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| Walt doing what he enjoyed, flying. |
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Walt, better known to everyone as Wimpy, was always fascinated with aircraft and the dream of owning and flying his own planes. This came true in 1949 when he built the Vernon Payne "Knight Twister". Walt never looked back and continued to build aircraft till his death in 1996.
His great love was WWI aircraft but he had many problems locating plans. His greatest find was Reinhold Platz, who would go on to be his most valued mentor. Reinhold's knowledge of the DRI, as one of the original designers, was a wealth of information that Walt relied on until his death. Plus he sent the original DRI plans, in German, to Walt to ensure his dream of building the DRI would come true. They continued to correspond with the help of a local high school teacher who spoke German until Reinhold's death.
During Walt's life he was able to build 13 additional aircraft and founded Redfern & Son's Custom Aircraft, Inc. He constructed four additional DRI's, two Great Lakes (for family fun), a French Nieuport 24 BIS, Starduster 2, de Havilland DH2 (hardest aircraft he said he ever built, but flew hands off), Sopwith Camel, Bucher Jungmeister, Albatros DVa, and a Fokker DVI (only aircraft that Walt was not able to test fly).
We do strongly recommend that if you choose to build one of Walt's aircraft that it not be your first! Some areas must be engineered as not all pages of the blueprints were available on all these aircraft. As we were growing up many times items were engineered on napkins at lunch or dinner that helped fill in the missing information. These are all full scale plans and all aircraft (except the DVI) were flown many hours by dad.
We will be happy to answer any questions or concerns. Dad wanted everyone to have their chance to build and fly these great WWI aircraft.
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