THE PLANE SHOP

Profile

Owner, founder, chief engineer Ron Jackson, purchased a property at Riddell, just 12 nm north of Melbourne Airport in 1977. Ron grew up dreaming of being a "first war fighter ace" like Snoopy on his kennel. This passion grew from stories of WW1 aviators in a few pre-war modelling magazines left over from his father's youth. His dad and uncle were modellers of note in the early thirties, and appeared once on a "Cinesound" newsreel dropping frogs in parachutes from rubber band powered models.

The WW1 obsession started to get serious when Ron saw the movie "The Great Waldo Pepper", when he realised that the filmmakers had recently built the first war aircraft for the movie. Ron started collecting information and drawings for the construction of fighting bi-plane, and meantime looked for somewhere to build and fly the machine. He found the Riddell Airfield, sold the house in town, lived with his wife in a caravan for three years, whilst building hangars, house, and producing some of the four children.

Once the house was livable, it was time to get on with the initial purpose of the whole exercise, that being to build a WW1 fighter aircraft.

Ten years later, the Sopwith Pup took to the skies one sunny spring afternoon in 1992, and it flew like a dream, hands off on the very first flight.

Since that time Ron has maintained and flown many and varied aircraft both in Australia and the USA. He is a member of the Cessna 180-185 Club, and has a '64 180G. Ron specialises these days in finding and importing aircraft from America for clients in Australia. He provides the whole service personally, from aquisition through shipping to final assembly and delivery ready to fly away from Riddell. Call today for more info.

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