Whitey and the crew at Red Lake Seaplane have been rebuilding Norseman for many years. As you will see by some of the photos they believe the way to rebuild a norseman is to start by straightening and repairing the fuselage. No shortened struts to compensate for spread outriggers from this place.The Norseman, Red Lake Seaplane and Whitey Hostetler
Red Lake Seaplane also holds the STC for the metal wings and fuselage.
The following email was received from Whitey along with some pictures
I was reading your Norseman story. I bought the Metal wing STC from
C.R.Ursel
aeronautical engineer in Texas. He and another fellow built the metal
wing and the
large door. Later to become UUD. Then they did not get along so the
helper destroyed all Jigs & tools but could not get the Norseman destroyed.
Ursel kept the engineering data & drawings. He could not give the information
on the door. I looked at the structure but not owning UUD could not get
enough information for Aero Consulting Service to make drawings &
get A door aproved.
It is too heavy & and hard to make a wet wing so he had started
drawing up plans to put the origional fuel tanks in the wings & have
a lighter weight wing. I built parts for the lighter wing & had ACS
continue to finish the drawings Ursel had almost completed. JB &
I & a little of Gary Millers help make tools & parts to almost
make one wing. It was getting too time consuming & costly so we stopped.
Also
the market did not seem to want metal wings when rebuilding the old
wing is cheaper. I hated to stop as I really liked that job.
It is hard for me to even look at the parts as I would like to continue.the
project.
Whitey
Red Lake Seaplane Photos by PE Stacey
What is happening at Red Lake Seaplane now?
GJN after staightening and repair is rotated to spread the tubing inhibiting
oil