VA-Vol-33-No-8-Aug-2005

VOL. 33 , NO. 8

2005

CONTENTS

1

Straight and Level

2

VAA News

3

Friends of the VAA Red Barn 2005

4

Aeromail

6

Reminiscing with Big Nick The Pylon Club- Part I

by Nick Rezich

10

The First Practical Airplane Part I: The Wright's dogged pursuit of useful flight

by H.G. Frautschy

16

Trans-Atlantic Moth

COVERS FRONT COVER: On August 5 , 1904, Orville Wright flew the Flyer II a total of 356 feet over the grassy hummocks of Huffman Prairie , outside of Dayton , Ohio. It was the 19th flight of the summer. Throughout all of 1904, the Wrights struggled with obtaining consistent, controllable flights. Af­ ter numerous crashes and subsequent revisions to their Flyer, they would achieve their goal of a truly practical air­ plane in the late summer of 1905. with their Flyer III. See the first of a two-part article on the Wrights' activities dur­ ing those two years , starting on page 10. This detail is a part of a larger image from a Library of Congress negative (the original was a 5"x7" glass plate negative). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, (LC-W86-00617) BACK COVER: M. Randall Mytar's watercolor painting " Fly Fishing" depicts a father sharing his love for fishing and ftying with his young son . The artwork was presented with the 1st place Vintage Category award during the 2005 EAA Sport Avia tion Art Contest. A very limited number of prints are available. Contact Mr. Mytar in Sherman Oaks, Califor­ nia, at 818-789-7719 for more information .

Torquil Norman's D.H .' 85 Leopard Moth

by H.G . Frautschy

20

The Forgotten Performers

Production Manager Classified Ad Manager Copy Editor

Tom Poberezny Scott Spangler H.G. Frautschy jennifer Leh l Kathleen Witman Ric Reynolds jim Koepnick Bonnie Bartel julie Russo Isabelle Wiske Colleen Walsh

Pass it to Buck

Director of Advertising

Katrina Bradshaw

Aero nca C-3 N-13000

by Buck Hilbert

Display AdvertiSing Representatives:

Bellanca's record-making airplanes

by Vic Pike

25

The Vintage Instructor Whether/weather to go, or not

by Doug Stewart

27

Mystery Plane

by H.G. Frautschy

28

STAFF

30

Calendar

32

Classified Ads

Publisher Editor-in-Chief Executive Director/Editor Administrative Assistant Managing Editor News Editor Photography

ortheast: Allen Murray Phone 609·26S·1 666, FAX 609·265· 166 1 e·mail : al/rl llllllrra)o@IlIillrlsprillg.fOlII Southeast: Chester Baumga rtn er Phone 727·573·0586, FAX 727·556·0177 e-mail; ( balllll I I I @\lIilldsprillg.fOlII Central: Todd Reese Phone SOO·444·9932, FAX 816·74 1·6458 e-mail: (o< ld@Sp("· /1/lIg.!01II Mountain & Pacific: Keith Kn owlt on & Associat es Phone 770-5 16-2743, e- mail: kkllowltulI @!ea(/.urg

GEOFF ROBISON PRESIDENT, VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION

Summertime in Oshkosh

t's the Fourth of july weekend, and I am writing this column from Oshkosh as I sit at my picnic table in Camp Scholler. I'm here tending to a number of last-minute EAA AirVenture logistical items that needed attention.

I realize that few of you folks have ever seen the EAA grounds here in Oshkosh other than dur­ ing EAA AirVenture. It's a typical summer day here in the upper Mid­ west, and as I look north from my camper, I can see the large field EAA uses for car parking, and a little fur­ ther, across the road, is EAA's Pio­ neer Airport. The grass in the field is tall and turning brown, and you can see the wind push it around, making the grass look like waves. In just a few short weeks, it won't be nearly as serene.

It is always interesting to observe the variety of reactions of first-time pre-convention volunteers who are among the hundreds who come here to prepare the grounds for this world-premier event each year.

In the weeks just prior to EAA AirVenture the atmosphere here is nothing short of surreal. There are few airplanes flying around, little to no traffic in the campground, and no buzzing of motor scooters.

The only real noise you may hear is the humming of the neighbor's air conditioner, or that wonderful symphony of noise made by the Swallow, the Travel Air or, occasion­ ally, the Ford Tri-Motor in the pat­ tern around Pioneer Airport. My campsite is strategically situated di­ rectly under the pattern at Pioneer Airport, so it's a lot like living on a

I

busy little community airpark. It's really quite wonderful!

If you have an opening in your cal­ endar, consider donating that time to the VAA Division and EAA. Think about coming early, and staying late, to experience what this little piece of heaven is like prior to the main event.

For the uninitiated, few have a real feel for the massive effort that must be put forth to prepare the grounds and arrange for all of the necessary logistical issues that are required in preparation for the thousands of visitors the world's greatest aviation event attracts each year.

It is often heard around here that without the volunteers at EAA Air­ Venture, this event would not be pos­ sible. As you know, I have oftentimes extolled the many virtues of our val­ ued volunteers. Although this is a true statement about our volunteers, in this month's column I wanted to also extend the gratitude of the Vin­ tage organization to the often-forgot­ ten individuals who toll away every work day of the year to make this lit­ tle piece of heaven more heavenly for the membership and our volunteers.

Who are these individuals? Why, they're the many dedicated, hard­ working staff members of the Experi­ mental Aircraft Association and its divisions. Special thanks to those in­ dividuals who work every day to plan and implement the untold number of incidental issues that are required to be in place to have a successful and safe event.

The effort is massive when you consider how many toilets will be needed, how many T-shirts we need to have on hand to sell, security is­

sues, or even how much lemonade to have on hand to keep our volunteers upright and in forward motion. Be­ lieve me, this list is never ending.

Everybody pulls together every year to get this huge job done in what can only be labeled as a professional and helpful manner. This effort put forth by the staff is remarkable, and it is important that we all recognize their efforts and offer them our sin­ cere gratitude.

Yes, it may be impossible to put on this world-premier event without all of the volunteer efforts, but it is im­ possible for me to imagine what this event would be like without the ever­ important participation and qual­ ity efforts of your EAA staff. Many thanks to each of you for your dedi­ cation and hard work.

By the time this column hits your mailbox, EAA AirVenture 200S will be but a recent memory. Here's hop­ ing it is a safe and successful event.

As I am putting the finishing touches on this month's column, word reached my desk today of the loss of two icons of the air show circuit. The sad and tragic loss of jimmy Frank­ lin and Bobby Younkin hit the EAA as well as the vintage family with a hard blow. This loss will be long felt by the extended Oshkosh friends and family of these two fine, professional gentlemen. Our hearts go out to the members of their individual families.

Somehow, the show must go on.

Let's all pull in the same direction for the good of aviation. Remember, we are better together. join us and have it all.

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

Dinner and a Murder

EAA staffers Gregg and Trish Deimer at the 2004 mystery dinner.

Celebrate Aviation's Good 01' Days With EAA Visitors enjoy the golden age of aviation at Good 0 1' Days 2004.

There's nothing quite like the good 01' days, especially when it comes to airplanes. On August 20-21, the good folks at EAA's Pioneer Airport present the Good 01' Days of Aviation, a heartwarming return to a simpler time of open cockpits, leather helmets, and goggles.

All are invited to experience what airports were like during the early days. Meet characters from the past, and rediscover the folklore, crafts, and skills of old-time aviation.

Weather permitting, visitors will see incredible vintage airplanes­ EAA's and those from visiting pilots (as detailed in last month's "VAA News")-fly throughout both days. Don't miss the afternoon "parade of flight" and special flight demonstrations, like balloon bursting.

Other weekend features: • At our large children's activity center kids can play the games that were popular during the golden age of aviation.

• Original aircraft building skills are kept alive in the restoration workshops. Watch a 1930 Monocoupe get .restored, and talk to the craftsmen.

• Send and receive a telegram using Morse code.

• Meet and greet EAA's vintage aircraft pilots. Dressed in period cos­ tume, they'll share their vast flying experiences.

• Create a piece of airmail and see it delivered in one of EAA's vin­ tagemail planes. All materials and stamps are provided.

Airplane rides are available in a variety of vintage aircraft including the 1929 Ford Tri-Motor, the 1929 Travel Air E-4000, the 1927 Pitcairn Swallow biplanes, and a replica of Charles Lindbergh's famous Spirit of st. Louis. Prices start at $25.

That's not all: A variety of vintage automobiles will be on display, and everyone will have an opportu nity to take a free ride in a prewar vintage vehicle.

A free shuttle service to Pioneer Airport is available to pilots flying into Wittman Regional Airport and parking at Basler or Orion FBOs. 2

AUGUST 2005

Visit EAA's Pioneer Airport for a fabulous buffet d inner on a 1930s movie set. Rub shoulders with glamorous movie stars, but watch out for shady characters! Don 't be surprised if a terrible murder takes place during dinner-after which it'll be up to you and the other pa­ trons to find the culprit.

Tickets, including dinner, are $25 for EAA members, $30 for others.

Reservations are recommended and can be made online at https://secure. eaa.orglmuseum/murdermystery.asp or by calling 920-426-6880.

First Biplane Fantasy Camp in September Everything you wanted to know about biplanes will be discussed at EAA's first Biplane Fantasy Flight Camp September 23-25. Included are three biplane flights from Pio­ neer Airport, with extensive pre­ flight and starting procedures briefing for groups, simulator flights in a )-3 Cub from the virtual Witt­ man and Pioneer fields, and various meal and evening speakers.

The camp also includes two nights in the EAA Air Academy Lodge, meals, and VIP tours of the EAA AirVenture Museum, conven­ tion grounds, collection storage, Pioneer Airport, Weeks Hangar, and EAA administrative and sup­ port facilities .

To learn more, visit www.airventure museum.org.

Continental Gray Engine Enamel From longtime member Marv

Hoppenworth, the creator of the original youngster's pedal planes you see at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh and at Pioneer Airport (thanks, Marv!), we have this little tidbit of restoration information: "It seems none of the parts-sup­ ply people that I could find have Continental gray engine enamel. I hear comments like, 'It is like Pratt & Whitney gray with blue in it.'

I'm in the process of working on an A-65 Continental that is going to be installed on a museum-bound Cub, and I wanted to get the true color. I removed the dataplate (l'm replacing it), and there was Conti­ nental gray, which had been in the shade for 60 years. Then we took the case half to our local DuPont paint dealer and went through the color charts and came up with a DuPont color match. The DuPont number is DA182A. This happens to be the Centari acrylic enamel number; this can probably be got­ ten in Dulux enamel, too."

CALL FOR

VAA

HALL OF FAME NOMINATIONS

Nominate your favorite aviator for the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame. A huge 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, that mechanic, that photographer, that pilot who has shared innumerable tips with you and with many others. They could be the next VAA Hall of Fame inductees-but only if they are nominated.

The person you nominate can be a citizen of any country and may be living or deceased, and his or her involvement in vintage aviation must have occurred between 1950 and the present day. His or her contribution could be in the areas of flying; design; mechanical or aerodynamic developments; administration; writing; some other vital, 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, and preference is given to those whose actions have contributed to the VAA in some way, perhaps as a volunteer; 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.

• Write those contributions in the various categories of the form.

• Write a simple letter highlighting these attributes and contributions. Make copies of newspaper or magazine articles that may substantiate your view. . If you can, have another person complete a form or write a letter about this person, confirming why the person is a good candidate for induction.

• Mail the form to: VAA Hall of Fame H.G. Frautschy

PO Box 3086

Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086

REM E MBER , YOUR "CONTEMPORARY" MAY BE A CANDIDATE­

NOMINATE SOMEONE TODAY!

FAA Honors Buck Hilbert Veteran pilot and VAA colum­ nist Buck Hilbert was recently honored by the FAA with the FAA Master Pilot award for 50 years of continuous flying. Scott Landsdorf, FAA Safety Program manager (left), made the presentation during a re­ cent meeting of the DuPage Pilot's Association. Our thanks to Ted Koston for sending us this photo and the information. ~

Call the VAA office for a form (920-426-6110); find it at www.vintageaircraft.org; or on your own sheet of paper, simply include the following information: • Date submitted.

• Name of person nominated.

• Address and phone 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.

• E-mail address of nominee .

• Time span (dates) of the nominee's contributions to aviation. (Must be between 1950 to present day.)

• VAA and EAA number, if known.

• 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/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.

• Name of person submitting petition.

• Submitter's address and phone number, plus e-mail address.

• Include any supporting material with your petition.

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

3

FRIENDS OF THE VAA RED BARN 2005

OUR THANKS TO THOSE LISTED FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THE VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION'S ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS DURING EAA AIRVENTURE OSHKOSH.

This list includes donors as of July 7, 2005.

Again , thank you for being a Friend of the VAA Red Barn!

DIAMOND LEVEL FRIENDS

Don Abbott, Sanibel, FL Ted Beckwith, Jr. , Tullahoma, TN VAA Chapter 10, Claremore, OK VAA Chapter 11, Glendale, WI Kenneth Cianchette, Pittsfield, ME Jacie & Scott Crowell, Bandon, OR Bud Field, Hayward, CA Nikki Field, Hayward, CA Rich Giannotti, Brookhaven, NY Charles W. Harris, Tulsa, OK Lynn Jensen, Ashland, VA Norma Joyce, Greensboro, NC Butch Joyce, Greensboro, NC Bob Lumley, Brookfield, WI Skip Rawson, Rocky Hill , NJ Ronald Tarrson, Santa Fe, NM John Turgyan, New Egypt, NJ James Turrell, Flagstaff, AZ. PLATINUM LEVEL FRIENDS

D. Ronald Boice, Chandler, AZ.

Buck Hilbert, Union, IL

Ben Scott, Reno, NV

Donald J. Warner, Gilbert, AZ.

GOLD LEVEL FRIENDS

Dean K. Alexander, Chillicothe, OH Beverly Beckwith , Tullahoma, TN Jim Gorman, Mansfield, OH Helen A. Mahurin, Kansas City, MO Earl Nicholas, Barrington, IL Steven W. Oxman, Riva, MD Stephen Pitcairn, Bryn Athyn, PA Skip Rawson, Rocky Hill, NJ S.H. 路 Wes" Schmid, Wauwatosa, WI SILVER LEVEL FRIENDS

Allen D. Boger, Jr., Argyle, TX Raymond B. Bottom, Jr. , Hampton , VA A. J. Hugo, West POint, NE Edward R. Moore, Daytona Beach, FL John D. Stewart, Slatington, PA Jamie Wallace, Frankfort, IL C. Paul Wilcox, Welaka, FL Russell Williams, Issaquah, WA Harrison F. Wood, Upper Saddle River, NJ 4

AUGUST 2005

BRONZE LEVEL FRIENDS

William R. Aikens , Bloomfield Hills, MI Lloyd L. Austin, Dover, DE Lawrence A. Bartell , Waukesha, WI Dave Belcher, Abington, MA Clifford Belleau, Anchorage , AK Kent Blankenburg, Groveland, CA Sandy Blankenburg, Groveland , CA Stacey & Michael Boggs, Keyser, WV Denis G. Breining, Austin, TX Charles B. Brownlow, Weyauwega , WI Steven L. Buss, Oshkosh, WI Perry M. Chappano, Columbus, OH Gene R. Chase, Oshkosh, WI Geoffrey E. Clark, Portsmouth, NH Sydney B. Cohen, Wausau, WI John & Marge Cooke, Galena, IL John S. Copeland , Northborough, MA Dan Dodds, St. Anthony, MN Cheryl & Chris Drake, Lindenhurst, IL Theodoore Embry, Cleburne, TX James E. Fischer, Lakeville, MN David G. Flinn, Lansing, NY Robert L. Fornesi, Claremont, CA Henry G. Frautschy, Oshkosh, WI Mal & Inge Gross, Eastsound, WA William W. Halverson, Henderson, NV Carl W. Higgins, Aloona, WI Mark Holliday, Lake Elmo, MN Barry Holtz, Fairport,NY Randy Hytry, Wausau, WI Peter N. Jansen, Jr., Seattle, WA Gordon L. Knapp, Tampa, FL Jimmy Leeward, Ocala, FL Stan Lindholm, Westlake, OH Allan W. Lund, Hayward, WI Thomas Lymburn , Princeton, MN Pfizer Foundation, Princeton, NJ William L. Madden , Las Cruces, NM Jim Matus, Rescue, CA Marie & Jack McCarthy, Crestwood, IL W. Timothy McSwain , Randolph, NJ Gene E. Morris, Westlake ," TX Roscoe Morton, Frostproof, FL James S. Moss, Buckley, WA Boynton (Bud) Nissen, Wright City, MO George A. Northam , Elmhurst, IL Anna & John Osborn, Kerrville, TX Billy & Saundra Pancake, Keyser, WV

John M. Patterson, Lexington, KY Gary L. Petersen , Walton, NE Ray Pool, Madera, CA Tim and Liz Popp, Lawton, MI Ron Price, Sonoma, CA Bob & Norma Puryear, Trinity Center, CA Theodore Reusch , La Verne, CA Charles Schumacher, Boulder, CO Arthur F. Sereque , Jr., Woodridge, IL Jeffrey L. Shafer, Fond du Lac, WI Peter Sherwin , St. Louis, MO Colin A. Smith, Henderson, NV Randolph H. Smith, Cody, WY David P. Smith, Pacific Palisades, CA Joseph M. Smokovitz, Tecumseh , MI Guy A. Snyder, Bartonville, IL Jim Snyder, Morgantown , WV L. Dean Spencer, Beadford , IN Seymour Subitzky, Reston, VA Carson E. Thompson, Elmhurst, IL Don Toeppen, Sun City West, AZ. Robert O. Tyler, Great Falls , VA Harland Verrill , Flint, MI Tom Vukonich , Southfield, MI Donald L. Weaver, EI Centro, CA LeRoy Weber, Jr. , Rio Vista, CA D. Jeanne Will iams, Sonoma , CA Red Hamilton & Marily Boese, Fort Bragg, CA LOYAL SUPPORTER FRIENDS

Jesse W. Black, Hawick, MN Edward Brannon, Racine, WI SMSgt Gary M. Brossett, Clovis, NM Rene Burdet, Belgrade, ME Samuel W. Clipp, Pennsburg, PA Charles Crume, Oak Ridge , TN Jim Newhouse, Virgil, IL Philip G. Perez, Fort Worth, TX Keith Plendl , Hinton, IA Colonel C.A. "Buz " Rich, Williamsburg, VA Stephen Sawyer, Brigham City, UT Mark W. Scott, Bethany, CT Edward Smith, Sandy Valley, NV Gary W. Sullivan , Santa Fe, NM Jim Temple, Granger, IN Thomas E. Trainor, Troy, MI Ty R. Zeiner, Marion, KS VAA Chapter 34, Falmouth, MA

be making final taxi tests at San Diego one weekend, and that if everything went well, it might fly. So some of us drove down to Lind­ bergh Field and parked down the runway at the point where the en­ gineers had calculated it would leave the ground.

I was thrilled Here's Richard's photograph of the XC-99's first flight. to see, at the The XC-99 far end of the runway, the Ryan I only recently ran across the July Aeronautical Company, where 2003 issue with the article "The Goli­ Lindbergh's plane was built.

"The tremendous, lumbering C-99 ath of the Airways" about the XC-99.

COincidentally, I was culling some made a few high-speed taxi tests, old slides I'd been saving which in­ then revved up and took off on its first flight. Just as it passed us , it cluded the XC-99's first flight.

On page 9 it is reported, "The lifted into the air."

Richard Parvin XC-99 was first flown on April 18, 1952." Not true. Later, on page 20, Clearwater, Florida "The Goliath's first flight was made on November 24, 1947." 1947 Woodworker Extraordinaire is correct, but I'm not sure of the Restoring an antique airplane month. On page 22, "It was built calls for many different kinds at the Consolidated factory in Fort of skills. And like most people, I Worth ...." That's not true. found myself deficient in some Actually, it made its first flight categories. Woodworking was the from Lindbergh Field in San Diego biggest problem, both from an ex­ in 1947. Here's my story: perience level and having tools to In 1947 I was a newly graduated make complex parts. aero engineer and former bomber My current project is a Fairchild pilot working at Northrop Aircraft 24W, and it has a lot of wood which in Hawthorne, California. Although has suffered neglect and exposure to the industry was going through ma­ the elements. jor post-war cutbacks, I was thrilled It would have been convenient to witness and photograph the first to go to the nearest Fairchild store flights of three new prototypes that to buy some of these wood parts. year: the Northrop B-49 Jet Flying But the Fairchild store is as much Wing (flying from the Northrop of the past as the hand craftsman­ runway in Hawthorne), the Hughes ship employed to build this old air­ Hercules flying boat (from Long plane back in 1939.

Fortunately I know a young man Beach Harbor), and the huge XC-99 from the Convair plant in San Di­ who is a furniture maker. In fact, he's a third-generation wood crafts­ ego. As I recorded the event: "We had heard that Convair's man and has studied under Amer­ huge C-99 transport plane would ican and European artisans. He

works with hand tools as well as power tools.

He primarily builds elegant cus­ tom furniture from old-growth, tight-grained wood, which is highly figured. His work is like fine art you'd expect in a known gallery.

So, I felt privileged that he found it interesting and enjoyable to make some airplane pieces for me. And, at a reasonable price!

All I supplied was the aircraft­ grade Sitka spruce and enough of the old tattered parts to get some dimensions.

I'd like to share his name and address with others who might be "wood challenged" like myself: Frank Strazza 329 Coastal Lane Waco, TX 76705 254/71 5-6660 fstrazza@att.net Dal Donner Clifton, Texas

Dal's experience with Frank Straza highlights the fact that you can, un­ der FAR 21.303, make a part for your own aircraft, provided you have what the FAA considers appropriate infor­ mation (drawings, for example). The rules also require that if you're having someone help you produce the part, that the creation of that part is done under your direct supervision. Check with your A&P-IA mechanic and your local FSDO regarding the appropriate­ ness of the information you have on hand before attempting to make such a part.-HGF ......

Feel free to write us here at Vintage Airplane; send us your kudos, com· plaints , corrections, or just plain old good stuff you want to share with every· body. Send your note to: Vintage Airplane Aeromail PO Box 3086 Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 You can e·mail your letter at this address: vintageaircraft@eaa.org Be sure to put Aeromail in the subject line of your message.

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

5

REMINISCING WITH BIG NICK THE PYLON CL.UB-PART I Nick Rezich

have been a racing nut ever "Daddy, you know what you are- land out of the racing picture, this since I was knee high to a tail- so why try hiding the truth?" With left Miami as the only remaining skid, and I still am. Going to that statement I grounded her for a hope to air racing survival. Fortu­ the air races to me was like go­ week and am proceeding with the nately for the Midgets, Miami and Continental Motors went on with ing to church-it was very spir­ Pylon Club story. itual. The "spirit" has never left me, Air racing faced certain doom the winter races. The Unlimiteds, but it did turn my life around at one following the 1949 fatal crash of however, were not as fortunate; pOint, which led to the opening of Bill Odom and the cancellation of they were locked out with no one the Cleveland Air Races. willing to sponsor them because the world-famous "Pylon Club."

In the three short years of post­ they were labeled as dangerous by I have been asked by many of the younger generation to tell war air racing, millions of dollars a few blockheads whom sponsors about the Pylon Club. There is so were invested in racing machines, listened to. much to tell about the club that which resulted in 400-mph speeds I could not fathom the thought I just didn't know where to start. in the Unlimiteds and over 200 of air racing coming to a grinding When I did start this episode over mph in the Midgets. Mechanical halt after 39 years of struggling to a month ago and had written over and technical barriers were being become an international sport. I 60 pages I threw them all away be­ smashed that would benefit avia­ had a personal interest and an in­ cause they all read the same-"self­ tion when the black curtain was vestment at stake that I didn't want centered." I have searched my brain dropped at Cleveland. to see going up in smoke. My per­ for weeks trying to find words that No matter what the race pilots sonal interest was in the form of don't reflect an egomania image. and owners had to say in their de­ a new-design Midget racer I had The more I wrote, the worse it be­ fense, the news media, FAA, and air­ started, and the investment was a came. Finally, my daughter solved port management, along with the commitment I had made in Cleve­ my problem. general public, hollered "Kill! kill! land before the fatal crash of Odom.

After the 50th start, she said, kill!" And kill it was. With Cleve­ I committed myself to a group of Reprinted from Vintage Airplane January 1975

I

6

AUGUST 2005

owners in Michigan for their sharp P-51, which wasn't doing well at Cleveland, to purchase their racer at the close of the 1949 races.

I managed to get out from under the-51 after the race cancellation, but I was determined to build and race the Midget. These were the events that set the stage of the Py­ lon Club.

I needed a platform to launch my campaign to save air racing. It had to be a platform where I could reach the public, news media, the business world, FAA, and other in­ terested parties. How and where?

The "where" was easy-I felt Chi­ cago was the city because Chicago had been a good racing city, hav­ ing hosted the 1930 National Air Race, the 1933 American Air Races, and the International Races, and it had the airports reqUired for such an event.

The "how" was yet to be thought of. I went to Miami for the Conti­ nental Motors' Race only to find that Miami was following Cleve­ land's decision to drop the air rac­ ing program. Miami had grown to the point where the winter air races were no longer needed to attract the tourist. They also dropped the AAA Winter Midget Auto Races.

This really made me unhappy.

The loss of another major racing event coupled with the loss of the week having fun in the sun was too much to bear. I went home deter­ mined more than ever that I would do something for air raCing-other

than talking about it.

The "how" idea came to me while I was flying the Chicago-Seattle­ Chicago-Burbank run for the non­ scheds. Those lO-hour flights gave a guy a lot of time to dream, and dream I did. I came upon the idea of opening a fabulous "sa_ loon" that I would call a night­ club. This club would have to be something unusual in order to at­ tract the people I wanted to reach.

I designed a very elaborate saloon that carried the theme of air rac­ ing to its fullest extent-thus be­ came the "Pylon Club."

When I announced my plan to my brother Frank, who was my partner in the Midget, he thought I had flipped. His reaction to the idea was, "What the hell do you know about running a saloon?"­ and, "What are you going to use for money?" I explained to him that any dummy can pour a beer and that I still had the money from the sale of my Culver Cadet. With that he shook his head, took a bite out of his cigar butt, and went back to welding on the Midget.

My original idea was to locate in downtown Chicago, but a saloon keeper friend of mine talked me out of that idea in a hurry, explain­ ing that, between the coppers and the gangsters, I wouldn't last six months unless I put them on the payroll and they would eventually own the joint.

I shifted my thoughts to the Midway Airport area, the eventual

location. The exact location was 3017 W. 63rd Street, which was 2-1/4 miles east of Midway. This location put me between the A.L.P.A. Head­ quarters and Dr. Fenwick's office, the doctor who gave most all of the FAA physicals on the south side.

For the sake of you historians, we were located just two blocks east of where Benny Howard built the first Howard DGA-8.

Flying for Monarch Air Service, the non-sched kept me out of town quite a bit, which kept the project on low burner. Time was slipping by when fate struck a blow that put us in high blower.

The non-sched I was working for hired a new chief pilot from Miami, where he was flying a Lockheed "Lobster." We were operating three DC-3s, three C-46s, and a Lockheed 10. This new guy never even rode in a C-46, but had lied that he was type rated in the DC-3 and C-46.

He started out by riding with the pilots in the DC-3s on the pretense he was checking them out until he was able to stagger around well enough not to kill himself. He then moved to the C-46, where he met his Waterloo-which ended up put­ ting the company out of business.

It happened at Midway one night about 11 p.m. Being the end of the month, all the captains had run out of time, but there was one more schedule to fly so the Head Honcho decides he would fly the trip. Larry Crawford Sr. brought the ship in from Miami and landed on VINTAGE AIRPLANE

7

a glazed ice runway at Midway with no problem.

The airplane had no squawks, so the Honcho fills it with gas and skulls and files for LGA. He cranked up and taxied to 31L without los­ ing it on the ice, but about a quar­ ter way down the runway he did lose it. For takeoff power in the -46 he was using DC-3 settings, and when he lost it, he pulled off at about 80 mph. It came off, but not for long- that over-grossed pig fell back in, and there was no room to stop it on the ice. The co-pilot, who knew how to fly the -46, moved in and advanced the throttles to max power. From my house it sounded like he double clutched it. Now the Chief Honcho moves in again and pulls it off, only this time he is off the runway and headed for John Casey's house, the airport man­ ager. Before he gets to the house, John's BT-13 interrupts the flight .

The nose, wings, and engines clear the BT-13 , but not the tail. He ripped off the stabilizer and flipper on one side of the-46, and now it is hanging on the screaming props with no tail. The airplane turned south and settled into the only open field with outside hay storage for a perfect vertical decent land­ ing. Everybody got out without injury and then the -46 very conve­ niently burned.

When the hearings were over and we found out this clown's real name and that he was not type rated in the-46 or DC-3, the insur­ e AUG U S T 2 0 0 5

ance was cancelled on the carrier and Monarch went out of the big airplane non-sched business. And I was out of a job.

WHEN THE

PAINTER

SHOWED UP

AND I

EXPLAINED

TO HIM WHAT I

WANTED ,

HE , TOO , TOLD

ME I WAS

NUTS.

About three days later myoid FAA buddy, the late Walter Blan­ ford, called from St. Louis and of­ fered me, Frank, and Monarch Air Services' original chief pilot, Frank Arlaskas, a job with Parks Airlines, which later became Ozark. I stayed on in St. Louis for a while, but the Pylon Club idea and air show flying didn't mix with Parks. So I came back to Chicago to start work on the Club.

The building I used turned out to be one-quarter the size of my origi­

nal plans. This was dictated by the price of the rent, heat, and light.

The next awakening was the prices for the decor and insurance.

I licked some of the decor costs by calling on a former Howard Air­ craft employee, Mike Bernat, who turned to interior decorating after Howard closed. We took my origi­ nallayout and shrunk it to fit the smaller building. We added Mike Bernat's ideas for the final outcome.

I could save 500 words here if I had a photo of the interior of the Club.

But believe it or not, out of hun­ dreds of photos taken by maga­ zines, newspapers, customers, and friends, I do not have a photo of the place. I'll tell you why later.

You will have to use your imagi­ nation as I try to give you a mental picture of the place. For the ceiling we used parachutes with the har­ ness removed. Mike hung them in clusters, with the top center fa s­ tened to the ceiling and the cano­ pies hanging inverted. At the edges where the chutes met the walls, we rolled the surplus and attached it in a scalloped form . The end result was a very decorative and highly insulated acoustical ceiling.

The main theme was carried into the walls . We divided the walls into four large sections, each of which would have a 3-D mural of the various racing events. Mike Bernat designed, built, and in­ stalled the four huge cornices that would frame the murals.

The murals were a major under­

taking and very costly in time and money. I had 3-D color photos of Cleveland, Miami, and California races that I wanted reduced in full detail on the 20-by-8-foot sections of wall. At first I thought I could get them blown up to billboard size like they use for outdoor advertis­ ing, but when I told them I only wanted one each they thought I was crazy or rich or both. When they quoted me $4,000 and no guarantee of quality, I scrubbed the blow-up idea.

I got the bright idea of borrow­ ing a projector to project the im­ age on the wall, and then trace the whole thing in charcoal to obtain the detail, and then paint it. The idea was great, but it didn't work.

My brother Mike solved our prob­ lem by recommending a painter he knew. He cautioned me, however, that I would have to keep this guy sober if I wanted the job to be com­ pleted. When the painter showed up and I ex plained to him what I wanted, he, too, told me I was nuts. We finally reached an agree­

ment on price and time. Now for my $5,000 mistake­ the painter asked if I wanted the paintings on can­ vas or the wall sur­ faces. I opted for the wall because it was cheaper, I thought, which I was to regret later.

Next proj ect was the identifier.

My original plans called for a bea ­ con on the roof and a huge neon­ lighted pylon in front. When I ap­ proached the land­ lord and informed him I was going to erect a beacon tower on the roof, he flipped and darn near ran me out of town. Next to get shot down was the neon-lighted pylon First, the building would have to be beefed up to hold it; next a special permit from the city was re­ quired, extra insurance, and when I got the price from the sign com­ pany to build it, I gave up and opted for a 6-foot script-lettered Py­ lon Club neon sign. I was fast learn­ ing about the saloon business. Here I am, three weeks away from my proposed opening date and I am broke and borrowing-and with six week's work left to finish.

The sign painter by now has polished off about three cases of gin, but was doing one hell of a good job. I took my chances with the painter and kept pouring the gin, and about another case later he finished the job. BELIEVE YOU ME, when we finished it was a CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS-it was a masterpiece. The only thing missing was the whine of engines and the roar of the crowd. We all sat back to admire Jeff's work and drank a toast to the master­

piece when I got the brilliant idea of just one more painting. After we all destroyed a bottle of booze, I asked Jeff if he would paint a panoramic view of racers on the racecourse at Cleveland on the window up front facing the street.

By now he was so wrapped up in the place and so full of enthusi­ asm and booze that he agreed .

This painting turned out to be a classic. Up until now we had the window covered so no one could see in while we were working.

When Jeff started to paint that window, I had to bar the door. Ev­ erybody wanted in-finished or not. In the meantime we fixed up the back bar with a big OX-5 Ham­ ilton prop, which I borrowed from my brother Mike. A pyramid of Carl Hubbell's black bordered pre-war Thompson Trophy winners were hung on the wall. Red and white checkered pylons were placed all over the place, along with trophies and a whole new slew of photos of racers, people, and events. Between the Hubbell paintings and the OX-5 prop hung a beautiful painting of our Midget racer No. 43. This paint­ ing was a gift from Paul Schaupp, builder of Mr. Zip No. 27 Midget racer, from Inglewood, California.

Before we opened formally, we had a premier showing for the avia­ tion and public press and other se­ lected guests who made the Pylon Club possible. We named the mu­ rals as follows: the south half of the west was the Art Chester Wall; this was a painting of Art Chester taking off at the San Diego Races minutes before he was killed.

The north half was the Goodyear Wall, with a large shot of one of the Goodyear Pylons with Bill Bren­ nand rounding the bend. North half of the east wall was the Cleve­ land Wall with a shot of the 1947 finish, and the south half was the Betty Skelton Wall. This wall had the shot of Bettys IiI Stinker at Mi­ ami winning the akro title. .......

Next month: Pylon Club Happenings.

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

9

·

THE

~

Part I: The Wright's dogged pursuit of useful flight H.G.

wo weeks after arriving home from the windblown sands of North Carolina's Outer Banks, the Wright brothers were working on their next flying machine. New Year's Day saw Orville sending the engine casting patterns to Harry Maltby for changes.

(A few days later he returned the patterns, saying he couldn't make the requested Changes.) Casting pat­ terns for the pistons and cylinders were sent out, with instructions to make three sets. Charlie Taylor got to work on a pair of new engines.

At least one was needed for the new Flyer, since the 1903 Flyer engine's crankcase was broken when the Flyer was rolled over by the wind after the fourth flight on December 17. The second engine would be used for tests. By the third week of January they were sawing wood for n ew up­ rights and ribs, and construction of the Flyer II was well underway.

The 1904 Wright Flyer II was

T

10

AUGUST 2005

FRAUTSCHY

nearly identical in shape and form to the 1903 machine, with one im­ portant exception: They changed the wing camber from 1 in 20 to 1 in 25, flattening out the wing's cross section, which slightly reduced its drag, but also its lift. As the sum­ mer months progressed, the heat and humidity affected the unvar­ nished wooden structure, and the airfoil further flattened out to about a 1 in 30 camber. They were count­ ing on the additional speed possible with the higher-horsepower engine and the lower drag of the airfoil to make up for the lower lift generated by the flatter airfoil.

It didn't work.

For 1905, they'd go back to the 1 in 20 camber. Other changes in­ cluded a revision to the hinge point for the forward rudder (what we re­ fer to as their elevator), since the 1903 machine's forward rudder was mistaken ly hinged aft of the cen­ ter of pressure and had a tendency

to snatch the controls from the op­ erator and to move to the full-up or full-down position when the control was moved in flight. The location of the engine was also revised to move the center of gravity. During the sea­ son, they also installed steel bars weighing as much as 70 pounds un­ der forward rudder, bringing the to­ tal weight of the machine to about 915 pounds.

Due to the scarcity in Dayton of spruce long enough for their pur­ poses, the brothers were forced to use pine for their spars, which caused a fair amount of frustration when repairs had to be made. The pine snapped easier than the spruce, causing the number of repairs to be higher. An order was placed for spruce, but it would be later in the summer before the wood would ar­ rive at their shop.

There was one pair of parts that were legaCies from the 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer-the propellers. Both

By May of 1904, the Wrights had built a new version of the Flyer they had tested in Kitty Hawk at the end of the previous year. Desiring a closer location to their home in Dayton, they gained permission to fly in Torrance Huffman's prai­ rie pasture, just a few miles outside of Dayton. There, they built a hangar shed to house their airplane, shown in these photographs in its initial 1904 configuration.

Orville leans on the strut while chatting with his older brother Wilbur, standing on the right. What appears to be a Richards anemometer is mounted to an outboard wing strut, just behind Wilbur's head. You can clearly see a larger gasoline tank and a radiator/expansion tank mounted on center-section struts near the horizon­ tal four-cylinder engine. The forward rudder (elevator) is clearly different in plan form from the 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer.

airscrews had survived the tumble over the sand after the fourth flight on December 17 and were to be used on the 1904 machine for the very first trials. It is unclear exactly when they were removed from the 1904 machine, but it seems likely it was in advance of this notation made on August 10, 1904: "Broke rudder before final landing.

Broke screw" was the entry related to a 640-foot flight made by w.w. and noted in Wilbur's Diary E. (In their diaries, the brothers referred to each other by their initials.)

On Monday, May 23, 1904, they invited the press (but no photogra­ phers), their father, and a few friends for the first flight of the new ma­ chine. It was a tough day for the brothers. They fully expected they would, at the very least, be able to duplicate the distance flown the pre­ vious December. It didn't work out the way they had planned.

While both had become the

world's most experienced glider pi­ lots over hundreds of glides since they started flying from the Great Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Caro­ lina, when they started flying again in 1904 they had a combined total of only 98 seconds of powered flying time-Orville with a total time of 27 seconds, Wilbur with 71 precious ticks of the stopwatch in his diary/ logbook. This inexperience and the combined effects of density altitude and a very narrow performance en­ velope added to their challenges.

After waiting for high winds to subside on that Monday in May, they were dismayed to see the wind die off almost completely. They placed the Flyer II on the new 100­ foot launching rail they had built, and one of the brothers (it's not clear in their diaries which of the two) settled into the padded leather hip cradle and grasped the wooden controls. The engine proved diffi­ cult to start and ran poorly, mis­ firing irregularly. The signal given, the engine lever was moved over to the far right and the restraining clip tripped. With hardly a breath of wind blowing, the Flyer started down the track. But the combina­ tion of a much higher density alti­ tude than they had at Kitty Hawk and the misfiring engine caused the Flyer to show no propensity to fly;

it unceremoniously ran off the end of the track.

A few days later, with the weather still unsettled and rainy, Orville managed a meager 25-foot hop.

Once again, their father, 76-year­ old Bishop Milton Wright, made the 8-mile trip on the interurban trol­ ley from the west side of Dayton to Simms Station, across the road from Huffman Prairie.

The summer of 1904 would be a real test of the brothers' persistence.

They were somewhat surprised and very disappointed in the initial tri­ als, and probably a bit embarrassed as well. Not since the train ride home from North Carolina in Au­ gust of 1901 had they been more perplexed and frustrated in their aerial experiments.

June, July, and August would go past before they would equal, based on time aloft, their last flight of 59 seconds on December 17,1903. They finally did it on Thursday, September IS, 1904, in a flight that lasted 59-1/2 seconds, according to the stopwatch and Richard anemometer mounted on the Flyer. That day's flight was made easier to accomplish thanks to one more innovation that was added to their list of accomplishments that fall: the construction and use of a catapult to launch their airplanes.

They didn't have the steady breezes VINTAGE AIRPLANE

11

In 1904, the Wrights would accumulate 45 minutes of flying time during 105 flights. Most of the flights were measured in seconds, such as this ef­ fort, flight number 30. Wilbur is shown in mid-flight on August 13, 1904.

He would cover 784 feet in 22-3/4 seconds, skimming low over the tall grass in Huffman Prairie. Two interesting details (see insets) are present in this image. First, on the left, below the right wing of the Flyer II, a couple of people can be seen riding in a horse-drawn cart. One can only imagine what they were thinking as the biplane skimmed the grass. Second, on the far right, it appears Charlie Taylor is the man in shirt­ sleeves with his hands on his hips as the Flyer II clatters by.

they had taken advantage of along North Carolina's Outer Banks. Rec­ ognizing that much lower average wind speeds were available in cen­ tral Ohio during the summertime, the brothers built a longer set of launching rails, each section mea­ suring 20 feet. At one point, 12 sec­ tions of rail were laid and staked to the ground for a total of 240 feet, but it was soon discovered that lay­ ing that much track was not par­ ticularly useful. It took too long to lay the rail, and often when the last section was lined up and bolted to its neighbor, the brothers and Tay­ lor would discover that the wind had begun to shift. Shortening the rail helped get the job done sooner, but consistent launches were only possible when there was a strong breeze. Too often attempts in mar­ ginal conditions ended in nothing more than a short hop. By midsum­ mer, the catapult was ready for a September 7, 1904, trial.

A 20-foot tall derrick was placed behind the Flyer, and a 3:1 ratio rope and pulley block and tackle were in­ stalled. The rope ran from the top of 12

AUGUST 2005

the derrick down to the base and over another pulley, where it changed di­ rection and ran alongside the rail to the opposite end of the shorter track (now 60 feet). There it made a 180-de­ gree turn at the launching end of the rail, running back to the Flyer perched on top of its launching truck. There it was attached to the launching truck, which had small bicycle hub wheels that rode on the metal-topped wooden rail. A second rope attached to a stake driven into the ground restrained the Flyer. When a 1,200­ pound weight was dropped 16-1/2 feet, thanks to the 3:1 ratio the end of the rope attached to the launching truck would be pulled 50 feet down the rail, accelerating the Flyer to flying speed. Each weight the brothers used tipped the scales at 200 pounds. On a number of occasions, 1,200 pounds proved to be inadequate, and the weight being dropped was increased to 1,600 pounds.

It is often assumed the Wrights al­ ways launched their Flyers into the wind, and while it was certainly their goal, their diaries make clear that crosswind takeoffs were often at­

tempted and accomplished, simply due to the vagaries of the wind direc­ tion. Thanks to the rapid accelera­ tion from the catapult, the controls were effective quickly, giving the pi­ lot the ability to counteract the effect of the crosswind.

A few weeks after starting to use the new launching system, they flew longer and farther than ever before.

On a cloudy Tuesday morning, Sep­ tember 20, 1904, starting with a crosswind from the left, Wilbur man­ aged a flight of just over a minute in time, covering 2,520 feet. He also managed to perform a pair of turns during the flight, the first to the left and the second to the right, landing as he came close to the fence near the road and the trolley line. Based on writings by Wilbur in early 1912, in a disposition related to the Wright vs. Herring/Curtiss lawsuit, it appears he may have been attempting the first circled flight, but turned back in the opposite direction when he real­ ized his turn's path would put him in conflict with a tree he depicted in a diary map of the day's events.

On the next flight, Orville did

even better than that, and an inter­ ested and erudite witness was there to see the flight.

Sixty-four-year-old Amos Root, the editor of Gleanings in Bee Culture, had driven 175 miles to visit friends in Xenia, Ohio, and made a side trip to Huffman Prairie to meet the Wrights. He'd been reading about them in the few mentions made in the press up to that date and wanted to see for himself what was happen­ ing outside of Dayton. As luck would have it, he arrived on September 20.

Root was no crackpot looking for a cause. A leading citizen of Medina, Ohio, he bought the first bicycle in northern Ohio in the 1870s, and he purchased a new Olds Runabou t motorcar in 1903. Root was known as a fellow who was willing to em­ brace new technologies as soon as they were viable. He drove the Olds on a 400-mile tour of Ohio during the summer of 1904 and drove to Huffman Prairie in September. Root had established a successful busi­ ness centered on beekeeping and is known today as the father of the modern beehive. His business, A.I. Root Inc., a company now known as a worldwide supplier of candles and beeswax, is still in its original build­ ing in Medina.

The cloudy skies gave way to rain later in the day, with the breeze shifting from out of the north­ west to crossing the field from the northeast. As shown in a diagram drawn in Wilbur's diary, Orvi lle, with a right crosswind to compen­ sate for as he started, was launched off the rail. He pitched the Flyer up to climb just a few feet, and then proceeded to do something no one had ever done with a powered air­ plane-he flew the Flyer IT for one minute, thirty-five and two-fifths seconds and flew in a complete 360-degree turn, landing only because he neared the northeast boundary of the field!

Root was amazed, and the mo­ ment was not lost on him. In the January 1, 1905, edition of Bee Cul­ ture, he wrote:

while sitting up. You can eXperience hoW

extended periods could be. Next time you're at home watching television,

try lying on your stomach and watching an entire episode of your favor­

ite sitcom for the entire half-hour- no breaks, no stretching, just you and

your head tilted upward as if you needed to always see where you were

headed. You can bet the brothers looked forward to that power increase!

The other reason was terrain. The Wrights didn't yet have the luxury of a prepared field that was long and free of obstructions. The terra firma at Huffman Prairie was once a low swamp, and the field was pri­ marily filled with hummocks of grass about 6 inches tall. A pair of flex­ ible spruce skids could ride along the tops of uneven terrain , soaking up the shocks and spreading the load along a pair of runners, but a pair of wheels would have to be set on axles mounted in some sort of shock­ absorbing apparatus, all of which added , you guessed it, weight. And in case you needed to land in a smaller field , a set of wheels might need one more device : brakes. A pair of wheels of fered little resistance to stopping, but a set of skids brought you t o a stop much quicker, wit h littl e chance of nosing over.

Eventually, the Wrights had the aircraft performance and the fie ld con­ ditions that would allow them to dispense with the ungainly launching rail and catapult system, but until then, they plied the skies of America and Europe with a pair of graceful spruce skids.

liThe operator takes his place ly­ VI N TA G E AI R PLA N E

13

dant at one time, when the rope came off that started it, sa id he was shak­ ing from head to foot as if he had a fit of ague. His shaking was uncalled for, however, for the intrepid m anager suc­ ceeded in righting up his craft, and she made one of her very best flights. "

The Wrights struggled during all of 1904 with controllability issues and fight­ ing the effects of what we have come to understand as density aHitude. Too often, a flight would end with the Flyer /I darting into the ground, such as this incident at the end of flight 31 on August 16, 1904. Orville was the pilot. The fellow stand­ ing to the right of the launching rail appears to be Charlie Taylor, the Wrights' mechanic. Flights ending like this prompted the brothers to create a catapuH sys­ tem, which they started using on September 7, 1904. The addition of the catapuH meant that flights could be started at a speed that would allow the Flyer to accel­ erate, and the Wrights' flight times immediately began to increase.

The leaves have fallen , but the excite­ ment of being able to fly the Flyer /I for over a minute at a time was irresistible for the brothers as they both learned how to control their recalcitrant flying machine, and contin­ ued to refine their de­ sign. This photograph of flight 85 was taken on November 16, 1904, during a flight in which Orville cov­ ered 1,760 feet in 40-112 seconds.

Consistent flight continued to elude them, even while they were able to keep the Flyer /I in the air for more than five minutes, sometimes circling the field four or five times. When they concluded the 1904 flying season on December 9, they had plenty of scientific work ahead of them. Confident they could solve the problems, the following spring was spent trying to sell their flying machine and later, building a new airplane. At the beginning of the summer of 1905, they stood ready to fly in the air at their will. The Flyer 11/ would test their resolve.

ing flat on his face. This position offers less resistance to the wind. The engine is started and got up to speed. The ma­ chine is held until ready to start by a sort of trap to be sprung when all is ready; then with a trem endous flapping and snapping of the fo ur-cylin der engine, the huge machine springs aloft. When it tumed that circle, and came near the starting poin t, I was right in front [of] it; and I said then, and I believe still, it was one of the grandest sights, if not the grandest sight, of my li fe . Im agine 14

AUGUST 2 005

a locom otive without any wheels, we will say, but with white wings instead, we will furth er say-a locomotive made of aluminum . Well now, imagine that locom otive with wings that spread 2 0 feet each way, coming right toward you with the trem endo us flap of its propel­ lers, and you have something like what I saw. The younger brother bade me move to one side for fear it might come down suddenly; but I tell you friends, the sen­ sation that one feels in such a crisis is som ething hard to describe. The atten­

Ve ry be st fli g ht ind ee d ; th e 52nd fli ght th e b ro th e rs m ad e with th e Flyer II was th e lo n ges t, in t e rm s o f tim e a nd d ist a n ce, they had ever m ade.

In 1904, they made a total of 105 fli ghts, most o f th em fairly sh or t, with limited turns performed within the confines of the fi eld. More than once, one of the brothers would land before turnin g any great am ount, for fear they would fl y outside the boundaries of the roughly lOO-ac re Huffm a n Prairi e. Th ey were still "feeling out" the amount of turn the m achine would tolerate, and more than once the turn ended in an un­ intended landing.

Friday, December 9, saw the end of th e 1904 flying season, a season of remarkable progress and madden­ ing problems. The airplan e still was unstable in pitch, it still had the odd tenden cy to slide off to the side in turns, and the power availabl e was barely enough to sustain the Flyer in the air. They dismantled the Flyer II, keeping the hardwa re, engines, and propellers, but burning the remain­ ing wood and fabric. The in fo rm a­ tion they had gathered in their first full season of powered flight was put to use as they bega n construction of the 1905 Flyer III. ~ Continued next month.

All of the images presented in this article are available as digital downloads from the Library of Congress website.

Start your search at www.loc.gov/rr/ print/

catalog.htm/.

Tap the blue "I'm ready to search " but· ton, and when the next page comes up, click on the OW" hyperlink, or scroll to the very bottom of the page. The Wright Broth· ers Collection is number 57. Once you're at the search page for the Wright Collec· tion , just enter a keyword such as "1904" and a list of images will be presented.

Have fun . There are plenty of interesting images-more than 300 Wright images scanned from their original glass plate negatives are part of the Library of Con­ gress' collection.

Eugene "Geno" Breiner Newville, PA

_ Graduate of Roosevelt Aviation School, Long Islanel, NY _ In 1985, restored Fleet 2, NC8689 manufactured in 1929

_ 1987: Best Open Cockpit足 Potomac Antique Aero-Squadron (PAAS), Horn Point, MD _ 1989: Best Antique Sentimental Journey to Cub Haven _ 1992: Grond Champion 足 PAAS

"I have enjoyed my aircraft through the years and have enjoyed working with AUA, Inc., since 1985 for all my insurance needs."

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Torquil Norman's D.H.8S Leopard Moth H.G.

h ere's always room for im­ provement in an airplane, and in 1933, Geoffrey de Havilland saw potential in his company's D.H.80 Puss Moth. It was a great airplane, but with a tweak here and an improvement there ...

The new version would use the higher-horsepower inverted Gypsy Major engine of 130 hp , with seating for three people and a spruce and plywood box struc­ ture for the fuselage.

When first flown by the compa­ ny's founder on May 27, 1933, the D.H.8S Leopard Moth was found to be 9 mph faster that its sibling, top­

T

16 AUGUST 2005

FRAUTSCHY

ping out at about 137 mph while car­ rying three people. Pleased with the results, de Havilland came to like the airplane so much he ordered one for himself, using it for family touring around the United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe in the bliss­ ful days before the clouds of war be­ gan to gather.

Interestingly, a curious debate over crew placement in Jightplanes was put to rest in part due to the experi­ ence gained by pilots of the Leopard Moth. When first conceived, its pre­ decessor, the Puss Moth, had both the passenger and pilot in the same cabin, an arrangement that resulted

in a great deal of discussion. Should a pilot be in the same cabin, where he could be distracted from the rigors of flying the airplane? Shouldn't he or she be positioned in a separate com­ partment or cockpit so that his or her full attention could be paid to flying the machine?

If the tandem-seated Puss Moth dealt that concept a strong blow, the Leopard Moth , with its two in the back and pilot up front, stomped on it, and the side-by­ side D.H.87 Hornet Moth put it to rest for good . The benefits of hav­ ing the passenger inside the cabin, where not only his desires could be

JIM KOEPNICK

dealt with, but his help could be of great benefit, was further enhanced by the passenger's accessi bility to flight instruction, which could be given by leaning over and speak­ ing into the pupil's ear, rather than shouting into the slipstream or giv­ ing convoluted hand Signals.

The attractiveness of such an ar­ rangement contributed to the Leop­ ard Moth's popularity, with 133 of them being made in the middle 1930s and almost half of them (60) being sold to overseas or continen­ tal owners. Buyers from as far away as Argentina and Japan ordered Leopard Moths, and when World

War II broke out, 44 of them were appropriated by the British military for use in communications work.

Not surprisingly, not all of those 44 D.H.85s re-entered civilian life after the war; many were lost dur­ ing service, but better than two dozen were reregistered. One of the Leopard Moths to survive the war was originally built for export to the Continent.

When first built in 1933, D.H.85 serial number 7035 was sold to a French owner, and it was registered as F-AMXP. It sat out the war years in a barn in France and didn't fly again until after Roger Fiennes re­

covered the airplane in 1990 and brought it to England, where Ben and Jan Cooper of the Newberry Aeroplane Co. restored it. Torquil Norman, aircraft collector extraor­ dinaire, bought the aeroplane from Roger before Roger's disappearance and presumed death in a Tiger Moth during an attempted crossing of the English Channel in the late 1990s.

Quite thoroughly restored, with an engine overhaul performed by Mike Vaisey of Vintech, the Leopard Moth is now registered as G-ACOJ and is kept by Torquil at a small strip called Rendcomb Aerodrome, located southeast of Gloucester in the United Kingdom. Like Geoffrey de Havilland, Torquil fell in love with his Leopard Moth, flying as often as he could. And like many pilots of old, the lovely handling qualities of the D.H.85 provided the opportunity to fly the aero­ plane long distances. Record-breaking flights from England to Africa and Australia were made in the 1930s, and taking inspiration from those intrepid pilots, Torquil Norman had Henry Labouchere install a long-range tank under the back seat of the Leopard Moth, giving it a 96 U.S. gallon capacity, enough to keep the Gypsy Major running for about 11 hours! A couple of warm­ up flights to Italy and France gave him the confidence in the aircraft to fly the North Atlantic.

A number of you may recall that in 1966, Torquil and Henry Labouch­ ere flew a lovely de Havilland Dragon Fly to Oshkosh. One of the lessons learned during that flight was that if one engine failed in the Dragon Fly, they would wind up in the ocean, as it didn't have sufficient perfor­ mance to maintain altitude on one engine with the other shut down and its fixed-pitch prop presenting itself to the slipstream completely unfeathered.

Torquil felt that a single-engine crossing in the Leopard Moth didn't present a significantly greater risk than the flight in the twin-engined Fly, so he gathered the equipment VINTAGE A I RPLANE

17

Like many of its de Havilland siblings, the Leopard Moth features foldable wings, which help maximize available storage facilities.

necessary for such a long trip and flew to Wick, in far northeastern Scotland. Donning an exposure suit and departing with a full 96 gallons of fuel, he pushed off to Reykjavik,

Torquil Nonnan, aircraft collector extraordinaire.

18

AUG U S T 2005

Iceland, landing after a 9-l/2-hour journey. An attempt to fly over the Greenland ice cap was rebuffed by clouds, so a run down the east coast was made, landing in Narsarsuaq, at

the southernmost tip of Greenland .

There he was greeted with beautiful weat her, with temperatures in the 60s and sunshine.

A long ru n to Goose Bay, Labra­ dor, in Canada gave Torquil a taste of just about every type of weather one can expect to encounter, from solid IFR conditions nearly down to the sea, to a near gale blowing along the Canadian coast when he (';j was getting ready to land. From ~ there he flew down to Sept-lies, on g the north shore of the St. Lawrence a: ____-......-::u...._ '"~ Seaway in Quebec, where he says Electricity for the Moth is supplied by this strut-mounted generator, which is he enjoyed a marvelous lobster dindriven by a carved impeller. You can see the damage done to it by ice and pre- ner. Then it was on to the States, cipitation encountered on the trans-Atlantic trip. making his way to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 1999 after a few stops to visit friends along the way.

A Hamilton vertical All in all, he didn't feel the air­ card compass (right) craft ever ran up against insur­ supplements the stan­ mountab le issues during his long dard British compass flight, but there were times when mounted at the bottom the long legs of the Leopard Moth center of the instru­ were not contributing to the com­ ment panel. fort of the pilot! Having made the trip in both the Rapide and the Leopard Moth, Torquil didn't feel it was likely he'd repeat his trans­ Atlantic hop, but he certainly has created a whole new set of stories to tell his chums at home. .......

VI N TAGE A I RPLANE

19

THE FORGOTTEN

PERFORMERS

Bellanca's record-making airplanes VIC PIKE

Clarence Chamberlain on his way to Gennany.

sk anyone in a pi­ lot's lounge what airplane Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlan­ tic and the reply will be, "Why, a Ryan, of course." But relatively few current pilots are aware that two weeks after Lindbergh's famous flight, Clarence Chamberlain and Charles Levine flew a WB-2 Bel­ lanca named Columbia, immediate predecessor to the Bellanca Pace­ makers and Skyrockets, from Roos­ evelt Field, New York, to Eisleben, Germany. And few pilots know that prior to his involvement with Ryan, Lindbergh unsuccessfully ne­ gotiated with Wright Aeronautical (who commissioned the WB-2) and later with Giuseppe Bellanca at his Columbia Aircraft Co. to purchase th e very plane used by Chamber­ lain and Levine. Unfortunately (or fortunately for Ryan) , Charles Levine, th e financial underwriter of Columbia Aircraft, manipulated capriciously to obstruct a sale to the

A

20

AUGUST 2005

unknown airmail pilot, Lindbergh.

From the mid 1920s through the early 1930s, Bellanca monoplanes routinely set records for distance, altitude, and endurance that made their superlative performance an expectation. Victories at the Na­ tional Air Races in both 1925 and 1926. An endurance record of 51 hours and 11 minutes in 1927, and New York to Havana, Cuba, in 1928, both by the Columbia .

Then it was Maine to Spain by the North Star in 1929 . At the Na­ tional Air Races in Cleveland that year, Bellancas took five firsts, three seconds, two thirds, and two fourths in seven events. In May 1930 came the non-refueled endurance record of 84 hours and 33 minutes in a Pacemaker powered by a Packard DR-980 radial diesel engine; this re­ cord was not broken until the 1986 flight of the Voyager.

In July 1930, another record : New York to Istanbul in the Cape Cod, nonstop. And still more: an altitude record of 30,453 feet was

set in 1931 by Bellanca test pilot George Haldeman.

1931 also saw an around-the­ world flight with Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon in Miss Veedol, which culminated in a 4,558-mile, 41-hour and 13-minute leg across the Pacific Ocean from Sabishiro Beach, Japan, to Wenatchee, Wash­ ington, which is a story in itself.

This record stood until 1947, when it was eclipsed by a u.S. Air Force 8-29. Miss Veedol was renamed the American Nurse and, in 1932, van­ ished on a trans-Atlantic attempt.

These are only a few of the ac­ complishments of this Bellanca se­ ries, and although some of these air­ planes had modifications such as longer wings, the original design was a commercial, production aircraft.

Diminutive and shy, Sicilian­ born Giuseppe Bellanca had formal education in math ematics and en­ gineering and, in a partnership of three , constructed Italy's first air­ plane in 1909. He immigrated to America in 1911 and soon assem­

bled a parasol-wing monoplane powered by a three-cylinder, 30­ hp Anzani engine. After flying this airplane, Clarence Chamberlain remarked, "I was thoroughly con­ vinced that Bellanca not only was a genius, but a hero of a rare sort."

In 1912, Bellanca established the Bellanca Aeroplane Co., con­ structed a second monoplane, and opened a flight school. One of his students was Fiorello LaGuardia, later New York's famous mayor. In 1916, Bellanca designed the CD and CE biplanes for the Maryland Pressed Steel Co. To illustrate his engineering acumen, the CE (1917) would cruise at 100 mph on 90 hp, while the con­ temporary Curtiss IN-4D Jenny, also with 90 hp, followed at 65 mph.

The CF monoplane first flew on June 8, 1922, and was spectacular for its era. With an enclosed cabin carrying four pas­ sengers and powered by a 90-hp, 10-cylinder An­ zani radial (twin rows of five cylinders), the CF cruised at 100 mph for 600 miles and enjoyed an impressive 12-to-1 glide ratio. With the CF, Bellanca created a signature airfoil fuselage profile that continued into post-war designs.

Airmail pilot William C. Hopson campaigned the CF in a series of competitions during the summer of 1922. He took first place in every event. Hopson observed, "She was by far the most remarkable plane I had ever flown."

Despite the CF's accomplishments, there was no market for a $5,000 airplane when World War I surplus models were selling for a few hun­ dred. Fortunately, the CF survived, has been restored, and is now in the National Air and Space Museum.

In 1925, Bellanca joined the Wright Aeronautical Corp., which put him in close proximity to the new 200-hp J-4 Whirlwind engines.

This prompted construction of the

conflicts with Wright Aeronautical in Patterson, New Jersey, he moved to New York and entered the con­ tentious partnership with Charles Levine. When that unraveled, Bel­ lanca re-established production in a rented warehouse on Staten Island.

Bellanca's outstanding airplanes enticed the state of Delaware, and particularly the du Pont family, into courting him to settle there. After a temporary operation in Wilming­ ton, a factory and airfield were con­ structed at New Castle; stability was finally achieved.

The rugged construction and prodigious load-carrying capacity of these unique airplanes disbursed their activities all over the world, where • they served careers from distinguished air trans­ port to bush hack. An ul­ timate utilitarian charac­ ter relegated the grand birds to situations of ex­ pendability that, unfor­ tunately, caused attrition to eliminate alarming --=-..-­ ., -<' numbers of them.

Out of the 60 that were built, only one airwor­ thy example of a Pace­ ' - ­_ _ _ _...... u maker CH-300 exists to­ day, NC251M, Serial No. all-wood WB-1, followed by the steel­ 154. And even this one is currently tube fuselage WB-2, using the im­ undergOing a complete and to­ proved 220-hpJ-5. The WB-1 was de­ tal rebuild with new fuselage and stroyed in a crash in 1926, and the wings and a target date for comple­ record-breaking WB-2 Columbia was tion in the summer of 2005. lost in a hangar fire in 1934.

Throughout the story of this air­ From the WB planes evolved the plane is the striking reality of how Pacemaker series; first the J-5 Wright many people have been involved. The powered CH-200 of 1928, then the core history of an old airplane is in­ 300-hp R-975 J-6-9 CH-300 of 1929 triguing, but the anecdotal accounts (also available with the P&W Wasp of the people create something in­ Jr.) and the R-1340 Wasp CH-400 finitely more profound. Aviation is Skyrocket of 1930, on through the a community, an extended family, senior Pacemakers and Skyrockets so loosely connected that members of the later '30s. remain unacquainted. But the com­ Giuseppe Bellanca's passion was posite connects lives in ways that to design and build airplanes with are not previously suspected. Keep the following parameters: "Maxi­ this in mind as you read.

NC251M emerged from the Bel­ mum safety and the greatest possi­ ble efficiency, as measured by speed, lanca factory at New Castle, Dela­ load, and range." His earlier dreams ware, on September 17,1929, to be seemed perpetually frustrated; after delivered as the first airplane of InVINTAGE AIRPLANE

21

ter-IsIand Airways (now Hawaiian Air­ lines) of Honolulu.

It served primarily with sightseeing flights, while In­ ter-Island's passen­ ger service evolved around Sikorsky S-3S amphibians.

On April IS, 1933, NC251M was sold to Mr. G. Fowble (pos­ sibly a broker) of San Bernardino, California, and then resold on April PICTORIAL HISTORIES PUB. CO. NC251M in 1929.

27 to MacMillan Pe­ troleum Corp. of Los Angeles. Remember "MacMillan "Engine blew up. Ship moored at Ring Free Motor Oil?" On March 20, Naknek." "Rate of climb reads SOO 1935, it was purchased by Unious feet down in level flight ." "Wind­ "Mac" McGee (McGee Airways) in shield gives pilot cold shower."

Anchorage, Alaska, to begin 15 years "Turn and bank no good. Can't as a bush workhorse. On April 20, adjust altimeter." (Signed, Satan.)

1935, McGee Airways was sold to "Repaired left wingtip, spliced rear Star Air Service in Anchorage, which spar. Rebuilt left elevator." became Star Airlines, which became Another entry notes, "Flew every Alaska Star Airlines, which became day from 1-20 to 2-14." With such casualness, the suspicion is that un­ Alaska Airlines in May 1944.

Steve Mills, chief pilot for Star, was derstatement must be intrinsically flying a sister Pacemaker, NC259M, characteristic of these bush pilots; when a fatal crash claimed his life there's no mention of the effort in­ in 1936. After usable parts were sal­ volved in keeping a 1929 airplane vaged, the remaYJs were burned at flying every day during the rigors of the site of the accident. In 1995, the an Alaskan winter. curator of the Alaska Aviation Heri­ The logs include entries by many tage Museum (and a walking ency­ noted Alaska bush pilots, a few of clopedia of Alaska aviation history), which were Kenny Neese, Johnny Ted Spencer, recovered the parts Moore, Don Goodman, Jack El­ and stored them at the museum in liot (who onee swooped down and Anchorage. Steve's grandson, Dave speared a wolf with his ski), and Bill Mills, assisted Ted in his efforts.

Lund. Lund stayed with Alaska Air­ Essentially intact, the logs of lines as its number one pilot and NC251M depict a rich history of pioneered jet flights into Russia Alaska bush flying in the 1930s during the 1970s, finally retiring and 1940s, and reading them is like in 19S0. peering into the Holy Grail. Much Martha Monsen was the Star of the story can only be extrapo­ agent in Naknek during the 1930s lated from the cryptic and frustrat­ and ran a virtual boarding house ingly taciturn renderings of bush for the pilots during layovers. pilots who flew thousands of hours Several of Monsen 's sons became over geography and in weather that pilots, and one, Mel Monsen, would be considered treacherous to told me of sitting at the supper most modern pilots. table as a young lad, caught up One's imagination expands from in the intrigue of endless conver­ such tersely penciled comments as, sations about bush flying adven­ 22

AUGUST 2005

tures. Mel Monsen related that when he and his friends played "bush pi­ lot," there was al­ ways an argument about who would be Kenny Neese.

In these early days, it was usual for Alaska air ser­ vice companies to struggle wi th fi­ nancial solvency.

Star was no excep­ tion, and in June 1939, in exchange for some capital investment, the ownership of its entire fleet was transferred to bankers Thrall and Williams of Minneapolis, Min­ nesota. In contemporary terms, these treasures included four CH­ 300 Pacemakers, three CH-400 Skyrockets, two Stinson SM-SAs, a Fairchild Pilgrim 100A, a Cessna C-34 Airmaster, and a Ford 5-AT-C Tri-Motor. The arrangement ap­ parently worked , because by Feb­ ruary 1940, everything was back in Star's legal possession.

In June 1946, Alaska Airlines performed a field conversion from wheels to Edo 4665 floats. When completed, notification was sent to the CAA with the simple comment that it was "similar to Bellanca NC256M." Approval was granted.

From 1929, NC251M flew with a Wright R-975 J-6-9 of 300 hp, re­ placed or overhauled a number of times, but a catastrophic failure in August 1946 prompted Alaska to convert to a P&W R-9S5-AN-3, Navy surplus and freshly overhauled. In May 1947, the plane was returned to service.

In December 1947, Alaska Air­ lines sold NC25 1 M to Eric Shutte (pronounced Shoot-ee) and C.V. Kay. Shutte came to Alaska in the early 1930s as a pilot and mechanic for Vern Gorst, founder of Pacific Air Transport. Kay had been a part­ ner with Shell Simmons in the Pan­ handle Air Transport Co. (Pateo)

out of Juneau in As predictably oc­ the mid 1930s. curs in the life cycle Shutte and Kay of utility airplanes, did contract flying NC251M was show­ for the U.S. Coast ing tatter and wear Guard and opened by the late 1950s; the a hotel in King engine found a home Salmon called Na­ on the nose of an­ knek Sky tel, with other ship, the wings NC25 1M providing were pulled, and it charter flight ser­ ended up in the back vices. The business of Kenmore's storage suffered a setback yard. In June 1960, in 1950 when the Dick Poet of Aums­ ville, Oregon, pur­ hotel burned, and chased the airframe on a trip south, the Bellanca was dam­ and floats. aged in an accident Kenmore Air, 1950s. On the float is Bob Munro; Walt Winsman, mechanic; Poet was an aerial near Prince Rupert, and Bill Lund, Alaska Airlines pilot, on a day off. applicator pilot and, with his wife, Helen, British Columbia.

Bob Munro of Kenmore Air Har­ more than seven decades and con­ owned Wilderness Airlines in Bella bor in Seattle salvaged the plane firmed his existence with Bill Whit­ Coola, British Columbia. Dick's me­ with the promise that insurance ney, Kenmore's senior pilot who chanic, Bob Bohanan, completely would cover the costs. The insur­ flies turbine Otter floatplanes. refurbished the Pacemaker, includ­ I visited Scott in his large han­ ing new fabric, paint, and an over­ ance company refused, and Munro took possession of the Bellanca as gar on the Renton Municipal Air­ hauled R-985 from Wesco Air Service payment. After repairs were com­ port in Washington state where on Boeing Field, which returned it pleted, NC25 1 M joined the Ken­ he conducts business as Jobmaster to pristine condition. more fle et. Currently, Kenmore is Co., his aircraft modification firm.

With the rebuild complete on a world-class floatplane operation, Out front was a beautiful Cessna June 25, 1962, there was the issue holds the type certificate for Edo 195 on floats, and inside I found of taking the airplane off the Poets' floats, and has developed many him working on a de Havilla~d grass strip. Straw was spread down STC'd modifications for de Havil­ DHC-2 floatplane. Looking at the the runway to reduce friction, and land Beavers and Otters. man and his environment, I imme­ with Dick in the cockpit, power From 1955 to 1957, Munro leased diately realized that this was hal­ was fed to the R-985. Sufficient air­ speed was achieved, but the long NC25 1 M to Bob Hall of Kodiak lowed ground.

I told him my visit was prompted floats prevented rotation and take­ Airways (actually, it was sold and repurchased for liability protec­ by an understanding that he had off was denied. Bohanan then con­ tion). Kodiak ran scheduled mail once installed floats on a Bellanca structed a two-wheel dolly from and passenger service to the five Pacemaker, and he replied, "Yes, an old truck axle, and this time, villages and nine canneries on Ko­ that was in 1957. We replaced a Dick lifted off while the dolly bur­ diak Island. The chief pilot was Gil set of Edo 4665s for some 6470s. ied itself in the brush at the end of Jarvela, and in a conversation with I can show you the paperwork." the field. After a short test flight, me, he related stories that riveted He stepped to his fi le and, without he landed on the Willamette River at Salem. Subsequently, the Poets my attention: hauling resistant Ko­ glasses, pulled it out.

I inquired of Scott how old he applied for Canadian registration diak bear cubs in gunny sacks, load­ ing incredible amounts of freight was, and with a sly smile he said, (CF-OQK) and flew to Bella Coola, in NC25 1M, and patching holes "100 minus three." After a period British Columbia, where the Pace­ in the floats with bubble gum and of time during which Scott gra­ maker began charter service with ciously shared with me some of his Wilderness Airlines. spruce twigs.

On June 25 , 1963, a woman, When the plane was returned incredible flying experiences, I left to Kenmore, Bob Munro commis­ this icon so that he could return to Mattie Jack, was attacked and badly sioned Clayton Scott to engineer working on the Beaver. [ felt that I mauled by a grizzly bear at Mud the installation of Edo 6470 floats had been in the Notre Dame Cathe­ Lake, east of Bella Coola. A call was to replace the smaller 4665s. I had dral. [We'll have more on Clayton made to Dick for a rescue flight, heard of Scott and his legendary ca­ Scott in next month's issue of Vin­ and he immediately took off with continued on page 32 reer in aviation that has spanned tage Airplane.-Ed.] VINTAGE A I RPLANE

23

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DOUG STE WAR T

Whether/weather to go, or not

here I was, driving along the turnpike, looking up at a severe clear cerulean sky, and rather than find­ ing myself ecstatic at that beauti­ ful sight, words that cannot be re­ peated in this column were form­ ing on my lips. Gosh darn (it was really a lot stronger said than that), the briefer said, "VFR not recom­ mended," and now instead of being up in that sky where I belong, I am down here, ground bound, driving to my destination.

I know probably everyone of us has been in this situation, per­ haps more times than we care or choose to remember. As the say­ ing goes, "There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pi­ lots. " Many of us are aware that most aviation accidents, when as­ sociated with weather, tend to be fatal ones . Thus, if we are not in­ strument rated and current, or fly­ ing an airplane that is not instru­ ment certified, we tend to choose alternative means of transpor­ tation when the briefer tells us, "VFR is not recommended."

But does this always have to be the case? Are there any ways to make those VFR trips possible and still remain safe? Are there any tools we can use to determine if the forecast is holding true, or if it is not? For I think we all, both male and female, would agree that the weather is like the opposite sex-to­ tally fickle and unpredictable. Let's

T

take a look at the numerous tools we have for making the go/no-go decision relative to the weather.

To help determine if the forecast is going to hold true I usually first consult the METARS. Check re­ porting stations along your route.

If you are able, get a history show­ ing the reports over the past three to four hours and see if the reports are corroborating the forecasts.

(DUATS, WSI, and Meteorlogix are all great sources for this informa­ tion.) What trend do you see in the reports? Is the weather get­ ting better or worse or holding the same? Is it doing what the TAF and FA said it would?

I'm also sure to compare the ter­ minal forecasts (TAF) with the Area Forecast (FA). The TAF covers only a S-mile radius of the aerodrome, whereas the FA covers an entire area. Keep in mind that cloud bases in the TAF are AGL (above ground), whereas the cloud bases in the FA are MSL (above sea level).

Next I check the PIREPS (pilot reports). Do they substantiate the briefer's warnings? When checking PIREPS, be sure to take into account where the report was made (three­ dimensionally), when it was made, and what type of aircraft the report­ ing pilot was flying. If a 747 reports light chop along my route, I might consider leaving the ropes on my airplane and going to have a frosty one, whereas if it's a J3 reporting moderate turbulence I might very

well launch on my own flight.

While we are mentioning PIREPS, let's not forget that (as in all things in life) what goes around comes around. If we are seeking PIREPS in helping us to make the go/no-go decision, we should also consider filing them. It takes only a few mo­ ments to file a PIREP, and in doing so you are assisting many other pi­ lots in their flight planning.

These are a few of the tools we can use while still on the ground to determine if the forecast is hold­ ing true. But what about when we are already en route? How can we know whether the weather will be as forecast?

Obviously, if the forecast was for severe clear and there are a lot of clouds forming, you do not need to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to know that the forecast is not holding true. But there are many other clues that might not be quite as obvious and that should warn us that the briefer might have been wrong.

If we realize that we are having to fly a heading other than what we had plotted to track our course, or if we are experiencing different ground speeds than what we had ex­ pected, we should understand that there is a good chance that the en­ tire forecast might be off. After all, these forecasts are predicated on the expected movement of fronts and pressure zones. When they don't move as anticipated, the winds aloft VINTAGE AIRPLANE

25

will be different, thus yielding dif­ ferent headings and groundspeeds than we had planned.

There is something else that can give us a heads-up about the pos­ sibility of the forecast going south, and that is the temperatures aloft.

Most aircraft have outside air tem­ perature gauges (OAT), and these can be very useful tools-ones that many pilots ignore. An OAT can be used to corroborate whether the temperatures aloft are as forecast .

(You do remember that the fore­ cast temperatures aloft are included with the winds aloft, don't you?)

This can give us an understanding of whether the fronts are moving at the speed and direction forecast or if they might be moving slower or faster than expected.

Keeping track of the tempera­ tures as you climb can also help you quickly determine if the lapse rate is stable. Remembering that the stable lapse rate is ZOC per thousand feet, one can make a note of the temper­

ature on the ground prior to takeoff and then check it as you climb. If it is less than ZOC per thousand, one of the major ingredients in the pro­ duction of thunderstorms is pres­ ent, that being an unstable lapse rate. (The other two are moist air and a lifting action of some kind.)

Thus the OAT can be a useful tool in confirming, or refuting, the fore­ cast of thunderstorms.

One could spend a lifetime study­ ing the weather and not get any closer to predicting what it might do. And I can't do justice to the sub­ ject in this short article. However, when it comes to weather I must say that discretion is the better part of valor. There are certainly times when the briefer will give the warn­ ing that VFR is not recommended and the day turns out to be beauti­ ful. But there are also times when your beautiful day turns ugly.

Regardless of whether the fore­ cast is for good weather or bad, be sure to have an alternate plan in

place. Remember to run the PAVE and CARE checklists that I wrote about in previous articles to h elp you make the proper decisions relative to the weather. Using the tools I have mentioned above will help you in checking the enViron­ ment, help in understanding the consequences of the hazards as­ sociated with some aspects of th e weather, and aid you in assessing the realities of what the weather is really doing.

And when the briefer gives you that dire warning of "VFR not rec­ ommended," keep in mind that it is always much better to be on the ground wishing you were up in the air than up in the air wishing you were on the ground. He might be wrong, and I've offered some tools to help determine that, but he very well might be right.

Doug Stewart is the 2004 National CFI of the Year, a Master CFI, and a DPE. He operates DSFI Inc., based at the Columbia County Airport (lBl). ........

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THIS MONTH'S MYSTERY PLANE COMES TO US FROM THE NEWLY ACQUIRED GARNER P. EMMERSON COLLECTION , DONATED TO EAA BY BOB HIGHLEY OF LAKELAND, FLORIDA. Send your answer to EAA, Vintage Airplane, P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086. Your answer needs to be in no later than September 10 for inclusion in the November 2005 issue of Vintage Airplane.

You can also send your response via e-mail. Send your answer to mysteryplane@eaa.org. Be sure to include your n'a me, city, and state in the body of your note, and put "(Month) Mystery Plane" in the subject line.

MAY 'S

May's Mystery Plane came to us from Harold Swanson.

Here's our only letter concerning its identity: Felio Ranger SP-2

MYSTERY

ANSWER

X12211 seems to have its 95-hp Cirrus upright four-cylinder en gine as it was reported to have in 1934; it was reported to have had a Ve­ lie engine when built in 1931. The owner, Harold G. Felio, is li sted

as residing in Los Angeles at that time. I learned this while roaming on www.aerofiles.com last evening.

I already had seen the aircraft in the British magazine Aeroplane Monthly that has the same photo as yours, along with some contem­ porary aircraft, in an illustrated article in the September 2003 is­ sue with the title "Call That Safe?"

The caption to the photo reads: "In 1933 Carl Hall and Frank Nixon tested this propeller cowl­ ing at Compton, California. It was claimed to 'speed up aeroplanes from 39 to 140 per cent,' and slow them 'as much as desired for land­ ing,' the inner'deflectors' serving as air brakes ."

I hope that you have more in­ formation about this interesting early try at a ducted propeller.

Jack Erickson State College, Pennsylvania .......

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

27

E.E. "BUCK" HILBERT

Aeronca C-3 N-13000

've been asked many times, "Why do you hang onto this old airplane?"

Several reasons. Mostly, it has a place in more recent history­ namely the last real Cleveland Air Race held in 1948 . And probably another reason is it represents, at least to me, the memory of the last of the barnstormers.

To the best of my knowledge, the last time this little C-3 flew was at the 1948 Cleveland Air Races.

The airplane belonged to Duke and Martha Hashner, the owners of Global Airshows and promoters of the races that year.

Duke flew this Aeronca C-3 in a clown act. The airplane was painted up with a clown face, was all red and white, and I've been told he did a remarkable job of entertain­ ing the crowd.

Duke also flew other aerobatic aircraft in the show, while Martha was the wing-walker, parachute jumper, and ticket seller.

Unfortunately, this was the same year record-holding entrepreneur Bill Odom crashed a racing P-S 1 into a residential area, resulting in his death and other fatalities. Be­ cause of this accident, Duke and Martha were the target of lawsuits that drove Global Airshows and the two of them out of business and into seclusion.

Living on the Quietula Farm at Cherry Valley, Ohio, the cou ­ ple, now forced to retire from do­ ing their air show routines, turned Global Airshows into a traveling

I

28

AUGUST 2005

static display show.

The '50s saw the advent of the shopping center. Global Airshows would truck its airplanes to the new shopping center parking lots and display them in full air show rega­ lia. Martha and Duke would dress the part, entertain the crowds, and dreamed of once again being active air show circuit acts.

The airplane belonged to Duke and Martha Hashner ...

Unfortunately, Duke, suffering from a brain tumor, lost the ability to participate and, after a long bat­ tle, passed away. Martha kept the airplanes, now stored at the farm, and spent her days tending numer­ ous pet dogs and cats, dreaming of her barnstorming glory days as queen of Global Airshows. Martha passed away in the mid-'60s.

Global Airshows and its derelict aircraft were sold to Bill Ross and me a few months before Martha passed away.

The collection consisted of Mar­ tha's Meyers OTW, Duke's Waco F, and a Porterfield CP-65 . All were in­

tact and complete, but each needed restoration. Also in the collec­ tion were pieces and parts of two Aeronca C-3s, a J-2 Piper, a Taylor­ craft L-2, and a Fairchild 22. Along with the airplanes came numerous engine parts, old tools, and propel­ lers, along with the trailers used to haul the airplanes.

"What happened to the air­ planes?" is the frequently asked question . Bill Ross was past presi­ dent of the EAA Warbirds of Amer­ ica; owned a P-38, Leroy Grum­ man's personal F3F, and an F6F; and had his hand in several enter­ prises while involved in Warbirds.

Right at that time he discovered the Grumman Goose was the best bet in sport flying, and his attention was diverted in that direction.

The Meyers and the Porterfield were restored by Bill and sold. The project Fairchild 22 and J-2 went to a couple of our Vintage members and were restored and are flying.

The Waco F was sold but never did get flying. The two C-3s came to me and eventually were restored. One was sold and one, for those senti­ mental reasons, is still in my han­ gar, disassembled and awaiting the final engine fix. The L-2 had been a gas station ornament for years, and when they took it down the guy wielding the cutting torch man­ aged to start a fire that ended any thought of restoration.

Bill Ross moved to Nevada after he retired from business, and un ­ fortunately, while returning from one of his business trips, he flew

into a cloud that had a rock in it.

Another reason for "hanging on."

It reminds me of Bill Ross and his contributions to the Warbirds of America being part of EAA. Oh yes, we did get the C-3 fly­ ing, but the engine ate itself up af­ ter about 4S minutes. Time for a different approach.

I had a set of floats and rigging, and Brian Van Wagnen and I de­ cided the little C-3 would be a real hoot to see flying on floats. However, we wanted a reliable engine, and the one we had was mostly junk.

Brian tore into it, but the crank was beyond repair. At great ex­ pense a new one was made, dual ignition heads were installed, and a new single-drive dual mag was in­ stalled after modifying the tail case.

It runs, but the vibration was bad enough to cause distrust. Another disassembly and recheck as well as internal component balance were in the works when tragedy struck.

Brian had a hangar fire and lost everything he had in the 70-by-90 hangar and its 24-foot lean-to­ his Widgeon project, the Fleet­ wing Seabird, two antique Aeronca Chiefs, a Piper 180, all his toys, shop equipment, tools, and, of course, the building.

The little C-3, stored in another building, was all that was left. The floats, rigging, and all the spare en­ gine parts were destroyed in the fire. A small loss in comparison to what Brian suffered.

With no hangar, and no shop, the decision was made to disassem­ ble NC-13000, and bring it back home, and there it sits. Every day I walk past it and say to myself, "You gotta get going!" But the press of daily living, and the episodes we've been through in the past couple of years, have stopped all the progress.

Oh well, what's another couple of years? After all, it's been grounded since 1948!

Until then it just sits, and I'm going fishing. With that, it's "Over to you."

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AUGUST 20--Niles, M[-jerry Tyler Memorial Airport (3TR). VAA

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The (ollowing list o(coming events is (IIrt1ished to Ollr readers as a matter o( it/(or­ mation only and does not constitllte approval, sponsorship, involvement, cot/trolor direction o(any event (fly-in, seminars, fly market, etc.) listed. To submit an event, send the information via mail to: Vintage Airplane, PO. Box 3086, OshkoslI, WI 54903-3086. Or e-Illail tl1e information to: vintageaircra(t@eaa.org. In(ormation shollld be received (ollr months prior to tile event date.

AUGUST 7-Queen City, MO-Applegate Airport 18th Annual Wa­

termelon Fly-In. 2 PM 'til dark. Info: 660-766-2644.

AUGUST 13-Hoquiam, WA-Bowerman Field. Ercoupe Gathering & Fly-In. All experimental, classic, and vintage aircraft are wel­

come. Excellent restaurant on field. Info: Dick 360-533-5926 AUGUST 19-21-Alliance, OH-Barber Airport (201). 7th Annual

Ohio Aeronca Aviators Fly-In. Join us for a relaxing weekend of fun, food, friendship and flying. Breakfast served by EAA Ch. 82 Sat & Sun, 7am-llam. Camping on field , local lodging and transportation available. Forums on Saturday. Info: Brian, 216­ 337-5643 or bwmatzllac@yahoo.com or www.oaaf/y-In.com AUGUST 20--Laurinburg-Maxton, NC-Ercoupe Owners Club Awe­ some August Invitational. North/South Carolina members and guests. Lunch, awards, Young Eagles Flights. Info: 336-342­ 5629 or bandman@netpath-rc. net AUGUST 20--Newark, OH-Newark-Heath Airport (VTA). EAA Ch. 402 Fly-[n Breakfast. Info Tom, 740-587-2312 or tmc@aiink.com

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Ch. 35 Corn and Sausage Roa st. 11am-3pm. Rain date August 20. Donations $5 adults, $3 children 12-yrs and under. All you can eat. Info: Len, 269-684-6566.

SEPTEMBER 3-Marion, [N-(MZZ) Fly/ln Cruise/ln. Info: www.FiylnCruiseln .com.

SEPTEMBER 3-Prosser, WA-EAA Ch. 391 's 22nd Annual Labor Day Weekend Prosser Fly-[n. Info: 509-735-1664.

SEPTEMBER S-U-Galesburg, [L-Ga lesburg Municipal Airport.

34'h Annual Stearman Fly-[n . Technical seminars. Aircraft judging and awards. Aerobatic, formation, short-field takeoff, spot-landing and flour bombing contests. Dawn Patrol, lunch-time flyouts, pizza party, stage show, banquet and more. Info: 309-343-6409 or stearman@stearmanf/yin. com or www.stea rmanf/yin .com SEPTEMBER U -Mt. Morris, IL-Ogle County Airport (C55).

EAA Ch. 682 Fly-In Breakfas t. 7am-12pm.

Info: 815-732-7268.

SEPTEMBER 16-17-Bartlesville, OK-Frank Phillips Field (BVO).

49th Annual Tulsa Regional Fly-In. Info: www.tllisaf/yin.com or Charlie Harris at 918-622-8400.

SEPTEMBER 17-Poplar Grove, IL-Poplar Grove Airport.

Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum. Salu te to WW II Combat Aviators. Military aircraft display and fly-by. Interviews with 12 WWII veterans of air combat.

Info: www.popiargroveairmotive.com/mllsellnl SEPTEMBER 17-1S-Rock Falls, IL-Whiteside County Airport (SQI). North Centra l EAA "Old Fashioned" Fly-In. Forums, workshops, fly-market, camping, air rally, awards, food & exhibitors. Info www.nceaa.org SEPTEMBER 22-25-St. Louis, MO-Creve Coeur Airport (lHO). Monocoupe Club Fly-In/Reunion. Info: Frank Kerner, (314) 277-4306 or monocoupe@sbcgiobai.net or www.morlOcollpe.com SEPTEMBER 23-25-Sonoma, CA-Sonoma Skypark (OQ9).

23rd Annua l West Coast Travel Air Reunion . Come to wine country for the largest gathering of Vintage Travel Airs.

Info: 925-689-8182.

SEPTEMBER 24-0ntario, OR-Ontario Air Faire-Breakfast by EAA Ch. 837. Large warbird collection, acro airshow, car show, stage entertainment. Free adm ission. Info: Roger, 208­ 739-3979 or ristps@aoi.com SEPTEMBER 24-Topping, VA-Hummel Air Field. 10'h Annual Car & Air Event. 8am-4pm. Featuring ant ique cars and planes, plus fire apparatus, tractors & engines, and arts & crafts. Info: (804) 694-5995 or in(o@Wingsandwheeis.lIs or www.wingsandwheeis.lIs. SEPTEMBER 24-Hanover, IN-Lee Bottom Flying Field (641).

Wood, Fabric & Tailwheels Fly-I n . Info: www.ieebottom.com .

OCTOBER 1-2-Midland, TX-Mid land [nt' l Airport. FINA­ CAF AIRSHO 2005 will commemorate 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II. Info: 432-563-1000 x. 2231 or pubiicreiations@caf/7q.org OCTOBER 5-9-Tullahoma, TN-"1932 to 2005-The Tradition Lives: Year of the Staggerwing" Staggerwing, Twin Beech 18, Bonanza, Baron, Beech owners & enthusiasts, Sponsored by the Staggerwing Museum Foundation, Staggerwing Club, Twin Beech 18 Society, Bonanza/ Baron Museum, Travel Air Division, & Twin Bonanza Assn. Info: 931-455-1974

REGIONAL FLY-IN SCHEDULE EAA Mid-Eastern Fly-In August 26-28 , 2005 Marion, OH (MN N) Virginia State EAA Fly-In October 1-2, 2005 Petersburg, VA (PTB) www.vaeaa.org

EAA Southeast Regional Fly-In October 7-9 ,2004 Evergreen, AL (GZH) www.serfi. org Copperstate Regional EAA Fly-In October 6-9,2005 Phoenix, AZ. (A39) www.copperstate.org

VINTAGE

Membershi~ Services AIRCRAFT

ENJOY THE MANY BENEFITS OF EAA AND THE EAA VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION

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Steve Nesse 2009 Highl and Avc .

Albert Lea, MN 56007 507-373-1674 stfles@(/eskmefiia.com

Phone (920) 426-4800

Vice- Preside nt

George Daubner 2448 Loug h Lane Hartford, WI 53027 262-673-5885

vaaflyboyLw,nsn.com Treasurer

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72 15 East 46th SI.

Tulsa, OK 74 147

918-622-8400

cwh@hvsu.com

DIRECTORS Steve Bender 85 Brush H ill Road Sherborn, MA 01 770 508-65:l-7.157

Dale A. Gustafson

David Bennett

Jeannie Hill

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EAA and Division Membership Services 800-843-3612 ........ FAX 920-426-676 1 Mo nday-Friday CST) (8:00 AM-7:00 PM - New/re new memberships: EAA, Divi­ sions (Vintage Aircraft Association, lAC, Warbirds), National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI)

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Programs and Activities EAA AirVenture Fax-On-Demand Directory ......... ___ . ___ . _...... 732-885-67 11 Au to Fuel STCs ..... ....... 920-426-4843 Build/restore information ... 920-426-4821 Chapters: locating/orga ni zing920-426-4876 Edu cation .......... __ . _ . . 888-322-3229 - EAA Ai r Academy

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Robert D. " Rob" Lumley 1265 Sout h 124th Sl. Brookfield, WI 53005 262-782-2633 illmpeniiexecpc.com

Membership in the Experimental Aircraft Assoc iation, Inc. is $40 for one year, includ­ ing 12 issues of SPORT AVIATION. Family membership is an additional $10 annually.

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DIRECTORS

EMERITUS

Gen e C hase 2159 Ca rlton Rd. Oshkosh, WI 54904 920-23 1-5002

E.E. " Buck" Hilbert P.O. Box 424 Union , IL 60180 8 15-923-459 1

GRCHA@Cllarter.Het

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Ronald C. Fritz 15401 Sparta AV('.

Kent City, MI 49330 6 16-678-50 12 rFritzf!!'!1athway,wl.com

Fax (920) 426-48 73

Web Site: www.vintageaircraft.org and www.airventllre.org

Indianapolis, IN 46278

S.H i O@comcas t .llet

P.O. Box 11 88 i{oseville, CA 95678 916-645-8370

~

EAA Aviation Center, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh WI 54903-3086

OFFICERS President Geoff Robison 152 1 E. MacGregor Dr. New Have n, IN 46774 260-493-4724 dlie{7025@\IOI.....om

Directory

E-Ma il: vintageaircraftCti'eaa.org

Flight Advisors info rmation ..

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920-426-6864 920-426-6801 920-426-6847 920-426-4848 920-426-6112 920-426-6864 877-806-8902

Benefits AUA Vintage Insurance Plan. 800-727-3823 EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan _ 866-647-4322 Term Life and Accidental ... _ 800-241-6103 Death Insurance (Harvey Watt & Company) Editorial . . .. . . . .. ........ 920-426-4825 Vintage _.... ... .. . ... FAX 920-426-6865 - Submitting article/photo - Adverti sing info rmation EAA Aviation Foun dat io n Artifact Donations ........ 920-426-4877 Financial Support. ......... 800-236-1025

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

EAA SPORT PILOT Current EAA m embers may add EAA SPORT PILOT magaZine for an additional $20 per year.

EAA Membership and EAA SPORT PILOT magaZine is available for $40 per year (SPORT AVIATION magaZine not in­ duded). (Add $16 for Foreign Postage.)

VINTAGE AIRCRAFf ASSOCIATION Current EAA members may join the Vintage Aircraft Association and receive VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazin e for an ad­ ditional $36 per year.

EAA Membership, VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazine and one year membership in the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association is available for $46 per year (SPORT AVIATION magaZine not in­ duded). (Add $7 for Foreign Postage.)

lAC

Current EAA members may join the International Aerobatic Club, Inc. Divi­ sion and receive SPORT AEROBATICS magazine for an additional $45 per year.

EAA Membership, SPORT AEROBAT­ ICS magazine and one year membership in the lAC Division is available for $55 per year (SPORT AVIATION magaZine not included). (Add $15 for Foreign Postage.)

WARBIRDS Current EAA m embers may join the EAA Warbirds of America Division and receive WARBIRDS magazine for an additional $40 per year.

EAA Membership, WARBIRDS maga­ zin e and one year membership in the Warbirds Division is available for $50 per year (SPORT AVIATION magazine not in­ cluded). (A dd $7 for Foreign Postage.)

FOREIGN MEMBERSHIPS Please submit your remittance with a check or draft drawn on a United States bank payable in United States dollars. Add required Foreign Postage amount for each membership.

Membership dues to EAA and its divisions are not tax deductible as charitable contributions Copyright ©2005 by lhe EM Vintage I>Jrcraft Association All righls reserved.

VINlAGE AIRPLANE (USPS 062-750: ISSN 0091-6943) is published and owned exclusively by the EM Vintage I>Jrcraft Association of the Experimentall>Jrcraft Association and is published monthly at EM Aviation Ceoter. 3000 Poberezny Rd.. PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54903-3086, e-mail: vinfageaircraft@eaa.org. Periodicals Poslage paid al Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901 and al additional mailing oHices. POST­ MASTER: Send address changes to Vintage I>Jrplane. PO Box 3086. Oshkosh. WI 54903-3086. PM 40032445 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to World Distribution Services, Station A, PO Box 54, Windsor, ON N9A 6J5, e-mail: cpcretums@wdsmail.com. FOREIGN AND APO ADDRESSES - Please allow at least two months lor delivet)l of VlNlAGE AIRPLANE to loreign and APO addresses via surtace mail. ADVERTIS­ ING - Vintage Aircraft Association does not guarantee or endorse any product offered through the advertising. We invite constructive criticism and welcome any report of inferior merchandise obtained through our

advertising so that corrective measures can be taken.

EDITORIAL POLICY: Readers are encouraged to subm" stories and photographs. Polk:y opinions expressed in artk:1es are solely those of the authors. Responsibility for accuracy in reporting rests entirely w"h the contributor. No remuneration is made. Material should be sent to: Ed"or. VINTAGE AIRPLANE, PO Box 3086. Oshkosh. WI 54903-3086. Phone 92D-426-4800.

EM® and EM SPORT AViAnON®. the EM Logo® and Aeronautica'" are registered trademarks, trademarks. and service marks of the EXperimental Aircraft Association, Inc. The use of these trademarks and service marks without lhe pennission of the Experimentall>Jrcraft Association, Inc. is strictly prohibited.

VINTAGE AIRPLANE

31

Something to buy, sell or trade?

Classified Word Ads: $5.50 per 10 words, 180 words maximum, with boldface lead-in on first line.

Classified Display Ads: One column wide (2.167 inches) by 1, 2, or 3 inches high at $20 per inch. Black and white only, and no frequency discounts.

Advertising Closing Dates: 10th of second month prior to desired issue date (i.e., January 10 is the closing date for the March issue). VM reserves the right to reject any advertising in conflict with its policies. Rates cover one insertion per issue. Classified ads are not accepted via phone. Payment must accompany order. Word ads may be sent via fax (920-426-4828) or e-mail (classads@eaa.org) using credit card payment (all cards accepted). Include name on card, complete address, type of card, card number, and expiration date. Make checks payable to EAA. Address advertising correspondence to EM Publications Classified Ad Manager, P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 BABBITT BEARING SERVICE - rod bearings, main bearings, bushings, master rods, valves, piston rings.

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AUGUST 2005

the Pacemaker in marginal weather.

Mud Lake is narrow, shallow, and a half-mile long, and Poet dragged it twice and then did a touch-and­ go before setting down for th e pickup. Mattie Jack was loaded on, and they headed for the ho spital at Bella Coola. It was dark on ar­ rival, and although landing in the narrow valley without daylight was seldom attempted, Dick executed a safe approach and thwarted a sad ending to Mattie Jack's life.

The Pacemaker's most serious trauma occurred on July 25, 1963, on a takeoff from Nimpo Lake, 70 miles east of Bella Coola. Loaded with two adults and five children from the Poets' extended family, and piloted by Helen's cousin, Bob Stewart, a wingtip caught the water in an attempt to un-stick the right float, and the plane cartwheeled.

The left wing and one float were torn off, the fuselage was com­ pletely severed immediately behind the cabin, and everything came to rest floating inverted. All on board

continued

were wearing life jackets, and the children were ed u ca ted in float flying; they tripped their seat belt buckles, swam out the open end of the cabin, and popped to the sur­ face. There were no injuries!

Bohanan retri eved the engine; it was flushed, mounted on th e nose of a PT-17 Stearman, and sold to a d entist, Dr. William Stone in Sandy, Oregon. Forty years later, the Stearman i s still owned by Stone, and the same Wasp Jr. is on the nose.

The remainder of the Pacemaker stayed on the shore of Nimpo Lake for a year and then was loaded on a farm truck by Dick's son-in-law, Alan Hauan, and returned to Aums­ ville, where it was deposited behind the Poets' barn. A much more seri­ ous tragedy occurred a short time later when Dick was involved in the fatal crash of a DHC-2 float Beaver when one wing folded. ......

To be continued in the September is­ sue of Vintage Airplane.