There doesn’t seem to be a great number of Stits Flut-R-Bugs flitting about the skies today, but one did join the field of flying machines this past Labor Day at the Antique Airplane Association fly-in at Blakesburg, Iowa.
At age 85, owner/builder John Banes of Fairfax, Iowa, no longer flies, so his private pilot/homebuilder son, “JR” Banes of Toddville, Iowa, was flying the Flut-R-Bug. Father and son were both wiping dew from the Flut-R-Bug’s wings one morning, and shared a little bit about N5479Y.
“It was an attractive design to me,” says John, a longstanding member of AAA and East Central Iowa’s EAA Chapter 33, “and it looked inexpensive to build. There were a few of them flying a long time ago, and there was one within 50 miles of us. I saw that one before I started working on mine. It took me about a year in my spare time to finish the airplane, and I got it licensed in August 1997.”
Bit of History
Ray Stits of Riverside, California, designed and built many small airplanes after World War II, including the Playboy, Playmate, and Sky-Coupe. In 1955, he designed the Flut-R-Bug.
It was originally a single-place, mid-wing, nosewheel airplane and several variants followed. The first Flut-R-Bug was the Model SA-5A, followed by the SA-5B. Stits also designed tandem versions (SA-6A and SA-6B) and then the two-place, side-by-side SA-6C. The Flut-R-Bug was typically powered by either a small Continental or Lycoming engine.
While some Flut-R-Bugs were purely plans built, like John’s, there was also a kit version. A brochure advertising the new two-place version described a “pre-fabricated aircraft construction kit” with all welding completed, and listed features including longer range, a roomier cockpit, larger tail assembly, cleaner lines, and readily detachable wings for convenient storage at home.
A Stits Aircraft company ad from January 1960 touted the Flut-R-Bug’s virtues: “Build and Fly Your Own High Performance Sport Plane — Beat the high cost of flying. Join the hundreds of other ‘Homebuilders.’ … Two place Flut-R-Bug, tandem, mid-wing, trigear. Very short takeoff and landing, high altitude fields. Wings easily removed for towing.”
Various mods have been made to Flut-R-Bugs through the years. Some Flut-R-Bugs are open cockpit, others have a canopy enclosure.
Some have a fully enclosed cowl, and others simply utilize Cub-style eyebrows over the exposed cylinders. And there was at least one conversion of the airframe from a nosewheel to a tailwheel configuration.
Buiding the ‘Bug
John adopted a hands-on approach to aviation years ago, and was well-acquainted with aircraft restoration by the time he started working on his Flut-R-Bug.
Though he earned his commercial pilot certificate early on, he smiles and elaborates, “I always flew just for the enjoyment of it, and I had maybe 1,200 hours flying time when I started the Flut-R-Bug. I rebuilt several airplanes, including a Tri-Pacer, Clipper, J-2 Cub, and a Gullwing Stinson. It was fun. I’d rebuild one and fly it a while, then I’d sell it and get another one started in my spare time — I held a fulltime job during those years.”
