Club refurbishing model airplane as tribute to late Seymour man

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A model airplane that has served as a tribute to the man who helped establish a radio-controlled model flying club in the 1960s and hung in a downtown Seymour restaurant for many years has disappeared.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the World War I biplane model that helps commemorate the life of Jack Spencer is gone for good.

Instead, members of the Southern Indiana Flying Eagles plan to restore the Fokker D.VII and hang it right back on the ceiling of Larrison’s Diner. The plan is for that to be completed before the club’s Hoosier Scale Classic scheduled for Aug. 2 through 4 at Freeman Field.

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Spencer, who died in 1992, and his wife, Mary Lou Spencer, owned and operated Spencer Craft and Hobby on State Road 11 in Rockford. The Spencers established the store as Spencer’s Grocery in 1949 and at the time devoted a very small section to model airplanes and trains.

The store closed in the mid-1990s.

Mary Lou moved to Johnson City, Tennessee, several years after, said former store employee Kevin Greene. She has been back at least once to visit in the past few years, he said.

Jack along with Jim Hurt and Charles Abbott are credited with starting the radio-controlled model airplane club that would later become the Southern Indiana Flying Eagles Club. The club is a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, an association of modelers organized for the purpose of promotion, development, education, advancement and safeguarding of modeling activities.

Jack also played a role in inspiring model airplane and railroad enthusiasts, including Russ Kuhn, who currently is vice president of the club.

“I was hobby department manager at Camera and Hobby Shop in Columbus from 1966 to 1978,” Kuhn said. “We were competitors, but at the same time, we were both promoting the hobbies that we loved.”

Kuhn is overseeing the project to restore the model plane.

The plane has slowly deteriorated due to the effects of age over the years.

“In this case, there was some broken wood in the fuselage structure, and the covering materials has become extremely fragile,” Kuhn said. “Just touching the covering in an open area can result in a hole or a tear.”

The Flying Eagles will strip the airframe of all coverings. Then the wood structure will be inspected and repaired to restore it as close to original condition, Kuhn said.

A problem that presents itself to the group is that the original color of canvas fabric is no longer available.

Instead, the white fabric will be used and then painted to match the color. Finally, all markings will be replaced.

Greene talked about why a skeleton serves as the pilot as Jack had told him.

In World War I, German soldiers staged skeletons around Allied-crashed planes to try to scare Allied Forces, so Jack built a skeleton into the pilot seat to reflect this practice, Greene said.

“Speaking for myself and our club members, I think most everyone interested in aviation finds it to be fascinating,” Kuhn said of the plane. “To see a plane that is dirty, broken and parts missing causes a feeling of wanting to make it right so it can be in the air again, as it should be. This is true even for a static display model.”

The club, now led by President Mark Cottey, was influenced and in part spurred into creation by Jack, Kuhn said.

“When people see the plane, it inspires them, mostly children and teens, to ask questions such as ‘Does it really fly?’ which it originally did, ‘What was the era (of the plane)?’ The great war, World War I,” he said. “Our goal is to attract new persons into the hobby that not only want to build and fly models but can learn a lot of history of aviation at the same time.”

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Anyone interested in contributing to the restoration of the plane may send donations to Southern Indiana Flying Eagles, P.O. Box 481, Seymour, IN 47274, or contact the group through its Facebook page to make arrangements.

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