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Kris messaged me several days ago, and I thought some of the guys on the board might be interested?
Dave ,
Another biplane buddy just bought N4521...your old MA-4. Do you know him? If not I’d be glad to get y’all together. He said it didn’t come with the turtle deck or nose bowl. But the rest is all there. I’m trying to talk him into doing the turtle deck like you had, it looked Great on this design also. Do you have any other pics of it?
Anyway I was excited to hear he got your old bird. Did you build it all? I was reading a old post you wrote and can’t believe only 4 were built. Crazy.
Well thanks for the heads up Kris, nice to hear that someone might actually to do something with it. There is not much interest and appeal anymore for one of a kind older single place home built's. I have heard his name before, and may have had some conversation with him? So yes would love to chat with him. When I last chatted with Mike Devroy (AKA Crazy Mike his words) the previous owner, he was all hot to rebuild the airplane in what he thought Ed Marquart wanted it to look like, he also cancelled the N- number N4521 which btw has not been reserved, and is still available. Mike did not want it to have any connection to me or the past, wanting it to look as if he hand built it in Eds image? Mike was a Corp pilot, and also owned a MA-5 Charger, although saw it for sale on barnstormers not long ago. Not sure what happened to him?
As for my opinion regarding the airplane sure would love to see it restored to my vision and the way it was, but its the new guys airplane now and as such his to do with however he would like, I am just happy to see someone do something with it as it has changed hands quite a number of times, since I owned it, and has had quite a colorful past! I have very few pictures of it or many other airplanes from back then as taking pictures was of little interest, because it would always be there the next day right! I have several taken in my drive way before it was covered, and the engine mount extension. The airplane had W&B issues. and after Ed was confronted with this, was not happy and did not wish to concede that it did! He had all sorts of reasons, but the numbers did not lie! I had asked Lou Stolp to help me with the W&B as I could not work the numbers at the time, and had no idea how to do it, and besides (Hard To Believe Today there were no pocket calculators back then) .
Lou declined saying it was not his airplane, but I think he knew it had issues and did not wish to get involved, as the two other airplanes Rex and Max that crashed, both after their numbers were worked were tail heavy. I had a friend Jim Patterson a machinist and one who gave me rides in his Ercoupe early in my quest to become a pilot that was a wiz at math that worked the numbers for me. But after doing so said this can't be right, and said he was not sure how to do it with a biplane so I took it to Art Scholl Who had just done Carolyn's Clark Special and whipped it out in several minutes, he thought he had made a mistake, so did it again and then we all knew the airplane was tail heavy as designed! It required a 4' extension to the mount, I had an old worn out O-235 Lycoming with a wood prop I had bought from Lou for the incredible high price of $400.00 bucks, one of the later owners has an O-320 160 hp lycoming installed on it and may have solved the C. G. issues
Yes I did most all of it, I did buy some ribs and other parts from Rex Mears he loved the airplane and actually started building ribs for another one but was in poor health. I had just been hired by Lou Stolp as an acetylene welder and we were doing a lot of building and welding of basic Starduster Too fuselages, and btw my very first welding job after being hired was the SA-100 single place Starduster, and the MA-4 was pretty basic so did not take long to cut fit and weld up as I was doing this at the time almost daily, several guys in the shop helped when I ran into trouble and that I recall ww
knocked out in less than a week! I also added the Starduster head and shoulders turtle back and the Comanche nose bowl to give it a more pleasing look, and thought that these items made it look better.
As for why few others were built, who knows? Ed to my knowledge never did promote or advertise any of his airplane plans, most all was word of mouth along with the early builders, and the magazine articles mostly the MA-5 Charger, and the confusion between the MA-3 Maverick and The MA-4 Lancer that almost no one knew existed. Dave
Dave ,
Another biplane buddy just bought N4521...your old MA-4. Do you know him? If not I’d be glad to get y’all together. He said it didn’t come with the turtle deck or nose bowl. But the rest is all there. I’m trying to talk him into doing the turtle deck like you had, it looked Great on this design also. Do you have any other pics of it?
Anyway I was excited to hear he got your old bird. Did you build it all? I was reading a old post you wrote and can’t believe only 4 were built. Crazy.
Well thanks for the heads up Kris, nice to hear that someone might actually to do something with it. There is not much interest and appeal anymore for one of a kind older single place home built's. I have heard his name before, and may have had some conversation with him? So yes would love to chat with him. When I last chatted with Mike Devroy (AKA Crazy Mike his words) the previous owner, he was all hot to rebuild the airplane in what he thought Ed Marquart wanted it to look like, he also cancelled the N- number N4521 which btw has not been reserved, and is still available. Mike did not want it to have any connection to me or the past, wanting it to look as if he hand built it in Eds image? Mike was a Corp pilot, and also owned a MA-5 Charger, although saw it for sale on barnstormers not long ago. Not sure what happened to him?
As for my opinion regarding the airplane sure would love to see it restored to my vision and the way it was, but its the new guys airplane now and as such his to do with however he would like, I am just happy to see someone do something with it as it has changed hands quite a number of times, since I owned it, and has had quite a colorful past! I have very few pictures of it or many other airplanes from back then as taking pictures was of little interest, because it would always be there the next day right! I have several taken in my drive way before it was covered, and the engine mount extension. The airplane had W&B issues. and after Ed was confronted with this, was not happy and did not wish to concede that it did! He had all sorts of reasons, but the numbers did not lie! I had asked Lou Stolp to help me with the W&B as I could not work the numbers at the time, and had no idea how to do it, and besides (Hard To Believe Today there were no pocket calculators back then) .
Lou declined saying it was not his airplane, but I think he knew it had issues and did not wish to get involved, as the two other airplanes Rex and Max that crashed, both after their numbers were worked were tail heavy. I had a friend Jim Patterson a machinist and one who gave me rides in his Ercoupe early in my quest to become a pilot that was a wiz at math that worked the numbers for me. But after doing so said this can't be right, and said he was not sure how to do it with a biplane so I took it to Art Scholl Who had just done Carolyn's Clark Special and whipped it out in several minutes, he thought he had made a mistake, so did it again and then we all knew the airplane was tail heavy as designed! It required a 4' extension to the mount, I had an old worn out O-235 Lycoming with a wood prop I had bought from Lou for the incredible high price of $400.00 bucks, one of the later owners has an O-320 160 hp lycoming installed on it and may have solved the C. G. issues
Yes I did most all of it, I did buy some ribs and other parts from Rex Mears he loved the airplane and actually started building ribs for another one but was in poor health. I had just been hired by Lou Stolp as an acetylene welder and we were doing a lot of building and welding of basic Starduster Too fuselages, and btw my very first welding job after being hired was the SA-100 single place Starduster, and the MA-4 was pretty basic so did not take long to cut fit and weld up as I was doing this at the time almost daily, several guys in the shop helped when I ran into trouble and that I recall ww
As for why few others were built, who knows? Ed to my knowledge never did promote or advertise any of his airplane plans, most all was word of mouth along with the early builders, and the magazine articles mostly the MA-5 Charger, and the confusion between the MA-3 Maverick and The MA-4 Lancer that almost no one knew existed. Dave
