Originally Posted by
ge3740
also, the first one had a fiberglass cowl which is the one i am going to build. i did meet
George and Phil here in North Carolina,
They must have been close friends. George is a real gentleman and Phil Kraft must have been one as well.
George still has two things from his prototype: the pilot and the cowl. He made the picture for us.
The cowl was fibreglass put over a wooden plug and cut to shape. The plywood backplate was epoxied on, as written in the plan. The whole thing was painted silver. The plan shows a hole, I think meant as air intake for the carburetor behind it. The real cowl doesn't have this hole. There are two models shown in the Grid Leaks article, George's with red fin and white rudder, and Phil's (built for him by Dick Kidd) with all-white vertical tail. Phil Kraft immediately omitted the cowl to have access to the engine.
The pilot is a Williams Brothers kit, still available today. It has been painted including the mustache. The scarf is made from a scrap piece of red-dyed silk, which had been used to cover the wing. George used clear dope which is why the wing is translucent. The other prototype has a white scarf for the pilot, by the way.