Walking through the Homebuilt Camping area, I noted a couple of well-used airplanes. Now, I’m used to seeing, even owning, RVs with Hobbs recording in the thousands of hours, but it seems more unusual to find older model homebuilts logging such lofty numbers. So, these airplanes turned my head and caused me to pause. The first was a Piel C.P. 750 Beryl, a wood-and-fabric airplane. It had been flying over 40 years and had 2000 hours of flight time. The fabric showed its age but it clearly has been a hardy little plane!
The other well-used plane was a Thorp T-18 from Sacramento, California. Fortunately, the owner/pilot, Peter Priest) was there to share its story. The plane was built by Richard Schafer in Long Beach, California, in 1978. Priest has put over 350 hours of the 1478 hours on the plane. He also built the beautiful new panel about a year ago.
