Darned Small Airplane

The DSA-1 Smith Mini-plane is one of those rare machines born in the forever blue skies of a dreamer's mind.
It is rarer still because it found its way through those fickle halls of air and onto the pages of a notebook to be proudly rolled out of a hangar in all the splendour of gleaming paint and taut, doped fabric.
And it is small.
In fact, the aircraft's designer, Frank Smith, used the aircraft's model name as a lasting tribute to its compact design.
At 15 feet long, with a stubby wingspan of 17 feet, standing only 5 feet tall and weighing, fully loaded, less than one thousand pounds it is a "Darned Small Airplane" indeed.
And it is cute.
The story goes that Frank Smith wanted to design a fun, little bi-plane; one that would be easy to build, fly and maintain.  In 1958, he built and flew the prototype, N90P.  It now sits in the EAA Air Venture museum in Oshkosh, WI.

DSA-1 N90P Courtesy: Air Venture Museum

Smith drew up the plans and set things up to offer his joyful little bi-plane to anyone with enough time, effort, love and patience to build a dream.  He would never see the popularity his design would eventually enjoy.  Frank Smith died of a heart attack shortly after completing the prototype.  His work was carried on by his wife and son...and every pilot who ever strapped on a Mini-plane and opened the throttle.

The Smith is a throw-back to leather flying caps, gauntlets, pencil-thin moustaches and twinkling eyes hiding behind oil speckled goggles.  It belongs in a world of sun-swept, grass fields, open cockpits, and boot-scuffed floor boards where the air smells of oil and gasoline and the word "contact!" is bellowed with conviction before the sound of a cracking prop and purring engine.

The Smith is every pilot's dream and guilty pleasure.

I've never flown one.  I was 4 years old the last time I sat in one.  And yet, I can say these things and believe them with more certainty than I can muster to say there is a God.

I can say these things because that cute little airplane with the red-and-white rising sun paint job sparked a love affair that will burn inside me until my dying day.  It lives forever in my heart and mind, rocking gently in a stiff breeze coming off the Ottawa River, every wooden rib, metal strut and flying wire flexed like muscle, waiting silently to bound down the runway and leap into the wild blue yonder.

The Smith carries only one pilot - in a single, open cockpit.  One heart, when opened, can carry the hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats of a thousand.

If you want to come along for the ride, it is necessary that you understand such things.