King Aero,Inc.

05/27/2026

Some pilots and aircraft owners still do not get it. Some A&P’s and IA’s still don’t get it.

What am I talking about? Replaceable D Batteries in ELT’s. Part 91.207 clearly states in Paragraph C (2) that when a battery reaches 50% of their useful life. What it means is useful shelf life after which the battery is no long holding its full charge..

Duracell is specified by most ELT manufacturers due to their performance and long shelf life. Duracell has a 10 year shelf life. That means that a battery that was labeled 2025 was manufactured in 2015 and 50% of it shelf life would be 5 years or replaced in an ELT in 2020.

Time after time I keep finding batteries like this one with this written on the outside of the ELT “Bat Exp Dec 2025” when the battery shelf life says 2025, wrong! The ELT would not activate when tested. So much for having a functioning ELT on board.

01/29/2026

With Airtech Fabric Covering System – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

10/22/2025

We have been busy on a J3C 85 project that was to be just a recover. When we got the plane stripped we found that every tube in the fuselage was corroded with deep pits. The previous restoration people had tried to weld some of the pits that were through the tubes while filling the rest with Rand o plate epoxy and then painted black over that. There were several unapproved repairs as well. I did not expect that nor the right rear spar being cracked and all the steel hardware in the right wing having deep rust pits. Many broken ribs, and on the landing gear having two different bungee struts.

We replaced the fuselage with a 4130N by Univair. And replaced all the steel hardware.

The only piece we have left in the spray booth is the fuselage which is ready for its final topcoat. 80% of this project is new.

Poly fiber 1 brush coat, 2 brush coats sprayed, 4 silver cross coats, 2 white coats and 3 coats of OEM J3 Cub Yellow.

Poly tone on the fabric and polyfiber MK II catalyised enamel on the metal parts.

I should have added the MK II comes as a kit with paint, catalyst, reducer and flattener to cut the gloss down to the same as the PolyTone on the fabric. It is made from the same color pallet as the PolyTone and truly matches.

Mark II notes:
Guys you do not have to use Aerothane on the metal anymore. The only thing I found out and it took a call to consolidated to find out that the 20 minutes of bind time on the label is way off. Bob said the molecules are so big the combining time should reall be more like 1 hour. One positive is that i have had left over MK II in the freezer for 2 months and once left to warm to room temperature it sprays and dries just like freshly mixed. Think of it like the old DuPont Centauri enamel with catalyst. The other benifit is it does not contain isocyanates, so a Niosh mask is all you need. No pumped air to a mask is required.

06/20/2025

We are in overdrive mode to get the 1946 J3C out the door. This is the plane that needed a new fuselage due to all the heavy corrosion. Since the rudder AD came out we were able to get one this week, so it will paint match 100% and terminates the AD. Most every part we have put back in this plane has been new due to the poor condition that it was brought to us in. The owner is in poor health and this weather does not help working with the PolyFiber system.

06/06/2025

Back in 1994-1995 I covered and painted a Stearman A75N1 N63301 for Bob Smith and Najieb Kahn. Bob just passed away last Saturday at 101 years of age. He had quite an aviation career spanning decades. A lot of which was with Bendix Landing Gear and Strut Division.

He will be missed but not forgotten!

Share memories & support the family

04/28/2025

Come Join us at our first open house on May 5th, 7th from 6:30 pm until 8:00 pm and Saturday from 9:30 until 11:30. Meet the students and staff that have built the basic airframe in eleven months. Drive in or fly in. There is to be a food truck on site.

01/21/2025

Coldest day of the winter so far. Forecast is -20 overnight

09/22/2024

Flying back from Mexico Missouri today 09/22/2024 in a Maule M5 235 piloted by Matt Branson. It was an IFR flight that was hand flown, no autopilot, all the way to a landing at the Elkhart Municipal Airport at IFR minimums. When flying it’s always a good idea to do it with an airline pilot that knows his airplane.

We had been attending the Zenith Aircraft 24th homecoming. Both of us were gathering information and training to use for the STAY Indiana.org STEM aircraft build project for local High School Students. We currently have completed some 12 weeks in what was to have been a 78 week projected completion and are way ahead of that goal. Please visit STAYIndiana.org to find out more about this not for profit corporation and its purpose.