THIS PAST NOVEMBER AT THE fall VAA board of directors meeting, we voted to move forward with the construction of a youth education building. The mission is to introduce youths to vintage aviation to further their understanding of the role that these airplanes play in general and sport aviation from both a mechanical and historical perspective. As you read this, we are working on the building design and construction basics with the goal of having a ground-breaking ceremony at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023 followed by the start of the youth programs at the beginning of AirVenture 2024. The new youth building will be located adjacent to and just south of Vintage Village.
To understand just how we got to this point, we need to take a look back. In 2016, then VAA Director Dave Clark (you may remember Dave previously served as VAA vice president) came to me with a proposal to start an aviation youth education program in the Vintage area. I was immediately on board with his proposal. Dave was highly qualified to launch this program. He is a retired pharmacist who was at that time and still is a professor in the aviation maintenance technician degree program at Vincennes University in Vincennes, Indiana. To get started, we dedicated some square footage in the Vintage Hangar for Dave to use for his youth program, and he brought in the needed tools (which he stored in my office!) from his personal tool collection. Dave, who is a huge promoter of opportunities for youths, brought in Will Cansler as his assistant. At that time, Will was a student in Dave’s class at Vincennes University. Currently, Will volunteers in VAA security at AirVenture. An Eagle Scout, he is described as a “heck of a good kid” by VAA Security Chair Dave Beltz.
It was not long before Dave’s popular youth program outgrew the allotted area in the Vintage Hangar, so we leased a tent and placed it in the grassy area just south of the hangar. With each subsequent year we leased a larger tent until we ran out of square footage in the area. The tent was beginning to encroach on the Sheet Metal Shaping shop operated by Dave and Maxwell Wenglarz! It soon became obvious that a dedicated building was needed for Dave Clark’s popular youth education program, and we began the initial planning with building construction approval. Having accomplished that, we are moving forward while being acutely aware of the impact that the winter weather in Oshkosh might have on our project.
January/February 2023
STAFF
Publisher: Jack J Pelton, EAA CEO and Chairman of the Board
Vice President of Publications, Marketing, Membership, and Retail: Jim Busha / jbusha@eaa org
Senior Copy Editor: Colleen Walsh
Copy Editors: Tom Breuer, Jennifer Knaack
Proofreader: Tara Bann
Print Production Team Lead: Marie Rayome-Gill
Advertising Manager: Sue Anderson / sanderson@eaa.org
Mailing Address: VAA, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903
Website: EAAVintage org
Email: vintageaircraft@eaa org
Phone: 800-564-6322
Visit EAAVintage org for the latest in information and news
Current EAA members may join the Vintage Aircraft Association and receive Vintage Airplane magazine for an additional $45/year
EAA membership, Vintage Airplane magazine, and one-year membership in the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association are available for $55 per year (Sport Aviation magazine not included). (Add $7 for International Postage.)
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EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
www EAA org/AirVenture 888-322-4636
In 2016, then VAA Director Dave Clark … came to me with a proposal to start an aviation youth education program in the Vintage area. I was immediately on board with his proposal.
Nominate your favorite vintage aviator for the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame. A great honor could be bestowed upon that man or woman working next to you on your airplane, sitting next to you in the chapter meeting, or walking next to you at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. Think about the people in your circle of aviation friends: the mechanic, historian, photographer, or pilot who has shared innumerable tips with you and with many others. They could be the next VAA Hall of Fame inductee — but only if they are nominated.
The person you nominate can be a citizen of any country and may be living or deceased; his or her involvement in vintage aviation must have occurred between 1950 and
the present day. His or her contribution can be in the areas of flying, design, mechanical or aerodynamic developments, administration, writing, some other vital and relevant field, or any combination of fields that support aviation. The person you nominate must be or have been a member of the Vintage Aircraft Association or the Antique/Classic Division of EAA, and preference is given to those whose actions have contributed to the VAA in some way, perhaps as a volunteer, a restorer who shares his expertise with others, a writer, a photographer, or a pilot sharing stories, preserving aviation history, and encouraging new pilots and enthusiasts.
To nominate someone is easy. It just takes a little time and a little reminiscing on your part.
• Think of a person; think of his or her contributions to vintage aviation.
• Write those contributions in the various categories of the nomination form.
• Write a simple letter highlighting these attributes and contributions. Make copies of newspaper or magazine articles that may substantiate your view.
• If at all possible, have another individual (or more) complete a form or write a letter about this person, confirming why the person is a good candidate for induction.
We would like to take this opportunity to mention that if you have nominated someone for the VAA Hall of Fame, nominations for the honor are kept on file for three years, after which the nomination must be resubmitted.
Mail nominating materials to: VAA Hall of Fame, c/o Amy Lemke
VAA
PO Box 3086
Oshkosh, WI 54903
Email: alemke@eaa org
Find the nomination form at EAAVintage.org, or call the VAA office for a copy (920-426-6110), or on your own sheet of paper, simply include the following information:
• Date submitted.
• Name of person nominated.
• Address and phone number of nominee.
• Email address of nominee.
• Date of birth of nominee. If deceased, date of death.
• Name and relationship of nominee’s closest living relative.
• Address and phone of nominee’s closest living relative.
• VAA and EAA number, if known. (Nominee must have been or is a VAA member.)
• Time span (dates) of the nominee’s contributions to vintage aviation. (Must be between 1950 to present day.)
• Area(s) of contributions to aviation.
• Describe the event(s) or nature of activities the nominee has undertaken in aviation to be worthy of induction into the VAA Hall of Fame.
• Describe achievements the nominee has made in other related fields in aviation.
• Has the nominee already been honored for his or her involvement in aviation and/or the contribution you are stating in this petition? If yes, please explain the nature of the honor and/or award the nominee has received.
• Any additional supporting information.
• Submitter’s address and phone number, plus email address.
• Include any supporting material with your petition.
For one week every year a temporary city of about 50,000 people is created in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on the grounds of Wittman Regional Airport. We call the temporary city EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. During this one week, EAA and our communities, including the Vintage Aircraft Association, host more than 600,000 pilots and aviation enthusiasts along with their families and friends.
As a dedicated member of the Vintage Aircraft Association, you most certainly understand the impact of the programs supported by Vintage and hosted at Vintage Village and along the Vintage flightline during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh every year. The Vintage flightline is 1.3 miles long and is annually filled with more than 1,100 magnificent vintage airplanes. At the very heart of the Vintage experience at AirVenture is Vintage Village and our flagship building, the Red Barn.
Vintage Village, and in particular the Red Barn, is a charming place at Wittman Regional Airport during AirVenture. It is a destination where friends old and new meet for those great times we are so familiar with in our close world of vintage aviation. It’s energizing and relaxing at the same time. It’s our own field of dreams!
The Vintage area is the fun place to be. There is no place like it at AirVenture. Where else could someone get such a close look at some of the most magnificent and rare vintage airplanes on Earth? That is just astounding when you think about it. It is on the Vintage flightline where you can admire the one and only remaining lowwing Stinson Tri-Motor, the only two restored and flying Howard 500s, and one of the few airworthy Stinson SR-5s in existence. And then there is the “fun and affordable” aircraft display, not only in front of the Red Barn but along the entire Vintage flightline. Fun and affordable says it all. That’s where you can get the greatest “bang for your buck” in our world of vintage airplanes!
For us to continue to support this wonderful place, we ask you to assist us with a financial contribution to the Friends of the Red Barn. For the Vintage Aircraft Association, this is the only major annual fundraiser and it is vital to keeping the Vintage field of dreams alive and vibrant. We cannot do it without your support.
Your personal contribution plays an indispensable and significant role in providing the best experience possible for every visitor to Vintage during AirVenture. Contribute online at EAAVintage.org. Or, you may make your check payable to the Friends of the Red Barn and mail to Friends of the Red Barn, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086.
Be a Friend of the Red Barn this year! The Vintage Aircraft Association is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), so your contribution to this fund is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Looking forward to a great AirVenture 2023!
NAILING STRIPS ARE USED to apply pressure to stressed plywood skin during the bonding process. These nailing strips go back to the beginnings of using stressed plywood skin on primary structure. The following data is pulled from the ANC-19 publication and shows some rare pictures of the manufacturing techniques used in the World War II Beechcraft AT-10 advanced multiengine trainer, of which 2,371 were manufactured between 1942 and 1944. There are very few left, mostly in museums, and none (to my knowledge) are flyable.
The aircraft was constructed mostly of wood because aluminum was going to the war effort and was in short supply.
Nailing strips were employed to hold molded plywood skin to the under structure while the glue cured. Nailing strips are made of clear soft pine cut into strips that are roughly 1/16-1/8 inch thick and 1/4-1/2 inch wide. They are expendable and are destroyed when being removed. Beechcraft and Globe both built these aircraft because they were in desperate need for training combat pilots when
WWII broke out. These two companies used a unique way to remove the nailing strips from wood structure. They first put down cotton reinforcing tape and then applied the nailing strips. When the glue cured, a worker pulled the cotton tape thus pulling off the nailing strips and nails. The following is a method used for quick removal of nailing strips from a Beech AT-10 wood wing.
In flight, aircraft can be damaged by lightning, ice, and bird strikes. During take-off and landing, run-
way FOD is a sizeable menace. Even while stationary, there’s collision damage from service vehicles and other aircraft. Whatever the culprit, damage requires the plane be pulled from service and its exterior inspected; a complicated, time-consuming process that includes a gantry system, lifting gear and a full team of technicians.
Enter “BOTS,” robotic alternatives that inspect aircraft in minutes rather than hours, freeing-up engineers for skilldriven tasks, and reducing maintenance costs. Coming off Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster where drones captured 3D images of the damage, drones today are equipped with high-def imaging systems recording features as small as 1mm. Airbus’ Advanced Inspection Drone is used in and outside hangars. Fitted with aircraft inspection software and laser-based obstacle detection sensors, it can be operated with minimal training.
Not all inspection robots fly. A system born from inspecting the stainless steel tanks used in the dairy industry also uses suction mechanisms to cling to the outside of an aircraft at any angle, including upside down. Operating on dry and wet surfaces, even fully submersible, these robots are also purposed for repair, repaint, and even routine cleaning maintenance.
As the level of sophistication advances with better sensors, greater agility, and in ever-smaller sizes the goal to automate inspection, repair and maintenance procedures is more fully integrated than you may realize.
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From the pages of what was ...
Take a quick look through history by enjoying images pulled from publications past.
BY SPARKY BARNES
JEFF THOMAS OF TEXARKANA, Texas, soaked up everything about aviation that he could when he was a little boy growing up in the Mississippi Delta farmland in Wynne, Arkansas Enthralled by the lowlevel flights of aerial applicators over neighboring fields, he pedaled his bicycle to the airport time and again just to be close to airplanes The FBO shared aviation magazines with him, and Jeff clutched them closely as he devoured their contents. Then he started building models and flying Cox-powered control-line planes, nurturing a firm conviction that one day he’d be flying the real thing. Decades later, as he was completing medical school in his late 20s, Jeff was indeed taking flying lessons, and earned his private in July 1994.
Soon thereafter, Jeff became familiar with the challenges and joys of flying a tailwheel airplane when he and a partner purchased a Cessna 140. Serendipitously, Jeff had hired anesthetist and aircraft mechanic/pilot Gary Jackson of Simms, Texas, to do that prepurchase inspection. The two became fast friends, and as Jeff’s family grew, he wanted an airplane with more seats so he could share his love of flying with them.
In 2001, Gary told Jeff about a Stinson Flying Station Wagon that was available, and Jeff was favorably impressed by the 108-3’s performance. It wasn’t long until Jeff’s first three young sons were ensconced in the comfy rear seat as the family enjoyed flying vacations. There’s no doubt that each of those boys were inoculated with a love of flying during those trips.
“I fell in love with the Stinsons back then, because they were just so nice to fly and so well mannered. They just don’t have any bad habits,” Jeff said. “As far as taildraggers go, they’re probably one of the most tame you could ever fly. As my boys grew, they were soon too big to sit three across the back seat. The airplane was relegated to occasional sightseeing flights, but was no longer capable of carrying my entire family on aviation adventures. It was for that reason that we sold it, marking the beginning of my hiatus from flying for about seven years.”
In 1947, the Stinson Flying Station Wagon was introduced as a utility version of the Model 108 Voyager. Era marketing highlighted its features and capabilities: “America’s first personal ‘cargo’ plane! … Reinforced 24-cu.-ft. cargo compartment in 2-tone plywood paneling equipped with tie-down straps. A side-loading baggage compartment offers an additional 11 cu. ft. of carrying space. Carries pilot and 600 cargo pounds, or pilot, one passenger, and 500 cargo pounds. Two rear seats can be replaced in 5 minutes’ time. Ideal ‘utility’ plane for ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and flying businessmen.”
More than 5,000 of the Stinson 108 series were manufactured. The Flying Station Wagon 108-3 is similar to the 108-2, except it features compound curves in the mahogany and maple side panels to increase the rear seat passengers’ elbow room, and the rear floorboards have added aluminum support structures. Additionally, as detailed on Type Certificate No. 767, other
differences include “larger fuel tanks, structural changes for increased gross weight, revised vertical tail surfaces, and a controllable rudder trim tab, [which replaced the] rudder bungee.”
Slotted leading edges on the wings increase airflow over the ailerons at high angles of attack, and the 1948 model’s slightly offset vertical stabilizer counteracts the torque of the six-cylinder, 165-hp Franklin. Slotted wing flaps enhance takeoff performance, and landings are dampened by the cantilever-gear’s oleo-spring shock absorbers. The 108-3 sold for $6,484 in 1948, according to aviation historian Joseph Juptner (U.S. Civil Aircraft, Vol. 8).
Proclaimed as being roomy and soundproofed, with quick takeoffs and slow landings, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. declared, “Many a middle-aged business man has told us, ‘I’m too old to learn how to fly’ — only to find himself flying on his own, soloing a Stinson, after about 10 hours’ easy flying time! That’s not hard to understand. Almost anyone who can drive a car can learn to fly the new spin-resistant Stinson, quickly, easily and safely. … It’s truly a ‘fly-anywhere’ plane ….”
Around 2010, Gary figured that Jeff had been away from flying long enough and needed to be
aloft again, so he started luring Jeff back into the saddle of a Stinson. Gary didn’t have to urge him much; Jeff was amenable to the idea, since he’d had great experiences with his previous Stinson and felt like he’d be getting back into something familiar. It took a few years until the proverbial stars and planets aligned for them to find a Flying Station Wagon that suited them. Best of all, they were already familiar with the airplane, having seen it at the annual fly-in at Dave and Marcia Mason’s Flying M Ranch at Reklaw, Texas.
Painted white with orange-and-brown trim, Marcia had owned and flown N6717M for a number of years, and in 2013, Gary and Jeff became its new caretakers. Though the Stinson was airworthy and flying, Gary, who had repaired/ restored numerous aircraft through the years, decided to do an extensive inspection of N6717M and flew it to his airstrip. At that time, Jeff made his own assessment of the airplane and said, “I told Gary, ‘Let’s make it shiny!’ Because with the airplane partially torn down, it was our chance to really redo it.”
One of the best tangible resources the two friends had for their project was a “go-by” Stinson. It all came about when one of Jeff’s patients shared a bit of intriguing information regarding a derelict Stinson. Jeff practices adult and geriatric medicine, and is also a hospitalist at a local rehabilitation hospital.
Birthday flight with my father, Ford Thomas, to visit Zachary in Sept. 2020.“I love what I do, and it’s very rewarding. It’s been really fun talking with my patients who have heard about the airplane,” Jeff said. “Word gets around in this little town, and a lot of people recognize me as being ‘that doc that did that airplane.’ Years ago, when I had my first Stinson, one of my patients told me about a Stinson 108-2 that had been sitting abandoned under a tractor shed for about 20 years, just south of Texarkana.”
The owner of the 108-2 had passed away, and his widow had kept the airplane. “One day I decided to track her down and went to take a look. The entire airplane was coated with a thick layer of dust and grime, and the wheels were halfway buried in silt and sand. I inquired if the widow would be willing to part with it, but she just wasn’t ready to let it go. About five years later, when Gary and I were starting our project, she came by and left a note in my office that she was having to move and was now willing to sell it.”
Jeff contacted her and made an offer for the forlorn vestiges of the Stinson, which she accepted. “Gary and I went out and disassembled this 108-2 and hauled it out to his place. That aircraft was indispensable in our rebuilding of our 108-3,” Jeff said. “There are differences in the 108-2 and 108-3, but there are also a lot of similarities. So any time we wondered, ‘Now how did this go?’ we just started tearing into the 108-2 to see how things were done.”
Jeff and Gary wanted the Stinson to be fairly close to original, with the most significant exception being the wings, which had been converted from fabric to aluminum covering by STC decades prior. The airframe didn’t require any welding repair, and was epoxy primed after
“After seeing the finished product, I can’t help but be very proud of what he and Gary accomplished — especially after it was awarded ‘Outstanding Stinson’ at Oshkosh last year.”
— Mary Thomas
JULY24-30
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inspection. The flight control cables were carefully inspected and replaced as necessary, and new pulleys were installed in the fuselage. The original top and bottom cowl were reused, and Gary fabricated a new boot cowl and firewall. They used the Poly Fiber covering system on the fuselage, and Jeff did a lot of the fabric work.
The Stinson fuselage, with the first coat of Poly-Brush on the fabric, was loaded onto a trailer and delivered, along with the wings and empennage, to Haley’s Body Shop in Texarkana. “My best friend, Wes Haley, runs the shop, and he’s an aviation buff who went with me on lots of trips in my first Stinson,” Jeff said. “Wes agreed to paint the airplane, and the level of expertise his body shop brought to the project gave it a finish that’s outstanding. It’s gorgeous; they custom matched the paint on the panel overlay and all the metal in the cabin to the leather upholstery.”
Jeff devoted an abundance of hands-on time to the Stinson virtually every weekend during the last three years of the six-year project, working under Gary’s mentoring supervision. New floorboards were made, and the old and fragile warped cabin ceiling was replaced with a new one constructed of thin aircraft plywood.
When it came to the finishing touches, Jeff decided to include a few aesthetic and creature-comfort type enhancements. “I did several upgrades like leather for the seats, because I wanted to add not only a nicer look on the inside, but something more durable. I installed new carpet, soundproofing materials, and trimmed out the front part of the door frames (where the grab handle is) by padding and covering them with vinyl,” Jeff said. “I also covered the aluminum window and door trim with the same leather used to cover the seats. I got pretty good at stretching leather and gluing it around metal curves to take all the wrinkles out!”
—JeffThomas
“It’s just an incredible sense of pride to take to the air in something you put together yourself. It’s just a great feeling.”
Another of Jeff’s friends owns a wood shop and helped Jeff with the wood inlay for the Stinson logo badges on the control yokes. “Then I finished the badges by applying stain and pouring epoxy-resin covering over them,” Jeff said. “And since the original glove box door didn’t match up correctly, I made a special hinge and closure for it.”
N6717M’s landing and position lights, along with the interior lighting, were changed to an LED system, with dual map lights alongside the speaker in the ceiling. “The LEDs are really nice because we’re not taxing that old generator anymore,” Jeff said. “And the map lights swivel, so they’re accessible to either the front or back passengers, and can shine clear or red, depending upon what is needed.”
Jeff also devised at least one other unique touch (which he’s still refining) to facilitate operating the flap handle. “I did not want to do anything permanent and go through the paperwork process — so I wasn’t trying to modify the aircraft,” Jeff said. “All I did was come up with clamp-type fittings that mount onto the flap lever, so basically you reach down to knee height and pull the lever back toward the seat, which depresses the flap button and then you can pull the handle. You don’t have to grope around to find that button while you’re coming in on a bumpy approach — you can keep your eyes out where they need to be, and easily control the flaps.”
Gary made the first post-restoration flight on October 19, 2019. Jeff positioned himself at the midpoint of Gary’s 2,500-foot airstrip to record the occasion for posterity. “I had the camera rolling as he started the takeoff roll, and then he literally lifted off the ground right in front of me,” Jeff said. “I just choked up; we had spent so many hours out there to make that moment happen. It was just a beautiful thing to see that Stinson take to the air and fly — it was just perfect!”
After landing, Gary moved over to the right seat and Jeff climbed into the left seat for his turn at the controls. “Everything worked great, and it was such a satisfying moment — we were beside ourselves! I joked that there should have been a parade and champagne afterwards to celebrate the occasion; it was that significant for us,” Jeff said, “Of course, everybody who completes this type of project experiences that kind of feeling. It’s just an incredible sense of pride to take to the air in something you put together yourself. It’s just a great feeling.”
That satisfied feeling of accomplishment and “making it shiny” was perhaps slightly tarnished about six months later when the 165-hp Franklin began exhibiting signs of a puzzling problem.
“It was our understanding the engine only had 100 to 120 hours since a major when we bought it, so we thought it’d be perfect — but then it sat during the years we worked on the restoration. It had good compression and ran well in flight, but it just wasn’t idling properly,” Jeff said. “It was a bit of a disappointment to have to do a top overhaul after we had the Stinson finished and flying again. We tried to chase down the problem, starting with the electrical
system, including the spark plugs and wires. We had the Bendix mags serviced and yellow tagged, and the Marvel Schebler carburetor was also serviced. Ultimately, we decided to remove the cylinders and sent them to Southern Aero in North Carolina, and they overhauled them for us. It’s been running perfect ever since; it doesn’t use or leak oil, and it sounds like a sewing machine.”
With the Franklin operating normally and the Stinson airborne again in August 2020, it was time for Gary and Jeff to make the Stinson’s inaugural voyage back to the Flying M Ranch at Reklaw that autumn, with the hopes that Marcia Mason would be able to see N6717M in all its “shiny finery.”
“As it turned out, Marcia wasn’t able to see it at that time. But I flew back to Reklaw in 2021, and she did get to see it,” Jeff said. “She was thrilled and brought to tears when she saw what we had done with her old Stinson — she couldn’t believe it. And I was really pleased to tell her that it went on to greatness by winning the Outstanding Stinson [Small Plaque] award at AirVenture in July 2021.”
Though Jeff isn’t an A&P mechanic, he’s grateful to his father for teaching him a wealth of mechanical skills, which Jeff happily and handily brought to the Stinson project. “My dad passed away in May 2021, and I see this airplane restoration as a tribute to him, because of how he raised me. I’m mechanically gifted, thanks to my dad. He taught me how to work on things when I was growing up, and I’ve rebuilt cars, I do my own carpentry, and I do my own engine work. My dad and I rebuilt a 1972 Triumph TR6, and I drove it for 10 years and still have it,” Jeff said. “One of my greatest memories is taking my dad for a flight in this Stinson on his 82nd birthday last year. I have a cherished photo of him and my son, Zachary, in front of the airplane that day. Sadly, that was his one and only flight with me in the Bluebird, and now I’m so grateful we took that photograph!”
Jeff enjoys a blend of working on airplanes and flying them, and building a kit plane is on his bucket list. “I’ve been intrigued by the Bearhawk family, but I also love aerobatics and would love to build an RV. I know I’ll build a kit; I’d enjoy doing that,” Jeff said. “That’s the thing that came out of this Stinson project — I’m so much more eager and confident to dive into a kit now, after learning more about how airplanes are made by tearing this one down and putting it back together.”
Jeff has logged around 100 hours so far in the Bluebird, a moniker he’s ascribed to the Stinson. He’s now sole owner of N6717M, having recently bought Gary’s share. Jeff’s
ATC 767
NOT ELIGIBLE TO BE FLOWN BY A SPORT PILOT.
WINGSPAN: 34 feet
LENGTH: 25 feet, 2 inches
HEIGHT: 7 feet, 6 inches
TREAD: 85 inches
EMPTY WEIGHT: 1,320 pounds
USEFUL LOAD: 1,080 pounds
GROSS WEIGHT: 2,400 pounds
ENGINE: 165-hp Franklin
FUEL: 50 gallons
OIL: 9 quarts
MAX CRUISING SPEED: 126 mph
CRUISING SPEED: 108 mph
NEVER-EXCEED SPEED: 158 mph
LANDING SPEED (WITH FLAPS): 55 mph
CLIMB AT SEA LEVEL: 580 fpm
SERVICE CEILING: 14,000 feet
CRUISING RANGE: 540 miles
BAGGAGE CAPACITY: 100 pounds
already made an itinerary of upcoming fly-ins he plans to attend, including a return to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh — last year, his fourth son, Jason, was his flying companion, and this year, his wife, Mary, and their 11-year-old daughter, Piper, will accompany him.
“I love flying the 108-3; it is extremely forgiving in my opinion, and I think it’s just really hard to botch a landing if you’re paying attention,” Jeff said. “Most landings in the Stinson are quite uneventful. It seems to like wheel landings on nice, long, paved runways, but when I have to get into shorter grass fields, I do as close to a threepoint landing as I can.”
The day may be coming soon when Jeff’s three oldest sons begin taking turns flying the Stinson and experiencing the pure happiness of piloting the Bluebird — providing they can find a way to adjust the seats a bit so they can fit their tall frames into the cabin. “My first son majored in ag business, the second in geology, and the third in biology/pre-med. Then around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic started, each of them had an epiphany where they said, ‘Dad, I
want to fly for a living!’ So now they are all professional aviators,” Jeff said. “Zachary is teaching in Fort Worth, building flight time to be eligible for hiring by the regionals, and Reagan and Connor went through flight school at the same time and were hired by their flight school to teach students. They’re so proud of what Gary and I were able to do with this airplane.”
Mary thoughtfully shared her perspective regarding the Stinson: “For several years the project consumed almost all of Jeff’s spare time, which was admittedly frustrating. But after seeing the finished product, I can’t help but be very proud of what he and Gary accomplished — especially after it was awarded ‘Outstanding Stinson’ at Oshkosh last year. And now I’m looking forward to us making lots of memories together in that beautiful airplane!”
When Jeff received the award at AirVenture 2021, he was thrilled to accept it — yet he felt strongly that Gary should also be recognized and appreciated for his work on N6717M. “So I called Amy Lemke in the Vintage Airplane Association office, and she helped me order another plaque with Gary’s name inscribed on it,” Jeff said. “I presented it to him in front of his family and friends during the Texas chapter of the Antique Airplane Association’s fly-in. Gary was shocked; he wasn’t expecting that. It was an emotional moment for both of us, and he absolutely deserved that award!”
BY CONNOR MADISON
“IT’S LIKE TRAVEL AIRS and Wacos are like Fords and Chevys The Stearman C3 is the next step up, like a Buick or Lincoln or something like that It’s a little bit fancier than the regular Travel Airs and Wacos ”
That’s what Andrew King said when asked about the Stearman C3. The airplane in question is Walter Bowe’s 1928 Stearman C3-B, N6438, painted in the striking blue-and-silver Varney Air Lines scheme. While the airplane is no doubt a 10/10 in the looks department, the factors that make this airplane special go much deeper than its fabric skin.
In 1927, Lloyd Stearman formed the Stearman Aircraft Corp. after leaving the Travel Air Manufacturing Co. His new company’s first design would be the C-series model, starting with the C1 and C2, producing just a small number of aircraft before landing on the C3-B design. This Wright J-5-powered biplane was designed for the commercial market, targeting mail services and passenger flights. Aside from the J-5-powered B model, there were more than a dozen variants of the C3 line (all with different powerplants), which totaled 179 aircraft produced.
Walter Varney’s Varney Air Lines was one of the earliest companies to provide passenger flights and mail service, originally operating around the northwest regions of the country. Varney also would be one of the first operators of Lloyd Stearman’s new C-series design. C3s flew with Varney for a handful of years in the late 1920s, before moving on to later Stearman and Boeing designs.
In 1930, Varney was one of the multiple airlines purchased by United Aircraft and Transport Corp. (Boeing’s vertically integrated aviation company). Upon the Air Mail scandal of 1934, the airlines were then split out into their own separate company, forming United Airlines. With Varney being the oldest airline, having been formed in 1926, United Airlines is therefore the oldest commercial airline in the United States.
Stearman C3 serial No. 169 left the Stearman factory in October 1928 as a Comet-powered C3-L, the only one of this variant. Registered as N6438, later on, in 1929, it was sold to Walter Varney, who owned the aircraft personally — documentation shows the aircraft never flew any mail routes with Varney. In September 1930, it was converted by Stearman to a J-5-powered C3-B and recertified as such.
Kent McMakin, who finished the restoration of N6438, has an intimate knowledge of the airplane, having studied its well-documented history extensively. His theory on why the aircraft was manufactured with the Comet and then converted to a J-5 is as follows. “As the story goes, Stearman was looking for a midrange-size engine to use on the C3 Stearmans that they could offer up possibly that was cheaper than J-5s, because they were so expensive. They
were kicking around the idea and the fact that Varney was right at Oakland and so was Comet. Well, they end up putting a Comet on that one. They flew it, and apparently it didn’t give the performance they wanted or whatever, and they decided not to produce the airplane. So right after they got done doing whatever they were going to do with that airplane, they pulled the Comet off and just put a J-5 on it.”
Varney owned the airplane until 1932 when he sold it to Hargrove Air Service. Much like the later Model 75 Stearmans, N6438 would survive as a working aircraft in the crop-dusting business. Its best documented use was with Atwood Aviation, which owned the aircraft in the 1950s.
At this time, its Wright J-5 had been replaced with a Pratt & Whitney R-985.
Jeff Robinson
Longtime Vintage enthusiasts will recall Jeff Robinson of Blaine, Washington, and his Stearman C3-R, NC794H (now owned by Bill Allen), which was Reserve Grand Champion at Oshkosh in 1984 and graced the cover of Vintage Airplane in January 1985.
Kent recalled how Jeff came to own the C3-B. “When Jeff bought that C3-R, he had Garth Carrier in California restore it for him. While he had that one, he ended up buying the C3-B Stearman (N6438). It was in Northern California, still in sprayer configuration. It was actually flyable at the time, even as a sprayer. Jeff bought that airplane, and he took it to Garth also. And while Garth was doing parts for the C3-R, he was also duplicating smaller stuff for the B. And I think he made a new set of landing gear and gear fairings, and just all these little things that they were making. So why not make two?”
After finishing the C3-R, Garth continued work on the C3-B until he suddenly retired, leaving Jeff to find someone else to finish the restoration. Jeff decided to contact Tom Lowe, who was president of the Stearman Restorers
Kent McMakin with his Butler Blackhawk and the three Stearman C3s he’s restored.“It’s kind of a going-places airplane. It’s kind of an air-mail commercial Learjet of its day.”
— Andrew King
Association at the time. Tom referred Jeff to Kent, who had previously restored Al Kelch’s Stearman C3-B.
Kent remembered when Jeff first contacted him. “[He] calls me up, and he introduces himself, and he says, ‘I got this C3-B, and Tom Lowe referred you to me.’ Because Tom had helped me with Al’s C3-B and with information and stuff. So anyhow, I told him that I remember seeing his R at Oshkosh and how it was probably one of the nicest airplanes I’d ever seen. And Jeff says to me, he said, ‘You think you can do as good a job as Garth did?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t think I could.’ I said, ‘I think I could do a pretty good airplane for you, but I don’t think I could do the quality that Garth did.’ And I just thought, I screwed myself right there, but I was just being honest about it.
“And then a couple days later, he called me back, and he says, ‘I’d like to bring it to you.’ I said okay. So actually my girlfriend’s dad flew out to California and drove it back here to Brodhead in a rental truck. Her dad liked taking road trips and hauling airplanes. So he said, ‘Oh, I’ll go get
it.’ So he just went out and got it, and brought it back here, [and] I just started in on it.”
Kent recalled that when the aircraft got to him, Garth had done a lot of structural work for the fuselage repairs, along with making new landing gear and a gas tank. Along with Garth’s work were all of the original instruments for the aircraft. For the wings, Jeff had built the wing ribs himself.
“Jeff did a really, really nice job doing those ribs. And he sent them all out here, and they were so gorgeous,” Kent said. “I said, ‘You do such nice work. Why wouldn’t you want to do it yourself?’ But he just preferred it to be me. So I ended up having the spars routed by Bill Scheunemann up in Hartford, and he routed the spars for me. And they had actually made all new wing hardware, all new wires, all new fittings. Even though some of the original stuff was still good, they just made it all new. So I assembled the wings and then basically finished the restoration.”
While Kent was finishing the airframe, the aircraft’s Wright J-5 was overhauled by the late Jack Lanning, who was one of the go-to engine guys for J-5s at the time.
The final piece of the restoration was selecting a paint job. Due to the aircraft’s connection to Varney Air Lines and his home being located in the former Varney territories, Jeff wanted the aircraft painted in a Varney air-mail scheme. Jeff came up with the paint scheme based on some black-and-white photos, along with an artist’s color rendition of the scheme, and Kent concurred on the final colors. Upon completion of
the restoration in the summer of 2001, Jeff flew the aircraft back to his home in Washington state, where he operated it for a few years until he sold it to Greg Herrick.
Walt Bowe
N6438 would find its next caretaker after Greg Herrick in none other than vintage aircraft collector Walter Bowe. Walt recalled first seeing the aircraft when it was just out of restoration. “I remember when Kent did the airplane, I was hanging around Broadhead and thought, ‘God, it’s really a neat restoration. I love the color scheme; I like the history.’ And then Greg Herrick bought it, and I talked to Nathan Rounds and Brent Taylor, who had flown it for Greg, and they said it’s a really good flying airplane.”
The historical nature of the aircraft also drew Walt to it, he said. “I really like the early Stearman history, the Lloyd Stearman history. I think that’s neat. My mentor had a Model 4 Stearman that I flew at a young age. One of the Speedmails, but I wanted a Wright J-5 airplane. So I really like the local California history, I like the engine, and I like early Lloyd Stearman history.”
“These guys just sat back there and froze their butts off to get the mail through. It’s pretty impressive, and we just get to play it in a modern life story.”
— Walt Bowe
When it came up for sale once again, Walt consulted with Kent as to whether it was an airplane he wanted to buy. “I kept talking to Kent about it. ‘What’s wrong with it? How come no one buys it?’ And I think the reason it kind of lasted for a while in Greg’s collection was, not many people want to; they’d rather have a modern Wright motor than a J-5. But now we’ve proven the engine by flying it across the country. There’s an interest in the airplane, like, ‘Wow, they actually got it home, and it hasn’t had any problems.’ And I think I’ve let six or seven people fly it now. So it’s a nice, docile-flying airplane.”
Beyond the amazing individual history of this particular Stearman, its engine alone holds a certain amount of weight amongst vintage aircraft enthusiasts. Undoubtedly the J-5 is most noted for being the engine that Charles Lindbergh flew behind across the Atlantic. Walt mentioned that the engine alone is another factor that drew him to the airplane.
“Carlene and I bought the airplane for just the providence of getting to operate a Wright J-5,” Walt said. “I never envisioned I’d get to fly one, so the only way I was going to get to fly one was to buy one. And Andrew [King] will tell it just the same, that when you first add power off the idle on a J-5, there’s a lag, and then all of a sudden it comes up to life, and it’s like you can just picture you’re taxiing out like Lindbergh. I mean it’s just like there’s something iconic of that sound of the Wright J-5.”
When asked about the “J-5 sound,” Andrew’s assessment is that it’s the engine’s three-barrel carburetor that gives it the unique characteristics. “I think that’s the reason why, but when you open the throttle, it zooms up and down. It doesn’t rumble up and down like a 220 or basically any of the other radials. The J-5 kind of zooms up and down when you open the throttle up and close. It’s one of the neat things about “The Spirit of St. Louis” movie. They kept the sound of the Wright J-5; they didn’t dub in an AT-6 diving or anything. Almost all the sound, I think, in “The Spirit of St. Louis” movie is a Wright J-5 going over, or going past, or running, or whatever. And it’s a little bit different sound than any of the other radial engines.”
As previously mentioned, N6438 was once again flown cross-country to a new home. This time from Brodhead to Northern California by none other than the also aforementioned Andrew King, who is most likely the best link we have to a 1920s air-mail pilot. The epic cross-country journey started with a trip to Le Sueur, Minnesota, for the annual Marginal Aviation “First Ditch” fly-in. From there, the ideal route would be to take Interstate 80 through Cheyenne and Salt Lake City, but high winds were forecast, leaving Andrew to take the southern route. For the first leg, he ended up in Wichita, Kansas, which provided an opportunity to fly the airplane over the site of the original Stearman factory.
He picked up the story here. “Before I left on this trip, I contacted the museum in Wichita to find out where the factory was in 1928, because I think it wasn’t long after that they moved it to where they built the PTs. But in ’28, it was in a small building on the north side of Wichita. So I researched, and I went on Google Earth, and I found this spot so I could recognize it. I printed out a print [from] Google Earth, where this clump of trees is here and this four-lane road is here, so I could figure out. Because the building’s no longer there, but I wanted to go over the spot where the airplane was built in 1928, just because it’s cool. So sure enough I did that. It’s just outside the controlled airspace for the big Wichita airport. But that was pretty cool, flying over the factory.”
After gassing up in Wichita, he continued on to Pampa, Texas, arriving just before dark. His friend Jim Cirone found him a hangar for the night, and the next morning, he set out for Winslow, Arizona, with his first stop being Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
Andrew said, “The interesting thing about the Santa Rosa Airport is, the east-west runway at Santa Rosa was built on the roadbed of old Route 66. If you look on Google Earth, you can see the old roadbed coming up right up to the end of the runway, and then there’s a big, modern paved runway, and then right off the other end it looks
like a dirt road, but it’s all Route 66, and that leads down into the town of Santa Rosa. So it’s kind of cool. I basically landed on old Route 66.”
Heading west out of Santa Rosa, Andrew flew over the Sandia Mountains, right next to Albuquerque. He speaks fondly of the views there. “Oh my God, it’s spectacular. My favorite places to fly in America are over New Mexico and Arizona. Love the brown colors and the desert and the mountains and stuff.”
Despite the beauty, he was well aware of how dangerous the terrain would be if he had a problem. “There was quite a lot of the trip where you think, ‘Man, I’ve got a 94-yearold engine, and if anything happens here, it’s going to be bad.’ But the engine ran like a top the whole way.”
It’s worth mentioning that this was N6438’s third cross-country trip on its J-5 engine. The previous two were Jeff Robinson’s flight from Wisconsin to Washington, and then Nathan and Brent flying it from Washington to Minnesota. On all three trips, the engine performed flawlessly with no issues.
On the New Mexico leg, Andrew crossed over some of the old airways arrows, having researched their locations beforehand. “I enjoyed doing that. So I did that, and they actually have a museum at Grants (New Mexico) that’s kind of cool that has one of the old arrows that they relocated to the airport and one of the tower’s generator shacks and all that kind of stuff. [I’ve] stopped at Grants before. It’s a nice place.”
Andrew’s route then took him to Winslow, Arizona, and over the Winslow Meteor Crater, with an overnight stop in Kingman, Arizona. The next day, he followed I-40 past Edwards Air Force Base to Sacramento Valley, with a stop in Bakersfield, then on to Walt’s later that afternoon.
Reflecting on the multiday, 2,430-mile trip, Andrew said, “The airplane itself performed great. It flies good. It’s not a play-around airplane like my Travel Air, or a straight-wing Waco or something like that. It doesn’t really feel like you want to do loops and rolls with it. I’m sure they did back in the day, but it’s kind of a going-places airplane. It’s kind of an air-mail commercial Learjet of its day. You point the nose where you want to go; it’s fairly stable. It’s not heavy on the controls, it’s not light on the controls, but it flies pretty good.”
It comes as no surprise that flying like an air-mail pilot is one of Andrew’s primary motivations. “Always, since I was a kid, it’s been one of my motivations in the flying that I’ve chosen to do, because I’ve always read a lot of books, and I’ve always read air-mail stories and what it was like, and I wanted to know firsthand,” he said. “When I read a book now, and I read something written by an air-mail pilot or
about an air-mail pilot, and they talk about the endless stretches of the desert or whatever from a biplane, I know what that feels like. I know what it’s like when there’s snow on the ground, and you’re in an open cockpit, and there’s no way to be warm enough, and stuff like that. You see thunderstorms up ahead when you’re flying, again, out west, and there’s not many options. I know a lot of the logistics of being an airmail pilot, and that’s always been one of my motivations. That trip was another addition to that body of experience of knowing what it was like for those guys back then.”
When Walt was asked if he thinks about the air-mail pilots who flew Stearmans like his C3, he said, “Oh God, I can’t imagine. I think about the pictures of Andrew flying it across, and he would go and find the beacon locations where they have arrows, concrete arrows on the ground to show the direction of the next airway beacon. And you think about like, in the dark, in the snow, miserable cold, had to go, and I mean I guess they had faith in the engine at that time, right? Because it was brand-new equipment. But yeah, it’s like when I used to fly the Speedmail of Bud’s, I was thinking, God, these guys just sat back there and froze their butts off to get the mail through. It’s pretty impressive and we just get to play it in a modern life story.”
It’s thanks to owners like Walt Bowe, Greg Herrick, and Jeff Robinson — and the craftsmen like Kent McMakin, Garth Carrier, and Jack Lanning — for saving this piece of history. With their foresight and craftsmanship, many have had the chance for a firsthand look into what the earliest commercial pilots operated and endured. It’s truly amazing to think that in just a short time, N6438 will still be operating 100 years after it first flew.
BY SPARKY BARNES
MARK HOLMQUIST OF SUWANEE, Georgia, has a penchant for originality, particularly when it comes to vintage aircraft. He was a general aviation pilot before he was hired by Delta Air Lines in the 1970s, and continued flying light airplanes during his career. Back in 2001, a friend called him and said, “Do we want to own a Staggerwing?” Naturally, Mark knew whom he meant by “we,” and responded, “Yeah, that’d be kind of fun!”
That, unbeknownst at the time, was the genesis of Mark and Dee Dee Holmquist’s quest to preserve a bit of winged history that rolled out of the Beechcraft factory at Wichita in April 1939. The first few owners of NC19493 (serial No. 263) were based in Texas — including the Plymouth Oil Co. at Sinton. Later on it was owned by Willis S. Young of Shreveport, Louisiana, who sold it to Neil Cargile Jr. of Nashville, Tennessee, in 1948. By 1954, the D17S had flown to Indiana, and then in 1970 it landed in the hands of Lt. Col. Jim Delaney of Tennessee.
“Jim called it the ‘Bug Smasher,’ and he had owned it and loved it for more than 30 years. I went to his place at Fall Creek Field Airpark, near Nashville, and worked out a deal with Jim to buy it. I had tailwheel experience, but not recently, so I bought a Marquart Charger to get current,” Mark recalled. “I then flew the Staggerwing for 13 years. It had been re-covered and painted with white Ditzler Durethane in 1993, so it was reaching its age and I was nearing the end of my airline career. So in 2013, Tom Westfall and I flew it from Beech Party in Tullahoma, Tennessee, to Holley Mountain Airpark, Arkansas (2A2). That’s where Tom and his wife, Sarah, have their restoration business, Westfall Aviation.”
“I knew I wanted this Staggerwing to be just like the way it was when they flew it back in 1939, so we decided to get it as close to original as we possibly could.”
— Mark Holmquist
As they commenced with fabric removal, they became irresistibly intrigued by the original components they discovered. “I’d say 85 percent of the metal panels are original, and a lot of them still had the serial number and inspector’s number stamped on them. One panel on the pilot’s side had been cut to have a power plug inserted, so I made a new panel for that,” Tom said, “and the seat frames and the hammock seat were original.”
The discovery of those factory numbers revealed another item of interest: “NC19494 (construction No. 264) was one of the Texaco airplanes, and we have stampings on several of our parts where the third digit of ‘C/N 264’ is stamped over with a 3,” Mark said. “Maybe they weren’t quite ready for those parts on the Texaco ship, and needed them for ours instead.”
As they continued the teardown, NC19493 revealed more hidden secrets they deemed worthy of preserving, such as dates and notes on the wood stringer joiners, and even original blue overspray. One amazing artifact they discovered was an earth inductor compass that had been with the airplane since it was new.
“That compass has penciled notes on it from the factory, and it still works with its original 12-volt inverter up in the gear well,” Mark said. “By then, I knew I wanted this Staggerwing to be like the way it was when they flew it back in 1939, so we decided to get it as close to original as we possibly could.”
Tom and Mark determined that the panel and most of the instruments were original — although the instruments had been incorrectly refaced with “Beechcraft” in prior years, so they had the correct “Pioneer” faces put back on them.
With what Tom describes as his attention to “geeky details,” he deftly met the challenge of blending authentic appearance with modern functionality. Hence, a facade of authentic RCA radio panels disguises a JPI EDM 830, Trig radio and transponder, ADS-B, and Garmin GDL 50 for a 796. He also concealed external antennas by mounting a rubber “drain tube” on them.
Perhaps the most surprising Staggerwing secret was, strangely enough, a coffee can. When Tom stripped away the fabric underneath the headliner above the pilot’s head, he found a Maxwell House coffee can. “I thought, ‘What in the heck is this?’ Well, it had a speaker cone in it, and we dated it back to 1938. So we think it was
installed at the factory as a speaker. Since it had been in there for 80-some years, we put it right back in the same spot.”
When the Holmquist-Westfall restoration team delved into the trove of Staggerwing records at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, Tennessee, they found the original build sheet and the test pilot’s report for serial no. 263 — but not much else. So they sharpened their sleuthing skills and researched serial numbers that were built close to the same time.
It was interesting to read the test pilot’s report, compiled by pilot H.C. Rankin. The 11-item squawk sheet following serial no. 263’s first flight included: “Check landing gear motor; bad air leak at both front windows; loose radio connection; gas leak — raw gas fumes noticeable in cabin (check belly tanks); flying wires vibrate, both wings; and transmitter range of only 4 miles.”
Additionally, the FAA aircraft records revealed work performed by Southern Airmotive company in January 1941, which was pursuant to Beechcraft bulletin No. 75 to alleviate flutter problems in the early Staggerwings. Modifications to the D17S included the wings, ailerons, and flaps, and “new type curved leading edge elevator tabs were installed to retain the original rearward c.g. limits.”
The Beechcraft build sheet itemized various equipment and specified other items for NC19493. The fuselage was Consolidated Blue with a Stearman Vermilion bird stripe; the seats and ceiling were Aristocrat Blue; and the side panels were Lackawanna Leather Blue.
Though Mark really didn’t want a blue airplane, he acquiesced just to achieve the goal of authenticity — and in the end, it looked better than he first anticipated. “Some good friends of ours, Cam and Tracey Hawley, who own the ‘Antarctic’ Staggerwing D17A and a Model C-17B, had an original Berryloid color chart and made us some swatches of the Consolidated Blue and Stearman Vermilion. That gave the restoration a kick-start. Then Sarah searched and found C.C. Leathers in Canada — which used to be the Lackawanna Leather Co. — so we ordered the leather for the sidewall panels from them.”
Mark just couldn’t envision enjoying a completely blue interior, so he evoked a bit of artistic license when it came to the seats and headliner. Dee Dee cheerfully lent him a hand to select
alternate, but period-correct, fabrics. A number of Staggerwings close to serial No. 263 had Bedford Cord upholstery, and a little sleuthing located a source for that — LeBaron Bonny in Massachusetts. Then a wool headliner complementing the seats and sidewall panels was selected.
Throughout the disassembly process, Mark said they “never used one Phillips-head screw on the airplane, so everything on that airplane now is straight slot — either re-cadded original or new.”
Tom purchased all new mil-spec wire and sent it off to a company that makes wire looms for vehicles. He requested that the wires be encased in the original-style Bosch wiring looms, and then finished them with a coat of varnish.
Sarah did all the fabric covering and rib stitching on the Staggerwing. She deviated from using the original round cord
by using flat cord for the stitching (but the round cord was used for all the wire lacing). “Fabric work is an art, and you get to preserve something in history, get it in the air again, and I think that’s neat,” Sarah said. “You try to do it the best you can, because everybody looks at it. So if I don’t like it, I’ll do it over, because I want it to look perfect.”
She learned fabric work from Tom, who in turn learned it when he worked with Kenny Blalock’s Special Products Aviation at Conway, Arkansas. “We did 1,000 yards of fabric work a year, and Kenny used AirTech Coatings, which is another Arkansas company,” Tom said. “I really like working with AirTech, which I applied with a professional-grade, gravity-feed HVLP spray gun on the Staggerwing. Kenny was also a designated airworthiness representative and helped with paperwork for this airplane.”
Mark described another authentic detail that was re-created: “There’s a Beechcraft factory photo that shows fabric installed on the interior of the airframe to protect the cabin area when they painted the exterior. We found that in this airplane, so Sarah covered the inside of the airplane just like they did it in the factory.”
The hardest part of installing fabric in the interior “was just getting your body in the baggage compartment, because the airplane sits at an angle. You just have to fight gravity to put it in there!” Sarah explained.
One day, when Tom made a random fuel stop at Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, he fortuitously met Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame 2012 enshrinee Joe Fleeman. (Ironically, years ago, Joe had flown NC19493 with Jim, the previous owner.) Joe, known for his craftsmanship that yields award-winning restorations, had made and used some fine pinked-edge (about 8 pinks per inch) cotton finishing tapes on a Cub. “They were beautiful, so I asked Joe to try cutting some Ceconite tapes, and it worked great. So I sent him wide rolls of tapes to be cut down to 2-inch tapes.” In addition to the aesthetic appearance, Sarah commented that the fine pinked edges “lay down so much better than modern tapes.”
Brakes proved to be a major headache for Mark and Tom. Mark said that when he first owned the airplane, “A guy worked on my original brakes because he didn’t think they were right — unfortunately, they never worked right again! So I had
them redone by Dave Harwell at Barnstormers Workshop south of Atlanta. He removed the 172 pedals and installed Beech brake pedals — well, they weren’t great, but they kind of worked with the original Goodyear brake system,” Mark said. “So we decided to use a Cleveland system this time, and we’d have it on jacks and spin the wheels, and they’d stop. So we’d pull it out of the hangar, and Tom would get me headed down the ramp, but the pedals would go all the way to the floor and we’d have to stop it by hand. We bled the brakes for months, looking for air in the system, and couldn’t figure it out.”
Then eagle-eyed Tom spotted something in Cam and Tracey’s photo of their “Antarctic” Staggerwing. He noticed a mounting tab for the master cylinder on the back side of the pedal. That tab was in a different place on the pedals in NC19493. Upon close investigation, Tom found the serial number on the brakes and discovered they were Beechcraft AT-11 brake pedals.
“They’re totally different, but they look the same from the front,” Tom said. “So we weren’t getting enough throw because the geometry was way off. We installed a correct set of pedals we got from Cam and Tracey, and hallelujah! They worked.”
Another challenge presented itself during the first flight after restoration, when the gear got stuck going up. “It popped a circuit breaker, and we thought, ‘Huh, that’s odd!’ Fortunately, they came back down for our landing,” Mark recalled. “I bet Tom had done 200 gear retractions on jacks in the hangar, and it worked fine. So we called several people that had had a similar problem; their solution was to go to 6.50-10 tires instead of using the original Goodyear 7.50-10 size.”
Again, the quest for originality was the driving force behind the gears whirring in Tom’s mind. He found that installing a spring inside the centering rod added a little bit of pressure to keep the struts
“Fabric work is an art, and you get to preserve something in history, get it in the air again, and I think that’s neat.”
— Sarah WestfallClose-up view of the period-correct wiring.
fully extended as they come up, which keeps the wheel centered. Tim Ryan of Vintage Aerofab worked with them on that project, which was successful.
But it’s a challenge to find Goodyear 7.50-10s. “They don’t exist anymore, and the available brand will rub on the forks because the sidewall expands as the tire speeds,” Mark said. Other types of airplanes with fixed gear don’t have that problem. I happened to have two sets of serviceable 7.50-10 tires and sent one set to Wilkerson Tire. They recapped and cut the diamond treads in that set.”
NC19493 was originally equipped with three electrically fired, 1-1/2-minute parachute flares, stowed in a rack on the side of the fuselage. The flares were used to light up an airfield until landing lights became effective to illuminate the runway. “Sarah found three live phosphorus flares from 1936. They couldn’t be shipped, so I had my friend pick them up in his plane. Then I had to figure out how to take them apart to deactivate them,” Tom said. “They were sort of inert, so it was not a big deal. They each weigh about 5 pounds; the 10-foot-diameter silk parachute would hold the candle underneath it. Now we have an authentic, but inactive, flare system in this airplane.”
This beautiful blue “Bug Smasher” has a few special flourishes. The vermilion bird stripe graces the fuselage just the way it did originally — sans the pinstripe outline. “The outline was a factory option at extra cost,” Mark said, “so the reason ours isn’t outlined is because it wasn’t. Ours didn’t have a spinner, either, so we didn’t put one on.”
Another flourish is the unique style of Beechcraft logo on the tail and the cowling. It has an elegantly styled “f” and “t,” which you don’t normally see on Staggerwings. That decorative script was seen on photos that Cam and Tracey had.
“They even have a photo that shows an earlier airplane that has a diminutive Staggerwing depicted in the logo,” Mark said, “and we found photos within 25 serial numbers of ours that showed how they centered the N-numbers on the wings. They centered it with the flap installed on the wing [as opposed to centering it on the wing sans flap], so that’s why we did ours that way.”
Close-up view of one of the original factory stamps.
ATC 649
Not eligible to be flown by a sport pilot.
WINGSPAN: 32 FEET
LENGTH: 25 FEET, 11 INCHES
HEIGHT: 8 FEET
SEATS: 5
EMPTY WEIGHT: 2,540 POUNDS
USEFUL LOAD: 1,660 POUNDS
GROSS WEIGHT: 4,200 POUNDS
ENGINE: 450-HP PRATT & WHITNEY R-985
FUEL: 126 GALLONS
OIL: 6.5 GALLONS
MAX SPEED: 212 MPH
CRUISING SPEED: 202 MPH
LANDING SPEED: 55 MPH (WITH FLAPS)
CLIMB AT SEA LEVEL: 1,250 FPM
CEILING: 20,000 FEET
RANGE: 800 MILES
MAXIMUM CARGO: 161 POUNDS
Dee Dee enjoys cranking the window down and flying with it that way. She said, “It’s like the old cars my family used to drive years ago!” Those window cranks, per the blueprint, are from a Hudson Terraplane, as well as the door and trim handles. Some of those were still with the airplane, but the window handles had been changed to Chevy at some time. An online search found Hudson Terraplane window cranks on eBay, so those were procured and installed. As for the windows themselves, they purchased an original set made of laminated safety glass from Mike Stanko of Gemco Aviation. Mike also provided a wealth of information throughout the project.
When Tom started working on the fuel system, he studied the blueprint and learned that the original fuel gauge wasn’t designed to be active all the time. “You had to select a tank, and then to read its fuel level, you pushed the master button and that made the fuel indicator active. That button, per the blueprint, is an Edwards Signaling 620 common doorbell switch, and the company that makes it still exists. You can buy that switch brand new today for around $6. The blueprint calls out 1936 Chevy part numbers for the fuel gauges, and you can still buy new fuel floats and gauges for the airplane.”
Fortunately, the Pratt & Whitney R-985 that had been on the Staggerwing for nearly half its life had been recently overhauled, so it was pickled during the nearly eight-year restoration span. The firewall, however, had several holes in it, so Tom made a new firewall.
But Tom, being the self-proclaimed “geek,” didn’t just fabricate a new stainless-steel firewall. He went a step further, replicating a method he’d seen used by Beechcraft for rolled-edge metal grommets. “A friend, Randy VanWinkle, made a cone-shaped tool to do that. You make the hole a little bit smaller than it needs to be, and then you use this tool to start a flaring process around the edges of the hole. You have to do that on both sides of the firewall, so there aren’t any sharp edges.”
Aviation historian and author Joseph Juptner wrote of the D17S: “Owners were extremely proud
of it, pilots respected and adored it, the casual passenger on his first ride couldn’t believe it and those at the airport always came up to admire it” (U.S. Civil Aircraft, Vol. 7)
During Ray Johnson’s Vintage in Review session at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, Mark described NC19493’s flying characteristics: “You’ve all probably heard a Pratt &Whitney 985 start — it sounds kind of like a Harley, and with the springs in the gear, it kind of lopes along like a 1959 Cadillac! Once you get it in the air, it’s really a nicely balanced airplane to fly. [It was] advertised with a 200 mph cruise, which was faster than the fighters of the day, and a 60 mph landing speed. You can cruise at any altitude you want; [I’ve flown] at 17,500 feet. It has a supercharger so you can get pretty good performance. The 200 mph is possible if you want to pour the gas through it, but we run at 60 to 65 percent, and you get 160 mph at 20 to 21 gph.”
For Tom, one of the best things about this project was Mark and Dee Dee. “They’ve been absolutely wonderful to work with, and Mark was patient when we had other airplanes that cut in front of his,” Tom said, “and he’s kept our business going!”
From Mark’s perspective, the airplane itself is fabulous — but even more so, he said, “We’ve made lifelong friends with Tom and Sarah. Their sons, Luke and Owen, were only 5 and 3 years old in 2013 when we started the project, and by the end, Luke and Owen were even doing some of the wrench-turning.”
Dee Dee was extremely supportive of the restoration, and thoughtfully commented, “I love history, too, so I love seeing things go back the way they were in the beginning. I think the best thing was just the smile on Mark’s face when he brought it home
on Father’s Day. After 30-some years together, I know it makes him happy. So if he’s happy, I’m happy!”
There’s no doubt that every member of the entire Holmquist-Westfall restoration family team was happy when NC19493 was awarded the Gold Lindy Antique Grand Champion at AirVenture 2022.
A bittersweet word. It’s a word full of sentiment for the time that has passed while thinking ahead — eager and hopeful for the future. Each generation has its challenges and its triumphs. Some generations are disciplined, such as the baby boomers, while others, millennials, could be seen as entitled. But there is something that bridges these two generations together. Something that is woven into the DNA of those in the flying community. Those of us who have lived long enough in the community of aviation know the relationship between flying and generations. It’s the passion of looking back to continue to move forward.
“GENERATIONS” IS SUCH
Every school year, I always start off with introductions. Usually, I say way too much about my kids, my crazy dog, favorites — the normal things kids want to know about their teacher. But then, when I think they are tired of hearing all about me, I casually mention that I’m into aviation thanks to my father. I’m ready to move on, but that one kid in the back knows the secret to getting teachers off track: ask questions. So 20 minutes later, my students know the ins and outs of my aviation life.
They learn that my father bought a 1929 Taperwing Waco consisting of only paperwork, buckets of parts, and an engine before I was born. After I was born and I started to do the normal things babies do, Cream Soda, as my mother fondly named the Waco, also grew. Our house was a trilevel, and my dad was fortunate to have a workshop in the basement. That was where the blueprints and jigs for the ribs were. I remember the “puzzle pieces” of the ribs being cut, glued, and nailed. Wood floating in my bathtub as it was shaped, and worrying about the possibility of getting splitters from my bath! The wings coming together, fabric being stitched, and learning the smell of aircraft dope, which to this day prevents me from eating blue cheese due to their close proximity of smell. Neighbors wondering about this “thing” in our house at the end of the street. As time moved on, I could climb up Cream Soda myself and move the stick, but I never really understood the depth of what I had my hands on until later in life.
This first build was in Hamilton, Ohio. Lifelong friendships were created. Lifelong memories were made. Lifelong lessons were learned in scary ways. My mom, who had the aviation bug, survived a multiplane crash while I was just 10 weeks old. The realization hit her that she needed to stay on the ground, but she never wavered in telling my brother and me to do the same.
My father was in the aerospace industry, and his job took us to a little town in Illinois. Cream Soda followed, but it was only for a short time.
We moved to Indianapolis in 1994. My dad found a little airport on the outskirts of town called Brookside. Well, to me it was little, but it was always busy. Charlie was the airport CFI, who was always hangar flying. He was old to me as a 5-yearold. But the aviation community is small, and I realize 25 years later that he wasn’t old then. In fact, it wasn’t until 2021 that I learned Charlie happened to be my CFI’s CFI. Karen was the airport manager, my first acknowledgement of the role of an airport manager. An airport manager who happened to be female in the ’90s! Then there was Freckles the dog. She was black and white and a tripod from, yes, a prop accident. She would hop to us from the big hangar to our hangar, which was the old office. It was the second largest hangar. It had
an awning that someone painted “WACKO” on once we moved into the hangar. Fitting for us Waco folk.
Brookside was home. It was where we learned about Indiana sunsets, lightning bugs, and the bird that seems to be at every airport, Killdeers. Hangar parties were hangar parties. In fact, we invited my whole first grade class to the airport for rides in Cream Soda. A majority of my classmates came and rode two in the front with my dad flying. I was the ramp rat instructing my classmates on how to “stay on the black.” Later that year, my principal took the day off to fly with my dad. Yes, they barnstormed the school while all 400 students of Lantern Road Elementary happened to be outside. I beamed with pride in my best outfit that day. That was my dad and my sister of the sky.
Fly-ins were common in these memories. Shelbyville was one that still sticks out. I flew in with my dad. That was probably the first time I experienced some g’s as we arrived in a high-pitched climb. This was also where my brother, Brad, on the way home, took the controls during a flyby. He definitely learned the meaning of yank and bank that day.
Then I vividly remember the morning after the incident at Pam’s Place Airport with my parents in my bedroom. I can’t tell you anything about this airport, other than it was where angels were watching over two pilots that day. My dad was one of them. There were two vintage biplanes, and their pilots each thought they had the right of way, and they ran head-on blindly into each other. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the
multiplane accident, but part of me, us, my family, my “sister,” was in pieces.
Trials and tribulations. Years passed. My parents divorced. Our time spent with my dad was at the airport. We still had the “Wacko” hangar, full of pieces and parts, as the work to rebuild Cream Soda happened. Brad and I would ride our dirt bike and do doughnuts in the nearby field right off the grass strip. Q95’s Classic Rock would blare in the hangar. New friends were made during the rebuild. This time, however, something was different. My brother and I learned exactly what was in our hands: an era of time gone by. Finally, Cream Soda started to take shape. I was given the honor of bleeding the brakes. It was one of those few times when I was given the go ahead to climb in the back. Looking at the few instruments, I wondered what magic made it fly.
The Waco’s rollout party was a party! In typical Indiana fashion when you have a big event planned, it poured. In typical open-cockpit fashion, my dad didn’t care. Even in the pouring rain, he took Cream Soda up, louder than ever, while everyone watched from the hangar below. Everyone but me. I stood in that rain. I heard every turn, twist, and twang of the flying wires. Cream Soda was alive. My brother and I got to enjoy the aircraft in a completely different way now that we were older. It was more
The beautiful taper. A family secret: paper towels and Windex during flight debrief. Building in the living room.appreciated, more loved. We understood the importance of keeping it in the air. We understood what it meant to be caretakers of an airplane with a soul.
Years passed during which Cream Soda was enjoyed and cherished. Then came the call. It was one of those golden hour fall nights. I was headed to an after-school practice when the phone rang. My father had landed in a bean field. Cream Soda was burned to a shell.
The aircraft sat for years. Brad and I grew up. We went to college and told stories about the airplane we once had in our childhood. Eventually, my brother and I knew it would be up to us to get Cream Soda flying again. It was rebuilt under the careful eye of my dad sharing his knowledge and expertise. The wings took shape in the living room, with the rib jig on top of the washer and dryer. The paint booth was in the barn. I was in the full blows of early motherhood, so it was pictures and phone calls of progress. But I began to realize that my boys were me. Cream Soda was rebuilt with my own boys as they grew. Photos were re-created, adding a generation. A generation with aviation in their blood. Maintenance lessons were
taught. I once again bled the brakes, with a selfie this time to capture the moment. My oldest lost a toy in the tire hub. My husband learned what gentle meant and gained the nickname Thor.
An evening in June 2018 was one of immense pride and joy. A core memory that is vividly in our souls. We were at a new airport, in the digital age. An endless amount of pictures and videos were taken. Tears of joy flowed. Brad and I just stood there surrounded by corn in the middle of Runway 9/27, hugging and crying as Cream Soda’s flying wires sung. It was the song of our souls. Our Saturdays are spent at the airport once again with a new generation running around, staying on the black, and learning how to use only Windex on the fabric after each flight. My boys now call their grandpa “PlanePa.”
Since then, every flight, startup, and rollout has been recorded. Thanks to this digital age, we can ride along as if we are wing-walking. People around
the world have gotten to know Cream Soda thanks to social media and YouTube.
In 2021, my brother, Brad, was in a three-day quarantine in a Saudi Arabian hotel room when boredom got the best of him. He double clicked on a file. One that was buried for a later day, and that day finally happened. Calling and texting 10,000 miles away was challenging, but it was another moment for us. A moment I will remember for life. My dad was speechless when he learned Cream Soda’s origins.
The aircraft was originally built for Art Davis as a competition plane on Valentine’s Day February 1929. In a matter of days before the Gardner Trophy Air Races in late May, Davis got approval for modifications. During the race, from St. Louis to the pylons at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and back, he achieved an average speed of 140 mph to place third as he ran out of fuel. Then Cream Soda had numerous owners during the early 1930s in the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
In 1935 it was sold to Mike Murphy of Kokomo, Indiana. Newspaper articles show that he forced-landed the aircraft in
My brother and I got to enjoy the aircraft in a completely different way now that we were older. It was more appreciated, more loved. We understood the importance of keeping it in the air. We understood what it meant to be caretakers of an airplane with a soul.
Findlay, Illinois, on his maiden flight to bring it to Indiana. Our Taperwing was then flown, by Murphy, in the squadron known as the “LINCO Flying Aces,” performing and advertising for the Ohio Oil Co. around the Midwest. As we continued to discover more, we realized that Mike Murphy happened to be the Mike Murphy. As we further
dug into his life, we realized some amazing things about him. He was seen as the best of the best. Fitting that he flew Wacos.
Mike Murphy should sound familiar to those in the aviation world. He convinced the D-Day planners to use gliders, Wacos, to get paratroopers into France. As any leader would, he didn’t stand by and watch his men go to war — he joined. He led 400 Waco gliders to start the D-Day invasion in those early morning hours. In his glider, he carried three other men, including Gen. Pratt, and the general’s jeep. Unbeknownst to Murphy, the general’s men were concerned for his safety. So they lined the belly of the glider with steel to hopefully decrease ammunition from entering the glider. They clearly had no idea about weight and balance of gliders! After the tow release was pulled, Murphy struggled to keep the glider, well, gliding. He landed into a hedge, killing the general who was sitting in his Willy jeep during the flight. Murphy’s co-pilot was also killed, but somehow Murphy survived. He spent the next couple hours trapped with his legs crushed, shooting at nearby Germans and, reportedly, playing dead when they approached. He was then sent to a nearby Chateau-turnedhospital until he was flown back to the States as one of the first wounded men to return from D-Day. Hours after Murphy left the hospital, it was destroyed by enemy fire. As a World War II teacher, I found this story to be fascinating. I never had a family member who was in the service, but Murphy’s relationship with Cream Soda and WWII brought to mind what little I knew about the individual stories of the greatest generation.
We shared what we learned at our weekly “old man’s dinner.” In attendance was Dale, who coincidently grew up at Murphy’s home airport of Kokomo. It brought tears to his eyes, and he remembered and shared with us seeing Murphy showing off his skills in a Waco, possibly our Cream Soda. He shared the story of getting his first airplane ride at age 5 with Murphy
in a Waco. Then told us that his father drove the car that Murphy would land his upside-down plane on! These were stories no one at the table had heard and possibly never would have heard if it wasn’t for opening that file in Saudi Arabia.
After sharing Mike Murphy’s connection to Cream Soda with the aviation community in Central Indiana, a lady contacted us. She has spent nearly a decade researching Mike Murphy and his role in aviation. She shared numerous pictures, articles, and stories about him. We found out his son, Mike Murphy Jr., resides out West and never knew how much his father was involved in World War II. We are thankful that he knows about our Taperwing and our short distance from his father’s grave. Unfortunately, COVID had other plans for us when we planned to meet this summer. I am hopeful to meet Mike Murphy Jr. someday so we can keep his father’s story and generation alive.
After our Taperwing’s remarkable time in Indiana during the 1930s, we learned it called home other parts of the country as well. These states included Rhode Island and Florida.
Time passed and took its toll on the Waco. However, my story of what grew from paperwork and buckets didn’t start in Indiana but in Ohio. You see, I was born in Ohio. The buckets were purchased in Ohio. I grew and Cream Soda grew in Ohio. Then it came along for my family’s move from Ohio to Illinois, and then to Indiana in 1994. Amazingly, until last year, we never knew that its current home is a mere stone’s throw away from where it was in the 1930s with Murphy Sr.
It was the generational love of aviation passed down from my father that has brought my brother and me to where we are today. Aviation is in our blood. Our DNA. As second generation aviators, my brother went to A&P mechanic school. He now works at an aerospace company overhauling jet engines while he works with my father on overhauling Wright Whirlwinds at night. Brad is a fabric-covering guru in Central Indiana. In fact, after he bought a house this past year, he wasn’t worried about moving in a bed or a couch. No, the first thing he moved in was a wing rotisserie to fabric cover a friend’s airplane in the living room. Needless to say, his home now has that wonderful aircraft smell. While he spends most of his time on the ground, his influence and knowledge is what keeps rare vintage birds and their caretakers in the sky.
My story as an aviator is just now taking its true shape. I wanted to fly military jets growing up, but sometimes life takes you elsewhere. As a mom and a teacher, I found myself telling students that they should follow their heart’s passion, while I stood there not doing the same. Finally after two challenging years as an educator, I decided to follow my heart and started my formal training in a 1946 Aeronca Champ that I named Betty in March 2021. By October 2021, I was ready to solo but waiting on my medical. Through patience, a lot of money, and
some amazing people at EAA and the FAA, I was signed off on my medical shortly after Oshkosh 2022. I soloed on August 12 in Betty surrounded by my family, including my father who had never seen me fly. I intend to complete my private pilot checkride by the end of this year in a Champ, followed by work in a Stearman to eventually fly Cream Soda myself. A dream that is getting closer. I have no intention of flying tri-wheels with modern technology. As many of my fellow aviators like to say to me: I’m stuck in a time gone by.
While all the fancy gadgets add safety to our passion of aviation, I want to be authentic to the generations before me. As we see pilots from those generations fly west, I want to keep their birds and their stories alive. As well as their struggles, their reality, their simplicity of experiencing flight. This is my why.
I’m a new pilot, but born with aviation in my blood. A second generation pilot who is carrying on the family’s love. The family’s drive to continue to be caretakers of a 1929 Taperwing Waco known as Cream Soda.
EVER SINCE BILL BATSON of Wilton Center, Illinois, soloed a J-3 Cub at age 16 in 1963, he’s wanted a bona fide antique airplane. His opportunity finally materialized in the form of a beleaguered Taylor J-2 Cub. Yet when he and his wife, Charlene, went to take a look at the project owned by Steve Adkisson in Hammond, Illinois, Bill was dismayed by the overwhelming amount of work it needed. He just shook his head “no.” But then, right as they were leaving, Charlene piped up and said, “Go back and get it; that’s a good project!”
And so it was that in October 2012, the Batsons’ fourth and most challenging restoration project commenced. For the next eight years, they lavished more tender, loving care on this Taylor J-2 than perhaps any of its previous owners — and there were more than a dozen since its manufacture on August 13, 1937.
“This was a real antique, because you’ve got to oil the valves before you run it, and the only flight instruments were an altimeter and tachometer, and it came with a tail skid,” Bill said. “I wanted that experience of flying what the old guys flew. I think that’s why I enjoy the older airplanes, and I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.”
Bill’s father was a naval Curtiss Flying Boat mechanic during World War I, and at 69, he finally realized his dream of learning to fly. Charlene was well acquainted with aviation before she met Bill; her father was a World War II Navy mechanic who worked on Corsairs and PBYs in the South Pacific.
“Char was just happy knowing how to fly; she didn’t care for the license,” said Bill, who’s been a flight instructor since 1968. “When Char and I were dating, we’d fly a Cessna 172 from Gene Gear’s farm strip in New Lenox at night. All we had for runway lights were six smudge pots — three on each side of the runway — and we’d light them with a match. We’d take off and fly about 30 miles toward Comiskey Park, because we could see their lights when there was a White Sox baseball game. So we’d fly to the lights and then turn 45 degrees, and it took us right to Meigs Field, where we’d go have dinner at the Prudential Building’s Top of the Rock restaurant. On the way home, we’d pray that all the smudge pots hadn’t gone out. If they blew out on one side of the runway, we’d circle Gene’s house, and he’d drive over and shine his car’s headlights down the middle of the runway.”
The J-2 is based at Koerner Airport in Kankakee; in fact, Bill has kept his 1946 Aeronca Chief and a few other airplanes at this historical airport since 1987. Hence, Koerner is a large part of his aviation life, and he’s been flying there since the 1960s. “The airport was started by Delbert and
Note “The New Cub, Taylor Aircraft Company, Bradford, PA” on the Waltham tachometer.
New cowling and instrument panel being fabricated.
The J-2 project as it appeared when Bill bought it.
Martin Koerner in 1927, and it was just a big, square airport like they had back then,” Bill said. “Delbert got his license from Orville Wright, and he raced in the Chicago Air Races in the 1930s. I got my private, commercial, and instrument from Delbert.”
The J-2’s Approved Type Certificate 595 was issued on Valentine’s Day 1936. Taylor Aircraft Co.’s production of the J-2 Cub began that month, and the “New Cub” proved to be a real sweetheart. Powered by a Continental A40, the J-2 had rounded wingtips, rudder, and vertical stabilizer, giving the aircraft a sleeker look than its predecessor, the E-2 Cub. The J-2 also had a redesigned cowl to improve cooling and wider-stance landing gear.
In March 1937, Popular Aviation reported that Taylor “had delivered the 1,000th airplane following the All American Air Maneuvers at Miami, Florida. This is the largest number of non-military airplanes ever manufactured by any one company.”
According to the 1937 Aircraft Year Book, “700 Taylor Cubs were flying in the United States and foreign countries [in 1936]. … Aircraft Associates, Long Beach, Calif., organized a branch to manufacture Cubs for the Pacific coast. … The company reported that standardization and mass production were the twin secrets of Cub sales.”
Although numbers vary somewhat by source, around 1,200 J-2s were built from 1935 to 1938. The majority was built by Taylor, and at least 22 J-2s were dubbed the “Western Cubs” because they were built by Aircraft Associates. Piper bought out Taylor, and the Taylor Aircraft Co. became Piper Aircraft in early 1938; close to 70 J-2s were manufactured by Piper Aircraft. Currently, there are 71 J-2s on the FAA Registry.
There is some confusion regarding Taylor and Piper J-2 Cubs; even the FAA registration files reflect a dual identity for NC19511 (serial No. 1711). Bill’s J-2 has been a Taylor J-2 since day one; the original data plate reads “Taylor Aircraft Company, Bradford, Pennsylvania,” yet it was built in Lock Haven by Piper Aircraft. NC19511 came equipped with a tail skid, cabin enclosures, roller bearing wheels, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, and wires and brackets for navigation lights.
The Taylor J-2 was touted in a 1937 Aero Digest ad as “easy to buy and easy to fly, the New Silver Cub is the world’s fastest selling airplane.”
Eligible to be flown by a sport pilot.
WINGSPAN: 35 FEET, 2-1/2 INCHES
LENGTH: 22 FEET, 5 INCHES
HEIGHT: 6 FEET, 7 INCHES
EMPTY WEIGHT: 563 POUNDS
USEFUL LOAD: 407 POUNDS
GROSS WEIGHT: 970 POUNDS
ORIGINAL ENGINE: 40-HP CONTINENTAL A40
FUEL: 9 GALLONS
OIL: 4 QUARTS
MAX SPEED: 85 MPH
CRUISING SPEED: 60 MPH
LANDING SPEED: 29 MPH
CLIMB AT SEA LEVEL: 450 FPM
CEILING: 12,000 FEET
RANGE: 200 MILES
MAXIMUM BAGGAGE: 20 POUNDS
Head-on view of the J-2 – note the geometric pattern of the windshield fairings and fuselage tubing.NC19511 was among those that never received a finish color coat — it was just left in its silver coat, with three blue trim stripes to dress it up a bit. Since Bill didn’t much care for the look, he used an optional factory color scheme of Diana Cream and Tennessee Red.
A bit of aeronautical trivia — the J-2 was the first Cub to be licensed as a seaplane, and the J-2 was also approved for the Everel one-bladed propeller. Contrary to common belief, the “J” in J-2 didn’t stand for Walter Jamouneau, who redesigned the E-2 Cub into the J-2. The “J” was the next sequential letter designation in the early Taylor Cub lineage (“I” was skipped since it could easily be confused with “1”).
Manaen Warrington of Selbyville, Delaware, became the first owner in August 1937. A month later, the following was reported by the Wilmington News Journal: “With the close of the official season at Rehoboth Beach Airport Sunday … the airport has been filled with local visiting aircraft. One that attracts attention is the new plane of a youth, Manaen Warrington, of Selbyville, who is gaining solo hours. Warrington was taught to fly in a short time, one hour and fifteen minutes, by pilot Dick Winyon, at the Hebron Airport near Salisbury, after he had studied the design and operation of aircraft from books.”
Manaen likely had his own airstrip, Warrington Field Airport at Selbyville (DE27). He sold the J-2 in June 1939 for $686 to Henry B. du Pont of Wilmington, Delaware, who had established the private DuPont Airfield in 1924 on the west side of Wilmington. Aviation celebrities such as Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and Clarence Chamberlain reportedly visited that field. In the late 1930s, the airfield grew into a modern, privately owned public-use airport.
In June 1940, the J-2 was sold to Charles Dalphin of East New Market, Maryland. Its wings and ailerons were re-covered, and the fuselage and tail surfaces were rejuvenated. John Wallace of Cambridge, Maryland, bought the Cub in 1952 and sold it to James Spedden of Cambridge in 1958, at which time extensive repairs were made.
From 1961 up until 1970, the J-2 went through the hands of four owners in Delaware, during which time it was re-covered with Eonnex 206 fabric and finished in Piper Yellow. Jack Norris of Glen Burnie, Maryland, bought the Cub in 1970, and then Margaret Louise Johnson of Cumberland,
Bill wheels the fuselage to load into a trailer for its journey to Koerner’s.
The pretty lines of the fabric-covered J-2 fuselage.
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Maryland, became its new owner in 1972, and it was re-covered with Ceconite and Piper Yellow butyrate, trimmed in black.
The Cub found its way to Indiana in 1992, and Steve Adkisson bought it in 1994 — he kept it until Bill bought it in 2012. Remarkably, NC19511’s sister ship, NC19510 (serial No. 1710) is also in Illinois, owned by Jim Wagner. It’s quite rare to have 85-year-old sister ships still airworthy, and Bill commented, “What’s really odd is that my J-2 spent its life on the East Coast, and Jim’s spent its life on the West Coast, so to have them end up 20 miles apart from each other is really weird!”
When Bill and Charlene bought their project, Jim was already flying NC19510, so about eight years’ worth of restoration would go by before NC19511 would fly. And it was tedious, detailed work, especially when it came to the wing ribs. They discovered something was askew when looking closely at the wing surface — some ribs were higher than others. Bill set about dismantling the wing and soon realized that half of its ribs were J-3, and half were J-2.
“All the ribs were broken anyway, so I ended up dismantling the wings completely and then made a jig from factory prints of J-2 ribs, and made new ones to replace the J-3 ribs,” Bill said. “I had to study up on Piper service bulletins and FAR Part 43 regarding how to repair aluminum ribs. Then I had to find the correct material from Univair and learn how to drill out the steel rivets on Piper’s aluminum ribs. I finally made a little jig to let me drill those rivets perfect without damaging the aluminum. That’s why it took me a year on each wing.”
The wings also needed new spars, so Bill bought spar blanks and cut and drilled them to factory specs. Then he made and attached the plywood doublers on the spars. The aluminum spars and leading edges for the ailerons were corroded, so he made new ones. Another task entailed splicing the mild steel lower longerons and the tail post using his oxy-acetylene welder. “I ended up putting a new 2-foot piece on the longerons and about a foot on the tail post,” Bill said. “There were also several dents in the fuselage tubing that I had to make patches for, so it took a while.”
Remarkably, NC19511 still has its original A40-5 engine. “It’s really a rare engine, because the A40 Continentals were the first flat four-cylinder engines, and they had a single mag. Piper was
selling them in Europe, but the Europeans demanded two magnetos,” Bill said. “So Piper made 200 engines with dual magnetos. A few of them stayed in the United States — fortunately, my engine was one of them; it has the dual magnetos.”
An A&P/IA mechanic, Bill enjoyed overhauling the A40 and installing new bearings and rings. He had the original Bendix SF4L magnetos overhauled by Salvage Magneto, and the Stromberg carburetor was overhauled by carburetor specialist Bob Kachergius. There was one other item for which Bill enlisted help. “I had a good friend, Karl Henning, make my valve guides, because you have to be an awfully good machinist to get 0.001 tolerance!” Bill said. “And Kent McMakin really helped me out with engine parts for the A40 when he was administering Jeannie and Dick Hill’s estate.”
A brand-new Sensenich propeller came with the project, but upon closer investigation, it was determined that the prop wasn’t correct for the J-2. “It was for a Taylorcraft 40-horse, and they’re much faster. Luckily, the Kelch Aviation Museum up at Brodhead had a Sensenich wood propeller (69-inch diameter, 23-inch pitch),” Bill said, “and it was an excellent swap, because they had a Taylorcraft.”
A new sheet metal cowling was fabricated by Jim Rettick of Bloomington, Illinois. “Jim’s a magician with that English wheel,” Bill said. “The tail feathers all needed new leading and trailing edges, because they were mild steel tubing and beat up, so I welded new 4130 pieces in place.”
Bill favors using the Poly Fiber system, so that’s what he used on the Cub. After the brush coats, he applied coatings with a Croix high-volume, low-pressure turbine. “That unit was sold up at Oshkosh about 30 years ago, and I’ve painted every airplane with it; it’s fantastic! The turbine compressor heats the air and eliminates moisture, so you don’t have any problem with blushing, and you only use half the paint.”
The J-2’s interior was fairly simple to make; Bill made new wood seats and new floorboards from aircraft-grade plywood, and new seat cushion covers were made from durable vinyl. The cabin interior walls are fabric-covered, just like the airplane exterior. He fabricated a new aluminum
“I wanted that experience of flying what the old guys flew. I think that’s why I enjoy the older airplanes, and enjoy I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.”
— Bill Batson
instrument panel and installed instruments that were originally on a J-2 — a tachometer, nonsensitive altimeter, and oil pressure and oil temperature gauges.
Bill’s longtime friends Alex and Steve Koerner (Delbert’s nephews) helped during the restoration by letting Bill use their metal brakes, shears, and other large tools.
Mark Stewart of Erie, Pennsylvania, also helped Bill tremendously. “Mark has two J-2s and an E-2 Cub, and he provided me with written documentation and information on how to do things, including lots of drawings of how he did things on his J-2s,” Bill said. “He’s one of the nicest fellows you’ll ever meet, and I’ve spent lots of time on the phone with him. The E-2 and J-2 people have a great little community, and they’ll do anything to help each other out. Mark keeps track of everybody that’s flying or restoring one.”
Adventuresome pilots were enamored with the new J-2 Cub, and several established endurance records in it. In 1937, Norman B. Doerr set an endurance record of 24 hours, 2 minutes near Chicago. A new world endurance record for lightplanes was set at Detroit when a J-2 (adorned with “Lasky Furniture Co. and Motor City Airport” on its fuselage) stayed aloft for 34 hours and 24 minutes. In 1938, Tom Smith and Clyde Schleiper, aided by Harley Long, set a record of 218 hours, 23 minutes, at Lancaster, California, in a Cub named Little Bear
As for Bill, he certainly isn’t out to set any endurance records, but he couldn’t be happier with the J-2’s lionhearted performance. On his very first flight, he was delightfully astonished by how well the airplane flew with the A40 engine, after hearing others say that J-2s were underpowered.
Era advertising praised not only the J-2, but its pilots as well: “No effort has been spared to make it the safest, soundest ship in America. … It will take you anywhere safely and bring you back safely. … The youngest ‘Cub’ Pilot on record is 11 years of age and the oldest is so sensitive to the age question that he won’t tell. Whether you are eleven or seventy, man or woman, experienced pilot or just air minded, see and fly the New ‘Cub.’”
If the upper age mentioned in that marketing ploy was upped by five years, it would describe Bill. And since he weighs about 210 pounds, he kept safety in mind and filled the tank only half full for
the first flight. “Gee whiz, it was off the ground right away! You don’t climb in it; you levitate. And it’s just beautiful! It had no trouble getting up to 700 feet, and then I throttled back to about 2350 rpm, doing about 50 mph,” Bill said. “You’re at a walk when you stall for landing; you just hold it off until it gently drops in, and it seems like somebody could walk alongside of you.”
The J-2 doesn’t have an airspeed indicator — it’s all just “seat-of-thepants” flying. Bill estimates a cruising speed around 55 to 60 mph, and on approach to landing, “You slow it down to maybe 45 or 50 mph, and you can easily feel the controls still have good response. After that first flight, it just comes naturally and you don’t even think about it. It’s a completely different way to fly; it’s so light and floats more than a Taylorcraft on landings. The J-2 is just fun to fly!”
Together, Bill and Charlene have tackled several restoration projects — an Acro Sport II (with a lot of help from the Koerners), Aeronca Champ, Luscombe, and the J-2. They also converted a Cessna 150J to a Texas Taildragger.
“Char has been real good and has helped me with just about all the work at home,” Bill said. “For example, she’s helped me flip the wings, install fabric covering, and bucked rivets on the Luscombe.”
This husband-wife team truly embodies an ideal expressed by William T. Piper Jr. (of Piper Aircraft), when he said of his father, “He believed simply in a truth that seems to have gone out of style — that work is honorable and rewarding” (excerpted from a Newcomen address, April 23, 1970).
We look forward to seeing NC19511 floating lazily around the Koerner Airport, when Bill and Charlene aren’t busy breathing new life into their next bona fide antique project, a 1934 Aeronca C-3.
CELLULOSE IS THE MAIN constituent of the woody matter in trees and the linters (the small lint-like material that sticks to the seeds) of cotton plants and is claimed when the cotton is ginned. The relatively pure cellulose used in making the cellulosics can be obtained from wood pulp, such as used in making paper. The raw material is therefore readily available in large quantities and hence is not too expensive. The organic acids used for combining with cellulose are obtainable in large quantities and at reasonable prices.
If cellulose is treated with nitric acid, a material called nitro cellulose is produced, which is very explosive. Cellulose nitrate was originally produced as a substitute for ivory in the making of billiard balls. It was later used in manufacturing molded articles and was marketed under the trade name “celluloid.” For many years, clear film of cellulose nitrate was used as the backing for photographic film, both for ordinary pictures and film for the early movies. However, when this film became ignited it burned with great intensity, destroying many early movie theaters.
In an effort to remove this dangerous fire hazard, two Swiss chemists, brothers Camille and Henri Dreyfus, developed the first commercial process to manufacture cellulose acetate in 1905 when experimenting in a shed behind their father’s house in Basel, Switzerland. Combining cellulose with acetone and acetic anhydride, they made cellulose acetate. The Dreyfus brothers were the first to produce cellulose acetate for the commercial market. Although cellulose acetate was first prepared in 1865 by the French chemist Paul Schützenberger, it was not until 1894 that Charles Cross and Edward Bevan patented the first industrial process for its manufacture in the United Kingdom. Early experiments in cellulose acetate were targeted to producing a yarn that could be woven into a synthetic fabric resembling silk. However, by adding plasticizer to the
mixture, such as diethyl or dimethyl phthalate, a more flexible material could be produced. Cellulose acetate is a thermoplastic resin because it can be heat softened to change its shape any number of times.
Brothers Dreyfus set up a plant in Basel, Switzerland, just 3 miles from the border with Germany in 1910, and at the outbreak of World War I, they were invited to set up a factory in Spondon, Derbyshire, England, to make acetate “dope” for waterproofing and stiffening fabric-covered aeroplane wings. The plant was constructed entirely with public moneys with no risk to those who stood to gain monetarily. The British Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company was born March 1916. Two groups—an English group and a Swiss group—controlled the company. They set up a similar plant at Cumberland, Maryland, for the U.S. Army in 1917. What the English and Americans didn’t know is that the Dreyfus boys were also selling aeroplane dope to the Germans for their war aeroplanes. When the Spondon plant could not produce enough cellulose acetate dope for the English war aeroplanes, the material was imported from Basel. The British War Office was eager to get its hands on more supplies of dope because the number of military aircraft being constructed in Britain was increasing rapidly from a mere 200 ships in 1914 to 2,342 in 1915 and 6,633 in 1916. The number of ships that were constructed in 1916 nearly doubled the following year, and by 1918, approximately 30,782 military aircraft had been built. And they all were covered with linen fabric and coated with cellulose acetate dope.
Deliveries of dope from the Spondon factory started small in 1917, and the newly formed company was rewarded with a government contract for 25 tons of cellulose acetate per month, along with 2,500 tons of acetone. This order was rapidly increased to nearly 700 tons of the aeroplane dope. Profits from the British Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company brought a huge sum of money, particularly for those large English and Swiss (the Dreyfus brothers) shareholders, to the tune of $141 million at today’s values! The Dreyfus brothers had hit the jackpot. The English called for an investigation into the workings of British Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company. What they found out was a few people made a lot of money without taking any risks or investing a cent, the company being founded by financiers using public money. The press had a field day with the outcome of the investigation. On August 5, 1918, the newspaper Daily Chronicle reported, “The dope scandal, a most disgraceful transaction, 4,000 pounds becomes 12,230,000 pounds.” A huge profit for the time and during the crisis of war. The public was outraged. It was bad
enough for a group of foreigners (the Dreyfus brothers) to have fleeced British taxpayers during a time of war, but the newspapers dropped the bomb that the Basel operation under the control of the Dreyfus brothers had been doing business with Germany at the same time as doing business with the British.
After the war the English Spondon factory began to manufacture cellulose acetate fibers that could be woven into a cloth that closely resembled silk. The English named it “Celanese.” In America that same product was named “Rayon.” After the war they concentrated their efforts in England, and in 1919 introduced the first acetate yarn which they called Celanese. In 1924, they switched entirely to the U.S. where acetone and acetic anhydride were cheaply available. In the same year, rayon became adopted as a generic term for all “artificial silk.”
Cellulose acetate (CA) in combination with plasticizers produces a plastics material, which can be heat softened and forced under pressure into a cool mold. This injection molding process was developed by Dr. Arthur Eichengrün of Celonwerke to exploit the molding properties of the plasticized CA molding materials he had produced. His first injection-molding machine had a maximum shot weight of about 8 grams provided by a hand-operated plunger mechanism, a far cry from today’s machines, some of which have a maximum molding size in excess of 100 kg.
When WWI ended so did the large demand for airplane dope. Of course there was some demand in the United States, England, and France as the airplane went “civilian.” But the demand was not near as great as during WWI. In the early days of civilian flying machines in the United States, nitrate dope was still the standard and was manufactured to a military specification that carried from the war. As war clouds formed the prelude to WWII, a better dope was needed. The cellulose acetate and nitrate dopes were very flammable, causing chemists to experiment to reduce the burn rate of the dope. Butyrate, as it is commonly known, is a cellulose ester modified by using butyric and acetic acids, and when combined with cellulose acetate, produced cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB) dope. A new specification number was issued to identify the CAB products. They were: Mil-D05549B
(clear CAB dope), Mil-D-6069A (CAB thinner), Mil-D-7850 (CAB fungicidal first coat dope), Mil-D-5550A-1 (CAB pigmented dope), and MilD-5551-2 (CAB gloss pigmented dope).
So, any fabric-covered structural components of the aircraft used Grade A cotton fabric coated with CAB dope. The burn rate of CAB compared to the old nitrate dope was subject to research by S.G. Weisberg. Mr. Weisberg determined the following, which is quoted from the abstract in his report: “Powerplant fires tests conducted on small fabric covered aircraft proved the futility of providing engine fire protection in an aircraft covered with fabric, which would be destroyed by fire within a few seconds.
“Fabrics treated with cellulose nitrate dope were destroyed by fire within two-seconds. Fabrics treated with cellulose acetate butyrate dope were destroyed by fire within six-seconds
“Fire-retardant coatings have been developed which, when applied over fabrics treated with cellulose acetate butyrate dope, markedly increase the resistance to fire of the doped fabrics.”
The point here is that if a fabric-covered airplane has an in-flight fire, it’s going to burn! The newer synthetic fabric processes may not burn as quickly, but a fire in the air is disastrous.
It is interesting to analyze here that improvements in fabric-coating materials came about because of experiments by chemists for wartime purposes. It would not be until the middle 1950s through the middle 1960s that additional improvements in covering materials would be made, but in this case not because of a world war.
Illustration 1 shows a dope brochure from the Andrew Brown Company, Los Angeles, California. Although there is no date on the data, the telephone number would indicate that the data comes from the late 1940s through the late 1950s before the Los Angeles–based telephone companies changed their code to an all-number system.
Cotton fabric, being made of organic (natural) fibers, was prone to a fungus growth on the inside of a surface that would eventually deteriorate the cloth from the inside out. To combat this fungus growth the first brush coat of dope could contain a fungicidal paste mixed in and thinned with the clear nitrate or butyrate dope. This fungicidal material would turn the dope either green
extracted at the surface of the component. When the temperature of the surface reaches the dew point of the air surrounding it, moisture will condense and mix with the cold surface of the dope, causing “blushing.” Blushing in clear dope will turn the surface to a milky white color while blushing in pigmented dope will cause the color to turn to an opaque color, destroying the gloss and changing the color. To combat this it is necessary to “slow down” the drying time of the dope and the material by using what was called “retarder.” Retarder is a mixture of a slow dry reducer that is added in small amounts to the dope before spraying or brushing. Berry Brothers recommended adding about a pint per gallon; adding too much retarder could cause the dope to not dry at all. Retarder was also added to the color coats of pigmented dope to allow the material more time to “flow out,” thus giving it more gloss.
or blue in color, thus making it easy to see the coverage and saturation of dope into the fabric weave. Fungicidal paste came in small pint cans or squeeze tubes, and only a small amount was needed. It was applied with the first brush coat only and was not used with subsequent coats. Fungus attacking the inside of a cotton surface could be detected by checking for small round black dots, which denoted a fungus growth eating cotton fibers.
Dope dries by evaporation of thinners and solvents incorporated in the material. As these materials evaporate, heat is
Dope, whether it is cellulose nitrate or cellulose acetate butyrate, will harden and crack after several years of service. These cracks in the finish will expose raw fabric threads to the ultraviolet radiation from the sun and will eventually deteriorate the cloth. If the fabric tests in the “green,” then spraying the surface with a dope rejuvenator will soften old dope and seal the cracks. Normally this is how it works. First, the surface has to be cleaned, which requires removing any wax, dirt, grease, etc. Next, the surface is lightly wet-sanded with fine #400 wet-or-dry sandpaper. When all residue is removed the surface is sprayed with a wet coat of rejuvenator and allowed to set. The dope film should become tacky and begin to soften, and the fabric will sag slightly. This is normal because the fabric usually sags with each subsequent coat of dope during the covering process. It must be remembered that a cotton fabric surface has 15 coats of dope; there is only one film on the fabric. Each coat melts into the previous coat to become one. A second coat of rejuvenator is sprayed and allowed to dry for at least an hour. The fabric surface will, most likely, be slightly wrinkled or have sags in it. To remove these sags and wrinkles, one or two coats of tautening nitrate or butyrate dope will be sprayed on the surface. I used to spray silver butyrate, but it could be clear dope instead. Allow to set 24 hours to cure. All the wrinkles should be gone! After a very light sanding, two or three cross coats of pigmented nitrate or butyrate dope is then sprayed on the surface. The primary purpose of rejuvenator is to soften the old dope and seal the cracks.
One could not purchase silver dope, so it had to be specially mixed by the user. Here aluminum powder or paste was added to clear dope in proper quantities to create UV-blocking silver dope. Normally 1-1/2 pounds of powder or 1 pound of paste was mixed with 5 gallons of unthinned dope, and then the mixture was thinned for spraying. The
amount of reducing depended on the viscosity of the dope. There were high-solid and medium-solid dopes—the high solid was more viscous and thus required more reducing. As I recall, the dope was generally reduced about 40 to 50 percent for spraying; if it was too thick it would “orange peel,” and if too thin, it would not put enough dope on the surface and would run on vertical surfaces. You had to get it right or a poor finish would result.
A superior finish could be obtained on cotton fabric with dope filler. But it took a lot of labor in the way of sanding and rubbing out the dope. Just as one can “raise the grain” on wood by wetting the surface before sanding, cotton fabric was much the same. The first coat of brushed-on dope would raise small fibers along the threads, causing a very rough surface. Adding additional coats of dope would not smooth the surface; sanding was the only choice to make the surface smooth. And so it took much sanding to get a good finish. Predoped fabric and surface tape was available that laid the nap of the fabric, making it smooth. Predoped tapes were blue in color for butyrate dope and pink in color for nitrate dope. Predoped surface tapes eliminated much of the tedious sanding, particularly around rib lacings. Next, samples from yesterday—an original Reeves Brothers package of 3-inch-wide pinked edge surface tape still in the packing from the 1950s and shown in Illustration 2. Note their factory is 653 11th Avenue, New York, N.Y., and their logo is “Air Wing.”
Illustration 3 shows Grade A predoped surface tape (blue tint) on left and Intermediate Grade A surface tape (tinted pink) on right. I wonder how many old-timers who worked with Grade A cotton and Irish linen fabric remember using predoped tapes.
Drain grommets were either flat or seaplane, and inspection rings were manufactured from acetate plastic. Therefore they bonded nicely with CAB dope; just wet the area and press the grommet or ring into place.
Illustration 4 is removed from the 1946 Air Associates aviation supply catalog, advertising cellulose acetate drain grommets. Seaplane grommets are shown on right in photograph. The flat round and seaplane grommets are still in use today but must be glued or bonded with epoxy adhesive to fabric surface. In the old days, flat drain grommets carried an identification number of AN231-1 through AN231-4, depending on inside and outside diameter and shape.
Finally, perhaps I should list some of the advantages and disadvantages of nitrate and butyrate dope. A few are listed next.
Nitrate Advantages
Will bond better to new raw fabric fibers. Will not shrink the fabric as much as butyrate. After final coat has been applied and cured, maximum shrinkage has occurred. Can be mixed with lacquer cement.
Nitrate Disadvantages
Will support flame and burn very rapidly. Cannot be applied over CAB dope.
Butyrate (CAB) Advantages
More fire resistant than nitrate.
May be sprayed over nitrate acting as a rejuvenator.
Butyrate (CAB) Disadvantages
Superior shrinking ability. Fabric continues to shrink up to six weeks after final coat of dope has dried.
Will not bond to Dacron fabric. Dacron fabric is used with most current synthetic fabric processes.
Cannot be mixed with lacquer cement; is not compatible with nitrate dope or thinner.
Hopefully this has been an interesting look back at the cotton and linen dope process. It is not used much anymore, only for truly authentic restorations. The synthetic processes are much better. I wrote much of this article on September 9, 1973, while instructing at Reedley College, with some revisions in May 2009.
My, how time flies!
www Plastiquarian com/ca2 htm
www Fire tc FAA gov/pdf/fsr-0250 pdf
“The Man Who Fell From the Sky” by William Norris
FAA Advisory Circular 20-44
Aviation Supply Catalog No. 19, dated 1946, by Air Associates
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
There are a couple of other developments that are probably of interest to our members and guests at AirVenture. The Charles W. Harris Memorial Park, or Charlie’s Park, is being extended to the west toward the Theater in the Woods. Additional seating and picnic tables will be added to this area for you to enjoy. Be sure to stop by this lovely and restful park when you visit us in Vintage Village.
Another proposal that came out of the fall board meeting was to add a takeout coffee station in the Tall Pines Café. We have not worked out all of the details, but the overall plan is to offer takeout coffee from a kiosk/station located in the southeastern door of Tall Pines from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Thanks and congratulations are also in order! On behalf of the entire Vintage Aircraft Association, I would like to offer our sincere thanks to recently retired VAA Director Jon Goldenbaum of Riverside, California, for his service on the VAA board of directors. During his tenure Jon was held in high regard by his peers for his astute judgement and ability to identify the most salient points in any of our discussions. Thank you, Jon!
Charlie Waterhouse was appointed by the VAA board of directors to fill the vacancy on the board due to Jon’s retirement. Charlie, as most of you know, chairs the entire Vintage Hangar operation, which includes the youth programs. In real life Charlie is an aerospace engineer, or to be even more precise, Charlie is an F-16 flight technology engineer for the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Congratulations, Charlie! Blue skies!
AIRCRAFT
1948 Stinson108/4-place/ in parts: have wings, doors, struts, tail, and seats & frame $5,000. 906-283-3853
BOOKS
“To Look Upward: One Flight Instructors Journey” Rob Mixon Amazon
WANTED
Set of plans for the Davis DX-1 Starship Alpha, flying wing demonstrator; rfhowley@msn.com
Manuals for the Culver PQ-14A, PQ-14B, TD2C-1. Fred Howley: 719-495-2541 or rfhowley@msn.com
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PRESIDENT Susan Dusenbury 1374 Brook Cove Rd. Walnut Cove, NC 27052 336-591-3931 sr6sue@aol.com
VICE PRESIDENT
Dan Knutson 106 Tena Marie Circle Lodi, WI 53555 608-354-6101 lodicub@charter.net
SECRETARY Dan Wood 75 Walton Place Dr. Newnan, GA 30263 678-458-3459 fly170@gmail.com
TREASURER Paul Kyle 1273 Troy Ct. Mason, OH 45040 262-844-3351 paul_e_kyle@hotmail.com
Jerry Brown Greenwood, IN 317-627-9428 lbrown4906@aol.com
George Daubner Oconomowoc, WI 262-560-1949 gdaubner@eaa.org
John Hofmann Columbus, WI 608-239-0903 john@cubclub.org
Ray L. Johnson Marion, IN 765-669-3544 rayjohnson@indy.rr.com
Steve Nesse Albert Lea, MN 507-383-2850 stnes2009@live.com
Earl Nicholas Libertyville, IL 847-367-9667 eman46@gmail.com
Joe Norris Oshkosh, WI 920-279-2855 wacoflyer@gmail.com
Tim Popp Sun City, AZ 269-760-1544 tlpopp@frontier.com
Charlie Waterhouse Dayton, OH 260-385-0851 charles.e.waterhouse@gmail.com
ADVISERS
Jesse Clement jesseclement1@gmail.com
Luke Lachendro avidaviator98@gmail.com
Kathy McGurran kmcgurran@aol.com
Kevin McKenzie kevinamckenzie@yahoo.com
Maxwell Wenglarz waco20900@gmail.com
David Bennett antiquer@inreach.com
Robert C. Brauer photopilot@aol.com
Dave Clark davecpd@att.net
Phil Coulson rcoulson516@cs.com
Ronald C. Fritz itzfray@gmail.com
Robert D. “Bob” Lumley rlumley1@wi.rr.com
Gene Morris genemorris@charter.net
Amy Lemke alemke@eaa.org
