Heath Model V Parasol - Seattle, WA - Static Aircraft Displays on Waymarking.com

Located at the Museum of Flight are a large number of static aircraft on display. One of them is a Heath Model V Paraso. The Museum of Flight website contains a page devoted to this aircraft and it reads:

The Museum’s Heath Parasol was constructed from a kit designed by Edward Heath in 1926. Heath, son of a machinist, received all his engineering training by trail and error in his family’s machine shop where he constructed his first aircraft. Dealing mostly in aircraft parts, he founded the E.B. Heath Aerial Vehicle Company in Chicago in 1913. Passionate about aviation, Heath had big ideas about making the costly hobby of flying affordable to the average American. World War I briefly derailed his attempts at marketing an inexpensive, light plane to Americans and he worked for several years dealing surplus government and military planes and engines.

After renaming his company the Health Airplane Company, Heath returned to his idea of the affordable plane in 1925, with designer Claire Linstead. The two produced the Tomboy in 1925, in which Heath competed and won the light planes events at the National Air Races in Philadelphia in 1926. Using his winnings from National Air Races, Heath and Linstead produced the Parasol: a single seat, high-wing monoplane with a 27-horsepower Henderson motorcycle engine. Heath quickly discovered that the Parasol was an affordable, reliable light plane that he could market to the average American. He began selling the Parasol in a variety of forms: fully constructed and operational, fully constructed minus the engine, disassembled in kits (kits were divided into 11 groups—each purchased separately) and just basic blueprints of aircraft that customers could use to build a Parasol from scratch. Heath achieved his goal: Parasols quickly became popular and he sold nearly 1,000 kits and at least 50 fully assembled aircraft. Tragically, he was killed in 1931 piloting a new low-wing test model Parasol. He is remembered as a pioneer in homebuilt aircraft and was the first American to successfully market and sell the homebuilt airplane kit.

A nearby placard adds a little more detail on the Heath Model V Parasol and reads:

The Museum of Flight's Parasol is a "Model V" version, which was first introduced in 1930. The Model V had a faster cruising speed and longer range than earlier Parasols. It also featured V-shaped wing struts which differed from the parallel struts on previous models.

The Original Kit Plane
Restoration of The Museum of Flight's Parasol was completed in 2008 by a team of volunteers at the Museum's Restoration Center at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. They built the plane using plans published in a series of seven articles, which ran in Popular Aviation magazine from December, 1930-July, 1931. Kit versions of the Parasol, like the Museum's utilized fishplates and turnbuckle assemblies in place of welding to join the pieces of the aircraft together. This allowed an average person to assemble the plane using common hand tools.

Type of Aircraft: (make/model): Heath Model V Parasol Tail Number: (S/N): None, it's a kit plane and not registered Construction:: original aircraft Location (park, airport, museum, etc.): Museum of Flight inside / outside: inside Other Information:: Not listed Access restrictions: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Photo of aircraft (required - will be interesting to see if the aircraft is ever repainted or progress if being restored)
Photo of serial number (required unless there is not one or it is a replica)
Photo(s) of any artwork on the aircraft (optional but interesting)

Tell why you are visiting this waymark along with any other interesting facts or personal experiences about the aircraft not already mentioned.

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