My dad's "Woody's Pusher"

[paco ritter]

Back in my teenage youth,(late 60's) my dad (Charles Ritter)and a couple of his buddies(Sam Rice and Steve Ward) built a home built version of a Curtiss Wright Jr design known as a Woody's Pusher. I remember most of my teenage years, I was into cars, motorcycles, and young ladies (maybe not exactly in that order, but close) and my dad had his shop filled with the building of the fuselage framework, while the wings were being built over at Sam's shop. What I remember mostly about it is that it was always in my way ever time I needed to work on one of my cars in Dad's shop. Sometime later in the mid 70's after the plane was finished, Steve became involved in the making of "Damfino" as it was called, and did all the cosmetic work. Steve is an engineer and really was particular about the way things were done on the plane. He did excellent work. I did fly a few times in the Damfino, but my interest were far from this open cockpit pusher. Later, they sold the plane to my Uncle in East Texas. Upon his death in a car accident, his widow sold it to a fellow in the Houston area. It left there and is in Ohio now, but I hear it is for sale again. I have only a few pictures of my Dad's pride and joy. He loved that ole airplane and regretted every day that he sold it. Just like the airplane, my dad's gone now, too, but I often think of him and remember the way he would perk up whenever he would talk about the "Woody Pusher", as he called it. Here's a few shots of the "Damfino"....