AT-6D "Texan" Painting page 3

Aircraft Owner and Pilot Warning:

 The Horror of Leo Gilbride and Dreamland Aviation

Here it is, October, 2002 and the end of this paint job is finally in sight, maybe.  It has been a long road that was supposed to take 6 to 8 weeks but has taken almost 9 months since painting began. Six months of limited flying before that as I tried to find a painter interested in doing the job.  15 month long road so far....

Unfortunately, I have been extremely disappointed (to put it nicely and keep the website rated "G") with my painter, Leo Gilbride and his business Dreamland Aviation in Caldwell Idaho.  Leo decided last fall that since he loved his hobby of airplane painting so much, and since he was pretty good at it,  he would start doing that as his profession.  My paint job was going to be his first "war-bird" job and was a bargain struck between the two of us where Leo would give me a great paint job for a good price and my plane would be his flying billboard.  It would be done by early May, for the Bellingham Fly-in, for EAA Arlington, for sometime in the summer,....  You get the picture.  Between myself and JR, we already had several jobs lined up for Leo if he could perform satisfactorily on quality and timeliness.  And I made it very clear to Leo that while quality was the obvious critical element, timeliness was just as important. Unfortunately, Leo found transitioning from having airplane painting as a hobby, to doing it professionally, distasteful and so not only did he take forever, his quality greatly deteriorated as things progressed and he got bored.  The underside of my left wing is beautiful with only a few discrepancies, it was the first part he did after the base coat.  The rest of the airplane is a decent 30 foot paint job, i.e. don't get any closer than 30 feet and it looks OK.  After six months of putting up with his painfully slow progress and when he had about a weeks worth of work to finish up, he told me that when I made final payment ("because I need to pay the rent") he would consider finishing the job and maybe even fix some of my discrepancies ("although most are just going to be that way").  I felt I had to pull the plane from his shop when he went on another 10 day vacation the next day (what happened to needing to pay the rent?).  Leo has been fully uncooperative in settling this between the two of us so it looks like it will have to be settled in court.

Just so you don't think Leo is just being a jerk to me, not only did he stiff JR (my mechanic and Leo's former director of maintenance for his Leo's 135 operation) for about $8,100, he has also shut down a small paint booth that was being operated by the local EAA folks that have teamed up to build some Kit-Foxes at Caldwell.  He thought they wouldn't figure out it was him so Leo was a little surprised when he received a chilly reception to his offer to do the paint work for their Kit-Foxes, now that they didn't have a paint booth, for a good price.  Funny thing is that the EAA paint booth was shut down due to inadequate fire suppression while Leo's paint shop does not have any better fire suppression.  It helps to have the local Fire Chief as a friend I guess.

There are some good people at Caldwell Airport, unfortunately, the harboring of a few jerks is giving the airport a well deserved bad reputation amongst the honest airplane folks.  I've had several people tell me "Oh yeah, Leo's a lying snake and Caldwell airport is a screwed up place, that's why I avoid the place if I can."  I just love the clarity of hind-sight....

Page 1 , Page 2 , Page 4 ,  Page 5 , Page 6

Tech order photo of gun mount	close up of backing plate