Clarence Beintema's Restoration of C-GMYT

Clarence purchased N4131, S/N 303 from the heirs of Fennon Moore of Pleasanton, Texas in January, 2010. Initially, the Mite went into storage with engine removed, while Clarence finished an RV4 and built a new and necessary storage hangar. The restoration project is underway, as of January, 2011.

In a recent email with these photos attached, Clarence made these comments:

I've been in aviation since I graduated from high school almost 28 years ago. I worked for a charter company for seven years before they closed their doors in 1989. I worked for another maintenance shop whose owner encouraged me to start my own business, which I did in 1990. I have grown the business over the years and am now in my third hangar of 8600 sq. ft. I've always liked small airplanes and have restored several Mooney M20 E models, built a Vans RV4 and now the Mite.

I had always thought the Mite was a very neat airplane, but never realized just how rare it really is. As my RV4 neared completion I started looking for a Mite, I contacted the owners in Canada and none were for sale at the time. I found this Mite on your web site and contacted the owners. It was being sold by the family of the owner who had recently passed away.

My good friend Stewart Campbell and I droved from Kitchener, Ontario to Pleasanton, Texas in February of 2010 to inspect, disassemble and trailer it home. I read many of the stories on the Site which showed how people had transported them across the country. I was lucky enough to find an old glider trailer, which I modified to fit the Mite.

Stew and I left on Monday afternoon and arrived in Pleasanton on Wednesday afternoon. After inspecting the airplane and assuring myself that my 6"2" frame would fit, I bought the plane. We worked until 9:00 PM and had the engine removed and had the fuselage ready to separate from the wing. In the morning we lifted the fuselage from the wing and began packing the trailer. It was then that we discovered the the wing had a longer cord than the information I had. It posed a bit of a challenge to fit the wing into the trailer, but we managed to fit the entire Mite and all our gear back into the trailer.

We headed for home on Wednesday afternoon and got caught in a nasty snow storm in Indiana, finally arriving home on Saturday evening after having traveled 5812.0 kilometres.

Clarence Beintema
Tri-City Aero Maintenance Inc.
Box 193
Breslau, Ontario
N0B 1M0
519-648-2044
clarence@tricityaero.com

For some other photos of the disassembly not shown here, have a look at Clarence's business website: http://www.tricityaero.com/

2011-02-02

Update: (posted 2012-01-04):

Here is another batch of photos which show the results of powder coating/painting:

2012-01-04