SIGNATURE RESTORATIONS  

Midwest Texans was primarily a maintenance organization that was the successor company to Paul Redlich’s successful Stars and Bars Aircraft. When Redlich went to work in a museum the company was taken over by one of his mechanics. “When he got in over his head, he came to me asking if I would take over the company. I did so with the thought it would give a jump-start to my restoration plans. We merged my three employees with his two employees and began to hire others. Within about six months we had about a dozen on staff. The first six months we did a lot of annual inspections, but ultimately my real goal was to be primarily a restoration company. While we don’t mind taking on some maintenance, we only want to work for clients who want the best of maintenance and who are not willing to overlook the issues that we are finding in these aircraft.” In other words, don’t expect to bring your T-6 to Midwest Texans for a cheap annual, at least the first time around. “Because all we do is T-6s, we are going to find things that other shops won’t or will overlook.”

Since Savage’s heart is in the restoration, you can expect that most of his emphasis and investment has been in that arena. Shortly after purchasing Midwest Texans, he decided that the company would build a series of extremely detailed aircraft. He reasoned that by implementing a production line environment into his shop, he would be able to reduce the cost of these aircraft and still turn out the highest quality product. (continue to page 2 >>)