Has anyone seen this plane?

[kcrcpilot2]

Back in the late 60's / early 70's my Dad (Richard Olson) built his own design pusher plane using a modified Corvair (car) engine. The plane was hangared at the Newton, KS. airport (the same airport that Bede Aircraft was headquartered at, since he worked for them at the time) He completed the plane and made several take-off and landings, but never went around the pattern with it. The engine was in the front with a drive shaft between the seats to a belt drive gear reduction in the back.
After a messy divorce with his wife at the time, he decided he was done with the plane and put it up for sale on Trade-a-Plane. He sold the plane to someone, I don't know who or from where, although I have pictures of the day the plane was "trailered up" and ready to drive away.
I would like to track down the location and owner of the plane. So, if anyone has seen it, please let me know by replying. Thanks.

[John Craparo]

Scroll down on this. It looked like the registration was cancelled in 2009.

N15CF (now assigned to a Learjet)

Olson
CORVAIR-A-FLT. TBP
Richard E. Olson builder


http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinqu...Numbertxt=15CF

I then looked it up by make and model and it seems to never have been reregistered. It does not appear in any NTSB or FAA accident data. Perhaps sitting in a barn or destroyed. I hope it is the former and you find it... Contact the FAA in Oklahoma City. They can send you a CD with all registration papers and other filings on the plane including ownership. That will allow you to see who he sold it to and they may have more information for you. The CD costs about $10 and they send it in just a couple of days.

By the way... seems like the Swedes were onto something. Another small pusher can be found here. Very similar. One of these won Grand Champion at Airventure in 2007. I think the restorer was named Powell and perhaps he would have a lead on your dad's plane. I know he researched similar designs a great deal. I will try to find his contact information in Houston, TX.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Greenwood_AG-14

John

[rwanttaja]

Expanding on John's good work, I found N15CF registered to Richard Olson, 425 SE 11th St, Newton KS right up though my 2 January 2009 FAA database. It's gone a year later, which matches John's finding that it was deregistered in 2009.

Normally, being listed with Richard Olson as the owner would mean that the aircraft had never been sold. However, since you remember the sale, the bill of sale was apparently never submitted and the new owner didn't register it under their name. I thought, maybe, it had had its N-number changed, but I looked through the database for aircraft of same type; no luck. My guess, sad to say, is that the new owner bought it for the parts. If he'd registered the sale, he might have had to pay state tax on the airplane and/or have to pay a state licensing fee.

In the 2 January 2009 database, it was listed with a status code that indicates, "Certificate of Registration Has Been Revoked". It tracks backward in time with the same status all the way to my 30 December 2000 database. It had apparently been cancelled for a while, and the FAA probably did some database cleanup before starting with the big re-registration drive in 2010.

Finally, another touch of wierdness: I've got a 1998 database from mid-summer that year, and N15CF isn't in it at ALL.

Ron Wanttaja

[Bill Berson]

Looks well made. But many airplanes with driveshafts were eventually abandoned. Bede had several drive shafts explode with the BD-5 ground testing.

[kcrcpilot2]

thanks, John. Yes, the N number of the plane was N15CF. And, i have now remembered that my Dad told me, sometime before he passed, that he had found that the N number had been re-registered to a Lear jet. Similar thing happened to a Gyro Copter he had built before the pusher. He sold it to someone, a farmer or rancher, who was going to use it to survey his property, round up cattle, etc. That N number (N10R) was never re-registered to the copter and was eventually re-issued to a fixed wing craft.

[kcrcpilot2]

thanks, Ron. see my reply to John.