…And Hunkering Down For Winter

Ken Cassens, a mechanic and pilot who had worked at the Aerodrome for 11 years and was building a replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, was one of the workers who was fired. Cassens said he was not given any reason for his dismissal. “The board hasn’t done anything except create problems,” he said. “They want to micromanage the staff. They would question everything we did, and it was never good enough.” A part-time worker who had been helping Cassens also was let go, and another staffer was laid off for the winter, Cassens told AVweb last week. The Spirit of St. Louis project, Kick said, will continue to be worked on as time permits. “The show aircraft have to take priority,” he said. “But the Spirit of St. Louis is about 85 percent complete, and our hope is that it could be finished by the end of ’04.”