When Richard Shultz was a kid he loved making model airplanes with his dad. The younger Shultz really liked the way they were put together, the way they smelled, sounded, and looked in the air.
“My dad, he was old when he had me,” Shultz recalled, sitting inside an airplane hangar at the Andy Barnhart Memorial airport in New Carlisle. “He was 40 years old when I was born, and he was a tool maker by trade. And instead of playing ball with me he showed me how to read a set of micrometers and veneers, and how to read drawings and all that. So it kind of started from when I was about 9.”
Shultz said once his dad put him on the control sticks of the model planes, he was hooked.
“We would go to the flying field and would have to go past WACO field in Troy, and he would tell me about when he was a kid and about all those beautiful biplanes coming out of that field and how much of a tragedy it was ‘that interstate goes right through the meadow where those beautiful airplanes took off out of,’” Shultz said laughing. “If I heard that once, I heard it a hundred times.”
Shultz said he asked his pop, “what’s a WACO?” and his dad tossed him an Air Progress magazine and pointed to a photo of a gorgeous biplane on the cover.
The WACO Aircraft Company was the largest manufacturer of civil aircraft in the country in the late 1920s and early ‘30s. There’s a museum dedicated to the historic Ohio-made aircraft in Piqua near that field.
Shultz grew up in Jackson Center, a tiny rural town that is best known as being the home of the iconic Airstream travel trailers.
He had wanted to build his own full-sized plane ever since he was a kid and when someone at the model airplane club that he and his dad belonged to said they were building a Hatz Biplane from scratch, Shultz got really excited.
Fellow pilot Jim DeWinter praised Shultz’s achievement. “He’s absolutely amazing. I mean he welded the fuselage, he’s done so much, but he doesn’t even realize how good he is."
“I said, ‘Man, Dad, let's build one of them!’ and he pooh poohed the idea,” Shultz said. “He never thought I could do it so I never started. Even in high school, the shop teacher wanted to build a plane because I had an interest in planes. They approached my father but he pooh-poohed that, so I never did.”
Shultz went on to join the Navy, where he got his first chance to work on airplanes.
But his father passed away in 2005. So his dad never got to see that not only could his son build a plane, but that he was really, really good at it.
So good that his Hatz Classic homebuilt plane, that he made from a set of plans, won a Gold Lindy at this year's Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to the EAA, the Gold Lindy is considered the highest award available in the world for aircraft construction and restoration.
Fellow pilot Jim DeWinter praised Shultz’s achievement. “He’s absolutely amazing. I mean he welded the fuselage, he’s done so much, but he doesn’t even realize how good he is. He’s amazing,” DeWinter said when he stopped by the hangar.
When asked how hard it is to build a plane from scratch, DeWinter said that “on a scale of one to ten, it's a fourteen.”
It’s been a long and winding road for Shultz to realize his childhood dream. His first attempt at building a plane cost him a previous marriage. So when he went for try number two he made sure that his wife Kathy was OK with it.
“And then I asked her again, ‘Are you sure about that answer? Did you consider that? Because I’ll be busy, you know, for years. Not just a week, not a month, but for years, constant, this will be a part of our life,’” Shultz said as he pressed her. “And she said, ‘Yes, I’m sure. Build that plane!’”
When I started I had no help, and by the time I was done I had a village around me, you know, that’s how it works. Everybody says it’s not about the airplane, it’s about the people. And it's a corny thing to say, and all that, but I’ve made so many good friends,” Shultz said. “So anyone who wants to build one of these, people will come out of the woodwork to help you.”
Kathy Shultz recalls that he said it would only take about three years. It actually took closer to 10.
“We had to sell our Harley, and I loved it,” Kathy said. “We needed airplane parts. He said, ‘Oh, honey, the airplane is going to be our motorcycle in the sky.’ And I said, ‘I think you’re full of crap.’ But the first time I flew in it I knew he was telling me the truth.”
Shultz said that after he hit the six-figure mark he stopped keeping track of how much it was costing to build the Hatz Classic. He attributes some of the costs to mistakes that he made along the way as he was figuring things out.
“When I started, I had no help, and by the time I was done, I had a village around me, you know, that’s how it works. Everybody says it’s not about the airplane, it’s about the people. And it's a corny thing to say, and all that, but I’ve made so many good friends,” Shultz said. “So anyone who wants to build one of these, people will come out of the woodwork to help you.”
Richard Shultz never intended to show his plane, which is named Hazel Mary Lou, a combination of his and Kathy’s mothers’ names. They shorten it to Hazel.
They had taken Hazel to the annual Hatz Club meeting in nearby Brodhead, Wisconsin, and the superb craftsmanship attracted a lot of attention. Friends and family encouraged him to take the plane to the EAA Convention happening the next week.
At first Shultz resisted. He’s a self-proclaimed introvert and the thought of being around 680,000 people didn’t appeal to him at all.
“Someone called one of the judges over there and they came down and looked at it and insisted that I probably should take it [to the fly-in convention]”, Shultz said, “not guaranteeing that I would win anything. But, the judge said, ‘I guarantee that people will like it, and if you want to influence young people to perhaps build something of their own one day, I highly suggest you bring it.’ So I did.”
By the end of the week the crowd had beaten down a 40-foot-wide path in the grass just to see his plane, and he ended up with the top award.
Shultz said that the judges came around on Friday and hung a sign by the Hatz that said ‘Award Winner,’ but it didn’t say what the award was. He figured it was for craftsmanship, one of the smaller awards. It wasn’t until later that they found out his plane had won the highest award.
Tears flowed: his, hers, their friends, the judge and the crowd that had gathered.
“It was just a really emotional moment for everyone there,” Kathy said.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I still don’t. It’s just crazy,” Shultz said, choking up at the memory. “If I ever do anything better with my life, I don’t know what it would be. Or bigger, you know. I have no idea. So the only thing I can do now is just try and help people do the same, and feel the same, with their plane or whatever. And that if you have dreams, stick to them.”
“Of course if they’re not illegal,” he added, lightening the mood.
