The "Sterling"

JEFF STERLING'S STOL "STERLING"

Revised May 4, 2000

This is Jeff and Debby Sterling's highly-modified Piper Pacer.

It has a hot-rod engine, rough terrain landing gear, highly-custom interior and panel, wing vortex generators, droop tips, amphib floats, and a host of other modifications. Jeff and Debby are EAAers to the max. Jeff is a metalworking artist, and builds parts and assemblies for many homebuilders (Sterling Fabrication; (541)826-2294, fax 826-3443; White City, OR). His handiwork was noted in a recent Sport Aviation article on Tyler Feldman's award-winning RV featured on the cover of the magazine. Of course, his most notable work is yet to be publicized (the various parts he's made for my M-19 "Flying Squirrel" ;o)

If you can't lift this airplane using the STOL wing, you certainly can lift it with pure horsepower. It's got a few horses under the cowling, as you can tell by the prop. That's Jeff in the orange shirt in the background.

Here is the landing gear. Those are big weenies.

Aileron spades. Jeff says he copied these from the Aviat Husky.

Here is a shot of the vortex generators on the wing of the Sterling.

Another shot of the vortex generators.

Another shot of the vortex generators, including the fence near the wingtip. Yep, he carried the VGs right over the landing light cover.

A look at the tail of the Sterling. That's a fairly beefy tailwheel, with good ground clearance.

Here's a look at the interior. It is really nicely upholstered, and has lots of goodies. Jeff makes the cast/polished aluminum control wheel grips in his shop.

A look at one of the doors, "observer style" windows for a good look at that gravel wash in the river that this plane is good at getting into and out of.

Click here to see the Sterling's amphib floats and water photos

Return to Oscar Zuniga's Main Page