By Marcia Barnes
Guest writer
Jerry Stadtmiller: From line boy to owner of Bipe Inc.
When Jerry Stadtmiller was 12 years old he knew he wanted to fly. In fact, the Clay County resident knew that flying an airplane was almost all he wanted to do. Stadtmiller’s family lived in Rochester, N.Y. and on a return home from visiting his sister, the family car passed a runway.
From the backseat of the automobile, the young Stadtmiller announced, “Someday I’m going to fly and own my own airplane.” “Mom never wanted to hear that again, but her words ran like water off a duck’s back,” Stadtmiller said. “The high school in Rochester offered an aviation course. It was my favorite course and the teacher told the class there was a job available at the airport every evening after school until dark and all day Saturday and Sunday as a line boy.” “I asked, ‘What’s a line boy?’” “He gases the plane, keeps the windows clean and helps around the airplane,” the teacher answered. “You get to touch a real airplane.”
This was Stadtmiller’s inquisitive reply. That afternoon Stadtmiller took the bus to the end of the line and walked 3 miles to the airport to apply for the job. He was hired on the spot for $4.89 a week, plus 1 1/2 hours of flying time every week in a Piper Cub. “It was very disciplined, everyday regardless,” Stadtmiller said, “and mom was with it.” The minimum age to solo was 16 and it was overcast and calm when Stadtmiller celebrated his 16th birthday with three touch-and-goes at the Rochester airport while his instructor stood on the tarmac watching. After graduating high school Stadtmiller worked at an fixed base operation in Rochester and helped to maintain the planes under supervision. It was the on-the-job precursor to where he would go next.
By 1958, he was attending EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University in Miami and studying airplane mechanics. Eighteen months later Stadtmiller was licensed in air frame and power plant. He went on from there to become a flight instructor and then an instructor with a commercial rating. Each step in academic specialization drawing him closer to what would become a life’s work. In the late 1950s, he purchased a crop duster for $150. Stadtmiller said, “It did not fly.” The plane was a 1942 Stearman, a WWII army and navy trainer. The planes were surplussed, made into crop dusters and the aircraft he purchased had been disassembled and stored in a hanger.
“Everything was there. It took 16 years part-time to restore and finish it and people were watching and asking questions,” Stadtmiller said while smiling about the venture. In 1983, at the Executive Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Stadtmiller opened a fulltime business in antique plane restoration. He noted that the business really started by accident when he began restoring the crop duster back to a standard airplane exactly like it came from the factory.
Fast-forwarding to July 30, 2009, Stadtmiller opened shop in Andrews, N.C. as Bipe, Incorporated. “It’s one thing to restore a plane, it’s another to restore a plane with historical accuracy, authenticity and we do that dayto-day in Andrews,” Stadtmiller said. “Some of the fabric materials have changed because polyester lasts longer then cotton and then there is the navigational equipment which didn’t exist when the planes were originally built. There was no electrical system,” he explained. Asked how this all takes place, Stadtmiller said it begins with the frame and welded steel tubing. The wings are wood, Sitka spruce and mahogany. The engine is the only part of the plane sent out, but when it’s installed, adjustments are necessary. Stadtmiller says from start to finish the restoration takes two years and because the planes were originally handbuilt, they build the parts needed, everything from an instrument panel to anything else on the plane.
With the help of Adam Sonner and Darrell Williams, antique aircraft restoration and repair continues at Hangar One at the Andrews-Murphy Airport. Stadtmiller said almost all the work is by referral and from as far away as Seattle although there are hundreds of companies like Bipe in the country. “We specialize in total restoration, bare frame up restoration.” Proof of Stadtmiller’s standard of excellence is the 1938 Grumman Goose which was completely restored by Bipe, Inc. and rests at the Smithsonian at Dulles International Airport.
There is beauty in the work of Stadtmiller’s hands from the precise lines the wiring follows to the reflections in the freshly primed and painted wings. Bipe’s number 1 man hasn’t forgotten the boy from Rochester who wanted to fly. Stadtmiller generously has opened the doors of Hangar One to the surrounding high schools and to Tri-County Early College High School to tour the facility and to touch planes.
Marcia Hawley Barnes, Author of “The Little Book of Secret Family Recipes, and Tobijah.”