Glenn and Stacy McGowan’s 1930 Waco PSO
(The McGowans. Stacy & Glenn, Patrick, Megan, Katie, and Piper)
Buying our Waco project was like coming full circle in my aviation life. You see, I had taken my first flight, in an airplane of any kind, in a Waco UPF-7 at White Mountain Airport in North Conway, New Hampshire at the ripe old age of twelve! (Yes, that is me in the photo below!) That flight set me on a path that led to aviation as both career and a lifestyle. I now look back at attending Daniel Webster College, an aviation university in New Hampshire, 11 years with the U.S.Air Force as a pilot and flight instructor, and going on 12 years as a pilot with United Airlines.
I stayed active with light airplanes
throughout most of my life and even bought a 1946 J-3 Cub which I have owned for
15 years. But in the back of my mind I always wanted an open-cockpit Waco!
About a year and a half ago I found myself in the position, with the full
support of my wife Stacy, to purchase a Waco project. I had looked for several
years for what I thought was an acceptable, and affordable, project. I even
looked at some basketcase TravelAirs (I know, what was I thinking!) but nothing
seemed within my price range or expertise.
I then saw an ad in Trade-A-Plane for the one and only factory built PSO. It is a standard Straightwing Waco in most respects, but was originally powered by a 140hp Fischer-Jacobs LA-1 engine. It seemed like a fairly complete project with complete fuselage, new wings, woodwork, sheetmetal, gear, tail feathers, etc. The only downside was its location, Corona, California (About as far as you can get from Poplar Grove, IL without getting your feet wet!) I flew out to Corona and met with Mike Sheehan. When he opened the hangar door I was expecting to see a pile of parts in no particular state of completion. I was very pleasantly surprised to see a fully painted fuselage with all wood installed. sheet metal mostly in place, floorboards and flight control parts. It actually looked like an airplane! Mike even had the entire FAA records of the airplane printed out for me to look over. The plane had been continually registered since new but hadn’t flown since 1940. Mike also had FAA approved 337s for installation of a 275hp Jacobs R755B-2 engine and a Scott 3200 tailwheel. The wings were also signed off for cover and the fuselage rebuild was also signed off.
Mike and I made a deal a few days later and a month later I returned to Corona, rented a U-Haul truck, packed up the plane, and headed back for Poplar Grove. The journey took four days and was through some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. If you every get a chance to drive I-70 through southern Utah and then through the Rockies to Denver you will not be disappointed in the scenery! The project arrived at its new home in November of 2005 and the long process of getting it back into the air began.
Rebuilding the rusted and frozen
solid Aerol Shock Struts was the first order of business. 
Lots of heat and “gentle persuasion”
revealed a mostly good set of shocks. Some machine work, rechroming, and new
seals yielded a nice set of struts which now have the airplane sitting on its
main gear. Work is progressing on the cockpits with flight controls nearing
completion. The original rudder bar will be retained, but hydraulic heel brakes
will replace the stock mechanical ones for better handling on pavement and in
crosswinds. Original Pioneer instruments have been acquired to complete the
panel. I even found an original Scintilla booster magneto switch!
A recent trip to the Chicago
Aircraft Certification Office produced the original type certificate approval
letter for the PSO as well as the original test pilot’s flight test notes, along
with other documents relating to the aircraft. The Smithsonian has also been
able to provide me with countless drawings and company documentation relating to
this particular aircraft. 
The overall plane for the aircraft is to keep it as original as possible while allowing for improvements to operate in today’s environment. An electrical system with modern a Becker radio and transponder will be tucked away as discreetly as possible. We would like to have the plane ready for the 2010 American Barnstormer’s Tour. I can think of nothing better than the aircraft to join some of its peers for its 80th birthday!
Lastly I would like to thank some
of the many people who have helped me tremendously with advice, parts, drawings,
and encouragement. Dave Allen, Tim Gallagher, Bill Rusk, John 
Cournoyer, Steve Curry, and Larry
Harmacinski, to name a few. Of course, my deepest and most heartfelt thanks
goes to my wife, Stacy. Without her encouragement to follow my dreams, I may
never have taken the plunge with this project.
“After the last WACO gracefully flies, the sky will become merely air.”(Tom Hurley, 1993)