gipsy-moth

So sayeth 51-year-old Gary Sewall of Huntington Beach, Calif. about his restored 1929 DeHavilland Gipsy Moth 60GM, originally built under license in Lowell, Mass.

Sewall, who flies an Airbus A300 for FedEx as his day job, noted that coming up through the ranks of private, instrument, commercial and CFI, he's owned and or flown a Cessna 140A, taught in Citabrias and J-3s and various other taildraggers but the Moth has them all beat hands down.

That's why he chuckles under his breath when you lamely ask what he'd take for it.

"I wouldn't sell it for a million dollars," he declares, "although it's probably 'worth' about $100,000." Well, the price of anything is worth what you can get for it, no more and no less; and who wouldn't want a lovingly restored, authentic, easy-flying, historic biplane to tool around in?

Co-owned by his 26-year-old son Brady, who will inherit it some day, the Gipsy Moth — for some reason named after a disagreeable little creature, Ocneria dispar, that did a lot damage to (ironically) Massachusetts forests and fruit — is rare in number. According to Joseph P. Juptner's U.S. Civil Aircraft, Vol. 2, only about 168 (give or take a few) were ever built in America.

According to another source, DeHavilland flew their first version, the D.H. 60, on Feb. 22, 1925 with a 60 hp Cirrus engine. It was such a hit the British Air Ministry subsidized five Moth-equipped flying clubs.

Soon, orders were pouring in from Ireland, Australia and Japan and several types of engines were used, even a 100 hp version. But it was the installation of the 85 hp Gipsy engine that transformed the D.H.-60G into what has come to be known as the Gipsy Moth.

Unlike its cousin, the Tiger Moth, the Gipsy has folding wings, something that Sewall says he thinks about every time he flies it.

"Yeah, absolutely I do," he smiled. "In fact, every time I take off I find myself glancing up at the jury struts to make sure they're in place and that I didn't leave something undone." So far (two years or so), so good.

When it was decided to build the Gipsy Moth in America (in Lowell and later at a division in Robertson, Mo.), the company had great expectations. The airplane was safe (the company's chief test pilot once proved its safety by stalling it at 200 feet and letting it mush into the ground with the stick held all the way back), fast for its day and began piling up excellent race results.

Laura Ingalls cemented her place in aviation history by looping a Gipsy Moth 344 consecutive times to set a new record for women.

Although the Moth continued to be built in great numbers on the Continent, the Great Depression of 1929 signalled the end for its future in the U.S. Even at a factory fly-away price of only $4,500, there weren't enough takers to keep the doors open.

Sewall's plane, serial number 48, managed to keep busy however, appearing in a number of films, including one in which Abbott and Costello met the Keystone Cops, where it was accidentally crashed into a telephone pole. After that, it sat in somebody's rafters for years until Ed Clark of Hawthorne came across it, restored it and sold it to an Albuquerque doctor, Sewall said.

When the physician passed on, Clark reacquired the plane and Sewall said he "made him an offer he couldn't refuse" (lots of money). He hasn't regretted it once.

The first thing our resident nitpicker is going to write about, most likely, are the wheels and tires. Granted, the original had solid wheels, a tailskid and no brakes, but lately, authorities have sort of insisted that we all use the runways they've spent so much time and money on.

So Sewall's baby has 16" motorcycle tires (white sidewalls, no less) and wheels with brakes and a steerable tailwheel plus a wind-driven generator charging a battery that operates the radio and encoding altimeter.

As for the tires, they're the same dimension as the originals — 26" for rough fields, with rubber doughnuts inside the wheel strut fairings to soak up impacts, "so it makes for a very, very, very soft landing; you almost can't feel the landing."

Based at French Valley Airport in Murietta, Calif., the antique icon rarely gets far from home. Sewall said his longest flight was moving it from Hawthorne to French Valley (perhaps 60 miles if you could go in a straight line around here).

Anything else about this airplane that's, um, out of the ordinary?

"Something unusual about Moths that some people know about," he said, "is that they have differential ailerons (on the lower wing only) so you don't actually have an aileron going down; you only have an aileron going up. It's to eliminate adverse aileron yaw so you don't use as much rudder going into a turn."

Sewall said it might seem strange to some folks, but the controls are so light and well-balanced that he's hardly even aware of using the rudder on take-off ... and sometimes doesn't.

Crosswinds, especially French Valley's famous 2 o'clock freight train, are sometimes a cause for stress.

"It does have a large vertical tail so it is a bit sensitive to crosswinds," he explained, "but

it also has a large rudder so it does tend to be able to handle a crosswind." Luckily, since the ailerons aren't going to be of much help.

"It's all rudder," he said, "and that goes back to the tailskid days when you always landed into the wind."

Although designed to be aerobatic — and Sewall was once an aerobatic instructor — both he and the plane have come to an agreement.

"It makes me a little squeamish to put unusual stresses on the airplane so I'm just happy to loiter around the area ... giving scenic tours to my friends and family."

Both Sewall and his son used the same word independently when describing how they felt when flying the Gipsy Moth. It's "relaxing," they said.

Length: 23'11"

Height: 8'9"

wing span (upper & lower): 30'0"

wing upper area: 125 sq. ft.

wing lower area: 118 sq. ft.

span with wings folded: 9'10"

empty wt.: 1,027 lbs

useful load: 623 lbs

payload with 23 gals fuel: 295 lbs

gross wt.: 1,650 lbs

Cruise speed: 85

Landing speed: 40

Stall speed: 40

Climb: 700 fpm (sea level)

Service ceiling: 16,000 ft.

Fuel cap: 23 gals.

Endurance: 360 miles or about 20 mpg

Original factory price: $4,500

Source: Juptner, U.S. Civil Aircraft