Sisu 1a, s/n 101, N6390X

SISU 1A N253JB is owned by Steve Parker and still flying at Marfa, TX I have recent photos and will try to submit (need assistance)

Jim,

From the FAA records, Steve Parker's Sisu is SN 110 (N253JB). The one I was referring to that Dean Svec owned is SN 105, with the N number changed from N252JB to N252J. The registry doesn't have an owner name and the registration is expired, with last location in OK.

I assume the "JB" in these two N numbers more than coincidentally refers to Jack Baugh who, IIRC, backed Len Niemi in Arlington Aircraft. Since only about 10 or so were built (not counting the prototype Sisu 1?), I wonder if N253JB was originally Jack's personal airplane built late in the cycle.

There's another Sisu, SN 106 (N622W) at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky that I would have thought was his, though. I vaguely recalled mention of a swap somewhere in the distant past that allowed one owner (Baugh? to donate a Sisu to a museum. Just looked it up and it was between Al Parker and Baugh, so the latter could donate Parker's world-distance-record-setting glider to the Smithsonian's NASM. Which means that...I don't know. Is Steve Parker related to Al Parker?

Is it possible that Dean Svec ended up with the first one built for Baugh? Now I'm deep into speculation. But unlike, say, certain runs of Schweizer gliders (e.g., the 1-23 series), it doesn't appear that Arlington used a block of N numbers for the series production. So someone had two numbers already allocated with the same initials but built 5 serial numbers apart.

There's a paper that covers the Sisu's history but I couldn't find a publicly available copy: "Arlington Sisu 1A: Rise and Demise of America's Most Successful Competition Sailplane and the Beginning of the Era of Fiberglass" by Russell Lee.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"