{"id":2101,"date":"2009-08-15T02:14:51","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T02:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=674"},"modified":"2009-08-15T02:14:51","modified_gmt":"2009-08-15T02:14:51","slug":"built-ford-tough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/kermit-weeks\/built-ford-tough\/","title":{"rendered":"Built Ford Tough!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-682 colorbox-2101\" title=\"Cropped Ford 1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Cropped-Ford-1-1024x799.jpg\" alt=\"Cropped Ford 1\" width=\"578\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I recently visited my Ford 4AT Tri-Motor project going together slowly in Michigan at Great Lakes Aviation. \u00a0It had an interesting history and was flown by\u00a0Island Airways to haul school kids and mail from Port Clinton, OH to a small island in Lake Erie. \u00a0They owned several\u00a0Fords over the years and this was the first one they purchased and the last one they sold as it had smaller and more fuel-efficient engines for what they needed it for. \u00a0I acquired the aircraft in the late 1980&#8217;s and flew it back from California to Florida in only 4 1\/2 days!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-692 colorbox-2101\" title=\"DSC04303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/DSC04303-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"DSC04303\" width=\"598\" height=\"448\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this was one of my aircraft that was highly damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The day before the Hurricane, I flew it down to the Homestead Airport about 20 miles away and put it in a big concrete hangar with many other aircraft looking to dodge the storm. \u00a0That night it hit landfall as only one of two Catagory 5 Hurricane&#8217;s ever to hit our country with sustained winds of 165 mph, gusting to almost 200! \u00a0After several days of disbelief and digging out of the collapsed hangar at the Weeks Air Museum, I borrowed a small plane and flew down to check on the Ford. \u00a0I was in shock when I got there. \u00a0The hangar doors had all blown off, an 18-wheel semi-tractor trailer fuel truck had been blown over on its side, pushed all the way across the hangar floor by the wind, and then smashing into the Ford! \u00a0The fuselage was twisted in half aft of the passenger door and both wings had been ripped off!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_699\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 597px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-699     colorbox-2101\" title=\"Cropped Ford Wing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Cropped-Ford-Wing-1024x740.jpg\" alt=\"Right Outboard Wing - Check out those Multiple Spars!\" width=\"597\" height=\"432\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Right Outboard Wing - Check out those Multiple Spars!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It had been several years since I had seen the project and great progress had been made on the center-section and wing panels. \u00a0It has been somewhat of a slow restoration because I have another Ford 5AT Tri-Motor to fly at Fantasy of Flight. \u00a0On one of my early visits, while the fuselage was going together, I happened to notice they were riveting the skins on with AN470 Universal head rivets. \u00a0These rivets became popular around WWII but the Ford had been built in 1928. \u00a0I questioned this and asked, knowing full well the answer, <em>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t they use round head rivets originally?&#8221; <\/em> The owner replied, <em>&#8220;Yes,\u00a0but when the aircraft had been damaged previously in an accident it had been repaired with the later rivets.&#8221; <\/em>I made them drill all the rivets out and replace them with the original round-style head!<\/p>\n<p>When completed, it will sport a washroom with a wooden toilet complimented by a small sign, <em>&#8220;Don&#8217;t use the toilet over populated areas!&#8221;<\/em> It will also be the only airliner in the world I know of where a passenger can slide their window back and hang their arm out the side!<\/p>\n<p>Kermit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently visited my Ford 4AT Tri-Motor project going together slowly in Michigan at Great Lakes Aviation. \u00a0It had an interesting history and was flown by\u00a0Island Airways to haul school kids and mail from Port\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ford-trimotor","category-kermit-weeks","built-ford-tough"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}