Oratex Success Stories

Roger's PA-11

Roger Peterson took his first flying lesson in 1952 when he was 14 years old and living in Iowa. Over the years, he has rebuilt too many airplanes to count, doing a lot of fabric work along the way. He has also built two replica PA-11s, both from scratch. One he keeps on floats up north for getting into his cabin on Finlayson Lake just north of Atikokan Ontario, where he does a lot of fly in fishing, mostly for walleye. He painted a fish on that first PA-11 rather than the traditional lightning bolt, saying "I wanted to attract fish, not lightning."

The second PA-11 (his latest creation) he keeps at his home in Texas, and it was on this one that he first used Oratex fabric. He really enjoyed the process, and did an excellent job of documenting it on supercub.org (including a lot of very instructive video). He even covered the cowl, boot cowl and nosebowl with Oratex, and he painted the wings using Oratex paint to finish it off. According to Roger, it's the "best paint I have ever used." At 75 Roger doesn't plan to build another airplane, but says he has a couple of friends he will be helping over the next few years. And given that Roger has over a half century of experience, those are some lucky friends indeed.

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