My name is Peter Ashwood-Smith (peterashwoodsmith@yahoo.ca) and I am the lucky owner of C-GZRO a 1984 stock Aviat Pitts S-1T. She is a 200HP 870lb fully aerobatic biplane. She currently has about 800 hours on the clock. I bought her in 2000 in West Palm Beach Florida and imported her to Quebec, Canada where she now lives at Gatineau airport.

C-GZRO was previously owned by Jim Dunn in West Palm Beach FL where she was registered as N200QB.

C-GZRO was built by Danny Adams of Aviat Aircraft as a certified S-1T.

She is currently flown about 100 hours per year of intermediate IAC aerobatics ususually at contests in the North Eastern United States. She can usually be found at Springfield/VT, Orange/MA, Montreal/CA, Gatineau/CA, Monticello/NY.

She is an incredibly nimble aircraft capable of about 3500 FPM rate of climb and about 190MPH top speed full power level flight. For non aviation folks the statistic that most impresses is the 0-140MPH in about 1/4 mile but unlike a car, once you hit 140MPH the fun is only beginning and
a quick yank on the stick gets you over 1000 of vertical climb.

Or, this is an inverted low pass with smoke on. 200MPH at about 20', pull up a bit, roll inverted, then just set the far end of the runway on the upper wing and fly down the runway. This was shot by Francois Bougie sitting in the rear seat of a Nanchang with Dan Fortin at the controls. Took a few attempts to get that pic!

For videos check out the 'videos' link on the left hand side. There are 15 or 20 youtube and airshow buzz videos which I've linked in.

When you fly a Pitts you get lots of comments .. some good some bad. Some of my favoriates follow:

This was my first take-off clearance on my first single seat pitts solo .. I swear.
ATC: Zulu Romeo Oscar cleared immediate take-off runway 22 and the aerobatic box. Anything you want to do approved

or this one which is one of hundreds of similar requests:

ATC: Zulu Romeo Oscar got time for a quick pass on the tower?
ZRO: Sure what did you have in mind
ATC: Zulu Romeo Oscar immediate right turn to 090. Desend to and maintain 100ft Smoke please if you have it. Keep the speed up.

or while practicing up high one day in controlled airspace:

ATC: Zulu Romeo Oscar traffic your 9:00, 737. Descend/maintain 3000
ZRO: ZRO roger that, vertical descent ok with you?
ATC: Your discretion.
<smoke on push straight down ....>
737:  Got the traffic he's ... wow ... no conflict.

As you can see, Aviat really knows how to paint an aicraft. She literally gleams and has done for over 20 years. A littlle whipe off with some lemmon Pledge is all that is ever used to clean her.

A shiny red biplane attracts a lot of attention. Wherever I go the kids all want to sit in her. Its hard to accomodate all the requests but I do my best when I can. This was I believe shot at a fly-in and I found this picture on wikipedia on the Pitts page, just one of many pictures taken that are out there on the www.

Here is the factory 3 view of an S-1T and some stats. The S-1T is quite a bit different that the S-1S. The biggest difference is the larger engine 200HP v.s. 180HP, the constant speed prop, different wings, wider fuse, an extra bay in the fuse and extra bracing in the fuse. It is also a Certified aircraft although many are now experimental with I believe only about 20 of the original 75 still in the Certified category.

GZRO at work. She and S-2B C-GKPS (piloted by Andrew Boyd: http://www.pittspecials.com/ ) perform an overflight at a funeral for a young aviation enthusiast at the request of his parents.

Following is a very pretty picture shot by Francois Bougie ( http://www.bizzart.com/ ) sitting in the back seat of a georgeous red Nanchung CJ6A piloted by Dan Fortin ( Fougapilot@hotmail.com ).

Not much inside, its a tight fit but you don't really notice it when flying. Unlike many single seat pits GZRO has an electricical system. She has a Garmin transponder and an Apollo SL-30 radio. I currently use a Telex 50D noise cancelling headset to keep the roar of the engine down to a reasonable level. Two original analog instruments have been replaced by STC'd Electronics International digital units. The tachometer (upper right) is now an E.I. R-1 and the oil pressure/temp gauge is an E.I OPT-1 both work quite well but the oil temp spikes when I transmit (still debugging this).

GZRO came with a factory installed smoke system. It consists of a 5 gallon wing tank with flop tube which is filled with NOCO BL050HT mineral oil.

The oil is pumped by a Rowe fuel pump located on the left hand side of the fuel tank at the C of G. A small switch on the instrument panel under the ignition key turns the smoke pump on and off. In addition, to stop the fluid from syphoning out of the tank, there is an electrically activated solenoid valve, also controlled by the pump on/off switch. The solenoid when open, allows the fluid to be pumped to a firewall T fitting, where it then goes into each exhaust stack via a small injector nozzle.

It all works rather well and burns a gallon and a half of smoke fluid per minute. You do get a bit of smoke smell, especially in knife edge flight.
If you have never seen your smoke trail behind you as a shadow on the ground, or followed it down after a hammerhead you have missed one of hte great aerobatic experiences!

Here is what it looks like from the ground.

And a little closer up, picture curtosy of Alan Graves shot at Rockliffe at the Jaguar owners club.

I recently had the lower wings rebuilt/recovered by Corport Aircraft Restorations of Oshawa.
http://www.aircraftrestoration.ca/index.html

They fixed the wedge blocks and some other glue joints that needed repair. Changed the drag
anti drag wires which were chafing on each other, put new root attach fittings, and then
recovered in Ceconite with Nitrate/Butrate and lots of wet sanding and polishing. The results
are first class and they will be restoring the top wing and fuse over the next two winters.
Here is the bottom right wing after the last Juneau white Butrate coat.

Here is a little section for those of you thinking of purchasing a Pitts or other aerobatic plane.
GZRO typically is down for 1-2 months a year, usually January and February for a very
detailed annual inspection.

Engine was majored at 650hrs due to metal in oil screen. Turned out the cam shaft was
going. Here is some of the metal that came out of the upper screen at different oil
changes and you can see where it came from (the tappet faces).

Muffler has been on and off more times that the light switch in the hanger .. it cracks
pretty frequently near the joints and you have to keep a very close eye on it.

Lower wings came off after 850hrs for a complete internal inspection and recover.
Small crack was discovered in one of the anti-drag wire wedge blocs and a lot of the
rib lacing for the #3 and #4 ribs was starting to go. Here is what it looked like:

All this is to say its not cheap owning one of these planes and you have to be
prepared to be working on it many hours a year.

If you don't pay attention to little details you can get bitten. I had a particularly
nasty surprise when my left aileron spade (the boost device that lightens the
aileron load broke on me). This required a rather quick emergency landing
and a change of underwear ;)

Fuel tank has a tendency to crack where the fuel drain attach fitting goes, at bottom most part of the tank, facing the pilot, right above the radio stack! Anyway about every 350hrs or so these tanks tend to develop a small crack. I've replaced the tank twice now, once when it was bought and again last season (2007). These things are not cheap including shipping its nearly $1000 for a new tank. So, I've had the old tank repaired by an aircraft structural specialist ,M.R. Airframe in Arnprior, Ontario ( www.mrairframe.ca  ). As you can seee the weld is superb, better than the original from Aviat. Also note the crack was welded first, then a patch applied over the crack and welded to the face. This repaired tank will be kept as a backup for when the new one eventually fails and will save me 4 months of down time waiting for a new tank from Aviat.