Quirkiness aside, you did a really beautiful job on this, Tim. That slick black & gold scheme triggered a dusty memory somewhere, and I realized that the fuselage looked just like a Kinner Bird that I did a painting of about forty years ago. I looked it up on Wikipedia to see if they were related (they weren't, the fuselage came from an Alliance A-1 Argo)... but what I found was fascinating:
It was designed by Steven Nemeth from Dayton, Ohio, and made its first flight in 1934. The goal was to have a plane that could be stored in a large garage, rather than a hangar and be easy to fly. Nemeth did wind tunnel tests at the University of Michigan in 1929... The plane reached a top speed of 135 mph (217 km/h). Due to the large wing, the plane could taking off in just 63 feet (19 metres). Tests were done with stall speeds, turning off the engine in flight, and using the wings as a parachute. The parachute-stall landing gave the plane a short 25 feet of landing to stop.
Dutch
