trike. He borrowed it to give a kid a ride.”
Bill took a deep breath and crossed his arms before continuing his story.
The Trike crashed, killing Sean and his friend. The Trike is a powered delta-wing hang glider controlled by changing the center of gravity of the aircraft by weight-shift control, such as by moving a bar connected to the wings.
After Sean’s death, Bill left the Cessna 120 stored in a friend’s hangar. He was working his way through the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — when his friends gave him a firm nudge.
“In 2008 several friends and neighbors came over to take the wings off the airplane,” he recounted. “That took on a life of its own. They helped me clean it up and repaint it and soon it became a full-fledged restoration.”
Bill pointed to a man sitting in the shade of an airplane wing. “This is one of my best friends ever, Steve Rose. If he wasn’t helping me, then I was over taking his airplane apart to borrow a part or look at something to see how to put mine together. That’s when you know you have a good friend when you say, ‘I’m coming over to take your airplane apart to borrow this or that.’”
Steve — friend, neighbor, and restoration colleague — had his white and blue 1948 Cessna 140 (N3595V) parked beside the Scott’s plane in the Vintage Aircraft parking area at the 2021 show.
According to Bill, his approach to restoration is that he doesn’t want to just get a plane up to flying condition, but to make the restoration last 30 years. And that takes time and effort.
His credits neighbor Joel Giurtino for doing much of the riveting on the restoration.
“The doors,” he said, “took eight months to restore.”
He pointed out the stainless-steel window and door trim on the Cessna 120. The seats also have inflatable lumbar support bladders. He shared a photo album documenting the restoration and said often, “And there’s Steve.”
“I finally test flew the airplane Dec. 19, 2020,” Bill said during his tour of the plane.
They finished the wheel covers on the Cessna 120 at Easter and installed the placards the Friday before SUN ‘n FUN.
The hard work of Bill, Sean, and the family’s friends and neighbors paid off.
The Scott family’s Cessna 120 won Grand Champion Custom Classic 2021 from the 2021 SUN ‘n FUN judges.
So, this love’s labor was not lost.
