A Brief History

Here's what I know of VariEze #893, N944X (formerly N4RE)...

Originally built by Roger Shanks.  Original Airworthiness Certificate was granted in October of 1982 as N41RE.

Roger sold the aircraft to an unkown buyer somewhere in the southwest (Arizona?).  Said buyer apparently made a couple of attempts to fly the bird but was allegedly scared of it.

The plane was then sold to "Coach" James Greg Nelson, a gentleman I've since had the pleasure of meeting.  Greg used the plane to commute to his "job".  I use the term "job" VERY loosely.  Anyone who gets paid to turn dead dinosaurs into noise & smoke in a U2 may not actually have what most of us would term a Normal Job.  Anyway, Greg did a bunch of aero tweaks to the plane and plopped in a somewhat hopped up O200 and flew it for a few years.

Greg sold the plane to Edgar Friederichs.  Edgar was an aeronautical engineer, A&P, and IA.  I believe he worked mostly on UAVs.  Mostly he just flew N944X and curiously acquired another VariEze built by Joe Moore.  Sadly, Edgar lost his life in this second VariEze in 2016.

No comments:

Post a Comment