I first saw the Hatz CB-1 in 1986 at the EAA Convention at Oshkosh. I had never even heard of a Hatz prior to that day. But there it was, Rick Hansen's award winning Hatz, the Tizzy Lish. I was struck by the classic lines and timeless elegance of this little biplane, not to mention the craftsmanship that Rick brought to it! I saw this same aircraft the following summer at another fly-in, which only seemed to reinforce my appreciation of it. It would be nice, I thought, to build one of these. Someday.......

In 1995, I finally had a reasonable home where I could build an airplane in comfort, a little discretionary income, and a bit of time to give to the project. While looking around for an airplane that I would enjoy building, pouring over the usual Van's RV and Rutan material, I remembered the Hatz. Going fast is cool, but the Hatz would give me what I really wanted on sunny Sundays. With a shrug and a nod, everything was decided. I sent away to Dudley Kelly for the plans.

Moving into a new house, I had no shop. So the first year was spent just getting some kind of shop put together. The woodwork would be done in the basement. The steelwork done in the garage. This, of course, cut my usable floor space in the house by a third. Shrug......nod.

1997 was the year to start building. I spent weeks putting together lists of parts and materials. I ordered all the wood in one shot. Long sitka spruce spars, capstrip, mahogany plywood, birch plywood. What the heck, let's get the aluminum too! All this in 4'x8' sheets. Great! Save a lot of money! Same with the 4130 steel tubes for the fuselage. Buy it direct in mill lengths (17' to 24'). We'll save a bundle! Then the day came when all this stuff showed up.

The truck with the wood was an 18-wheeler. Couldn't come down the street because of weight restrictions. So via the trucking company dispatcher on the phone, we worked out a plan for the truck to meet me in the parking lot of a nearby Piggly-Wiggly to transfer the stuff to my Jeep. This planning went on while the truck kept circling the neighborhood on legal streets, like an airliner waiting for clearance to land.

Looking like smugglers dealing blackmarket Sitka Spruce openly, the trucker and I stuffed wooden crates of material into the poor Jeep Cherokee. On top, we hoisted a bulky flat crate that contained all of the 4'x8' aluminum and ply. With a hand hooked out the window just to feel when the crate on the roof would try to leave me, I nudged the slanting Jeep down the residential streets to the house. She was laden with what in my mind were simply disassembled airplane parts. The short drive home was slower than most funerals and uneventful. However, I forgot that I would be off-loading this stuff at home alone. Shrug.......nod.

PICTURE: Some of the Sitka Spruce stacked neatly awaiting conversion to Hatz wings

The aches and pains from pulling crates of wood and aluminum out of the Jeep passed quickly. I now had enough wood to start work! Suddenly, my job schedule took a turn for the worse and for the next nine months I had to put in long days and weekendless weeks. The Hatz had to wait a bit longer. Shrug......nod.

Now the only nice thing about working so much is that you can't use any of your vacation. I had four weeks coming and I decided to take them all in one swell foop! I would take September off to work on the airplane. A whole month! I had never done anything like that before and it all seemed just too decedent for words!

On September 1 and 2, I decompressed from the long work schedule. The plan was to lay back on the first couple of days and then hit it. Unfortunately, on the 3rd, my mother passed away. The Hatz went on hold once again as I spent September tending to her estate, dealing with the loss, and not doing much of anything else. Her furniture filled the shop and garage, preventing any work from being done. Wouldn't have tried to do anything anyway since I still had the loss to deal with for a while longer.

I did put in an order for the steel tubing on the 2nd that I had forgotten about. I had just packed a ton of furniture in the garage when the phone rang. It was the trucking company trying to find the house. They had all my steel. Shrug.....nod.

When the truck pulled up, the trucker and I pulled a 30 foot tube out of the truck that weighed about 300 pounds. The truck pulled away as I stood in the driveway looking down on this cardboard barrel, trying to figure out what to do next. Now, mill lengths of steel tubing vary from 17 feet to 24 feet. My luck over the years has always taught me that I will always get the short pieces. Not today. Nearly every tube was 24 feet longs. Lucky me. My garage is 20 feet deep. Shrug......nod.

I couldn't pull the steel out of the shipping container, so I ended up sawing sections of the half-inch thick container and pulled them away to clear the tubes. Now, one by one, I held the tubes up and tried to thread each one through furniture and clothing to fit into the garage. Again and again, I did the Dance of the Mighty Long Tubes as I chanted my mantra of expletives. This evidently pleased the gods of homebuilding because I got all the steel inside just before it rained. Shrug......nod.

PICTURE: The steel finally tucked properly across both spaces of the garage

And that's where we are so far. But the deep blue funk is gone, Spring is on the way, and I do believe it's time to build that Hatz!

Oh, and about the name "Wee Beastie"? That came out of a discussion about taildraggers I had with some fellow pilots one weekend. When we were all reminding each other that we had to fly a taildragger all the way to tie-down, I mentioned that they can be a "wee beastie on the roll out if you don't pay attention." The name serves to remind me to fly her right when she's done. However, it seems that she's earning that name in the building process as well!

Note: Doug MacBeth founded this website. Sadly, he never saw Hatz Serial Number 647 completed, though he became President of our organization and was instrumental in guiding our association to maturity.