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Hamilton H-47 Metalplane restored

srgalahad

srgalahad

Charter Member 2022
“They don’t make them like that anymore.” Such sentiments are generally reserved for the wistful daydreamers of times long since past. They are rarely applied to operational seaplanes making takeoffs and landings from Seattle’s own Lake Washington.​
Yet Kenmore Air and Howard Wright have turned “generally” on its head. The recent restoration of the only surviving, functional Hamilton Metalplane H-47 has given this bird back its sea legs (aka its EDO floats)."
​

http://blog.kenmoreair.com/index.php/hamilton-metalplane-h-47-history-floating-and-flying-once-more/

Howard-Wright-Metalplane.jpg
 
Niiiiiiiice ! A real beauty. Kenmore Air is to be congratulated. Thanks for the link.
 
Sadly this article doesn't talk at all about who really restored the aircraft - a restoration that was completed nearly 40 years ago! All that has happened with the aircraft since being obtained by its current owner, as seen in the article, is fitting it with a different (more plentiful) engine type, and adding the restored floats.

The aircraft was restored by Jack Lysdale, in Minnesota, first flying the aircraft in 1975 - winning several awards that year. The aircraft never flew much after that, but was hangared and kept in ready-to-fly condition all of the years since. I grew up only but 3-4 miles from where it was hangared, at the South St. Paul, MN airport, and it was one of the staples of my childhood visits to the airport. Shortly before it was sold to its new/current owner, I had the awesome fortune of getting to climb aboard and look through the interior (it is unbelievably cramped, especially for a passenger-carrying aircraft - people must have been generally a lot smaller back then!).

Here is an air-to-air photo of this aircraft in 1975: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tedko...ush-6ddfwh-gwUy2N-jUYU2m-7BP1Qi-eToNYA-eTcsGe

Even in 2009, when I last saw the aircraft (its restoration having been completed in 1975), it was in pristine, like-new condition.

I don't recall if it is said or not in the article, but this is the only complete Hamilton Metalplane left in the world. A museum in Alaska has the un-restored fuselage of another on display - only 29 were ever built.
 
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