Sweet smell of new

Although the outside of the aircraft looked brand new, attendees were left wanting more when they realized the inside held only one small clue to the aircraft’s new interior design: a single freshly reupholstered seat with no headrest surrounded by bare aluminum and fiberglass. More than one member joked that the Cessna “would make a great jump plane,” as they took in its naked interior.

With its one good seat, the 182 departed Buckeye and headed to Arturo’s Aircraft Interiors at Kingman Municipal Airport in northeast Arizona to receive the rest of its interior.

Arturo Venegas got his start in aircraft interiors with Piper Aircraft and eventually started Arturo’s Aircraft Interiors in 1990, specializing in aircraft interior restoration, design, and installation.

Venegas was excited about our sweepstakes project and even went so far as to pick up all the interior pieces of the aircraft from the paint shop in Douglas, Arizona, a nearly seven-hour drive one way, to get started right away.

Designing an aircraft interior from the aluminum-up allows the aircraft owner or, in our case, restoration manager, to get their creative juices flowing to bring what they’ve envisioned for the interior to life.

The first step was to decide on a seat design. We opted for a classic tan leather seat with center seat and seatback cloth inserts. With our basic design in mind, Venegas shipped a large package complete with every available leather, cloth, and carpet sample available in our budget. Choosing complimentary tans for the seat, headliner, and carpet took a bit of back and forth before a decision could be made, but there was one clear-cut winner when choosing the cloth for the seat inserts: a tweed-style fabric that featured a near perfect match to the turquoise of the aircraft livery. We also opted to have the headrests embroidered with the AOPA Sweepstakes logo in a matching turquoise.

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