1926 Heath Parasol, kit-built

Legendary Heathkit designer Edward Bavard Heath and his designer employee Claire Linstead produced the first Heath Parasol in 1926. This was a single-seat, high-wing, monoplane with a span of 26 feet. It was built around a 27 hp Henderson motorcycle engine. The designers improvised somewhat - the wing was contrived of two lower wings of a Thomas-Morse Scout biplane, braced with steel tubing and cables.
This event marked a turning point; Heath had found his light plane market and he used every kind of bait possible to push the sale of his Parasols. You could buy a Parasol, fly-away, Chicago, for $975. If you couldn't afford that, you could buy it, less the engine, for $690. Still too much? Okay! You could buy it in kit form. The kit came in eleven groups. The first group cost $12.47. The total cost of the eleven groups, less the engine, was $199! Still too much? Well, you could buy the blueprints for $5 and get your own materials. These were the first Heathkits and, evidently they didn't have a 10% down, twelve month to pay time payment plan such as we have now.
This lovely example was photographed in the Museum of Flight workshop at Everett, WA in 2007.


Picture Added on 16 January 2008.