Va vol 45 no 3 may jun 2017

MAY/JUNE 2017

SPA R TA N

EXECUTIVES

at AirVenture 2016

Vintage Airplane

2017 F-150 Raptor

STAFF

EAA Publisher/Chairman of the Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack J. Pelton

Message From the President

SUSAN DUSENBURY VAA PRESIDENT

Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Busha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jbusha@eaa.org VAA Executive Administrator. . Hannah Hupfer 920-426-6110. . . . . . . . . . . hhupfer@eaa.org Art Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . Olivia Phillip Trabbold ADVERTISING: Vice President of Business Development Dave Chaimson. . . . . . . . . . dchaimson@eaa.org

The nuts and bolts

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Advertising Manager Sue Anderson. . . . . . . . . . . sanderson@eaa.org

Dear Friends, On Saturday, February 18, I was elected to the office of president of the Vintage Aircraft Association. Since then I’ve had time to think some things through regarding our organization. Most of you probably already know this, but let me start with who we are. I’ll begin by reviewing the nuts and bolts of the organization. We are a division of EAA, as are the Warbirds of America and the International Aerobatic Club. (The homebuilders have a Homebuilt Aircraft Council.) As a division, we are incorporated and have our own independent board of directors. We have and have always had a very close working relationship with EAA. We (along with EAA) work diligently to protect your rights as a vintage aircraft owner, pilot, and enthusiast. In other words, we represent you.

Personally, I feel that we are the passion of aviation. It’s the organization (VAA) that brings us together. It’s the beauty of the planes and the story of the pilots, designers, and builders that tugs at our heartstrings.

The history of our planes and of the pilots who flew them is awe-inspiring and inspirational to all of us. So here we are, just a bunch of good people with a passion for old planes who love to get together and talk about our planes and the stories that go with them. That’s also a big part of who we are.

Worldwide, the Vintage Aircraft Association is the premier organization representing the vintage aircraft movement. We have achieved extraordinary success. But even with the extraordinary success of the VAA, there is still a great deal to be done. My list is growing even faster than I ever imagined it would! (I’m a list person, by the way. I make lots and lots of lists and just work my way through toward the end. The problem is that my lists never end. They only get longer.) Last year, Ron Alexander and I were working on a five-year plan for the VAA and had hoped to finish the rough draft by this upcoming fall for presentation to the board. I will continue with this. The plan is in its infancy, but we had identified the major elements. That is, we had identified areas of Vintage that are in need of improvement as well as areas/things that we need but are not even in existence. That list is not short either, and each

VAA, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903 Website: www.vintageaircraft.org Email: Vintageaircraft@eaa.org

VISIT www.vintageaircraft.org for the latest in information and news and for the electronic newsletter:

Vintage AirMail

VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION Current EAA members may join the Vintage Aircraft Association and receive VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazine for an additional $45/year.

EAA Membership, VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazine and one-year membership in the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association are available for $55 per year (SPORT AVIATION magazine not included). (Add $7 for International Postage.)

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 Service PO Box 3086 Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM—6:00 PM CST Join/Renew 800-564-6322 membership@eaa.org EAA AirVenture Oshkosh www.eaa.org/airventure 888-322-4636

continued on page 13

www.vintageaircraft.org

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Vol. 45, No. 3

CONTENTS

8

VAA Election Bios

18

MAY/JUNE 2017 28

38

An Interesting LIttle Airplane A Swift in Process Bill Shepherd’s Aero 45 Hal Bryan

The Line of Eight

Gary Dalton’s Globe GC-1A Budd Davisson

COLUMNS

44

Beyond All Expectations The delightful Davis D-1K Sparky Barnes Sargent

54

Oshkosh or Bust

Christian and Paolo de Nora — Mexico to Oshkosh via Cub Amy Gesch

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Message From the President The nuts and bolts Susan Dusenbury

4 News 12 Ask the AME Prediabetes, BPH, third-class reform John Patterson, M.D., AME 14 How to?

Make a dihedral board Robert G. Lock

Spartan Executives shine at AirVenture 2016 Budd Davisson

16 Good Old Days 60 The Vintage Mechanic Teaching a Nation How to Fly The Lon Cooper Story, Part 3 Robert G. Lock 63 VAA New Members 64 Vintage Trader

COVERS

ANY COMMENTS?

Send your thoughts to the Vintage Editor at: jbusha@ eaa.org 2

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For missing or replacement magazines, or any other membership-related questions, please call EAA Member Services at 800-JOIN-EAA (564-6322).

FRONT COVER: One of the eight Spartan Executives that gathered at AirVenture 2016. Photo by Jim Koepnick.

BACK COVER: A Globe Swift captured over the Florida countryside. Photo

by Erin Brueggen. www.vintageaircraft.org

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News

The Vintage Aircraft Association Elects a New President

by Charles W. Harris VAA Lifetime 2158 VAA Director Emeritus

The Vintage Aircraft Association experienced a major leadership change on February 18, 2017, when the Vintage board of directors met in Oshkosh and elected a new president.

Geoff Robison, who had served as president since 2004 when he succeeded the retiring Butch Joyce, resigned his position at the meeting, citing three generations of pressing family concerns in his home community that require his time and immediate attention.

The Vintage board then elected Vintage Director Susan Dusenbury of Walnut Cove, North Carolina, a lifelong aviation enthusiast and a veteran of 20 years of dedicated service on the EAA board of directors to fulfill the remaining 18 months of Geoff’s unexpired presidential term. Susan is highly qualified to lead Vintage, as she has served more than 10 years for and continues as president of VAA Chapter 3 covering Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Susan’s many aviation accomplishments are lifetime in scope and are so widely recognized she was voted into the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame in 2013.

Susan is a recently retired 22,000-plus-hour airline pilot; she earned her private certificate while in high school as a 17-year-old and has flown professionally virtually her entire adult life. She is an A&P and was the first ever female IA. She owns and flies a Cessna 180, a 1936 Taylor J-2 40-hp dual ignition Cub, and a 1941 O-200-powered Culver Cadet, and is currently deeply involved in the complete rebuild and pristine restoration of her 1936 Stinson SR-6 straight-wing Reliant. She has created and main4

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tains her own private residential deep-turf airstrip near Walnut Cove.

In a related leadership matter, Dave Clark, Vintage Vice President, announced he would be stepping down at the end of his current term, which expires in July 2017 to run for a Vintage Director position. Vintage Director Tim Popp of Lawton, Michigan, was nominated by the board to run for election as Vintage Vice President.

The new Vintage president assumed her responsibilities immediately with enthusiastic plans for the membership at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017. It is anticipated she will leave no stone unturned to bring us a whole new level of energy and a sense of accomplishment within the membership at convention.

AirVenture 2017 will additionally include the unveiling and first showing of the brand new Vintage Judges Headquarters facility together with the completely remodeled and greatly expanded VAA Red Barn centerpiece building for the thousands of visiting members and guests.

The Vintage Aircraft Association is the largest and finest vintage airplane organization in the world and brings more than 6,000 members and more than 1,000 antique, classic, and contemporary airplanes to the Vintage area of Wittman field every summer during EAA AirVenture. The very best is always the case at Oshkosh, and yet it gets better every year in the Vintage area, and 2017 will be no exception.

It is with every best wish that we welcome Susan to the presidency as we look forward to her using her exceptional management abilities and leadership qualities for the benefit of the association.

Cessna 195 70th Anniversary

Seventy 195s celebrate birthday at AirVenture!

In the Beginning It’s the mid-1940s … the war has come to an end and the senior management of the Cessna Aircraft Company needs to shift gears. The company has been a major supplier to the war effort by providing thousands of T-50 Bobcat advanced twin-engine trainers and transports and by providing subcontracted manufacturing for heavy aircraft, including Boeing’s B-17 and B-29 bombers.

The economy has been growing rapidly because of the war effort, and a new pilot boom has resulted from the return of military pilots to civilian roles.

Cessna needs to take advantage of the aviation surge and cement its own future as a worldwide aviation leader. The technological advances during the war have created vast improvements in performance and the ability to mass manufacture aircraft to meet the ever-escalating threat from the enemies’ competition.

Along the way, Cessna had gained a tremendous amount of experience with monocoque construction, which uses stressed skin to form the airframe’s structure instead of a fabric-covered skeleton of steel tubing and wood. In addition to providing an easier-tomanufacture airframe that was stronger and lighter, the airframes could be expected to have much longer service lives without the need for periodic fabric replacement.

Dwane Wallace, president of Cessna and Clyde Cessna’s nephew, decided on a new direction. They would convert their designs to a more modern construction and be among the first with offerings for each of the three tiers of the emerging marketplace.

The targeted segments were (1) flight training, (2) personal transportation, and (3) business transportation. By 1947, each had its own, specific Cessnabranded product, all of metal construction. The

120/140 was a popular flight trainer, the 170 offered affordable family transportation, and the 190/195 was the company’s offering for the professional segment.

The Businessliner Getting to market quickly was key, so Cessna chose to borrow heavily from an earlier and very successful model, the C-37 Airmaster. It was among Dwane Wallace’s first designs, developed in his spare time while working at Beechcraft during the Great Depression.

The Airmaster quickly gained a reputation as a very fast and efficient airplane that had quite good reliability.

The 190/195 Businessliner sprang from that basic design but was modernized to be of all metal construction. With an additional seat (up to five), higher horsepower engine, newly patented Wittman spring steel main landing gear, greater speeds and load capacity, the 190/195 was poised to be a winner in the newly created business class segment of airplane sales. The same airplane, with some changes for military use, would find service in the Army and Air Force as a transport for executives and medical patients.

The Continental-powered 190 and the Jacobspowered 195 each offered period-appropriate comfort and safety for the business executive coupled with performance comparable to the DC-3 airliners of the day. Even in 1947, they were an interesting anachronism — despite their modern all metal design, their radial engines and tail wheels were on the way out in favor of the modern horizontally opposed engines and nose wheels of the Beech Bonanza.

So, who buys one of these and why?

Some antique or vintage airplanes are historical masterpieces, best suited as historical artifacts to be preserved, studied, and appreciated as the roots of aviation. Some modern aircraft are state of the art in every way, and it’s difficult to link their relationship to www.vintageaircraft.org

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Nominat ions

C A L L F OR V I N TA G E A I R C R A F T A S S O C I AT ION

those ancestors. Their construction, systems, and automation seem only remotely related to the golden era.

For many owners or admirers, the 190/195 fits a unique sweet spot between these two extremes. You can choose a vintage restoration, just as when it left the factory 70 years ago. Or it can be updated to the most modern of aircraft replete with autopilot, glass panel, ADS-B, and other goodies. However, many owners choose an equilibrium somewhere between these extremes to arrive at a machine that pays homage to the golden era with its classic deco lines and paint schemes, but has ample avionics and systems to operate efficiently and safely in today’s modern airspace. The Businessliner sits truly at a crossroads of Cessna history, having many firsts or near-firsts (designed specifically for business use, truly all-metal construction, and the Wittman landing gear) and the sunsetting of long-standing traditions (radial engines and tail wheel landing gear). A total of about 1,200 were built between 1947 and 1954.

Often, the most beautiful vintage airplanes are effectively orphans. The manufacturer long gone, the model line deserted, and parts availability difficult to nonexistent. This was the case in the 1960s and ’70s for the 190/195, but not today. The Businessliner continues to enjoy extensive support from a boutique of specialty restoration and maintenance shops as well as PMA parts availability from several suppliers, including Cessna. The holder of the Jacobs engine type certificate has completed many modernizations of such things as the materials for seals and gaskets, oil control rings, and even valve seats — the additive effect is a longer TBO for a less leaky and oil-burning radial engine. The effect of this support is a lower cost for parts than some well-known models of the ’70s and ’80s. Operating costs of the 195 are on par with a C-182, an attraction for the young professionals who dominate the new owners of today.

Businessliners are rare enough to remain interesting, but plentiful enough to be obtainable, with quite a number of owners and pilots to provide context, 6

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both old-timers and younger families. A typical TradeA-Plane issue or Barnstormers.com will have a halfdozen or more actively on the market. Some of the nicest examples trade hands without ever hitting the open market.

The very active International Cessna 195 type club, www.Cessna195.org, provides a gathering place to help owners and maintainers source parts, training, and insurance. It is a catalyst for many social activities, including a large event each year at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, plus an annual fly-in and convention at various locations throughout North America and many smaller, regional events. The club hosts maintenance clinics in the United States and internationally to help coach owners and their mechanics through several unique facets of the type.

One consideration — when compared with a rarer and more exotic vintage airplane, the 190/195 offers quite a bit more in terms of having practical capabilities as family transportation. Useful loads over 1,000 pounds and five seats easily accommodate Mom, Dad, and three kids plus ample luggage for a vacation. The all-metal airframe means it can be parked outside while on a trip without much concern for its exposure to normal weather. Performance can be compared with more modern 182s, 206s, and fixed-gear Saratogas.

Of course, the airplane’s uniqueness demands a quality checkout from an experienced 195 instructor and a tailwheel endorsement. Insurance companies’ required transition time generally approximates that for mastering, say, a high-performance, retractable-gear ship, and it’s readily available from mainstream underwriters. And the cool factor of taxiing in after a successful flight in a genuine, firebreathing, radial-engined, tail-dragging vintage ship is beyond comparison!

For AirVenture Oshkosh 2017, the International Cessna 195 Club plans to celebrate the Businessliner’s 70th birthday by displaying 70 airplanes in the Vintage camping area. Please stop by, visit with owners, and learn more about this practical classic.

Nominate your favorite vintage aviator for the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association Hall of Fame. A great honor could be bestowed upon that man or woman working next to you on your airplane, sitting next to you in the chapter meeting, or walking next to you at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. Think about the people in your circle of aviation friends: the mechanic, historian, photographer, or pilot who has shared innumerable tips with you and with many others. They could be the next VAA Hall of Fame inductee — but only if they are nominated.

The person you nominate can be a citizen of any country and may be living or deceased; his or her involvement in vintage aviation must have occurred between 1950 and

the present day. His or her contribution can be in the areas of flying, design, mechanical or aerodynamic developments, administration, writing, some other vital and relevant field, or any combination of fields that support aviation. The person you nominate must be or have been a member of the Vintage Aircraft Association or the Antique/Classic Division of EAA, and preference is given to those whose actions have contributed to the VAA in some way, perhaps as a volunteer, a restorer who shares his expertise with others, a writer, a photographer, or a pilot sharing stories, preserving aviation history, and encouraging new pilots and enthusiasts.

To nominate someone is easy. It just takes a little time and a little reminiscing on your part.

•Think of a person; think of his or her contributions to vintage aviation.

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

•Write a simple letter highlighting these attributes and contributions. Make copies of newspaper or magazine articles that may substantiate your view.

•If at all possible, have another individual (or more) complete a form or write a letter about this person, confirming why the person is a good candidate for induction.

We would like to take this opportunity to mention that if you have nominated someone for the VAA Hall of Fame, nominations for the honor are kept on file for three years, after which the nomination must be resubmitted.

Mail nominating materials to: VAA Hall of Fame, c/o Charles W. Harris, Transportation Leasing Corp.

PO Box 470350

Tulsa, OK 74147 E-mail: cwh@hvsu.com Remember, your “contemporary” may be a candidate; nominate someone today!

Find the nomination form at www.VintageAircraft.org, or call the VAA office for a copy (920-426-6110), or on your own sheet of paper, simply include the following information: •Date submitted.

•Name of person nominated.

•Address and phone number of nominee.

•E-mail address of nominee.

•Date of birth of nominee. If deceased, date of death.

•Name and relationship of nominee’s closest living relative.

•Address and phone of nominee’s closest living relative.

•VAA and EAA number, if known. (Nominee must have been or is a VAA member.)

•Time span (dates) of the nominee’s contributions to vintage aviation.

(Must be between 1950 to present day.)

•Area(s) of contributions to aviation.

•Describe the event(s) or nature of activities the nominee has undertaken in aviation to be worthy of induction into the VAA Hall of Fame.

•Describe achievements the nominee has made in other related fields in aviation.

•Has the nominee already been honored for his or her involvement in aviation and/or the contribution you are stating in this petition? If yes, please explain the nature of the honor and/or award the nominee has received.

•Any additional supporting information.

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

•Include any supporting material with your petition.

www.vintageaircraft.org

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VAA Election See attached insert ballot to vote Tim Popp – Vice President Lawton, Michigan

Tim joined EAA in 1988 and is now a lifetime member. He began taking flying lessons, attended his first EAA convention that same year, and has attended every convention since. Tim earned his private pilot’s license in 1989 and later added a tailwheel endorsement and an instrument rating. He joined VAA in 1994, about the time he began volunteering with the VAA Contemporary Aircraft Judges, and currently serves as the vice chairman of the group. He owns a 1958 Cessna 172, which he purchased in 1994 and has slowly restored over the years.

He is currently building a Van’s Aircraft RV-7.

Tim is an active member and past president of EAA Chapter 221 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is an active Young Eagles program participant, having flown more than 500 Young Eagles over the years. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan and is an environment, health & safety manager for a major pharmaceutical company. He has been happily married for more than twenty-five years to his wife Liz, who also actively volunteers with the VAA.

Jerry Brown – Treasurer Greenwood, Indiana

As a member of EAA and VAA since 1983, Jerry has served as an Antique Classic judge since 1999 and has received his 50-mission Young Eagles pin. He received a Bronze Lindy in 1991 and again in 1998 as VAA Customized Antique Champion. Since his retirement in 1989, he has worked full time restoring WACOs. He is involved with most phases of the restoration process, including engines and airframes.

Jerry is a member of EAA Chapter 729 and served as treasurer of the American Waco Club for 16 years.

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Jerry is a private pilot, SEL, MEL, with 3,000 plus hours in single-engine airplanes, 1,000 of which is with conventional gear. His business and community service includes 25 years as founder and CEO in plastics manufacturing and the custom sportswear business, as well as serving on the board of trustees of Franklin College.

Earl Nicholas – Director Libertyville, Illinois Earl’s love of flying came from his parents, who often took their children to airport fences to watch the planes. He began flying in college, but couldn’t afford to continue. At the urging of his father, he again took up flying at the Stick & Rudder Club at Waukegan Airport (UGN) and passed his private checkride in 1974.

Earl served as a board member of Stick & Rudder and later as its assistant treasurer, treasurer, and president.

His first visit to the Oshkosh convention was for one day in 1981. He began volunteering on the Vintage flightline the following year and joined Vintage in 1987. Earl has had many Vintage jobs over the years, including tracking volunteer hours, the Daily Aerogram, and producing volunteer name tags. He was appointed an advisor to the board in 2015. He serves as Vintage Computer Ops chairman during AirVenture. Earl designed and launched the Vintage websites in 2013 and currently manages all of the Vintage online digital media.

Dave Clark – Director Plainfield, Indiana

As a child, Dave built almost every type of flying model airplane. Dave learned to fly in J-3 Cubs in 1958 in Indianapolis, where he and his wife, Wanda, moved so he could attend pharmacy school at Butler University. He has owned an Aeronca Chief, an Aeronca Scout, and two Tri-Pacers. Dave has been working on and

restoring airplanes since 1969. Currently he is restoring his 1946 Aeronca Chief. After his retirement, he enrolled as a student in the Vincennes University Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) program in Indianapolis and graduated in 2005. He is now an A&P instructor there.

For five years, Dave served as the president of the Hendricks County Board of Aviation Commissioners to build a new airport (2R2), which opened in December of 2001. Dave attended two EAA conventions in Rockford and has attended all but two fly-ins in Oshkosh. He served as a judge of the antique aircraft category for 25 years, served as co-chairman of Antique judging, and now serves as the Vintage Aircraft Association chief judge. He also serves as the VAA Development Committee chairman.

George Daubner – Director Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

George’s love for aviation started at the tender age of 12, when he attended his first air show at his hometown airport in Hartford, Wisconsin. He realized then that he wanted to make flying a large part of his life.

He started flying in 1969 and earned his private ticket in 1970. In 1974, George was hired as a co-pilot, flying Beech 18s for a Milwaukee-based charter company. His job duties also included managing the Hartford Airport on weekends. During that period George was able to checkout in many different types of antique and classic aircraft, including a Cub, Stearman, Great Lakes, and Luscombe, to name a few.

Having retired after 25 years of corporate flying, George spends his time now as the program manager for the EAA B-17 Tour, and as a pilot on the EAA’s Ford Tri-Motor. Since 1983 George served the VAA during our Oshkosh convention as a volunteer for and chair of VAA parking and flight line safety and today as Vice Chairman of Vintage field operations. In the past, George has also served the VAA as vice president.

John Hofmann – Director Columbus, Wisconsin

John’s interest in aviation was handed down from his father. He grew up with plastic models, advancing to radio control, and culminating in his private pilot certificate in 1982. He attended his first

Oshkosh convention in 1978, joined EAA in 1982, and became a VAA member in 1988. In 1990, John moved to Indiana and became involved with EAA Chapter 226 in Anderson, where he eventually served as secretary and president.

While in Indiana, John received his A&P certificate and worked in technical publications at RollsRoyce. While working for Ken Cook Co. in Milwaukee, he also wrote marketing and technical materials for Beechcraft and was privileged to help edit Duane Cole’s final book. For the past decade, with his wife Susan, he has operated The Rees Group, Inc. in Madison, Wisconsin.

John is the past treasurer of the Midwest Antique Airplane Club as well as the current editor of the Brodhead Pietenpol Association newsletter, Cub Clues, the Luscombe Association newsletter and the Taylorcraft Owners Club newsletter. He has restored several aircraft and currently owns and flies a Piper J-3 Cub and a Pietenpol Air Camper.

Ray Johnson – Director

Marion, Indiana

Ray grew up on a farm near Marion, Indiana and has had a lifelong interest in old airplanes, having an uncle who took him for his first ride in an Aeronca Defender. He received his private pilot’s license in 1980 and the same year joined EAA and the Vintage Airplane Association. He was honored with a Bronze Lindy in 1995 and then again in 1996 received Grand Champion Classic Aircraft with his 1947 Aeronca Chief (11AC). Ray also owns and enjoys flying his 1963 Mooney M20C. Ray has attended every Oshkosh Convention since 1980. In 1991, he started the Fly/In Cruise/In held annually in Marion, Indiana, this year being the 27th consecutive Fly/In held there. This year will be his eighth year serving as chairman of and conducting the daily “Vintage in Review” program at Vintage Interview Circle. Ray is retired from American Electric Power after 42 years of service.

www.vintageaircraft.org

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TM

Friends of the

RED BARN

Friends of the Red Barn program is our only annual fundraiser to support the VAA members, volunteers, and Vintage hospitality at Oshkosh. The VAA Red Barn is the centerpiece, the central gathering place for virtually all Vintage members during EAA Oshkosh each year. The Red Barn is where we meet our friends, get our questions answered, sit on the front porch to rest a bit, drink lemonade, and thoroughly enjoy our aviation friends and the spectacular events of the day. We never meet a stranger at the Red Barn; everyone is on cloud nine just to be enjoying being in a place we so thoroughly enjoy and appreciate. But the Red Barn as we know it today did not just happen. In 2000-2001, Vintage found itself attempting to provide a proper, acceptable facility to meet, greet, and accommodate its members. The Red Barn was old. We had used it since 1973 and it was used long before that as a real barn. It was tired and not in keeping with EAA and Vintage standards in terms of condition and acceptability. Vintage had no money to improve it; our dues were pitifully small and completely insufficient to assist in any way. We had to remedy an unacceptable situation . . . and we did.

We created the Friends of the Red Barn program in 2001. We kicked off our first campaign in early 2002. Our goal was to interest a small number of dedicated Vintage members to financially support the physical improvement of the Red Barn and, far more important, upgrade and support it to the point where it became an inviting, pleasant place to meet, greet, relax, and simply enjoy the magic and magnificence that is Oshkosh each summer. The Friends of the Red Barn has become a wonderfully successful support program for Vintage members and guests during the convention. 2017 will be its 16th year, and you will be amazed to know that the majority of the Barn’s loyal supporters have been a part of the group since the very first year.

Vintage is extremely proud of this dedicated group of members. Their names are listed annually at the Barn and in the pages of Vintage Airplane. These donors have made the Red Barn and its gracious hospitality what you enjoy today . . . and we are just beginning. The Barn is upwards of 80-90 years old. Every year it receives countless physical and cosmetic upgrades, but like many of us, one of these days soon the old girl is going to have to undergo big-time reconstruction.

When that day comes Friends of the Red Barn will be there to do our part.

We hope each Vintage member realizes what a treasure we have in our own facility to serve all of us each summer, and also know that it is member-created and member-maintained, principally through our Friends. Vintage is privileged to provide some very neat thank-yous when you become a Friend in return for your contribution. It is a win-win for all. Vintage is the very finest such organization in the world. We attract visitors from all over the world to the Red Barn and our newly expanded Vintage airplane area each summer. We have grown from one lone, abandoned barn to an entire complex replicating a small country airport. With your help, every year we will provide more enhanced hospitality for all.

Please stand tall and join with us in Friends of the Red Barn; you will be forever proud and happy that you did.

Charlie Harris, Director Emeritus EAA Life Member 96978, VAA Life Member 2158

A Family Tradition Since 1953 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh has always been the place where the EAA family gathers to celebrate and create lasting memories and traditions.

Come home and be a part of the world’s largest family reunion.

July 24-31 | EAA.org/Tradition World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration ®

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Ask the AME

Message from the President continued from page 1

John Patterson, M.D., AME

Prediabetes, BPH, third-class reform I have had several questions recently that are easily answered, but will not require a whole article so the topics are seemingly unrelated.

H.S. writes: “I have been diagnosed with prediabetes.

What is this, and how will it affect my medical?”

Prediabetes means that your blood sugar is higher than normal, but not high enough to be considered diabetes. It is hard to talk about diabetes in the present medical environment without talking about the hemoglobin A1c. This is a blood test that indicates the average blood sugar over the previous 30 days.

Patients without diabetes have a hemoglobin A1c less than 5.7 percent. Levels between 5.7 percent and 6.4 percent are considered to have prediabetes. At levels of 6.5 percent or greater, the airman is considered to be diabetic. An airman with prediabetes can be approved by the AME without special issuance if the following criteria are met. The hemoglobin A1c must be less than 6.5 percent. The fasting blood sugar must be less than 126. The airman must be on no medication for high blood sugar other than metformin.

This medication is approved for use by the FAA for prediabetes.

B.P. writes: “I have had some difficulties with urination, and my doctor prescribed medication to help.

How will this affect my medical?”

Almost all medications given for enlarged prostate or BPH (benign prostatic hypertrophy) are approved by the FAA. The most common medications are alpha blockers such as Flomax (tamsulosin) that work to dilate the urethra at the bladder neck, similar to 12

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bronchodilators in the lung. The main potential side effect is orthostatic hypotension, or a sudden drop in blood pressure when getting up from a lying down or sitting position. Dizziness can sometimes occur, but typically will subside after being on the medication for several weeks. Other common medications are Proscar (finasteride) and Avodart (dutasteride), which work to shrink the prostate an average of 20 percent in six months. Again pressure is relieved on the urethra (urine tube) from the prostate, allowing the bladder to empty better.

Interestingly, medications given to relax an overactive bladder (urinary frequency and urgency) are also approved, except for the oldest and most commonly prescribed medication Ditropan (oxybutynin). While it has the most side effects of any of the medications for this particular problem, namely dry mouth and constipation, it is the most commonly prescribed because it is the one that is cheapest and the one most insurance companies will approve. Ditropan also has sedating qualities that are felt to be deleterious to its use in airmen and therefore is not approved by the FAA. D.T. asks: “How do you feel about third-class medical reform and who should take advantage of it?”

Well, it has been a long time in coming and hopefully a first step in the right direction. I am troubled about the direction health care is heading as my children now pursue careers in medicine. Every day, I am amazed that the people making decisions about health care are not physicians, but actuaries, business people, and insurance companies. Policymakers are politicians, lawyers, and even some physicians who do not take care of patients directly. I cannot write

a prescription without having to beg and plead for a pre-authorization for the medication. Surgery that I feel will benefit a patient will have to be approved by a clerk at the insurance company, and often the patient will have to undergo unnecessary testing or hoops to jump through before it will be approved.

Similarly, the FAA has required many tests of airmen, often at their own expense, to maintain their medical that even the patient’s cardiologist, oncologist, or primary care physician does not think they need.

Physicians who take care of patients have lost control of the people we treat. Hopefully this can be reversed and control can return to the individuals taking care of the patient.

Obviously airmen who fly for hire, such as commercial pilots and airline pilots, will not be able to directly take advantage of third-class medical reform.

However I think most third-class pilots will be able to take advantage of the new law. There are two areas in the law that I think will need to be watched closely.

First, it remains to be seen how the primary care physician, who is already overworked and overburdened with paperwork, will react to another form to fill out for the airman even if it is only every four years. We have yet to see the form that is required.

While the pilot is required to place this in the logbook only, you don’t think the FAA will ask for it to be sent to them? I don’t see the FAA seceding all control! Secondly, it remains to be seen how the one-time special issuance will work for airmen, especially in cancer and cardiac disease. The FAA has always considered these conditions to be progressive and not static.

Therefore special issuance has been issued in a timelimited form, and not a one-time blanket approval that is mandated in the new law. Stay tuned!

area that we had identified contains a list of its own!

In April, I plan to join the volunteers for the first work party of 2017. This is when the hard-core volunteers start the construction and refurbishing and committees start meeting in preparation for EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. There are some who will move to Oshkosh in April and stay until after the fly-in.

They’ll be staying after the fly-in to get things back in storage until preparations begin for AirVenture 2018.

I am really looking forward to it. I told them that I am pretty handy with a hammer and a saw. Don’t know that they believed that one, but it’s true. This year, Vintage will be refurbishing (and actually making structural enhancements) to our Red Barn, building a new charging station, and putting a ceiling in the Vintage Bookstore. This is a big plus for all of you who plan to be there in July for the fly-in.

In closing, let me say that I am looking forward to working with the board, the other volunteers, and all of you to move our organization forward. Our future is extremely bright and our potential is even greater.

Susan

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It is important to know that dihedral is always measured

on the top of the front spar and nowhere else.

To make a dihedral board, use the chart shown in Figure 1 (from an old reprint of data I used while teaching rigging techniques at the college). My dihedral board is set at 1-1/2 degrees because I rigged so many Stearman biplanes over the years. So for 1-1/2 degrees the “Y” measurement would be about 2-5/8 inches. Cut the dihedral board from a nice straight kiln-dried 2-by-4 and make it 100 inches long. Mark the “Y” dimension on one end and, using a soft pencil, draw a straight line and then cut using a table or skill saw. If a jointer is handy, smooth the saw cut and then either line the cut with tape or bond some thin felt so the board won’t scratch the paint. Now you are in business.

In order to properly use a dihedral board, the aircraft must be absolutely leveled laterally (across the longerons); otherwise, the dihedral board is useless. Place the board

on the top of the front spar and place a carpenter’s level, then tighten the front landing wire until the bubble is centered. And then tighten the wire one more complete revolution just past the level point so when the flying wires are tightened, the bubble should once again be level.

Above in Photo 1, a dihedral board and level on the lower wing of my Command-Aire.

I have successfully used a dihedral board for many years; in fact, I started with one when I helped rig a Stearman back in 1956. This tool is very handy, but it must be adequately marked or someone will cut it up for wheel chocks or firewood! I used this board when first rigging the Command-Aire back in 1980. A shim was added to bring the measurement up to the 2 degrees required for the airplane. The 1-1/2 degrees was for the Stearman, of which I have rigged many over my long career.

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Figure 1 14

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Photo 1 www.vintageaircraft.org

15

Good Old Days From pages of what was . . .

Take a quick look through history by enjoying images pulled from publications past.

16

MAY/JUNE 2017

www.vintageaircraft.org

17

V

iewed from a totally practical point of view, the classic airplanes of the 1930s shouldn’t exist. It’s illogical.

The decade of the 1930s coincided with the longest, deepest depression our country has ever seen.

To make things worse, the middle of the country, America’s breadbasket, experienced prolonged droughts that drove thousands from their farms. Huge numbers of Americans waited in lines at soup kitchens while virtually everyone struggled to feed themselves and their families.

Still, companies like Lockheed, Beechcraft, Cessna, and Waco not only survived but also produced aircraft that to this day are recognized as art deco classics. Near the top of that aviation totem pole is the Spartan Executive, an airplane that speaks volumes about the era in which it was born and helps de-

The

fine the term “classic airplane.” At AirVenture 2016, the sight of eight Executives parked wingtip to wingtip exemplified what aerial art can be and marked the fruition of EAA member Jim Savage’s love for the Spartan breed.

Seeing Opportunity Amid Despair: J. Paul Getty Although the country as a whole was struggling when the Executive was born, segments of society enjoyed rapidly increasing success, especially the oil companies. Notable among those who continued to thrive was J. Paul Getty, who based his early oil company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A second-generation oil man, he was so given to taking financial business risks that his father, a multimillionaire, left him just a tiny fraction of his fortune, publicly saying that his son was going to destroy the family company.

J. Paul didn’t worry about that. By the time he was 24, he had made his first million (back when a mil-

lion dollars was still a lot of money) running his own oil company.

A fast-moving entrepreneur, he quickly diversified his business interests, and most of these ventures were successful. They included the 1928 takeover of an aircraft sales operation based in Tulsa. Its name was Spartan Aircraft.

As the country fell into financial disrepair, J. Paul noticed that many still-affluent corporations and high-society individuals had discovered the private airplane.

They saw it as a valuable tool that could help them manage their businesses and their lives. He also saw Beechcraft selling its Staggerwings and Waco its cabin biplanes to that market and recognized an opportunity.

Believing that no one ever becomes successful by being a conformist, he challenged the management of his aviation sales company to begin manufacturing the airplanes they sold. But he had his own thoughts on the

Spartan Executives shine at AirVenture 2016

Line of Eight

by Budd Davisson

AMY GESCH

www.vintageaircraft.org

19

subject. The product had to be different — something that defined aeronautical progress. Most of the single-engine aircraft in the corporate/high-roller market segment were biplanes. This remained true even though the military and the airline industry had left the second wing behind. So he decreed that the Spartan Executive, as it would be called, would be everything the then-current generation of single-engine cabin biplanes was not.

It would be obscenely sleek and possess every modern mechanical enhancement the military had discovered for its fighters, including retractable gear, a big engine, Duesenberg-like interior appointments, all-metal construction, and most of all, blazing performance.

The first Series 7 Executive, the Standard Seven, f lew in March 1936, powered by a 285-hp Jacobs radial. Its handling was superlative, but at 140 mph, its speed, while satisfactory for the day, was not impressive. The fix for that was easy and right at hand. Pratt & Whitney had begun marketing its Wasp Jr. (more commonly known today as the 450-hp R-985) in 1930, and by 1936 it had become an aviation standard. With that engine, which fit nicely into the lines of the Executive, the aircraft’s ho-hum speed jumped to 200 mph, which at the time was rarely equaled. Spartan Aircraft had a rocket ship on its hands, but it did have to make a few modifications: The vertical tail surfaces had to be enlarged slightly to accommodate the extra power and speed. At the time, it sold for slightly more than $23,500. That’s $402,000 in 2016 dollars — only slightly more than the value of a restored Executive.

An ‘Executive Event’ Is Born

With the 80th anniversary of the Spartan looming on the ho-

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MAY/JUNE 2017

rizon, Jim Savage (Spartan serial No. 17, NC17634) began to think about celebrating the milestone.

“The origin of this event probably goes back to AirVenture 2014 when the Lockheeds were there,” Jim says. “I was there with my Spartan and was asked to participate in Ray Johnson’s Vintage in Review program. In the process of moving the airplane to and from the vintage parking area to the interview circle, it was suggested that I arrange something for the Spartans similar to what was occurring in 2014 with the Lockheeds. I contacted a few of the Spartan owners I knew, and none seemed to be interested. Unlike many of the vintage types, there is no type club associated with the Spartan Executive. I passed that information along to the EAA and considered it to be a dead issue.

“In early May 2016, I had a conversation with Steve Marini [NC20200, serial No. 11], and he expressed an interest in attending AirVenture 2016. We booked rooms in the same hotel and agreed to share a rental car. Since so few Spartans normally attend AirVenture — sometimes there are none — they are normally parked wherever there is an available space.

Since Steve and I would likely arrive at different times, if things were left to chance we would have little chance of being parked together.

I told Steve I knew Dennis Lange, the EAA parking guy, and would contact him to see if we could park together. Then it occurred to me that Alex Boone sometimes brings his Spartan to AirVenture. I didn’t want Steve and I to be parked together and then have Alex show up and be parked in a different area.

So even though I had not yet approached the EAA about parking the Spartans together, I sent a note to Alex asking if he wanted to park

his Spartan with our two Spartans.

Alex not only said yes but indicated he would change his attendance dates to coincide with when we would be there.

“The initial note to Alex was sent on May 23, 2016, barely six weeks before AirVenture was to start.

Again, I paused before contacting the EAA with a request for ‘group parking for three’ after considering what would happen if three Spartans were parked together and an unexpected fourth Spartan showed up and was parked in a separate area.

“Just to cover all bases, I got a list of all the Spartans and owners in the U.S. from the FAA website and sent each of them a letter via USPS, since I didn’t have e-mail addresses for some of them. In the letter, I explained that this wasn’t a formal event, and I was simply inquiring about whether or not they would be attending and, if so, would they like to be parked with the other Spartans? At that point, I still had not contacted anyone in EAA, and quite frankly, I didn’t expect to hear from any additional owners.

“Much to my surprise, I quickly got one definite yes and one maybe.

The time had come to talk to the EAA and ask if it would be possible to have four and possibly five Spartans parked together for AirVenture 2016. Well, the response was not only ‘yes’ but ‘what can we do to help?’ At that point, I decided to turn the group parking thing into an ‘event.’

“Since the first production Spartan was built in 1936, I thought ‘80th Anniversary Gathering of Spartans’ would be an appropriate theme. I have a rather large collection of Spartan information and memorabilia and knew that the largest documented gathering in the past had consisted of six air-

The only thing better than a round-motored airplane is eight of them in a row.

TYSON RININGER

planes — the prototype and five production models. I decided to try to equal or exceed that number, so I went to work on the one ‘maybe’ and did a bit of coaxing with some of the others. I also started my efforts to get EAA to move their Spartan from the museum to the Vintage parking area. That, incidentally, was the most difficult one to get. Ultimately, I had commitments for eight airplanes, and each of those airplanes made it to the event!

“On June 21, barely a month before AirVenture started, I made a promotional video titled The Spartans Are Coming, as well as information packets that were sent to EAA and VAA for their use. They used the video and the information packets from that point through the start of AirVenture.”

On the 80th anniversar y of something as fragile as an airplane, it would be logical to assume that the survivors could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Not so with the Spartan. Nearly 60 percent have survived!

“Thirty-four were built, 20 have survived, and 18 are in the USA,”

says Jim. “The number still flying is impossible to accurately determine. Some are flown regularly for a period of time and then are parked for years before once again becoming active. Of the eight Spartans that attended, four did not have a current annual inspection when I first contacted the owners. Of the 18 in the U.S., about a third are ones that you could preflight and fly legally tomorrow. Another third could be made flyable with anywhere from a few days to a few weeks of work. The final third are either in museums, in long-term storage, or undergoing major maintenance/restoration. If you assume a dozen are flyable, or

easily made that way, then getting eight at AirVenture constitutes a victory. Watching the eighth Spartan taxi into the final open space in the line was the high point of the week. For me, it was all about the ‘line of eight’ and not any individual Spartan.”

The Line of Eight

In so many ways, it’s a shame that airplanes can’t talk. Any airplane as old as a Spartan could tell some interesting tales. The Line of Eight at Oshkosh and their owners attest to that fact.

Serial No. 2, NC13993

Built on November 20, 1936,

Historical tales told here.

www.vintageaircraft.org

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The Ham-Standard prop, combined with a P&W R-980 and just the right amount of humidity to create condensation contrails on takeoff.

Words are inadequate and unnecessary for a scene like this.

AMY GESCH

CHRIS MILLER

the second Executive produced was first sold to A.D. Olson Drilling Co. of Oklahoma. It was impressed into U.S. Army Air Forces service from 1942 to 1944 as a UC-71SP along with many other Executives. It was unique for a number of reasons, including being the only Executive with stick, rather than yoke, controls — an owner modification that was done in 1953. It is now on static display at EAA’s Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh. Although it bears the name Mrs. Mennen, it is not the original Mrs. Mennen. That was serial No. 34. Even so, this airplane was donated to the EAA by longtime EAA member and Executive owner/pilot George Mennen.

Serial No. 6, NC17601 (N2LL)

Built on April 30, 1937, No. 6 was first sold to Lee Drilling Co. of Oklahoma. John O’Keefe and family of Winthrop, Washington, are the current curators. “It’s our daily flier because it combines the nos22

MAY/JUNE 2017

talgia, looks, and panache of the 1930s with the cross-country abilities of a much more modern aircraft,” John says. “At a low cruise setting we’re doing 185 mph at 21 gph. Gordon Holbrook, manager of the engine overhaul shop at Kenmore Air Harbor that overhauled the engine, deserves special mention. I’ve put 1,200 hours on it with zero problems.”

Serial No. 11, N20200

Initially licensed on September 7, 1937, No. 11 was sold to oil giant Halliburton in Duncan, Oklahoma.

During the war its serial number was 42-43846. Steve Marini, who had it at AirVenture 2016, may have been infected by the Executive virus earlier than most. “I was just 16 years old with my father looking at a motor coach in a hangar that also housed the most beautiful art-deco airplane I had ever seen,” Steve says. “I was informed it was a Spartan Executive, and the owner was kind enough to let me crawl in and around it. I was in

love! I told my dad, ‘I will own one of these someday!’ Fast-forward 15 years to 1998. … I had decided to talk to everyone that I could find who owned one. Everyone without question said the same thing: ‘Bill Goldman in Payson, Arizona, had the best one.’ Bill had owned the airplane for 42 years and, over a cup of coffee, decided I should be the next curator. Incidentally, No. 11 is the only Spartan with an N number beginning with ‘2.’ When Halliburton bought the airplane, it was their 20th aircraft and it would do over 200 mph, so they had the tail number NC20200 assigned to the plane.”

and ready to go. When asked what drew him to vintage airplanes and the Executive, his quick answer was, “Good question!” He readily admits that round engines and artistic airframes really light a fire under him, and he is now hearing the DC-3 calling to him.

Serial No. 13, NC13PH (NC17614)

Built November 14, 1937, No. 13 was first sold to Standard Oil Co. of Ohio and bore USAAF serial number 42-38269 during World War II. After it was abandoned and severely vandalized in the ’50s and ’60s, Pat

Hartness of Greenville, South Carolina, rescued it and did a complete restoration, including a total reskinning of the airplane. It was finished in 1974. He’s been the caretaker of the airplane for 46 years! Now retired, he is the chairman and “visionary” of Triple Tree Aerodrome,

The lines may cry “art deco” today, but at the time it was as if it had been created by the gods.

Serial No. 12, NC17613

Built November 15, 1937, No. 12’s first home was with the American Manufacturing Co. of Texas.

USAAF serial number 42-38265 was its ID during wartime service. It was brought to AirVenture 2016 by owner Alex Boone of Lexington, Kentucky, who purchased it several years ago all shined up

JIM KOEPNICK

www.vintageaircraft.org

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The wide, well-damped gear makes landing the airplane a breeze.

an expansive and comprehensive sport-av-oriented airport in Woodruff, South Carolina. “In the early days, after we got it flying, I used the Executive in our business,” he says. “Then I used it just for fun.

As the Executives taxied in, a crowd immediately formed to scrutinize and admire each.

Now it’s in its golden age of rest, making trips to other fly-ins and special trips for special occasions. I love it as much now as I did at the beginning, and the airplane will stay at Triple Tree forever.”

Serial No. 15, NC17616 (NC236, N836)

Built March 30, 1938, No. 15 was initially sold to Condor Petroleum Co. in Texas. Flown by the Civil Aeronautics Administration in

JIM KOEPNICK

MARCH/APRIL 2017

1943 in the Washington, D.C., area, it was known as 42-57515 while in the USAAF. Ken and Lorraine Morris of Poplar Grove, Illinois, totally restored it about 10 years ago, and Bob Redman bought it. Bob brought it to AirVenture 2016 and loves to point out that Howard Hughes’ name is in the logbook from when he flew it for a month on a bond tour during WWII. He owns, and has owned, a wide variety of aircraft of all kinds, including a number of Cub variations. However, he says, “I wanted an Executive for over 25 years. It was the only vintage/antique airplane I cared about, and when I saw this one for sale, I bought it. No questions asked!”

Serial No. 17, NC17634 (NC17630, KD102, N1MJ, NC17667)

It takes a lot of elbow grease to keep an airplane looking this good.

24

CHRIS MILLER

Built February 22, 1939, No. 17 was initially sold to Claude Drilling Co. of Oklahoma, but it flew with

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Basically, the airplane is as streamlined as a large raindrop.

rtner with EAA a P d u o r P

the Royal Air Force in Canada as KD102 during WWII. After the war, it was part of Texaco’s executive fleet for a decade, then cycled through a number of owners before Jim and Anita Savage of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, snatched it up.

“I had no real interest in vintage aircraft until I saw a Spartan Executive in a hangar in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the summer of 2004,” Jim says. “I started researching them and by 2007 had convinced myself that I needed to own one. I love shiny art deco items! To me it is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built. I finally owned an Executive in April 2008. We purchased it from an insurance company after the previous owner had been involved in a landing accident.

“Once I had the airplane in my hangar, we spent an enormous amount of time and money correcting work that had been done on it. Beginning with the spinner and working back to the rudder, virtually everything has been redone. Some of the many projects 26

MAY/JUNE 2017

included paint, trim, new fabric on the control surfaces, new interior, new instrument panel, new radios, Cleveland brakes and wheels, and new windows. I fly it about 50 hours a year and always try to make Oshkosh and Blakesburg with it.”

Serial No. 28, NC17662

Built March 7, 1941, No. 28 is unique in that the airplane remained with Spartan from the day it was born until Spartan School was sold in 1976. Even during WWII it remained in civilian hands and was flown as a demonstrator and executive transport. It is unique to the breed in that it has both civilian and military data plates. “My list of ‘lust’ airplanes all had some historical meaning,” says owner Ron Tarrson of Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I had already owned a Waco YMF-5, but my Waco ARE was special because it belonged to the New York Times as a photographic platform for the paper, and I knew the original pilot.

The Spartan Executive was special because it was a transition plane be-

tween fabric biplanes and low-wing metal planes — kind of the Learjet of its day. As with each antique/classic airplane I’ve owned, I consider myself a caretaker, flying and maintaining it for the next caretaker to enjoy and share with the public.”

And so one of the major sights attendees of AirVenture 2016 were treated to came to an end as The Eight departed and went their separate ways. It is highly unlikely that we’ll see a line of eight Executives again. But who knows? As a new generation of antiquers discovers the Executive, maybe we’ll see a dozen of the art deco aluminum queens lined up under the trees in the Vintage area. We can only hope.

P.S.: Here’s something to tweak the noses of treasure seekers reading this: Three Spartans, serial numbers 3, 4, and 5, were exported to Mexico from 1936 to 1937, but their fate is unknown. Think about it: There may be a blunt-nosed barn find awaiting discovery south of the border.

"Ford’s redesigned F-150 with the 2.7L EcoBoost® engine was on my radar when I started looking for a new truck in 2016. As an EAA member, I was able to increase my buying power with Ford’s Partner Recognition Program special pricing. I was able to purchase the truck with additional options and still keep it very affordable.

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An Interesting

Little

TYSON RININGER

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MAY/JUNE 2017

Airplane

Bill Shepherd’s Aero 45

by Hal Bryan “It’s an interesting little airplane,” said Bill Shepherd, EAA 31832, VAA 3377. “It just looked like a fun little family airplane.” Bill, a retired Delta pilot who’s been flying since he soloed a J-3 at 16, before he got his driver’s license, has experience in a variety of types, including flying boats like the Goose and Mallard, on up to DC-8s and the Convair 880. But none of those are the airplane he’s talking about. No, Bill’s “interesting” airplane is a 1955 Aero Super 45, more commonly called an Aero 45 by the relatively few people, at least in this hemisphere, who’ve heard of it. In other words, “interesting” is something of an understatement.

Vodochody is a small village in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Located just a bit north of Prague, it’s farm country, with a population of a little more than 500 people. It’s also home to one of the oldest aircraft companies in the world, Aero Vodochody.

Aero was founded by Vladimír Kabeš in February of 1919, shortly after the country it was in — Czechoslovakia at the time — was created by the secession of the Czechoslovak Republic from the Austro-Hungarian Empire the previous year.

Aero’s first airplane was the aptly named A-1, a biplane that was inspired by the HansaBrandenburg B.I, a trainer and reconnaissance platform flown by the Austro-Hungarian air service during World War I, and designed by future notable Ernst Heinkel. Two years later, it produced the A-10, a five-passenger cabin biplane airliner that served with Czechoslovak State Airlines for five years. The 1920s and 1930s saw several additional airplanes, both military and civilian, leave the factory, including the A-11, A-100, and A-300 bombers, and license-built versions of the British de Havilland DH.50 airliner and French Marcel Bloch MB-200 bomber.

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While Bill modernized (and Westernized) most of the panel, a few original touches remain. Perhaps the most unusual is the push-button prop control console (left) with one-touch settings for takeoff, climb, cruise, and feather.

During World War II and the German occupation, Aero built Focke-Wulf Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft, Siebel Si 204 light transports, and Bücker Jungmann aerobatic biplanes. After the end of the war, Aero was nationalized and produced modified German aircraft for the Czechoslovak air force, as well as some civilian customers.

In addition, three of its top designers, Jiři Bouzek, Ondřej Němec,

and František Vik, started work on a new airplane, a light twin. This design became the Aero 45, the 45 a reference to the fact that the airplane was a four/five-seater.

An English-language brochure described the Aero 45 as “a twine n g i n e d l o w - w i n g c a n t i l e ve r monoplane with an enclosed cabin to accommodate three or four passengers and a pilot.” The brochure also calls out that the “dimensions

SPECS Aircraft Make & Model

Aero Vodochody Super 45

Certification

Experimental exhibition

Length

24 feet, 9 inches

Wingspan

40 feet, 4 inches

Height

7 feet, 6 inches

Maximum gross weight

3,306 pounds

Empty weight

1,896 pounds

Seats

5

Powerplant Make & Model

Letecke Opravny Malesice (LOM) M332

Horsepower

140 hp (supercharger engaged), 120 hp (supercharger disengaged)

Propeller

V-401 E metal, variable pitch (not constant speed)

Cruise speed/fuel consumption

155 mph/12.2 gph (total)

Power loading

15.7 pounds/horsepower

Wing loading

18 pounds per square foot

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of the aircraft have been calculated so as to facilitate its transportation by rail merely by removing the outer wing sections, and without any further dismantling operations.” It’s an all-metal taildragger, with dual spars and aluminum ribs and skin. It has electrically driven retractable gear and a locking tail wheel, and was originally powered by a pair of 105-hp Walter Minor 4-IIIs, an inverted inline fourcylinder air-cooled engine also designed in Czechoslovakia, driving feathering variable-pitch V-401 E propellers. The rounded nose and gentle streamlining — think of an Art Deco baby Heinkel He 111, but prettier — give it a sleeker look than a lot of the East Bloc aircraft of the era. That said, the country that gave the world the futuristic Tatra 77 and 87 sedans was no stranger to streamlined design.

The prototype first flew in July of 1947, and after a year of successful flight testing, a second prototype flew in 1948. Production began that fall, and 200 were built from 1948 through 1951. At that point, the airplane was upgraded with additional avionics for instrument

flight and was produced as the Super 45, with a little more than 200 built until the introduction of the Aero 145 in 1959. The 145’s cockpit was redesigned to improve the already impressive visibility, but the biggest difference was the upgraded engines, supercharged Walter M332s that produced up to 140 hp. With the nationalization of the Czechoslovak aircraft industry, 145s were developed and produced by another company, LET Aircraft.

The Aero 45 and its variants were marketed aggressively and successfully, and the airplanes found homes not just in Czechoslovakia, but also in East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Especially surprisingly for the era, a number were sold outside of the countries of the thennew Warsaw Pact. Aero 45/145s went to Switzerland, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Australia, and Canada. Deutsche Lufthansa, the East German version of the German national airline that eventually had to shut down because it didn’t have the rights to the name or logo, flew the Aero 45 as an airliner; the Hungarians employed it as an air ambulance; and

other customers put it to good use as a trainer, sport tourer, air taxi, and all-around utility hauler. One airplane was sold to China, after which they began producing the Sungari-1, an unlicensed knockoff.

In 1949, Aero’s chief pilot, Jan Anderle, flew a 45 in the British National Air Races, winning the Norton Griffiths Challenge trophy, a handicapped closed-course race of about 60 miles at Elmdon Aerodrome in Birmingham. Interestingly, Jan, now best known for his streamlined car/motorcycle hybrids, had originally intended to defect, but his wife convinced him to return to Czechoslovakia. Even though he returned voluntarily, the Communist government had him tried as a spy, saboteur, and enemy of the working class. He was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. This didn’t prevent Aero from touting the victory in its marketing literature, citing the airplane’s “outstanding quality and unique reliability in numerous trials and competitions,” all while Jan was slaving away in a uranium mine.

The Aero won a number of other accolades as well, as Renzo Ceschina won the Italian national championship in 1952, and other pilots set

long-distance records to and from places like Colombo, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, and Dakar.

And then, in 1979, one came to the United States.

Jon Svendsen, EAA 53254, selfstyled leader of the tongue-incheek Free Norwegian Air Force, was touring Europe after a transAtlantic flight in his Mooney Super 21 and had been looking around for an Aero to bring home. He found G-ASYY, a 1955 Super 45, in the summer of 1978 at Elstree Aerodrome in London. Owned by Mike Searles of SBV Aero Services, the airplane was fairly low-time, with just 1,250 hours on it, but it had been damaged, nosed over in a taxi accident that bent the props.

“No doubt a prudent man would have passed the carcass by,” Jon wrote, “and a less prudent man would have bought it and crated it for shipping, particularly since the Super Aero was designed for easy crating. Only the outlandish would announce that they planned to reassemble the pieces, install some radios, and ferry the resulting assemblage across the North Atlantic.”

Jon was outlandish.

In May of 1979 Jon set out on a harrowing ferry flight that started with thunderstorms and icing and included a lengthy layover for the airplane in Reykjavik. He flew the airplane to Billings, Montana, and then worked with the FAA to get an airworthiness certificate. The certificate put the airplane in the exhibition category, and it was initially restricted to 10 hours of test flying in the local area until Jon innocently asked if the 47 hours spent ferrying it from London would count. The FAA inspector just shook his head and handed over the certificate before walking away. Jon recounted his ferry experience in fascinating detail in the April 1983 issue of Sport Aviation, which is available in www.vintageaircraft.org

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TYSON RININGER

The Aero 45 was well-marketed, as evidenced by these pages from an original factory brochure touting the airplane’s superior utility and performance.

EAA’s online archives.

In 1980, Jon flew the airplane to Oshkosh, where it won the Outstanding in Type — Unique Classic aircraft award. Over the years, the airplane eventually ended up in the hands of Ben Runyan, a friend of Bill, both of them Delta pilots based in Portland, Oregon. The airplane could be seen at antique flyins in the Pacific Northwest like Arlington and Evergreen in the mid-1990s.

Bill, who owned a Yak-11 at the time, was intrigued.

“I knew he got the airplane,” Bill said, “and I was always bugging him about a ride in it. We were going to do it and never did.” Ben had a number of interesting airplanes, but not necessarily the time to exercise them all. Bill said that the Aero hadn’t flown for about 10 years when Ben and his son were tragically killed in the crash of a Yak-52 in May of 2008 near Ben’s Green Mountain Airpark in southwest Washington. A little more than a year later, Bill bought the Aero from Ben’s widow.

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“She was a very good negotiator,” he said. “I couldn’t get her to come down at all on the price.

I finally just gave up and paid her what she wanted.” The airplane was complete, and Bill initially planned to ferry it back to his home in Sequim, Washington.

“I went down and was working on it to try to get it ready to ferry,” he said, “but the more I got into it the more I realized I’d have a fortune in motel bills before I ever got the thing safe to fly, and then I was going to have to pull it apart when I got it home. I finally just gave up, took the wings off, put it on a flatbed, and hauled it back from the Portland area.” When he got it home, Bill set to work. Overall, the airplane was in fair shape, but he had to replace a couple of large pieces of belly skin that had been damaged by corrosion, some from the battery box, and some from a passenger spill in the back seat. As he tore into it, he became impressed by the quality of the construction.

“It’s a nicely built airplane,” he said. “For a light twin, the con-

struction is more like an airliner….

If you compared it, say, to the construction of a Piper twin like an Apache, this is much more substantial than that.”

He replaced all the rubber hoses and seals, and replaced the original expander tube brakes with a set of Clevelands. He changed to U.S. wheels, manufacturing his own axles, at the same time because tires were all but impossible to source.

“I didn’t want to skid a tire or something and have it sitting somewhere like Oshkosh for weeks while I tried to get a tire out of Czech Republic,” he said. “I found a U.S. tire that was within a quarter inch of the diameter of [the original].”

Bill bought two overhauled Walter Minor 4-IIIs, the original 105-hp engine that the airplane was produced with. Then he thought about how nice it would be to have a little more power, and started looking for the later 140-hp M332s.

He found one. It was built by Letecke Opravny Malesice (LOM), a company that spun off from Walter, and was intended for use in a

East German model company Kunststoff-Verarbeitung Zschopau (later Plasticart Zschopau) produced plastic kits of the AERO 45 in both civilian livery as well as the quasilegitimate Deutsche Lufthansa colors. Images courtesy of Christian Bryan and The Box Art Den.

replica 1930s racer, but that project didn’t work out.

“I got to thinking about it and looking at it,” he said. “It would still fit the same mounts and everything, so I bit the bullet and bought it, not knowing whether I could find another one.” Luckily for him, he did, coming across a second LOM M332 in Florida that was originally going into a Midget Mustang. With two engines in hand, he set about adapting them to the airplane.

“All the major stuff was the same,” he said, “but there were lots of little things that added time.”

With the upgraded engines, Bill’s Aero Super 45 was effectively transformed into a 145, with one major www.vintageaircraft.org

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difference; to cut costs, the later 145s weren’t flush riveted like the earlier airplanes, so Bill is happy to have the best of both the aesthetic and performance worlds.

The upgraded engines are the same size, but fuel injected with overhead valves and gear-driven superchargers. Interestingly, the superchargers can be engaged and disengaged from the cockpit in flight.

“You can disconnect the supercharger if you don’t need it,” said Bill, “and that cuts down the fuel burn. If you can get enough manifold pressure at altitude, you just leave the superchargers off, but you have them there for takeoff, climb, or cruise if you’re up high.”

When he brought the airplane to Oshkosh last summer, he flew at 13,500 and saw 155 mph with the superchargers disengaged, leaving each engine to put out 120 hp while burning an average of 12.2 gallons per hour — that’s total, not per engine — over the 22-hour round trip. In that time, one engine burned about a half quart of oil, the other, none at all.

The engines drive metal V-401 E propellers that are variable pitch, but not constant speed. Instead, they are controlled by a set of buttons mounted to the left of the throttle quadrant.

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“They’re fixed position,” he said.

“There’s a takeoff position, a climb position, a cruise position, and a feather position. You just push the button. It’s not constant speed; it’d be nice if it was, but it’s 1947 technology.” There are additional buttons that can be used to make finer adjustments, enabling Bill to sync the props without touching the throttles.

Bill built the panel himself, as the original had been modified multiple times over the years to adapt to different radios and other avionics. There are two original gauges on the airplane’s otherwise fully westernized panel — the flap position indicator and the volt/ ohmmeter. These vintage pieces sit in stark and classic contrast to the Dynon D-10A that’s mounted front and center.

One thing he didn’t do as part of the restoration is paint it.

“That’s another project that’ll take a year or two,” he said. “I wanted to get it flying first, work all the bugs out.” He describes the airplane’s current appearance as “respectable” and “nothing to be ashamed of.” Anyone who saw it at AirVenture Oshkosh in 2016 would likely accuse him of yet another understatement.

Bill made his first flight in the airplane in October of 2015. And

Justifiably proud owner Bill Shepherd at home in the left seat.

how did he prepare for that?

“Well, you check yourself out,” he said. “The only guy I knew that had flown them was Ben Runyan, and he wasn’t around anymore.”

In addition, since the airplane was originally licensed in Europe as a light transport, he was able to obtain extremely detailed manuals — in English — performance charts, and other data. “ That stuff was very handy,” he said.

As for what it’s like to fly, Bill has one word: easy.

“It’s a lot of wing,” he said, “but it’s a high aspect ratio wing. It’s light and responsive on the controls, not a heavy airplane. It’s like a Twin Beech, light on the ailerons. It actually jumps off the ground when it’s light; it zips off the ground shorter than my Swift.”

“It’s been fun so far,” Bill said, looking back on the time he’s spent with the only known example of the type in North America. Given the effort he’s put into revitalizing his “fun little family airplane” and the obvious passion behind it, that’s clearly another understatement.

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Owner Gary Dalton says the Swift is the Swiss Army knife of old airplanes. It does a lot of things well and looks good while doing them.

Gary was born into an aviation family with a fighter-pilot father and flying mother who restored airplanes for fun.

aviation upbringing and partially because he stumbled across it.

Aviation as a Family Lifestyle

A

Swift in Process Gary Dalton’s Globe GC-1A

by Budd Davisson

photos erin bruegen

Gary Dalton is talking about the paint scheme on his Swift and the foggy “undercast” the polished aluminum on his wings displayed.

“It always looked like I owned a polished airplane that I never polished,” Gary says. “But in reality I was polishing like crazy. So with a few fingers of bourbon and good cigar, I sat in the hangar and stared at the airplane trying to envision a 38

MAY/JUNE 2017

paint scheme. I wanted to keep the polish, but I had to paint the wings.

Then it came to me! In ’46 it was born polished with blue numbers on the wing and a blue stripe down the fuselage. What if I did the negative of that? Give it polished numbers on a blue wing and a polished stripe. So I told Paula, my wife (who is very creative), about my idea and told her we’d paint it a

darker blue than original blue, and we’ll put the original nose art on the non-original fiberglass cowl.

Since we would be fusing the old with the new we’ll call it ‘retronegative.’ She looked at me and said, ‘ You’re going straight to Swift hell for painting a polished airplane, you know.’ And she was probably right, but I’m pleased with the way it has worked out.”

Swifts and their followers are on a planet all unto themselves. Although there are lots of other aviation communities clustered around a given type of airplane, only the Bonanza clan even comes close to having the passion the Swifties (Swiftites? Swifters?) have for their bird. Technically it’s not a religion, but it’s close.

Gary, of Belton, South Carolina, can attest to the Swift’s attraction.

However, rather than being drawn to it through the usual conduit of the Swift Museum Foundation, he came to it partially because of his unusual

Gary’s aviation background isn’t limited to the usual “I used to build models and airplane was my first word as a baby” background so many of us share. Rather, he was born into aviation.

“Dad was a Navy fighter pilot in the early ’50s (Corsairs, Hellcats, ADs, then early jets: T-33s, F9F Panthers, etc.),” Gary says. “He also flew helicopters in the Marine Corps after that. After the military he was in insurance — aviation insurance — adjusting and the restaurant business for many years.

But, when he retired in his late 50s/early 60s, he and my mother restored classic and antique airplanes full time. So, my father and mother are both pilots, my brother and his son are pilots (both Air Force fighter pilots primarily in F16s and both currently flying for the airlines), and my son and I are both pilots.

“Family lore has it that in 1961, the year I was born, my mother inherited a small amount of money.

So naturally, Dad bought an airplane, a Stinson 108. Over the next 40 years they would own more than 50 airplanes (including a Swift), partially or completely

restoring and homebuilding 30 or so of them. As a kid I thought the smell of butyrate dope was normal.

“In 1994 they built a hangar home at a small airpark community in South Carolina for the sole purpose of semi-retirement and restoring airplanes. In 2002 they quit and moved to Florida to fish, so I bought their house and started my aircraft ownership adventure.

Since the cow was gone I realized I had to start buying my own milk!

So, I bought a Luscombe. Now, however, we’ve come full circle.

They are in their 80s and are moving back into their old house, my current house. I bought the lot next door, and I’m building a new one. I’ll miss the attached hangar, but my new hangar is larger.”

Gary initially worked in his parents’ restaurant but decided he’d put his college degree to work and went out on his own.

“I found a job as hydrogeologist with an environment firm,” Gary says. “After 20 years of that, one day I was staring at a computer, statistically analyzing groundwater quality, stressing over a deadline, and thought, ‘Hmm, am I gonna do this the rest of my life?’ I enjoyed it, and still do, but wanted something more. So I enrolled in a local tech school at night to get my A&P. A year later Hank Davis, 15 years www.vintageaircraft.org

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Thirty pounds was saved when tossing out the panel and old equipment that was in the airplane.

The Swift has an undeserved reputation for its ground handling, which is close to being normal.

my senior, who was also attending the A&P classes just for the fun of it, asked if I’d like to fly the right seat of a Cheyenne. For pay! I said sure, but I’ve already got a job, and besides, I’m just a fair-weather taildragger pilot. Hank said they would pay for my ratings, and if I got my ATP, they would double my salary. So, I went home and told my wife, Paula, about it. She was 100 percent on board. Hank literally changed my life’s trajectory, and I will never be able to repay him for giving me the opportunity.

“The upshot of all of this is that I currently juggle two careers, wearing both geologist and pilot hats.

I fly Part 91 whenever and wher40

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ever the boss asks us to take him.

Makes for a busy, challenging, and sometimes schizophrenic schedule, but with laptops and cellphones it’s very doable.

“In the meanwhile, around the edges of my work, I kept my own flying life moving. The ’40 Luscombe 8A came to us because it was local, available, almost affordable to us, and strangely enough not something my parents had ever owned. Following the Luscombe was a Starduster Too and a Fairchild 24. Then the Swift.”

A Swift Joins the Fray

“I had owned a ’39 Fairchild 24 with a Ranger engine,” Gary says.

“It was the most perfect inanimate object I’ve ever possessed. But, the old Ranger was a bit of a maintenance hog, not to mention a legendary oil consumer. One day a guy made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I suddenly had an empty hangar. So, I started looking around.”

He says, “I knew I wanted something more affordable and completely different than the Fairchild, but I didn’t really know what I wanted. Then I saw N80749 advertised and the light went on. Yeah, a Swift! Great-looking, nimble, complex, some mystique, challenging enough with its own little quirks, little wheel at the rear end, cool factor, and bulletproof ‘turn the key and go’ engine. The Swift is the Swiss Army knife of old airplanes.

It does a lot of things damn well while looking good doing them!

“The Swift is really my first airplane project, but I don’t feel comfortable saying I restored it.

I merely helped restore it. David Durham did the real work. I handed him tools when he couldn’t reach them because he was folded up under my instrument panel like a circus contortionist. I did the grunt work and the design of panel, interior, and exterior.

“I bought it from Dan Gidzinski in the Frankfort, Kentucky, area in 2009. From the beginning, I envisioned it as a flying project. I didn’t want to totally restore an airplane.

I wanted to keep it flying and work on it now and then. Six years later, I’m still flying and working on it. It had been completely restored back in ’81, and that’s when the cowl, O-320, and constant-speed prop were installed. “ We, meaning mostly David Durham, started with the interior and glass. The interior was pretty rough. It had old blue velour covered seats, and the floor, side walls, and hat rack were all bare alumi-

It is universally accepted that Swifts are among the prettiest airplanes ever produced, so they have a nearly fanatical following.

num. The panel was filled with tons (literally) of stuff that I didn’t want or need, including a 10-pound ADF. It also featured a homemade center radio console that went from the panel to floor. One look at the airplane, and David said it had to lose weight! So, we gutted the interior, removing all extraneous stuff from the ADF and its antenna to the fuel pressure gauge that was so big that it looked like it came out of a B-29. We literally threw the old panel away and built a new one.

At the same time, we replaced the modern rams-horn control yokes with the older, semi-circular ones it had originally. We lightened the airplane by about 30 pounds! After doing the panel, I started looking for some upholstery options.

I didn’t know how the airplane would eventually be painted, so, I went with two-toned gray, which would match everything.”

A central theme to his work was to gradually create an airplane he liked with a silent nod to originality: a fusing of original and new.

Gary says, “Besides the panel and upholstery work, I wanted to go back to the original D-style rear window that wrapped over the back of the cockpit. At some point in its life somebody had removed that

and installed later, small side windows, [which] I guess was to look more modern, like a Comanche or something. Newer-model Swifts had those windows, but mine was manufactured with the big D. So, David started cutting and replacing skins to re-create the original look while I looked on in amazement. We also cut skylights in the overhead hatch to open that up. We removed the old blue/green tinted windshield (it was one piece), and I purchased a tinted gray one along with tinted gray for sides and rear windows, as well. The effect was tremendous. The rear window and skylights really opened up the interior and increased outside visibility.

“Fortunately, the engine in the airplane, although not original, was in good condition. The airplane is serial No. 152, so was an early model that was delivered as a Globe GC-1A with a 125-hp Continental and later with C145/O-300.

Currently it has a Lycoming O320-A3B with 150 hp. More important, it is swinging a constant-speed Hartzell prop.”

The good news, according to Gary, was that there was little corrosion, but they still did some skin work. As part of the painting process, the wings were removed and

David opened up both wing stubs, inspected them, straightened some things, and reskinned both lower wing stubs. He also reskinned both sides of the fuselage (left and right) from firewall to cockpit.

“When I bought the airplane,” Gary explains, “it had Bonanza wingtips. It was basically a clippedwing Swift because the original tips are more than a foot longer than Bonanza tips! Back in the day these were installed to increase roll rate. They achieved the desired effect, but ruined the original graceful shape of the wing and produced a glide ratio similar to a track hoe.

The original, formed aluminum tips are scarce as hens’ teeth and usually pretty beat up (they are soft aluminum), but I found a pair in great shape and installed them back in March of this year. We’ll be doing some more metal work in the near future. The fiberglass cowling and one-piece windshield were installed as part of the ’81 restoration, but I plan to go back to the original Swift ‘toothy grin’ cowl.

“When we did the paint, I used a GM Corvette color that is darker than the original blue. However, the polished stripe on fiberglass and the nose art was the biggest challenge. We tried different paints, www.vintageaircraft.org

41

Gary’s airplane had an O-360 Lycoming swinging a constant-speed prop in place of the original Continental. The engine will stay, but he says he’s going back to the original “toothy” cowl.

County Airport, Athens, Tennessee.

My first pavement landing was uneventful. We taxied up to the fuel pump, and within moments a guy on a golf cart wheels up. He starts asking me all kinds of questions about the airplane: What engine, where’d you come from, how long have you owned it, etc. All I could really say with any absolute knowledge was that I bought it from Dan about an hour and a half ago and I’m flying it home. The guy on the golf cart was the legendary Charlie Nelson, the man who formed the Swift Museum Foundation and was the acknowledged Swift guru of the world. I had unknowingly landed at Swift Museum Foundation headquarters, USA! Feeling like absolute morons, we accepted a nickel tour of the on-site museum with Charlie as our personal guide.

“Over the years, after my rather embarrassing initiation, the Swift Museum Foundation and its members have been great. What support!

Website, newsletter, very involved members, parts department, FAST formation training and currency, annual fly-in, and attendance en masse at many regional fly-ins. I cannot say enough good about them.”

Flying It Pretty from any angle, agreed?

which didn’t work, so I mocked up the nose art to original specs and took that to a guy who wraps cars.

He gave me a sample of his ‘chrome’ Mylar, and it was almost an exact match to my polished aluminum.

I was astounded! So I had him create a decal and install it. I also had a graphics guy retro-negative my Globe Swift emblem. The colors are reversed, and the words ‘The Swift’ that were originally red are now dark blue. In the end, I think I pulled it off. A retro-negative look.

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Another unique Swift!

“There’s a funny story about when we picked up the airplane. Hank flew my wife and me to Frankfort, Kentucky, in the Cheyenne to get it. We paid Dan, thanked him, jumped in, and headed to South Carolina.

“The first takeoff on pavement was uneventful. I figured we’d fly an hour or so then land, check oil, fuel consumption, the usual stuff with an unknown airplane. So en route I picked an airport that was directly in line with our heading: McMinn

The Globe/Temco Swift is the subject of lots and lots of old wives’ tales, many of which make it sound harder to fly than some airplanes.

Gary says that isn’t so.

He says, “ Takeoff is actually fairly simple. Lined up centerline.

Gradual addition of power. Don’t just cob it on. I tend to leave the tail on the ground a little longer than some other taildraggers. Vision over nose is good so that’s not a problem. It needs more right rudder than one would expect; that’s one of its little quirks. The small rudder is rather ineffective at slow speeds. With a left-to-right cross-

When purchased, the original “D” window wrapping over the back had been replaced with smaller windows.

Gary went back to the factory configuration and put windows in the top hatch.

wind of 10-plus knots on takeoff, she can run out of right rudder, thus requiring a tap of right brake.

Nothing wicked if you know about it, but it can surprise you. In fact, if there’s enough runway, I’ll sometimes take off downwind to avoid it. My own personal technique, flying off my home grass field, is to raise the tail and quickly transition into a level attitude. Not noselow, but certainly not nose-high. It seems, to me at least, to gain speed faster in this attitude, thus shortening takeoff roll. She gets light around 50 mph, lifts off 60-ish.

For me at home, on 2,400 feet of grass with plenty of trees, I immediately establish a positive rate of climb and gear up. Gear up speed is 80 mph. Don’t dally. Longer paved runways require less technique, obviously. Climb 80-100 mph depending on temps. Climb is 500 fpm heavy weight and hot temp, 1,000-1,500 fpm light and cool.”

According to Gary, landing is a little more complicated, but not much.

“Gear down speed is 100 mph,” Gary says. “For a ‘conventional’ pattern I lower gear mid-downwind, reducing to about 80 mph.

Flying a tight pattern, round carrier type base to final (yes, Dad,

my instructor, was a naval aviator), flaps down at the numbers (flaps in a Swift are all or none, so if you need to extend the downwind, consider holding off on flaps until final — they are very effective), 80 mph through base slowing to 70 over the numbers.

“As for touchdown, there seems to be quite a historical discussion amongst Swifters about wheelies or three-point. On grass I’m comfortable with either. I almost always wheel it onto pavement, though. Wheel landings are simple: 70-ish over the numbers while continuing to bleed off speed, touch down level to slightly tail-low attitude. Gentle forward nudge to yoke when on the ground and don’t forget about keeping her going straight. Three-point landings are a little more challenging, not to do but to do well and consistently. The airplane is rather pitch sensitive and airspeed critical. If a tad too fast, it’s easy to get a little PIO going when feeling for the runway.

And, when she runs out of energy, she likes to just plop down, sometimes tail first. In general, with the exception of the crosswind takeoff challenge, I find it easy on the ground. The main gear is very wide,

and visibility over the nose is good to great. With zero wind, gross weight, good approaches, and medium temps I’d be happy flying it out of 2,000-foot runways. Incidentally, cruise is generally 140142 mph indicated, while burning 8-9 gallons.

“This is such a good-flying airplane that I can’t think of anything I would change, although it’s still a work in progress. I plan to install sticks, go back to the original cowl, and I want to replace the big ol’ steerable Scott 3200 tail wheel with a full-castering Scott 2000.

That’s it!”

Given the airplane’s so-called and unearned reputation, what would Gary say to someone who is thinking about buying one?

“I’d have to say that it’s not a beginner’s airplane (some tailwheel experience necessar y), but it’s also not the fire-breathing piloteater that some say it is. Also, it’s 70 years old, so you need to know what you’re looking for or have a thorough pre-buy before you trade money for it. Call the Swifters; They are a wealth of information.

Some Swift member can answer any question! In short, buy one!

You’ll love it!” www.vintageaircraft.org

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Beyond All Expectations The delightful Davis D-1K

by Sparky Barnes Sargent

Brilliant in color and tantalizing in form, John Machamer’s 1930 Davis monoplane is delightful to behold. NC158Y (serial No. 508) is John’s first restoration, and it’s readily apparent that he took to heart the old adage that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Here’s a neat way 44

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of demonstrating the restoration’s longevity: When John acquired the project, he took a snapshot of his baby son, Chet, in the Davis’ rear cockpit; that baby is now a handsome 23-yearold pilot who enjoys flying the Davis.

The Davis monoplane, with its tapered parasol

wing, has always been a rare bird. In this particular case, NC158Y is a dazzling example of the breed.

“Approximately 50 Davis D-1 models were built, and this was one of 11 built as the D-1K,” John explains.

“There are three Davises that I know of that are flying, but this is the only one

JIM KOEPNICK

www.vintageaircraft.org

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PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN MACHAMER

PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN MACHAMER

The rear cockpit of the old Havelaar Davis, which provided clues about the Davis’ original configuration.

The floor foot wells and rudder pedals of the old Havelaar Davis.

Metal stringers are clearly visible on the old Havelaar Davis.

Fabric is installed on the elevators — note the newlyfabricated cowling with its cylinder fairings in the background.

currently known to be flying with the Kinner.”

Back in the days when biplanes were ubiquitous, Davis Aircraft Corp. of Richmond, Indiana, advertised that “Davis Monoplanes have proved their claim to the best performance in their class in all manner of competition, for the past four years. Their economy and stability for the student pilot and speed and maneuverability for the sportsman are recognized.”

Streamlined Parasol

Kinner Airplane & Motor Corp. of Glendale, California, purchased NC158Y in September 1930. The airplane’s operation inspection re-

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port noted that special streamlining was installed. John, who did quite a bit of historical research, says, “This is the only known Davis aircraft produced with this cowling design, and it was originally purchased by Kinner for the racing and testing of their K-5 engine. It also had short struts installed, lowering the wing nearer to the fuselage, and a cover over the front cockpit as racing modifications. I have an old photograph of NC158Y as it appeared when it originally rolled out of the factory, and it shows these details.”

The Davis stayed around California until 1944, when it went to Utah, and then to Nevada in 1947.

By 1951 it was back in California.

Jack Gretta later bought it and modified it, installing a modern Continental C-125 engine in place of the old Kinner (as described in “We Fly the Davis,” Air Progress, July 1965).

Jack and NC158Y relocated to Connecticut in 1983. The Davis briefly changed ownership but found its way back to Jack at his “Ye Aerodrome of Chester.” In 1994, when Jack let some other people fly the airplane, the Davis unfortunately suffered substantial damage. Soon thereafter, it was advertised for sale.

Enter John Machamer into the chain of ownership and restoration. John is based on his own grass strip outside Gettysburg,

Note the new metal stringers, wood formers, and hand-painted Davis logo.

The wing is constructed of aluminum ribs, leading edges, and wood spars.

Work on the fuselage and cockpits is well underway.

John’s daughter, Amanda, tries the Davis on for size.

Close-up view of the complex cowling, replete with louvers and cylinder fairings.

Pennsylvania. He’s always been interested in antique airplanes, and back when he was a flight instructor in college, he taught in J-3 Cubs and Cessna 170s on the seacoast of New Hampshire. One day in 1994 when he went to work at American Airlines operations at JFK, he noticed an ad on the bulletin board for a 1930 Davis.

“I always loved the Davis and had seen one flying at Old Rhinebeck,” says John, adding with a smile, “so when I saw the ad, I kind of looked over my shoulder to see if anybody else saw it, and I pulled it off the bulletin board. I called Jack Gretta, went up to Connecticut, and purchased the airplane about a week later. They had a landing accident and rolled it up over on its back. So I picked

up parts and pieces for the Davis. I didn’t get anything from the firewall forward, since I knew I wanted to go back to the Kinner engine. I’ve been in the process of raising a family throughout the restoration, so it took a while because life and career and kids took precedence.”

Challenging Conundrums

John’s goal was to restore the airplane to its original form and function, so one of the most challenging aspects of the restoration was accurately establishing how the airplane was built in 1930.

Striving to achieve that authenticity, he shunned using modern techniques, materials, and hardware (aside from using Ceconite 102 fabric and Air-Tech coatings). www.vintageaircraft.org

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John was confident that he could learn the necessary technical restoration skills given enough time, but he discovered early on that determining the exact cross section of the stringers, how they were attached to the fuselage, and where each one started and ended posed a very difficult conundrum. The same held true for other components, including the seats, floor foot wells, and turtledeck.

Fortunately, John was able to locate a Davis that, while deteriorated, yielded many answers to his questions. “I used Curly Havelaar’s Davis in Texas as one of my original sources for many of the details of how the Davis was built and assembled,” explains John.

“Curly was a World War II veteran, and we became good friends as I spent many hours sketching and photographing details of his Davis, which still had original fabric hanging from it and was almost completely untouched. It was a very good source of accurate information.”

The Havelaar Davis revealed precisely how the louvers in the cowling should be shaped, and fabricating them to true form became quite a challenge, along with the rest of the cowling. “The streamlined fairings behind the cylinders were fairly difficult to make as well,” says John with a chuckle, “and I walked past the airplane in my shop day after day for years, just looking at it and trying to think, ‘How am I going to make those darn things?’ But really, when you start getting your hands dirty and making patterns, it’s not as hard as you think it’s going to be when you’re just looking at it. I had to fabricate everything firewall forward.”

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PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN MACHAMER

PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN MACHAMER

The fuselage is on the gear.

A look inside the accessory section of the Kinner B-5.

Making Tools

The right tool can make the task at hand so much easier, and to that end John found himself making tools to facilitate the restoration. Such was the case when he was faced with forming a number of compound curves on the second piece of the cowling back from the firewall to the front cockpit. “I had to make an English wheel to be able to stretch the metal to do that,” explains John, laughing. “I’ll never forget my wife, Karen, coming out to the shop one day and asking what I’m doing. I said, ‘I’m making an English wheel so I can make the parts for the Davis.’ And she said, ‘Let me get this straight; you’re spending days making a tool so you can make a part?’ I’m like, ‘Yep, that’s right!’”

John quickly found out that learning how to use the English wheel was another feat in itself. “It’s not intuitive; it takes finesse,” he shares, “and making a nice, gentle curve is actually more difficult than making a hard-bend, big curve because it’s real easy to overstretch the metal. Once that happens, you start over. I would say the cowling was probably the most complex part of the project.”

Fuselage and Flight Controls

By late 1999, quite a bit of work had been finished and signed off. Fuselage tubing had been replaced per Davis drawings, as well as tubing, fittings, and bushings in the damaged wing center section and landing gear V section — all with a little help from his friends.

“Jim Allen helped me with a lot of welding, and he helped me initially with the fuselage, landing gear, and engine mount,” says John. “He built up the spars

The newly overhauled Kinner is ready to install.

for the wings as well. Charlie Petit, a WWII veteran, was restoring a model D-1K on the West Coast, and he helped me with getting original steel stringer material.

Charlie actually produced it for his airplane, and produced enough for mine as well. When I got the fuselage back on its wheels, I test-fit the wing installation. Even though I hadn’t taken the wings apart yet, I wanted to make sure everything fit together nicely.”

The airframe’s steel parts were sandblasted, and the aluminum parts were stripped before inspecting, priming, and painting began.

The elevator and ailerons are controlled with push-pull tubes, and 7-by-19 stainless steel cables (replete with navy-tuck spliced terminal ends) control the rudder.

“The horizontal stabilizer trim was fairly advanced for 1930 because the leading edge of the stabilizer moves up and down,” notes John. “Davis actually advertised that you can fly it with the trim.”

Tapered Wings

The lovely lines of the Davis’ uniquely tapered wings belie their

Karen (Inspector #1) smiles as she examines the 125-hp Kinner.

complex construction. New wooden spars were fabricated and installed per Davis drawings, and new aluminum ribs and leadings edges were made as necessary. If that sounds simple, consider John’s description of the wings: “The wing tapers from a Clark Y airfoil at the wing root to a Göttingen 387 airfoil at the strut attach point, and then back to a Clark Y airfoil out at the tip. Every rib is different; they’re flanged so the left ribs face one way, and the right ribs face the other way. Luckily we didn’t have to make too many ribs, since only about half a dozen were damaged in the accident. The spar is about 12 inches deep at the strut attach points and tapers to about 4 inches at the wing root and to about 2 inches at the wingtip. To save weight, it is a ‘box spar’ split down the center with much of the unneeded material routed out from the inside and then glued back together. The spars that came with the project were not original and were solid wood. Producing original design spars saved 35 pounds of weight.”

John found other facets of the overall construction of the Davis equally amazing. “Some of the old

workmanship is almost unbelievably finished. There’s a weld that goes right down the wing center section’s trailing edge, and I have looked at it from the inside a number of times — it’s amazing to see that quality of craftsmanship. How they did that in 1930 with a torch I have no idea,” marvels John, “yet other things are fairly crude, like the nibbler marks on all the fittings.”

Kinner

NC158Y was originally powered by a 90-hp, side-exhaust, fivecylinder Kinner K-5 radial. Those are difficult to find now, so he decided to use the more reliable 125hp Kinner B-5 and a Sensenich wooden propeller. He located some Kinner engine parts in Mishawaka, Indiana, and went there to pick them up. John also turned to Gene Breiner, who had experience with Kinner engines. “Gene helped me with the engine overhaul and assembly,” shares John, “as well as Al and Brad Ball on the West Coast, who helped me with the heads and the lower end as far as getting it exactly the way it should be.”

John also installed a compressed www.vintageaircraft.org

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SPARKY BARNES SARGENT

“I met so many people along the way who had vast amounts of knowledge and were so instrumental in helping me. That was the most fun about the whole thing — the people I met.”

SPARKY BARNES SARGENT

John Machamer with his daughter Natalie, wife Karen, and son Chet at AirVenture.

John Machamer’s delightful Davis on the flightline at AirVenture 2016.

air starter system for the engine, using a breathing-pack high-pressure bottle mounted in the lower fuselage structure behind the aft cockpit. “First the propeller is turned to place the engine just past top dead center on the number two cylinder, then the ignition switch is set on both magnetos, and the pilot pulls the air starter T-handle,” explains John. “When the prop turns and the engine fires, the T-handle is released and returns to the fully closed position.”

Another feature that isn’t commonly seen these days is the oil shutoff valve, located on the side of 50

MAY/JUNE 2017

the cowling. “Kinner says if the oil tank is above the centerline of the engine, you should have an oil shutoff valve — otherwise the oil will simply drain down into the bottom two cylinders,” explains John. “So in addition to that, I have a little removable pin in the mag switch, which prevents the mag switch from accidentally being turned on when the oil valve is still shut off.”

Landing Gear

Obtaining and installing mechanical brakes posed a major challenge, but Curly Havelaar was able to provide helpful information and

— John Machamer

parts. “This Davis originally had wire wheels, no brakes, and a tailskid,” explains John. “Then Davis sold an aftermarket kit with brakes, wheels, and tires. I was able to find the drawings for that and then install the cable-operated Warner Aircraft Corp. 6.50-10 wheels and brakes. But it was difficult to find all the pieces and parts for those brakes to get them right. I also installed a tailskid, which works fine on grass but not on pavement — so I also have a tailwheel available that I can use.”

Definitive Details

Look closely at this pretty parasol and you’ll begin noticing its definitive details, such as the neatly streamlined landing gear struts with fabric-wrapped balsa fairings.

The fairings were part of the original special streamlining, and John used 2-inch fabric tape to attach the balsa. To remain historically accurate, John used friction tape, cord, and brass safety wire instead of modern clamps and tie wraps to attach the stringers, pitot tubes, and anything else that needed to be secured. Additionally, he used slotted screws instead of Phillips-head screws throughout the airplane.

John was fortunate to meet a gentleman who had known the person at the Davis factory who did all the logo painting, and so he was able to find a sign painter who

could replicate the Davis emblem on the tail.

A glance into the cockpits reveals appropriate period instruments.

“Charlie Petit helped me with the original instrumentation,” recalls John. “He knew exactly what went in the pilot’s Consolidated instrument cluster. It took probably three or four years to find that cluster. In fact, Karen found it and bought it for me for Christmas one year. The cluster has oil pressure and temperature gauges, an altimeter, and a Jones tachometer. Then there’s a Consolidated magneto switch on the left side and the Pioneer airspeed on the right, with the Hayward air pressure starter down below. A Dixie mag switch is in the front cockpit, and the fuel gauge on the bottom of the wing center section is virtually the same as a Model A float gauge.”

A Pioneer compass, mounted below the wing, uses small, rodshaped compensating magnets.

John demonstrated how easily the compass can be adjusted by removing the magnets, swapping them end to end, or adding more.

1930 Davis D-1K

Manufactured Under ATC 272 (As originally powered with Kinner K-5 90 hp.)

Wingspan Max wing

30 feet, 2 inches Chord, 63 inches

Wing area

45 square feet

Airfoil

Göttingen 387 modified, tapering to Clark Y at root and tip

Length

20 feet, 4 inches

Height

7 feet, 3 inches

Tread

78 inches

Empty weight

925 pounds

Useful load

536 pounds

Payload

197 pounds

Gross weight

1,461 pounds

Engine

Kinner

Fuel

25 gallons

Oil

2-1/2 gallons

Max speed

127 mph

Cruising speed

105 mph

Landing speed

42 mph

Climb at sea level

1,050 fpm

Service ceiling

14,000 feet

Cruising range

350 miles

Baggage capacity

27 pounds

Derived from Juptner’s U.S. Civil Aircraft and ATC 272

Flying the Davis

In April 2016, John happily heard the Kinner come to life on the first try. On May 19, he flew the Davis for the very first time. “It’s very smooth and light on the controls,” he says, smiling. “I don’t know exactly what the takeoff speed is — when it’s ready to fly, it flies! I would say it’s around 45 mph. On takeoff, I bring the tail up a little bit and then just let it come off, and I land it pretty much three-point. At 75 percent power it’ll cruise about 95 mph, so it was faster than most of the biplanes of the day. It has 20 gallons of fuel in the center-section main tank and 5 gallons of fuel in an aux tank, which is in the forward part of the fuselage. It burns 6.5 gallons an hour, so you can stay www.vintageaircraft.org

51

EAA PHOTO

aloft for three hours — but I like to stretch my legs after two hours!”

So far John has logged about 50 hours on the Davis. The only other pilot who has flown it is his son, Chet, who agrees with his father about the airplane being very nice and light on the controls. John’s flight from his home base in Pennsylvania to Oshkosh required about 10 hours of actual flying time. The first leg was five hours to Springfield, Ohio. The next was a short hour’s hop to Hagerstown, then four hours to Brodhead, Wisconsin, and one more hour to Oshkosh — all spread out over a leisurely week.

It’s the People

Thoughtfully reflecting in his quiet manner about the Davis restoration, John shares, “We just worked on it as we could, and when we could. My family — Karen, Natalie, Amanda, and Chet — helped, and I got a lot of help from my friends who were in the aircraft restoration business.

I met so many people along the way who had vast amounts of knowledge and were so instrumental in helping me. That was the most fun about the whole thing — the people I met. And

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a lot of them were WWII guys who, unfortunately, are no longer with us. Others who helped included Jon Nace, Matt Parr, Gene Rambo, and Rich Horrigan.”

Karen, who flies with her husband as a self-professed “happy passenger,” was glad to see the Davis finally flying. Throughout the years, she helped John with rib stitching and other facets of the project.

“At times it was fun; at times it was frustrating when it wasn’t going together — but he had to learn what to do before he could actually do it,” shares Karen. “So it was slow, but it was exciting when it finally started to take shape. I helped primarily with research and finding instruments and other items online. My father was an auto mechanic, so I’m sort of a motor head! I like to get right into the engine and get greasy — but restoring airplanes was very new to me. Now that the Davis is finished, I’m wondering what the next project is!”

Beyond All Expectations

Aviation historian and author Joseph Juptner described the Davis parasol plane this way: “[T]he pure

flying pleasure built into and contained in this sport airplane was usually translated into an exuberance that was a joy to experience or even to watch.” (U.S. Civil Aircraft, Vol. 3) NC158Y certainly is a reflection of this joy. It won the 2016 Silver Age (1928-1936) Champion Bronze Lindy award at AirVenture; the 2016 AAA/APM Fly-in Sweepstakes Antique award, Lyle Hoselton Memorial Award for Best Workmanship by an Owner, and Texas AAA Chapter Choice Award; the MAAC Antique Airplane Club 2016 Antique Project of the Year; and the 2016 AAA/PAAS Sweepstakes Antique Aircraft and PAAS President’s Choice awards.

Just as Davis Aircraft once advertised, this parasol monoplane is indeed “beyond all expectations.”

John’s first-time restoration has culminated in an award-winning, fun-flying antique — and far more.

His most indelible rewards are the memorable learning experiences he had from his encounters with myriad old-timers and colorful personalities, and the wealth of personal knowledge he gained throughout the restoration.

ORDER YOUR AIRVENTURE 2016 DVD OR BLU-RAY + DVD COMBO Featuring the very best of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016. Relive highlights from the convention whenever you want from the comfort of your living room. Includes exclusive video footage you won’t find anywhere else.

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Oshkosh

or

Bust

Christian and Paolo de Nora — Mexico to Oshkosh via Cub

by Amy Gesch photos courtesy Christian de Nora

This is not a story about airplanes. This is a stor y about people — people from different countries, brought together through technology, through a simple, humble vintage airplane.

There is no better manifestation of the observation that “aviation is about the people” than a little yellow J-3 Cub that taxied into a camping spot on Wittman field in July 2016 without any fanfare.

T he stor y begins in 2012, when Christian de Nora bought a 1943 J-3 Cub project in Florida. In and of itself, this doesn’t sound too abnormal — until you realize Christian had never taken a flight lesson or restored an airplane, and he was having the Cub shipped back to his home country of Mexico. “I flew RC models, including model 54

MAY/JUNE 2017

Cubs, and I just thought, ‘When I buy an airplane, it has to be a Cub,’” Christian recalls. “I went to an air show in Mexico and met [American air-show performer] Greg Koontz, who flew his Cub at the show. I told him I wanted a Cub, and he recommended a 90hp model with no electric system because my home field elevation is 6,200 feet.”

Christian returned from his trip to Florida with two suitcases of documents, including a list of materials the seller told him he would need to finish covering the airplane, and he then informed his wife he had bought an airplane — or, at least, an airplane with some assembly required. The fuselage and tail feathers were already covered so Christian went about gathering the materials

from the list the seller had provided. He ran into a slight problem when he went to order paint.

“I thought I would just order yellow paint, but I found about 10 different yellows and I didn’t know which one to get, so I went on the Internet to find one I liked and sent a message to the owner to ask him what paint he used.”

Jared Calvert of Ranger, Texas, was at the receiving end of Christian’s message. He had recently restored a 1946 J-3 that was widely referred to as the “Barn Cub” — so named because it had been parked for 59 years in a barn, its total time in the air not even reaching 200 hours. By chance, Christian and Jared were both going to be in San Antonio the following day and scheduled lunch. Jared recalls that first meeting. “He didn’t

really grasp the scope of the project he was getting into.

He said he wanted it flying by his birthday, which was only a few months away,” Jared laughs, knowing full well the amount of work required to restore a Cub. Of Christian’s ambition, he says, “It reminded me of someone.”

Christian was impressed

by Jared’s knowledge and experience, and the two made a plan for Jared to come to Mexico to help Christian with the project. “I needed to get away for a bit,” Jared recalls, “and he needed some help. Often in life you can’t repay those who have helped you, but you can pay it forward. I have had a lot of people help me in aviation, and

I thought helping Christian would be one way I could pay it forward.”

“I wasn’t sure that he’d come,” C hr istian notes.

“Even after I bought the airline ticket for him to come, I thought he might not show up — but then here comes this gringo out of the airport.” The pair got to work, and Jared began to explore Mexico after some initial reluctance that Christian still chuckles at. Twenty-one days after Jared arrived, the wings were covered and painted.

The previous owner had an interior color and upholstery combination that both Jared and Christian independently referred to as “hideous,” so the interior color

Christian and Paolo en route to Oshkosh. www.vintageaircraft.org

55

The Cub flying in Mexico, pre N number, with Christian in the front seat and Paolo in the rear.

was changed with several hours of sanding and the seats were reupholstered to a more conservative style.

While the Continental C90 underwent a major overhaul, Jared went home to Texas and returned several weeks later to hang the engine and test-fly the airplane.

Throughout the process, Christian learned about Jared’s Barn Cub restoration and the subsequent cross-country trip he took.

“I got a little jealous,” Christian recalls, thinking it sounded like a great experience and adventure.

Naturally, the idea to fly to Oshkosh was hatched soon after. “We talked about Oshkosh from the get-go,” says Jared. “I told him he had to take the Cub or he’d kick himself down the road if he didn’t.”

Of the decision to fly from Mexico to Oshkosh in 2016, Christian says, “It had to be this year.” The trip was to be a father-son affair, and Christian’s son, Paolo, was 13 years old — and growing — at the time of the trip. Christian declares, “I don’t know if we would have fit if he got any bigger!”

But first, Christian had one minor hurdle to clear before things like Oshkosh would be discussed — he had to learn to fly. The regulations in Mexico differ from those in 56

MAY/JUNE 2017

the United States in that the Cub, due to its light weight, was considered an ultralight and, therefore, required no formal training to fly.

Christian relates with appreciation Jared’s influence on his approach to learning to fly. “Jared is very safetyoriented, and he drilled that into me. He had an accident in his Cub that he used to help teach me to think about safety,” Christian says.

“He also taught me that a pilot’s license is a license to keep learning. I learn something new, and then I get excited to keep learning.”

“There’s a lot of things in the way of flying down there, and yet this guy with no aviation experience was making it work,” recalls Jared. “Once we determined I’d stay in Mexico through the first flight, my goal was to teach Christian how to really fly, not how to be a pilot.” To meet that goal, Jared and Christian put 37 hours on the Cub before Jared needed to fly back home to Texas. Those hours were filled with countless simulated engine failures and practical air work to keep Christian on his toes and ready for issues like an engine failure. Jared pulled the power back so many times that Christian began to think engine failures were common.

“I wanted him to know it can hap-

pen,” Jared says. After beginning the project in February 2013, Christian soloed the Cub six months later, with Jared watching from the hangar. Later on, Christian called Jared after he had been flying the airplane for about 150 hours and commented, “I can’t believe this thing hasn’t quit yet!” (As of print time, the engine has 340 failurefree hours on it, but Christian is still ready thanks to Jared’s influence.)

Jared’s not a CFI, so his time with Christian didn’t count toward a certificate. “I told Christian that it was his responsibility to get with an actual instructor and get a license,” Jared says. Christian located a flight school in Texas to complete formal training, and Christian now holds a U.S. private pilot certificate.

With a beautiful Cub, a pilot certificate, and a worthy destination, Christian was ready for the trip of a lifetime. The trip stretched approximately 2,000 miles as the crow flies, but Cubs might be the only things slower than crows, and they typically don’t fly in perfectly straight lines. As such, Christian elected to split the trip into two segments to minimize time away from his family and work. The first leg took Christian and his younger brother, Dino, from Jalisco, Mex-

ico, up the Gulf Coast to near Corpus Christi and then on to San Antonio, a distance of about 800 statute miles (700 nm). Christian left the airplane in San Antonio for a month before he and Paolo returned to complete the trip to Oshkosh together, a distance of about 2,300 miles (2,000 nm) by the time all was said and done.

As with many parents and children, Paolo’s and Christian’s hobbies don’t always overlap. Paolo loves technology and attends software development camps; Christian would rather kick up some mud on a dirt bike. One thing they could agree on, though, was the Cub. Paolo handled all the navigation and radio changes throughout the trip, along with watching for traffic while Christian flew. Another thing they agreed on? “People were so nice to us,” Paolo says, as he describes airport amenities such as courtesy cars, cookies, and even unlocked doors at FBOs for after-hours access. Christian adds, “All of the people we have met have been very helpful and encouraging. Everywhere we landed, people walk over to see the Cub, even if there are jets on the ramp. I think slow, yellow airplanes just make people happy.”

Christian and Paolo’s adventure took them across a sizable length of countryside by any measure, so the Cub’s two 12-gallon auxiliary wing tanks, augmenting the 12gallon nose tank, came in handy.

The longest leg stretched to three and a half hours, though the pair prefers to stretch their legs a little more often. One memorable moment among a multitude was flying along the Mississippi River in St. Louis and getting to fly over the Gateway Arch. “We flew with whatever was thrown at us,” Christian comments, recounting new-to-him events like thunderstorms he had

to steer clear of. Two oil changes were performed along the way, including one in Lone Rock, Wisconsin, where Christian and Paolo met

a friend of theirs, Maule pilot and expat Rich Wellner, for the arrival into Oshkosh. Rich moved to Mexico five years ago after being based

BY THE NUMBERS Aircraft

1943 Piper J-3 Cub

Engine

Continental C90 (90 hp)

Fuel capacity

36 U.S. gallons (two 12-gallon auxiliary wing tanks plus 12-gallon main tank)

Baggage capacity

20 pounds/9 kg

Cruise speed

61-70 knots/70-80 mph/112-128 km/h

Hours flown

36.5

Fuel burned

140 gallons

Miles flown

2,700 nm (approximately 2,000 nm within the U.S., plus approximately 700 nm from Jalisco to San Antonio)/3,100 sm (2,300 domestically plus 800 from Jalisco to San Antonio)/5,000 km (3,700 km domestically plus 1,300 from Jalisco to San Antonio)

Reassembling the Cub in Mexico.

Working on wings in Mexico with Jared. www.vintageaircraft.org

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in the Chicago area. “The weather forecasts in Mexico are very boring compared to where I moved from,” he deadpans. “It’s sunny and 70 degrees all the time where I’m based.”

Rich has flown into Oshkosh several times before, so he led Christian in. “The most exciting thing was hearing ‘rock your wings’ from the tower,” Christian recalls with a smile. His arrival, however, was not without a customar y Cub rite of passage. “I tried to look something up on the NOTAM and the pages ended up blowing around inside the airplane,” he says, chuckling. Christian managed to corral the necessary pages and continued following the NOTAM with no further issues aside from some sensory overload. “There are so many airplanes, which is unlike aviation events in Mexico where 30 airplanes is a lot. I landed on the white dot behind an AgCat with the Tri-Motor in the pattern and warbirds flying.” “ There are so many planes!”

Paolo breaks in excitedly. “It’s huge.

There are bombers, jets, Cessnas — every plane you can think of!”

When asked if he has a favorite, Paolo pauses for a moment. “The bombers,” he starts out. “And the 58 MAY/JUNE 2017

CHRIS MILLER

The Cub at sunset in Mexico (elevation 6200 feet MSL).

Paolo and Christian with the Cub. Left: SPOT Tracker route for the entire trip (ForeFlight didn’t work in Mexico, so the SPOT Tracker has the only full tracking.)

warbirds, especially seeing them fly,” he adds. Then, “The Redbird simulators were fun, too!”

Not even the midweek showers could dampen Paolo and Christian’s spirits. They camped in the vintage aircraft area with amenities that could generously be described as “sparse.” A small, lightweight, two-person tent formed the basis of their home for their time in Oshkosh, although it leaked during heavy rain. Due to the Cub’s limited baggage capacity (both in size and weight), they each packed a

thin foam sleeping pad and a small backpack, which doubled as a pillow. Nevertheless, they were the first from their airport in Mexico to make the trek to Oshkosh, and they reported without hesitation, “We’ll be back.”

“Aviation is very accessible here compared to Mexico,” Christian continues. “Mexico is much more restrictive. Some airports have landing fees, and you might have to go to two to three different offices just to pay for your gas. Finding things like unlocked doors

after hours, snacks, and self-serve fuel are nice to have.” As for AirVenture itself, he says, “It’s top of the line. It’s very well organized with good services. I wish we had something like it in Mexico.” What else does he wish he could bring back with him? “ForeFlight,” he answers immediately. (ForeFlight has World Aeronautical Char t coverage for portions of Mexico along with IFR chart coverage, but it does not have all the features a VFR-only Cub pilot would want, such as sectional charts.)

There’s a saying that “old school is still cool.” The combination and juxtaposition of old and new reinvigorate the older generations and provide a spark to the new one.

Who would think that a father and his son could still enjoy hanging out together, even in the teenage years? Who would think that such a pair would make the trip in a 73-year-old airplane, navigating with an iPad? There are some things in life that are timeless, and the combination of family and airplanes is certainly one of them.

There’s nothing cooler than that, no matter what your age.

The humble Cub departed Oshkosh on Friday to begin the long journey home. It’s safe to say that it was a trip neither Christian nor Paolo will soon forget, though the next trip may not be that far off. “I heard they may do something for the 80th anniversary of the Cub,” Christian mentioned last July. “I’m going to see about coming back.”

Note: The Cubs are coming back to Oshkosh in 2017! Christian is staying true to his word and reports he is doing his best to get back to Oshkosh for the Cub reunion. Even better, Christian says, “Paolo is taking some flying lessons and hopes to be a great pilot someday,” although he also mentions a bigger airplane might be needed now!

Jared Calvert (front seat) and Christian de Nora (rear seat) during one of Jared’s visits to help reassemble the Cub.

All That’s Old Is New Again: Jared Calvert and Ranger Airfield

Ranger Airfield’s story dates back to 1911 when pilot R.G. Fowler landed in Ranger, Texas, in pursuit of a prize for completing a coast-to-coast flight. The town grew with the discovery of oil nearby, and the ensuing economic growth and aviation excitement prompted a group of citizens to officially establish the airfield in Ranger in 1928. Amelia Earhart was one of the distinguished visitors to the airfield, arriving in her Pitcairn Autogiro in 1931.

The airport suffered as a result of the Great Depression but the need for pilots during World War II led to the establishment of a civilian pilot training program at Ranger. Following the war, the airport received updates in the form of an asphalt runway and a hangar expansion. Like many small-town airports, Ranger did not receive further investments over the years, and the airport was in danger of rotting away.

Were it not for a group of volunteers who emerged to maintain and use the airfield, it would have likely faded into obscurity.

At first, the group sought to clean up the grass runway to begin using it again in the 1990s, and the tradition continues today. Ranger’s population, which ballooned to 30,000 during the oil-boom years, is now only 2,400, so city funds to maintain the airport are limited. The continued operation of Ranger Airfield depends on a committed group of volunteers, perhaps most notably Jared Calvert.

Jared is one of those passionate people who sunk his teeth into aviation at a young age and never let go. He credits his achievements to a list of people who helped him out along the way, and he believes in paying it forward and giving back to aviation. Jared volunteers a healthy part of his life to Ranger Airfield, keeping runways mowed and facilities maintained. He operates Old Sport Biplane Rides with a 1927 Travel Air. Additionally, he works with single-engine air tanker pilots around the country during the domestic fire season.

To learn more about Ranger Airfield, visit www.RangerAirfield.org. www.vintageaircraft.org

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The Vintage Mechanic ROBERT G. LOCK

Teaching a Nation How to Fly The Lon Cooper Story, Part 3

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10 weeks of intensive flight and ground instruction, much like the CPTP — the instructors would be civilian, the facilities would be civilian, the ground crews would be civilian, but the military would be in charge of training. This plan would be so successful that more than 200,000 military combat pilots would be trained over the course of the war.

COURTESY LON COOPER

Having passed the checkride and interview that qualified Lon Cooper to attend the Central Instructors School, he reported to Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, on January 16, 1943. The war in Europe and the Pacific was raging as more and more combat pilots were in training.

To understand the urgency of the situation of military pilot training, one must look back to prewar training numbers. The Army Air Corps and the Navy graduated only 500 new pilots each per year before the war started. All of a sudden, thousands of pilots were needed, and training had to be ramped up to meet the demand. The Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) had produced several thousand civilian pilots in a very successful government-subsidized venture, and in fact, the military took over the CPTP in December 1942.

Those in government who looked favorably upon CPTP wanted to continue to teach flying for the military, but the military would have no part of that. The Army Air Corps and the Navy each wanted to instruct flying their way, but neither had the facilities and personnel to achieve the objective. The government went to the private sector for help and proposed a civilian-military partnership to conduct primary flight training. General H.H. “Hap” Arnold went to some of the civilian operators and proposed a bold program whereby private civilian contractors would teach primary flying to military pilots. Private money would build the schools and staff the operation. Eventually, 69 privately owned flight schools would begin the flight training. Primary flight training would involve

A very young Lon Cooper and his newly issued A-2 flight jacket.

Arnold’s plan also addressed the shortage of flight instructors, and that is where the CPTP fits into the picture. Robert Hinckley’s idea of creating the Civilian Pilot Training Program generated the perfect pool of qualified civilian flight instructors — his idea hatched three years before the United States entered World War II. Since the CPTP was so very successful because it was well planned and standardized, Arnold used it as a mold. After checkrides, those CPTP graduates that were deemed as “qualified” would be sent to a Central Instructors School for training at Randolph Field, Texas. So this was the beginning of the next phase of Lon Cooper’s flying career. Lon recalled, “Upon arrival at Maxwell Field, I was placed with other new arrivals waiting for the next start of the Central Instructors School at Kelly Field. Physicals were given to each of us. We were authorized and ordered to wear officer’s uniforms even though we were civilians. I had already purchased my green shirt, pink pants, cap, tie, and brown shoes. We were issued a ‘Trainee Instructor’ arm patch and an A-2 flight jacket. Housing was in framed tents with screened windows erected on a wood floor. A wood-burning stove in the center of the tent supplied heat for a cold January. Transfer to Kelly Field came February 5, 1943, via a crowded troop train. Someone in a car full of drunken sailors pulled the emergency cord and stopped the train in the middle of nowhere, much to the disgust of everyone. The long train was on an uphill grade and the locomotive could not get started again. It was necessary to back up several miles to level track before the engine could gain enough traction to move the train forward. We finally arrived in San Antonio at 5 p.m. on February 7. Waiting trucks transported us to Kelly Field.”

Kelly Field dated back to December 1903 and was the first training site for pilots, flight instructors, mechanics, and chauffeurs. The field was named for George E.M. Kelly, the first American aviator to lose his life flying a military aircraft, a Curtiss Pusher.

Most World War I aviators learned to fly at Kelly Field — 1,459 pilots and 398 flight instructors were trained there during the war. The Enlisted Training Department turned out 2,000 mechanics and chauffeurs per month.

While we’re on the subject of Kelly Field, I have a couple photos of the early days of military flight instruction I’d like to share. They were provided by an old friend, Doug Kelly, who had a fascinating background in aviation and learned flying at Kelly Field.

Hard landing near Kelly Field in a Jenny, taken from a scrapbook of Douglas Kelly.

Let’s see, what can we salvage here? Another early Kelly Field wreck during pilot training from the scrapbook of Douglas Kelly.

Douglas Kelly with what appears to be an early Curtiss R-1 racer at Kelly Field, Texas.

So Kelly Field was the hub of training activity for WWI and WWII combat pilots. The Central Instructors School was charged with selecting primary flight instructors, then training them to standardize techniques before assigning them to civilian-owned flight schools scattered across the country.

About reaching Kelly Field, Lon recalled, “Accommodations were excellent; four shared a room with a bathroom and shower. To us it was like a deluxe hotel www.vintageaircraft.org

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Powered by a six-cylinder in-line Ranger engine that produced 175 or 200 hp, the engine was very smooth when operating because all the cylinders were in line with each other. When production ceased, a total of 4,889 PT-19s/-23s/-26s were constructed, with some aircraft being delivered to Canada. Of the total, Aeronca built 620 aircraft and St. Louis Aircraft Company built 44 aircraft. The aircraft that went to Canada were mostly closed-cockpit PT-26 ships that were named the Cornell. Fairchild did export aircraft to several other countries during the production run.

At Kelly Field, Lon was preparing for standardized instruction principles designed by the Army Air Corps in the Fairchild PT-19, shown at upper right. Lon has a parachute on and is ready for the flight.

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Lon Cooper (right) with Lt. King at Central Instructors School at Kelly Field, 1943.

Lon recalled, “Assignments were made in groups of five. My instructor was Lt. King, a young first lieutenant about 27 years old. I was 22 years old, youngest of the trainee instructor candidates. My first flight was February 21, 1943. Flight maneuvers they instructed were the same as I had been taught in CPTP with very little change. I was glad my instructors at Whitted Airport had been tough on precision. My older and more experienced trainees had difficulty with the precision flying requirements. I passed my final checkride successfully on March 16, 1943. My last flight at Kelly was March 17 — I had flown 10 hours dual and 28 hours solo while there. Of the 350 trainees entering the school, only 65 graduated from the classification phase of our training.

The Central Instructors School moved to a permanent home at Randolph Field to complete advanced instructor training for the graduates.”

Randolph Field was named after William Millican Randolph, a native of Austin, Texas, who was killed when his AT-4 ship crashed on takeoff from Gorman Field, Texas, on February 1, 1928. Ironically, Capt. Randolph was serving on the committee to select a name for the new field at the time of his death. Randolph Field was dedicated on June 20, 1930, and immediately became known as the “West Point of the Air.” The 15,000 people in attendance that day witnessed a flyby of 233 planes, possibly the largest flying assembly of military

Randolph administration building, 1943.

aircraft in the world.

Basic flight training continued until March 1943 when the Central Instructors School took over. For the next two years, training instructors for the Air Corps’ primary, basic, and advanced flight training was the primary mission. More than 12,000 instructor pilots graduated from this course.

Lon remembered, “The instructors and the PT-19s followed us from Kelly, and we began flying March 23, 1943. Emphasis was placed on the refinement of maneuvers and teaching techniques.

We flew buddy rides with other trainees to sharpen our skills.

Checkrides included helpful suggestions and very little criticism.

My last flight at Randolph was April 16, 1943, adding 15 hours’ dual and 33 hours’ solo to my flight time. All 65 trainees from Kelly graduated, and after the ceremony, we were treated to an air show by the famous aerobatic pilot Maj. Alfred ‘Al’ Williams in his Grumman G-22 Gulfhawk II, powered by a Wright Cyclone R-1820-G1, a 1,000-hp engine turning a three-blade Hamilton Standard prop. It was a spectacular demonstration that included picking up a handkerchief from a 3-foot stick with his upper wingtip while flying inverted. His was a flight I shall never forget.”

COURTESY LON COOPER

Prototype Fairchild M62A in flight over Hagerstown, Maryland.

COURTESY LON COOPER

— great food was served family style at tables seating 12. When a dish was empty, it was held up and promptly refilled by a waiter. About 350 potential pilots arrived for the first class. Upon arrival, we were given another physical as we prepared for training. We were taught to make beds so a half-dollar would bounce when tossed on the blanket — and it had better bounce. There were ‘white glove’ room inspections, physical training, closeorder drill, ground school, weekly haircuts, and open post. Each day began with the firing of a cannon; the flag was raised as the bugle sounded. It was ‘fall in’ on the drill field for roll call at daylight. All of our instructors were Army officers and we were really in the Army.”

The training aircraft used at that time were Fairchild PT-19 and PT-26, and Lon recalled, “These did not fly well in slow rolls, snap rolls, and would sometimes go inverted in spins when flying solo from the front cockpit.”

Fairchild Airplane and Engine Works received a government contract to supply primary trainers to the Army Air Corps. Originally designated the M62A, the first aircraft flew May 15, 1939, with the first batch of aircraft delivered in 1940. Below is the prototype M62A, NX18689, shown on a test flight in 1939. Note headrest in rear cockpit.

Lon Cooper’s proficiency certificate issued from the Central Instructors School, Randolph Field, Texas, April 1943.

Lon was presented his graduation certificate by Maj. Frame, and then he proceeded with the assignments to Army Civilian Primary Contract Schools. Lon recalled, “He began by asking Bill, Ben, and me to have seats on the platform with him. He then passed out two decks of playing cards to the other graduates to establish their priority for school selection from a list of schools displayed on the wall. There were more positions available than instructors. Maj. Frame then told me the three of us had been requested by Lodwick School of Aeronautics in Lakeland, Florida. He asked if we wished to accept, and of course we did. We were issued train tickets to our assigned school. I checked in all items issued to me to ‘clear post.’

With a bus trip to San Antonio and a train ticket change from Lakeland to St. Petersburg, I was home three days later.” The next chapter in Lon’s flying career was about to begin.

TM

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