The Fisher R-80 Tiger Moth is a replica of the de Havilland built Tiger Moth, a 1930’s era bi-plane used as a training aircraft. The Fisher Tiger Moth kit plane was designed by Fisher Flying Products in 1994 to be 80% of the size of the de Havilland Tiger Moth, hence the designation R-80. The airplane is built from wood with the fuselage, wings, and tail covered with aircraft fabric. The airplane does not come equipped with flaps; just like the original de Havilland Tiger Moth did not. The airplane was designed to house one of two engines, the Geo Tracker engine or the Norton AE 100R engine, though the Museum’s Tiger Moth was built with a Jabiru 3300 flat six air cooled engine. In the year 2000 Fisher Aircraft also designed a welded steel tube fuselage version of the wood built R-80 Tiger Moth that was designated the RS-80. Fisher Aircraft estimates that approximately 700 hours are needed to build the R-80 Tiger Moth. At last count, more than 24 Tiger Moth’s had been built and are flying around the world.
The Museum’s Fisher R-80 Tiger Moth was built by Ervin Luke of Washington State. Ervin purchased the Tiger Moth kit in 2002 and spent approximately 2,400 hours building the aircraft. Ervin Luke finished the aircraft in the summer of 2008, taking him 6 1/2 years to complete the airplane. Once the aircraft was built, Ervin flew the airplane a total of 86 hours before donating the airplane to the Tillamook Air Museum in late 2016.