Tribute to Buzz Kaplan Born Again Restoration Unlimited Adventure Buzz was a true adventurer and an aviation mentor with a love for historic aircraft. After nearly three and a half years a rare airplane completed construction by the over-sight of Buzz Kaplan and his company, Born Again Restoration located in Owatonna, MN. The Sam Johnson family, owners of the SC Johnson Wax Company commissioned Buzz to build a replica of the plane flown to Brazil in 1935 by his grandfather, H. F. Johnson in search of the Carnauba palm tree, the indispensable ingredient in Johnson Wax Sikorsky only built 101 of the S-38 and none have survived, beginning in 1928. After many hour of research acquiring drawings from the Sikorsky Company and photographs located in the Smiths onion Institute. The original FAA plans were destroyed in a fire many years before. |
| At that time construction began there were no known original parts. As word got out about the project, a phone call came in from California, with information about Sikorsky parts stored in a warehouse near Burbank. There were two tail booms and the center section an upper wing with a tag saying, “Paul Manson’s Sikorsky”. Latter a set of upper wing panels were found in New Hampshire. These original parts were copied for the Johnson airplane and the originals were reworked for a second airplane Buzz wanted built for himself. As parts were made for the Carnauba, the first plane, a duplicate was made for the second S-38 which would be built latter to full fill Buzz’s dream of taking the plane to Africa and re-tracing the flights of Osa & Martin Johnson. In November 1999 Buzz and Tom Schrade formed a corporation Unlimited Adventure, LLC and began the construction Osa’s Ark, After approximately 40,000 man hours, the zebra striped S-38 Sikorsky Osa’s Ark was completed in May of 2002. Since Buzz’s death in 2002, Tom Schrade the pilot and CEO of Unlimited Adventure has displayed Osa's Ark at numerous air shows including Oshkosh, Sun N Fun, Reno Air Races and has visited many locations in the United States providing memorial rides and water landings for aviation enthusiasts from all around the world in a unique flying yacht.n a g |
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