Va vol 43 no 6 nov dec2015

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

•Walking the Line at AirVenture•Sunshine Stearman•Around the Pylons

Performance VehiclesThe all-new Ford GT supercar showcases technology and innovation with ultra-efficient aerodynamics, powerful EcoBoost® performance and lightweight carbon-fiber construction. The new Focus RS brings a 2.3L EcoBoost engine that will produce in excess of 315 horsepower. Ford GT and Focus RS are joined by Fiesta ST, Focus ST, Shelby® GT350R Mustang and F-150 Raptor, the ultimate high-performance off-road pickup.

Light WeightingWhen it comes to performance, light weighting is key. It improves efficiency and lowers CO2 emissions and includes the use of advanced materials such as carbon fiber and other composites. Ford recently received an industry award for light weighting the 2015 F-150, removing nearly 700 lbs. of weight while improving its performance, safety and efficiency.

EcoBoost Technology“EcoBoost is another strong example of how we are migrating technology and engineering across our lineup, ensuring our vehicles are fun to drive,” said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, Global Product Development. “From our most nimble Fiesta to our hard working full-size pickups and racing vehicles, our lineup benefits from the innovations we deliver at the track and at the limit.”

“Ford still races for the same reasons Henry Ford did in 1901 – to prove out our products and technologies against the very best in the world,” said Nair. “The Ford Performance team will continue to pursue performance innovation, ensuring we can deliver even more coveted performance cars, utilities and trucks to customers around the world.”

The Privilege of PartnershipEAA members are eligible for special pricing on Ford Motor Company vehicles through Ford’s Partner Recognition Program. To learn more about this exclusive opportunity for EAA members to save on a new Ford vehicle, please visit www.eaa.org/ford.

An additional $750 EAA member incentive is also available toward the purchase or lease of a new Ford or Lincoln vehicle through January 4, 2016.

A huge transformation is taking place at Ford Motor Company with an emphasis on technology, innovation, fuel efficiency and performance. And performance is truly taking center stage with more than 12 new performance

vehicles being launched, now through 2020.

2015-Nov_Performance_EAA_Divis_Ad-Final.indd 1 9/18/15 9:42 AM

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

Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Busha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

VAA Executive Administrator . . Erin Brueggen920-426-6110 . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . Livy Trabbold

ADVERTISING:Vice President of Business DevelopmentDave Chaimson . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

Advertising ManagerSue Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

VAA, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903Website: www.vintageaircraft.orgEmail: [email protected]

www.vintageaircraft.org 1

It appears as though 2015 is slowly slipping away from us. It was truly a magnificent year of accomplishments, progress, and a lot of real fun mixed into the process. As you can imagine, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016 is well into the planning stages. I really have to mention here that the membership of our association has proven to be quite generous to the organization this year. Much was accomplished by this generosity, and we have a number of goals and capital projects ahead of us in future years that we hope to execute.

By all measure, the Friends of the Red Barn fundraising campaign has proven to be a huge success in 2015, and I wish to personally thank all of you who supported our association through this critically important funding. Be forever mindful that the VAA operates solely by our specific fundraising ef-forts at EAA AirVenture and throughout the year. It is the generosity of our members and guests at AirVenture that allows the officers and volunteers of the VAA to execute the programs and amenities that are offered in the Vin-tage area of the show each year. Please take the time to review the upcoming enhancements of the benefits offered by the Friends of the Red Barn fund that will soon be announced in this publication.

We as a division receive no monetary benefit from EAA for gate admis-sions at AirVenture. That’s not to imply that EAA doesn’t support our as-sociation. In fact, it provides hundreds of our AirVenture volunteers and our all-volunteer officers and directors of the VAA with many amenities in recognition of their dedication, long hours, and hard work each and every year. We are very proud of the fact that a large portion of our funding that virtually self-supports the numerous convention expenses in the Vintage area of operations comes solely from your support of the Vintage Tall Pines Cafe, the Aeromart operations, the Red Barn merchandise sales initiative, donations from our charging station, popcorn and lemonade donations in the Red Barn, and ice sales to our campers on the south side of the field.

One of the most promising initiatives we accomplished this year was the creation of a youth in aviation group that was formed and introduced at AirVenture. This is a very dynamic and diverse group of youthful lead-ers who are likely to become the next generation of leadership within the Vintage movement. The other significant initiative launched at this year’s convention was a completely new format of aviation forums that were conducted in the Vintage Hangar. These forum events were strongly attended by the membership, and they proved to be successful beyond all expectations. These two new initiatives were organized, managed, and carried out your VAA vice president, Mr. David Clark. His vision and in-tuition proved invaluable to the membership value proposition we offer

Straight & Level Vintage AirplaneSTAFF

Happy holidays to all members of the VAA

GEOFF ROBISONVAA PRESIDENT, EAA Lifetime 268346, VAA Lifetime 12606

continued on page 63

VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATIONCurrent EAA members may join the Vintage

Aircraft Association and receive VINTAGE AIR-PLANE 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 MEMBERSHIPSPlease 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 ServicePO Box 3086

Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086 Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM—6:00 PM CST

Join/Renew 800-564-6322 [email protected]

EAA AirVenture Oshkoshwww.eaa.org/airventure

888-322-4636

VISITwww.vintageaircraft.orgfor the latest in information and news

and for the electronic newsletter:

Vintage AirMail

2 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

C O N T E N T SVol. 43, No. 6

82015 Volunteer Award Winners

20Walking the Vintage LineMemories from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015Fredrick A. Johnsen

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

STEVE MOYER

44A Stearman for the GenerationsBradley Sunshine

52Around the PylonsAmerican race planes, speediest of all, 1920-1922, Part 1Michael Gough


C O V E R SFRONT COVER: Night stalker Phil High zooms in on a Curtiss-Wright bi-plane near the Vintage HQ.BACK COVER: VAA Executive Adminis-trator Erin Brueggen captures a Cessna 170 illuminated by the EAA Airventure fireworks.

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

ANY COMMENTS?Send your thoughts to theVintage Editor at: [email protected]

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015COLUMNS1 Straight and Level Happy holidays to all members of the VAA Geoff Robison

7 Air Mail

9 Ask the AME Arthritis John Patterson, M.D., AME

10 How to? Safety aircraft components Robert G. Lock

12 Good Old Days

14 Art of Flying The boy and the old plane Part 4 Sarah Wilson

58 The Vintage Mechanic Specialty inspection—Part 2 Robert G. Lock

62 VAA New Members

64 Vintage Trader


The Friends of the Red Barn program is our only annual fundraiser to sup-port 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 thor-oughly 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 facil-ity 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 num-ber 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. 2016 will be its 15th 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. Vin-tage 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 do-nors have made the Red Barn and its gracious hospitality what you enjoy to-day. . .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 The Friends of the Red Barn will be there to do our part.

Photo story of the historicVintage Red Barn

1973, the lone remnant of a long-dormant farm became the Antique/Classic headquarters.

1974, the first remodel of the Red Barn was begun under the leadership of the first Antique/Classic

president, E.E. Buck Hilbert (blue jump suit).

By the 1976 EAA Convention, the Antique/Classic area was thriving.

Through member donations and volunteer labor, the Vintage Store was expanded and the

Vintage Hangar was built in 2009.

Through a generous gift from Myrt Rose ,the Red Barn HQ plaza was upgraded and expanded.

2016

T

Red

Barn

ph

oto

his

tory

com

pile

d by

Ph

il Bl

ake,

VAA

#88

08ST

EVE

CUKI

ERSK

I


#TM

CONTRIBUTIONLEVELS ↓

DonorAppreciationCertificate

SpecialFORBBadge

Access toAir-ConditionedVolunteerCenter

A “6-pack”of ColdBottledWater!

Two Passesto VAAVolunteerParty

Breakfast at Tall PinesCafé

Tri-Motor OR HelicopterRideCertificate

Two Ticketsto VAA Picnic

Close AutoParking

SpecialAir ShowSeating

Two WeeklyWristbands

DIAMOND PLUS $1,500 & higher

X X X X X 2 people, full week

2 tickets X Full week 2 people,full week

2 people, full week

DIAMOND $1,000 - $1,499


2 tickets X Full week 2 people,1 day

PLATINUM$750 - $999


1 ticket X 2 days

GOLD$500 - $749

X X X X X 1 person,full week

1 ticket

SILVER $250 - $499

X X X X X

BRONZE PLUS$150 - $249

X X X X

BRONZE$100 - $149

X X X

LOYALSUPPORTER$99 and under

X

Vintage Aircraft Association | 3000 Poberezny Rd., Oshkosh, WI 54902 | 920.426.6110 | EAAVintage.orgThe Vintage Aircraft Association is a non-profit educational organization under IRS 501c3 rules. Under Federal Law, the deduction from Federal Income tax for charitable contributions is limited to the amount by which any money (and the value of any property other than money) contributed exceeds the value of the goods or services provided in exchange for the contribution. An appropriate receipt acknowledging your gift will be sent to you for IRS gift reporting reasons.

Name: ______________________________________________________________ EAA #:_______________ VAA #: _____________

Address: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________

City: ________________________________________________________________ State: _______________ ZIP: _______________

Phone: ______________________________________________________________ E-mail: ____________________________________

Badge Information (for Bronze Level and above)

o Yes, prepare my name badge to read:

_________________________________(Please print name)

o No, I do not need a badge this year.

Certificateso Yes, I would like a certificate. o No, I do not need a certificate for this year.

Choose your level of participation:o Diamond Plus ($1,500 or more)o Diamond ($1,000-$1,499)o Platinum ($750-$999)o Gold ($500-$749)o Silver ($250-$499)o Bronze Plus ($150-$249)o Bronze ($100-$149)o Loyal Supporter ($99 or less)

o Payment enclosed (Make checks payable to Vintage Aircraft Association)

o Please charge my credit card for the amount of: $

Credit Card Number:

Expiration Date:

Signature:

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-main-tained, 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 EmeritusEAA Life Member 96978, VAA Life Member 2158

2016ST

EVE

MOY

ER


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 3 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: [email protected], 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.

Nominate your favorite vintage aviator for the EAA Vin-tage 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 coun-try 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 per-son you nominate must be or have been a member of the Vintage Aircraft Association or the Antique/Classic Divi-sion of EAA, and preference is given to those whose ac-tions 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 sto-ries, preserving aviation history, and encouraging new pilots and enthusiasts.

CALL FOR VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION

Nominations


My September/October edition of Vintage Aircraft just arrived, and I immediately went to “Keepin’ Up a Family Tradition.” I love the Beech 18. My dad flew them, and I rode copilot a number of times. This one is a beautiful example, and it even has the oval door (a must-have in my book). I looked at the instrument panel and wished I were there.

Then, and as I read down a bit, it turns out I was there! I am an alumnus of Vo-Tech, and I went through its A&P school. I remember that airplane. At 17 years old, I was the only one in the class with actual flying time, and some Beech 18 experience, so our teacher, Mr. Wassen, sent me out to instruct the other students in the fine art of starting round engines. I sat in the right seat, and the other students came up one by one, sat in the left seat, and started, ran, and shut down the engines.

The high school is still up on the bluff in Las Vegas, but it has a new name. Unfortunately, they closed the A&P school many years ago. Of all the airplanes we had, I’m glad to see the Beech 18 was rescued and is in such loving hands.

Mark BuchnerSpringfield, VirginiaSNVTC class of ’73

Dear Vintage Airplane,Many private pilots, particularly the older ones

like me, bemoan the passing of the “Golden Age” of GA, which is general seen as the ’50s and ’60s. Many also despair the lack of progress in small air-planes since that time. Many of the planes we fly are 30+ years old, with antiquated power plants, and, in most, small planes steam gauges that would be rec-ognizable by a World War II pilot. But there is a flip side to that time warp. Recently I was flying into a small airport in southern Illinois, but I believe this experience could have happened at most any small airport in America. As I approached the airport, I self-announced my position and another aircraft just departing called out his position. I thanked him and continued in. Upon landing I entered the 1950’s vin-tage “terminal” building, if that is really the correct term, and found no one around. I was on business and needed a courtesy car. I had been to the same air-port about eight or nine months earlier and the type of aircraft that had made the position call was the same type I remembered being used for lessons here, so I thought it might be the airport manager.

I wandered around until I spotted the old radio used for Unicom communication, again right out of the ’50s. I keyed the mic and asked if the departing airplane was still on frequency, which he was, and I explained my plight. He replied that his wife should be around somewhere, perhaps mowing. Looking out the window I spotted her at the end of the mile-long runway. I was just getting ready to thank him and start walking when he continued, “The car is in the green hanger, keys are in it, door is open, go ahead.” No photo ID, no proof of insurance, I was a pilot, that was enough.

And there you have it, the flip side of the time warp! I was almost expecting to find a ’57 Chevy in the garage. Yes the Golden Age of GA may have passed, but in small airports around the country its spirit is alive and well.

Bob Thomas, EAA 746290

Air Mail

Letters to the editor


Vintage Behind the Scenes VolunteerThe Vintage Aircraft Association is fortunate to

have the dedicated volunteers that we have. Many of them give their talent and time to our association. The maintenance and construction group comes up to Oshkosh for three work weekends to build, repair, and maintain our facilities. Many of these volun-teers donate more the 120 hours a year to the VAA. This year they built two new buildings, one for mem-bership and one for volunteer sign-up. They also in-stalled and plumbed a new air compressor that was donated by Wings Metal Work of San Pierre, Indiana.

Some of our volunteers travel many miles to get here, but none of them travel more than our Behind the Scenes Volunteer of the Year, Ian Harvie. He trav-els 9,500 miles each way to volunteer and help us pre-pare for AirVenture. He is from Australia. He arrives the week before the convention and helps us distrib-ute picnic tables, set up the Tall Pines Cafe, move things to the Aeromart, sweep the Vintage Hangar, paint, and anything else that needs to be done. He definitely has the VAA attitude of volunteering. We are proud to introduce Ian Harvie as the Behind the Scenes Volunteer for 2015.

Vintage Flightline VolunteerJim Hornby, also known as “Antique Santa,” is a fa-

miliar face in Vintage. He started attending the EAA convention on a yearly basis in 1976 and started vol-

unteering in 1978 with the Custom division. He was invited to volunteer in the Antique and Classic Divi-sion in 1979 and joined Vintage in 1984. Meeting new people and seeing a variety of airplanes are high-lights of Jim’s volunteer time.

Jim has worked not only all over Vintage, but also in maintenance. Being a true “get ’er done” gentleman, Jim has worn many hats, including driving the tour tram, parking airplanes (of course!), helping with field preparation, driving our famous (or, infamous!?) taxi, repairing equipment, and coming out for work week-ends to do maintenance on our facilities.

Like most of us, Jim returns each year to be a part of the family reunion with members from all over the world and because he enjoys doing things for people who appreciate the effort. Jim and his wife, Kathy, have added to that family reunion, bringing their children to AirVenture for their an-nual vacation for many years. Daughter Kris has been coming since she was in diapers and has been a constant volunteer at “Magoo,” son Kurt has recently started volunteering at the recharging station, and wife Kathy has been volunteering in op-erations, on the flightline, in the recharging station, and with maintenance on work weekends.

Thank you, Jim, for your years of dedication. . . and for bringing a little bit of the North Pole with you! Your taxi has brightened many a volunteer’s day. Congratulations!

EAA Vintage Aircraft Association

2015 Volunteer Award Winners

TM

Geoff Robison and Ian Harvie. Geoff Robison congratulates Jim Hornby.

J.A. asks, “I have been diagnosed with poly-myalgia rheumatica. How will this affect my upcoming FAA medical?”

The short answer is that an airman with polymy-algia rheumatica undergoing active treatment will require special issuance. But keep reading! I will dis-cuss the differences between polymyalgia rheumatica and the two most common forms of arthritis, namely rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis.

Airmen with both rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) can be issued an unrestricted medical by the AME without contacting the FAA if the following criteria are met. The condition must be stable and the symptoms mild to moderate with no significant limitation in range of motion, lifestyle, or activity. Acceptable medications are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (such as Motrin or Advil) or NSAIDs. Also approved are methotrexate, hydroxy-chloroquine (Plaquenil), and prednisone as long as the daily dose does not exceed 20 mg a day. The air-man must have normal CBC, liver function, and renal function (creatinine) blood tests. If taking hydroxy-chloroquine, an eye exam with an optometrist or ophthalmologist will be required due to potential ret-inal toxicity and regular checkups will also be needed.

Polymyalgia rheumatica is associated with im-mune system problems and is relatively common in patients over the age of 50. It may be triggered by an infection, and symptoms typically resolve in one to two years after treatment, typically with corticoste-roids such as prednisone. Symptoms are usually dif-fuse musculoskeletal pain and stiffness in the neck, shoulder, and hip. Stiffness is worse in the morning or after periods of inactivity. Polymyalgia rheumatica is often associated with giant cell arteritis (temporal

arteritis), which can result in inflammation of blood vessels and consequently impede adequate blood flow. Diagnosis is typically made through biopsy of the temporal artery and the finding of abnormal gi-ant cells in the wall of the artery, hence its name. Headache, tenderness over the temples, double vi-sion, dizziness, balance, and visual disturbance can occur. Obviously these are bad things for the pilot. The good news is that treatment with prednisone is rapid and very successful, but is typically required for six months or longer.

The diagnosis is made with an elevated eryth-rocyte sedimentation rate blood test, which is a measure of inflammation in the body. Another test that measures inflammation is the C-reactive pro-tein. Rheumatoid factor is an antibody made by the body’s immune system usually found in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. This test should be negative in polymyalgia rheumatica. While there are similari-ties among all the mentioned disease states covered here, in general polymyalgia rheumatica involves the muscles with aches and stiffness and not the joints as much as with RA or OA.

Rheumatoid arthritis occurs when the body’s im-mune system mistakenly attacks the lining of the


Ask the AME

Arthritis

JOHN PATTERSON, M.D., AME

Polymyalgia rheumatica isassociated with immunesystem problems and isrelatively common in patients over the age of 50.

continued on page 64

Vibration is a big deal with airplanes so we use various methods of locking fasteners to keep them from shaking loose and causing catastrophic re-sults. Described herein will be some techniques used by mechanics to safety various fasteners.

Safety wire comes in common sizes of 0.020 inch, 0.032 inch, and 0.041 inch diameters in materials of brass, tinned steel wire, and annealed stainless steel. The most popular wire is the annealed stainless steel.

The first item to know before twisting safety wire is to place the wire so it will tighten the fastener. So be-fore beginning, size up the task so you don’t have to repeat because you safety it backward. Figure 1 shows typical methods of safety wiring.

In most cases the safety wire is twisted between fasteners, but there may be times when several small screw heads must be safetied together and the wire would not be twisted. The pigtail should have at least five twists and should be either formed around the fastener head or curled with the tang against the fas-tener. I don’t know how many times I have reached into a confined area only to have my hand or arm raked by a piece of pigtail some mechanic left sticking

out from the fastener head.Studs, particularly on radial engines, must be safe-

tied through the castle nuts, so you size up the task by looking at wiring so it tightens not only the nut but also the stud. The castle nuts should be washered so the hole in the stud is just visible through the nut. I’ve seen the castle nuts driven so far down the stud that the wire hole is above the nut. Safety this and you might keep the stud tight, but the nut could vi-brate loose. Note the pigtail in this sketch. It needs a couple more twists and needs to be curled so the tang touches the nut. Remember, five twists on the pigtail. It should be stated here that lock nuts are not used on studs because the stud cannot be safetied. Figure

2 shows typical stud safety wiring.

Cable turnbuckles present a unique challenge to safetying. There are three different styles of wrapping safety wire around a turnbuckle, but over the years I have used only the single and double wrap. When possible, I always use a double wrap safety on pri-mary flight control cables. See Figure 3.

There are a few simple rules to follow when rig-ging control cables. The primary purpose of the turnbuckle is to connect two cables together, adjust

How to?

Safety aircraft components

ROBERT G. LOCK

FIGURE 1 FIGURE 2


to a precise length, and then tension to a specific tautness. When cables are to the correct tension, there should be no more than three threads exposed from the end of the turnbuckle.

When everything is ready, you must determine what type of safety you will use, then the diameter and type of safety wire will be determined. When 1/16-inch diameter cables are safetied, you can only use a single wrap because the terminal hole is too small to accommodate two pieces of wire. The chart in Figure 4 shows safety wire diameter for making both single and double wrap turnbuckle safeties.

Cotter pins are another means to safety hard-ware. Cotter pins may be purchased in both mild steel and stainless steel, so it’s a matter of choice as to which type to use. Sizes are 1/32 inch, 1/16 inch, 3/32 inch, 1/8 inch, and 5/32 inch diameters. When aligning the bolt hole and the castle nut, use washer combinations to get the hole just visible through the nut. There are two methods to bend the tangs, but I prefer the one shown on the left side of the above sketch. The one on the right is sometimes used when there is not enough clearance to bend the tang on top of the bolt. Correct use of a cotter pin safety is shown in Figure 5.FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 5


Good Old Days

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

From pages of what was . . .

Popular Aviation 1930

Skyways 1947


SCRAPBOOK

Aeronca Christmas Air Facts 1942

Popular Aviation 1936


from holidays pastClassified AdsSCRAPBOOK

Aero Digest 1929

The Sportsman Pilot, 1935


Many years had passed, almost 20, un-til the young man waded in the wheat again. He was now a man. So tall the wheat barely touched his knees. The young man had grown up to be a very big deal indeed. Made a lot of money and was rich and famous. On this day he didn’t feel like a big deal at all. Counting all his would’ves, could’ves, and might-have-beens, the man didn’t notice the Stea-rman flying past him until he heard the sound of a radial engine. He looked up and remembered what he had forgotten to remember again. Just then the wind whipped a path across the wheat and waved at him. “Over here, follow me,” the wind beckoned. Following the rumble- clicking, lope, lope, loping of the radial engine, the man ran. Over the field, through the orchard, and past the old barn. The shed was still there with the board nailed over the door. Just as he had left it so many years before.

The man stood at the door and a prayer floated off his lips through his clasped fin-gertips, “I need one good thing today. I need the plane to still be here.”

The Art of Flying

The boy and the old planePart 4

SARAH WILSON

SARA

H W

ILSO

N


“Please come in,” the plane said from within the darkness of the shed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The man ripped the board off the door with such force, the door flew from its hinges onto the floor. A whew flew out of him, too. The plane would know what to do. “This is the worst day of my life. I’m about to lose everything. My job, my houses, my reputation, my money. What will people think of me? What should I do?”

“Nothing,” the plane replied. “When you worry and are in a hurry, you make mistakes. Sit and rest awhile. I have so much to tell you. It will take some time to restore me, but time flies by when you like what you do. I think we will start today.”

The man couldn’t believe the words he just heard and shook his head to clear them out of his ears. “Nothing. Do noth-ing on the worst day of my life? Restore you. Really? That’s your advice? This day couldn’t get any worse.”

“You don’t mean that,” the plane re-plied. “Words are real; they never go away. You have to choose carefully the words you choose to say. That is a big thought you haven’t thought about. The worst day can get worse, and it can get

better, too. That’s all up to you. If you spent your whole life in the sky, would you eventually turn blue?”

The man held his reply inside until his face turned blue, and he blew. “What?! I am not a boy anymore. I am a man with bills to pay and responsibilities. None of what you said makes any sense. I have suits to pack, a drive to make, a plane to catch, a train to take, and three job interviews to get to. I should have known better than to think you would understand. You’re just a bunch of old parts in a shed. What do you know about losing anything?”

“All the things you think you’re losing you could get back again. If you wanted them,” the plane replied. “Have you looked in the shed? There are some reputations in the useless parts box. Right behind the waste-of-space measuring tape and the too-big-for-your-britches wheelpants. You’re welcome to take one to see if that’s the reputation you’re losing. There are plenty of other people’s thoughts on the unsure-of-yourself shelf. Up there, in the right-wrong corner, looking down on you. You’re welcome to take those thoughts, too, if they’re more important than the thoughts you think about you.”

The man smiled inside, and his smile skipped up his chin all the way to the top of his forehead. It was the first smile that had run around his face in a while.

“Sometimes you lose things you don’t need to make room for the things you do,” the plane said. “There is nothing you could lose that is more impor-tant than you.”

The man’s thoughts froze inside him. They cracked his pride. The plane was right. He wanted to open his mouth and say, “I was wrong,” but the words stuck to his tongue. He was too embarrassed to unstick them.

“I used to fly with a little boy like you,” the plane replied to what the man had not said. “He thought he had lost something that was very important to him, too. I told him if he would be patient, he would see everything was going to be better soon. By the old panel, next to the very small clock, there’s a leather pouch. Please look in.”

The man opened the leather pouch and pulled its insides out. He found a picture and an airplane regis-tration. The man picked up the old picture and held it to the light in the shed. “Hey, that kid looks like me,” the man said.

The man’s resignation handed in his dream of fly-ing. “Sorry, old friend. I spent my life watching air-

planes fly by me. Wishing on each one that someday I would go with them. I always wanted to have my own plane. I even bought a pilot’s watch to remind me to take the time to go flying. I never did. I never took the time to do anything I wanted to do. I was too busy working. I sold my watch today. No point in be-lieving I ever will.”

The plane smiled inside, “Believing never ends. It can be forgotten and remembered again. It’s my turn to believe enough for two.”

The man reached for the airplane registration. “I wonder who owns you.”

The man’s eyes grew wide as he recognized the name on the registration. His name and address looked back at him. The man’s thoughts spun inside his head and threw out a question: “What’s going on here? “ He turned the registration over, and in his handwriting he saw his name again. On the right, right after it, was written “Jr.” “I don’t have a plane or a kid,” the man said. “What is this? Some kind of a trick?”

The plane started thinking very seriously. Planes do that when they want to tell you something you don’t know is true, but they do. If you remember your consequences before they happen, you won’t have to regret them. The plane wanted to protect him from a mistake he was about to make again. The worst day can get worse, but it can always get better, too.

“I used to fly with a little boy like you,” the plane said again. “He sat below my wing and cried, too. He thought it was the worst day of his life. The man who owned this shed was a very mean man. He didn’t like dogs or children. He didn’t like anyone look-ing around his barn. It was full of planes he never flew. The man was very small and made himself feel tall standing on top of his possessions. The boy had been playing in the man’s planes. Promising each one, someday he would fly them away. The boy vis-ited the planes each week and left his dog in the field by his Cub. His dog was his first best friend. The boy came back to his Cub, and his dog was gone. He called and called for him. He was so sad. He thought he’d never have another best friend. He was so mad. He thought, ‘If the mean old man took my dog, I’ll show him.’ I told the boy he should wait under my wing and do nothing. The clouds were starting to boil, bark, and turn dark. He was always such a busy boy with so much to do. He had to find his dog. He had to fly around the farm and look for him. When you worry and are in a hurry, you make mistakes. There are some mistakes you can’t retake. Your dog was waiting at home for you.”

The plane waited for the man to reply, but he had 16 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015


fallen asleep on the floor of the shed. Being busy makes you very tired. The plane beamed with pride. It had been the best day of the plane’s life watching the boy grow into a man. But planes live forever, so time is different for them.

In the cool darkness of the shed the plane said, “There are just a bunch of old parts in this shed. Parts of so many planes, all part of the same. All waiting for you to fly us away. All waiting for the boy who sat in our seats, wondering the most wondrous things, to come back again. You don’t remember us, but we re-member you. We saved all the extra patience we had waiting to see you, so you could spend time doing all the things you never got to do.

“I would give my frame to protect you. You are my first best friend. I believed in wishes again when you said you needed me today. Wishes need to be needed to come true. Planes need to be needed, too. A wish that is good and true is never too good to come true.

I believe I AM going to fly, and I believe I AM going to fly today for you, too.”

Just then, on the left of the shed, hidden in the corner of an old panel, the very small clock, with a set of very red hands, started to change. . .and move.

“Dad. Dad, wake up,” a boy said. “What are you do-ing here? I saw a Cub fly by and followed it. Dad, get up. Whose Cub is this?”

The older man woke up in the grass and looked at the face standing above him. The face opened a place inside his memory he had forgotten to remember again. It was his son.

The older man sat up and hit his head on the strut of the Cub. He rubbed all his questions and a lump. What just happened? Was it a dream? Perhaps it was a dream,


but no one can ever be sure if dreams aren’t real.The older man walked into the shed. It was empty

except for a small piece of paper on the floor. He picked it up and saw it was the registration for the Cub outside the door. His name and address looked back at him. He turned the registration over, and in his handwriting he saw his present. On the right, right after it, was written “Jr.” In the space where the paper had been was a watch. It was the pilot’s watch he had sold on the worst day of his life. He lifted the watch to the light of the shed and read the inscrip-tion. I believe you can fly. Your Wish Twin.

In the cool darkness of the shed a voice said, “Tick-tock. You’ve got so much to do, and all the time in the world to do it in. What do you want to be when you grow up again?”

His son called from the back seat of the Piper Cub, “Daaaad, who’s the owner of this Cub? Can you teach me to fly someday?”

The older man’s answer lifted him up off his knees, “I am. I can. I believe.”

Just then, from the left corner of the shed, a but-terfly flew out the door and landed on the fuel float of the Cub.

The older man looked up when he heard the sound of a radial engine.

For Certifi ed Aircraft, Stewart Systems is FAA approved for use with any certifi ed fabric.

Superfl ite, Ceconite or Polyfi ber

Stewart Aircraft Finishing Systems5500 Sullivan St., Cashmere, WA 988151-888-356-7659 • (1-888-EKO-POLY)

www.stewartsystems.aero

Aircraft Finishing Products STC’d for Certified Aircraft

Safe for You, Safe for the World, Safe for Your Airplane

Aircraft Finishing Products STC’d for Certified Aircraft Aircraft Finishing Products STC’d for Certified Aircraft

EPA CompliantNon-Hazardous Non-Flammable

1.80

0.55

8.68

68 o

nlin

ecat

alog

.wag

aero

.com

QUALITY AIRCRAFT PARTS & SERVICES

Aeronca Exhaust StacksLH E-301-001 $189.00RH E-301-002 $189.00Pair E-301-000 $359.99

Taylorcraft Fuselage Fuel Tank0797 $609.50

Piper J-3 CowlingTop M-048-100 $400.75Bottom M-048-200 $473.75Complete Unit M-048-000 $821.95

Serving the Aviation Industry for Over 50 Years!

We carry hundreds of FAA/PMA’d parts for your aircraft along with instruments, spark plugs, batteries, tires,

tubes, tow bars, wheel chocks and much more!15

VAM


It’s my pleasure to step in for Sparky Barnes Sar-gent, whose coverage of vintage aviation at EAA

AirVenture Oshkosh events has become a fond expectation. I am assured she will be back next year,

and I look forward to her chatty interviews with so many fine folks in Vintage Airplane.

I grew up in an era when Sat-urday visits to local airports were fun outings with my dad. I can still recall when, I must have been 4, he

told me he could fly a Piper Cub as we strolled past one on the flight-line. For the first time in my young life, a person I actually knew was revealed to be a pilot. That was, and is, life-changing for me.

I learned to loop an Aeronca

Memories from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015 article and photos by Frederick A. Johnsen

Walking theVintage Line

From balloons to Beeches, the parking area south of the main ramp at AirVenture 2015 was a varied mix of airframes ranging from vin-tage to ultralight, and good old general aviation standards. If the Twin Beech with the fiery nose cap looks bulkier than some, that’s because it has the extra high cabin lid added, starting with produc-tion in 1955 and occasionally retrofitted to earlier Beech 18s.


Champ on my 30th birthday, and last year, at AirVenture 2014, I had the extreme pleasure of experienc-ing aerobatics in the Commemora-tive Air Force Stearman. But my experience level in vintage air-craft is quickly eclipsed by every-one who brought such a machine to Oshkosh. Although most of my adult life has been spent around warbirds and military aviation, the vintage brand of flying is never far from my thoughts. So it was with great pleasure that I soaked up as much vintage ambiance as I could this year at Oshkosh.

For the most part, the weather smiled on Wittman field, though a brisk storm on the morning of July 18 had some early birds scrambling to make sure tie-downs were secure and tents were tight. Enclaves of

specific types, like a proud line of Howard DGAs on the grass, or the metallic art of several Cessna 195s from around the country, made it easy to compare aircraft and note differences and similarities.

The EAA Vintage Aircraft Asso-ciation community is subdivided into several sets. Antiques refers to aircraft built before Septem-ber 1, 1945. Classics are those constructed between Septem-ber 1, 1945, and the end of 1955. Contemporaries include aircraft built from the beginning of 1956 through 1970.

The individuality of approaches to restoring and marking vintage airplanes is part of the fun of visit-ing. Clearly, some aircraft are spot-less showpieces that are meant to look exactly as they did in 1938, or

’46, or ’57… Others are a bit more utilitarian, with instrument panels designed for function over histori-cal accuracy. Then there are the de-lightful aircraft owners who march to a different beat and paint their aircraft in bright hues the general-aviation gods never contemplated. It’s all on the field each year at Air-Venture, a contrasting mélange of art and accuracy, with something for everyone.

The sheer magnitude of the air-craft and people attending AirVen-ture is difficult to convey in words. I have attended other aviation events, after reading about them in magazines, only to be disappointed by the real thing. AirVenture is just the opposite; if you have not yet made the trip, I believe you will find my efforts to describe it fall short


of the actual experience. One can learn about all kinds of

vintage aircraft by tramping the grounds diligently, or by attending the daily Vintage in Review ses-sion, where proud owners describe their vintage machines. During the week, there were demonstrations of metal-shaping techniques. That magic skill can be the thing that makes a vintage classic restoration a piece of perfection.

The time-honored EAA propel-ler sleeve cards list an airplane’s vitals, as well as who flew it to Air-Venture and from where. The cards provide a glimpse into the world of

vintage aviation, but one can learn so much more from a casual chat with a proud aircraft owner.

Take Alan Haltom and John Hodge, for example, who patrioti-cally posted an American flag with the Cessna 195 they flew to Air-Venture from Denver’s Front Range Airport. Everything about the 195’s design, from its lack of struts to its wheelpants and tiny tail wheel, contributes to an indicated cruise speed of 125-130 mph. But their eastward, Oshkosh-bound, true air-speed hit as high as 198, they said, with a helpful tailwind unrolling the topography beneath their wings

at a serious clip.Another thing you don’t see ev-

ery day is a polished-aluminum Piper Comanche. Right after the storm, Rick Mascari, from Iowa City, was gently mopping the beaded jewels of water from his shiny Comanche. It’s a Model 400 built in 1964, reflected in its N-number: N64400. The low-wing retractable-gear Piper has a loyal following; ask a former Comanche owner about it, and you’ll probably hear a sentimental lament about what a great airplane it was.

Thomas Schuettoff was hap-pily fueling the bright-red Twin Beech in his care on July 18, an-other part of the show-before-the-show. He stopped at AirVenture on his way to Toronto, where a ferry pilot would take the classic Model 18 to a new owner in Ha-nover, Germany, by way of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador; Reyk-javík, Iceland; Shannon, Ireland; and London, England. Thomas re-turned to AirVenture after deliv-ering the Beechcraft. He said its ability to tank 279 gallons of gas could give the Beech six-and-a-half

Sky turns to grass in the mirror of a vintage propeller spinner on a brace of Spartan Executives at AirVenture 2015; the art is timeless.

Tents and tails tell a tale in the vintage parking area. Cabin WacoAGC-8 nearest to camera, shares space with a classic V-tailed Bonanza and variations on Cessna rudders.


to seven hours of flight. The Twin Beech, N868L, had an

earlier life as a Boeing photo chase plane in the early 707 jetliner era. Later it became a flying instruc-tional tool of the University of Washington’s Department of Aero-nautics and Astronautics. Beech donated a wind tunnel model of the same aircraft type, which the university could install in its Kirsten wind tunnel to give stu-dents comparison data.

Thomas found the Beech listed in Trade-A-Plane and bird-dogged it for his friend in Germany. When he saw a photo of the same Beech in Berlin in 1946, he told his friend, “We must buy this air-plane!” Thomas is obviously fond of the vintage business Beech: “You see the red, and I think the only thing is to fall in love with this airplane.”

Eric Presten brought his replica

Blériot monoplane from Sonoma, California, to Oshkosh for AirVen-ture 2015 the old-fashioned way: in a crate. Eric explained that fly-ing machines of that era were less about cross-country travel and more about exhibitions at fixed sites. His Blériot look-alike was constructed in 2009. “Dimension-ally, it’s accurate,” he vouches. “Structurally, not at all.”

A steel-tube fuselage on the replica contrasts with squared, wooden members on the original. Both use a steel “bedstead” frame for the landing gear. Eric’s Blériot has no ailerons, using the vintage technique of wing-warping for roll control. He says wing-warping is stiffer, less effective, and comes with adverse yaw. What’s not to like about that? The control logic is Deperdussin-style, basically like modern traditional control inputs, he explained.

Displayed near the VAA Red Barn, a large brown biplane con-jured an early Wright Flyer, down to the chain-drive twin propellers. Based on the Wright Model B, this modern iteration unabashedly takes liberties in design to cre-ate a safe, modern airframe that looks like something more than a century old. Pilot Jay Jabour (he won’t tell you that he’s a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general with test-pilot bona fides) likes to greet visitors beside the biplane at AirVenture. He explains, “We don’t call it a replica. We call it a look-alike.”

In the mid-1970s, a group in Dayton, Ohio, decided to build a flyable Wright. To keep it FAA- certifiable, the team first measured a genuine Model B in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and then began tweaking things, such as airfoil and controls, to make it

Wittman Field is mortised among homes and farms which lend a bucolic air to the field of vintage aircraftattending AirVenture 2015.


safer to operate. It has a control wheel instead of the Wrights’ le-vers and uses ailerons instead of wing-warping.

Dubbed Brown Bird, this repre-sentation incorporates steel tubing and aluminum in its structure in-stead of wood. Since 1982, Brown Bird has given about 4,000 rides, according to Jay. The passenger sits beside the pilot at the leading edge of the lower wing, just like on original Wright Model B aircraft. When the aircraft isn’t on display in places like Oshkosh, it is used for orientation flights around the Day-ton area, with some fall and winter downtime for maintenance.

Powering Brown Bird is a Ly-coming HIO-360, putting out 225 hp while consuming 100-octane gas. The chain drives spin twin Sensenich counter-rotating 97-inch maple propellers at 1700 rpm. When you have a volunteer aeronautical talent pool as impres-sive as that of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, the exactitude of the work is measur-able and documented; the wing airfoil is a NACA 4412, and the tail uses NACA 0006.

All those horses help heft the 3,400-pound Brown Bird aloft—that is its empty weight; a ton heavier than an original Wright Model B, loaded! And while Brown Bird is capable of being partially disassembled to fit in a custom trailer for road trips, this still lim-its its portability.

Jay says, “If you don’t fit in a Conex (shipping container), you don’t ship.” With that in mind, the nonprofit Wright B Flyer Inc. has plans to make a new version that could be disassembled into a stan-dard 40-foot container.

Jay says there’s a neat histori-cal twist in the plans for the new Flyer—it will be built in the actual factory the Wrights used dating

Bright yellow Fleet (Fairchild) Cornell primary trainer offers canopies for its occupants, unlike earlier PT-19. This Canadian-built jewel was named Antique Reserve Grand Champion at AirVenture 2015.


Twin-tailed Howard 500 executive aircraft points its nose toward a distant powered paraglider at Oshkosh. The Howard is more than a conversion of a Lockheed PV-1; it blends some PV-1 and PV-2 patrol bomber parts with substantial new metal to create a speedy and pressurized business aircraft of the early 1960s. Perhaps only two remain flyable a half-century later, as other business machines replaced them.


back to 1909. And the local Dayton-area EAA chapter will likely be in-volved in that production.

Mike Merritt flew his Navy-marked Howard DGA—actually an authentic Navy GH-3 variant dating back to 1944—to Oshkosh from Atlanta. “She’s sweet,” he re-ports. He made the flight in five hours with one stop.

And to the south of the line of Howards, a commanding crimson Cessna Model 165 Airmaster came to town on amphibious floats. It’s a 1939 model flown by Glenn Larson from Siesta Key, Florida. The red bird has been in his family for 46 years, in its restored condition for 26 years, and on floats for 13 years, he says. The amphib floats are from Wipline, which worked with the Larsons to devise the mating of the floats to the Airmaster.

It’s not the first Airmaster on floats, to be sure, but this particu-lar combination is pretty special. The additional rudder area under the fuselage is a floatplane device originally made by Edo for its float offerings; Glenn got drawings from Edo for that functional addition. At this year’s Sun ’n Fun International Fly-in and Expo it was named “Best Float Plane, Fabric.”

Some of the vintage classics still work for a living. Vicky Benzing’s red Stearman roared through aero-batic performances at AirVenture 2015, spewing thick trails of white smoke to punctuate its maneuvers. Her Stearman survived the rigors of training new pilots in World War II and fetched $770 as war surplus in 1946. For more than two decades, the biplane worked as an agricul-tural aircraft in California’s rich Sacramento Valley, up-fitted with a 450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 en-gine. Vicky and her husband, Jeff, bought the refurbished Stearman in 1998, keeping it in California.

And Matt Younkin finessed the

Telltale rudder light is a clue to this classic’s Waco pedigree. It’s the 1934 Model S3HD flown from New Hampshire by John and Anne Ricciotti.

The Privilege of Partnership EAA members are eligible for special pricing on Ford Motor Company vehicles through Ford’s Partner Recognition Program. To learn more about this exclusive opportunity for EAA members to save on a new Ford vehicle, please visit www.eaa.org/ford.

Tell Us Your StoryFord Motor Company is proud of our long-standing partnership with EAA and wants to hear from you! Feedback from those who have participated in Ford’s Partner Recognition Program is appreciated and owners are occasionally featured in EAA publications. Send us your story and photos to Kevin at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!

My 2015 Ford Explorer is awesome. Whether I’m driving to the airport for a flight, tailgating before the big game with friends, heading to the cottage for a long holiday weekend, or just heading to the store to pick up things for my next outdoor project, my Explorer takes me there in comfort and style.

This is not my first Ford, but it is my first Explorer. While I had many other choices in vehicles, once I drove the Explorer, I couldn’t drive anything else.

Kudos to the Ford Partner Recognition Program and EAA as well as my local Ford Dealership, Soerens Ford in Brookfield, WI. The entire experience was flawless and painless. It definitely took car buying to a whole new level. Chuck L. EAA #696712

2015-Dec_Testim_EAA_Divis_Ad-Final.indd 1 10/8/15 2:35 PM


heck out of his scalloped red-and-black Beech 18 in both day and night air shows at AirVenture. A 1943 military AT-7 variant, the Twin Beech was civilianized after the war and called a Model C-18S. Matt has flown the classic since 2007, adding night shows a year later.

So that’s a quick stroll through vintage parking at AirVenture 2015. By the end of the show, the green Wisconsin grass showed the wear of thousands of pedestrians up and down the rows of prized airplanes. And the legendary “Mid-west nice” prevailed once more; with increased overall attendance, more than a half-million visitors came and went with ease and cour-tesy that remain hallmarks of the amazing AirVenture operations.

The tally of vintage planes brought to Oshkosh this year was 976. A person would have to in-spect nearly 140 aircraft every day for a week to see them all. That’s a lot of Pipers and Cessnas and Howards and Fairchilds and Beeches and Stearmans and Fleets and Aeroncas and Funks and Tay-lorcraft and Curtisses and Wacos and. . .you get the idea.

A 1949 Piper Clipper recalled the optimistic postwar outlook for general aviation—the same kind of air-minded optimism that keeps fueling new movements and new areas of private aviation development.

A neat bit of double identity keeps this 1938 Beech E17 Staggerwing in its original markings for Indian National Airways, where it flew from New Delhi with registration VT-AKK. The aircraft’s American owner has it registered with an N-number discreetly tucked beneath the horizontal stabilizer, in the fashion used on many warbird restorations to keep the required N-number from intruding on the historical paint and markings.

All shine and pointy wingtips, a Spartan Executive exudes the class of a top business aircraft of the immediate prewar era.


1964 Comanche 400, appropriately registered N64400, got a post-shower rubdown at Oshkosh on July 18.

Rick Mascari from Iowa City, Iowa, wiped raindrops from the glistening aluminum skin of his uncommon Comanche in the Vintage area. Piper did not deliver it in natural metal, but the result is stunning.

Replica Bleriot travels to events like its ancestors did—in a crate, to be assem-bled for local demonstration hops.


Above, it’s worth the trip to see a 1939 Cessna Airmaster. Period. An Airmaster on amphib floats—that’s just crazy good icing on the cake. Glenn Larson flew this Model 165 beauty in from Siesta Key, Florida.

Left, subtle changes in rocker covers, paint trim lines, and prop spinners distinguish a colorful row of round-engine Cessna 195s at AirVenture 2015.

Below, crisp Cornell, a Canadian Fleet-built version of the Fairchild design, taxied to parking during AirVenture 2015.


The bright afternoon sunshine of July 19 highlighted vintage wheels and wings in the Vintage Aircraft area.



Pick your passion; the field of dreams at AirVenture 2015 held classics for every taste. Gleaming green, white, and aluminum Lockheed 12 in the foreground dates from the 1930s; classic singles extend into the distance.


The Wright flew during AirVenture 2015.

Left, pilot Jay Jabour stands behind the maze of wires near one of the rudders of the Wright replica at AirVenture 2015. A bit anachronistic, the markings range from a century-old Signal Corps insignia at the top of the rudder to a modern N-number and a 50-star flag.

Perhaps effigy is the term to describe this remarkable modern take on a vintage Wright biplane not that far removed from the original Flyer. If modern materials, motor, and airfoil make it practical, the rustic open-air ambience makes it authentic.


In the 1930s and 1940s, several companies staked their claim in the plush, single-engine business, personal aircraft market. Fairchild built the Model 24, many of which relied on a long air-cooled Ranger engine to propel them. The grassy tie-down area at AirVenture comes alive each summer with the aerial essence of the 1930s and 1940s.

In the Vintage area, a row of varied radial-engine singles was bracketed by two Ranger-equipped Fairchilds.


Fairchild’s own air-cooled Ranger engine was an option on the Model 24, a plush cabin plane that has devotees at AirVenture.

Homebuilt or vintage, this Pietenpol Air Camper of “Loensloe Air Service” can boast truth in advertising. It also earned an Outstanding Workmanship Award for owner Dan Helsper of EAA Chapter 734.


Green machine Ercoupe stands out.

In previous lives, this elegant Beech 18 served as a Boeing photo ship and later as an instructional aircraft in the aero department at the University of Washington. It stopped at Oshkosh before flying on to a new owner in Germany.

AirVenture is a crossroads of all kinds of aviation; busy morning operations range from the arrival for parking of a vintage Luscombe Silvaire in the foreground, to a conga line of vintage, homebuilt, and warbird aircraft heading to the runway.


Business end of the Ricciottis’ 1934 Waco S3HD is capped with a highly polished, adjustable pitch propeller that harnesses 450 horsepower from the Pratt & Whitney R985 engine just behind it.

Vicky Benzing’s red Stearman roared through aerobatic performances at AirVenture 2015, spewing thick trails of white smoke to punctuate her maneuvers.


Ten Howard DGA variants basked on the grass at AirVenture 2015. Oshkosh is the place to see not just one or two vintage classics, but rows of them. Visitors with an interest in a particular type spend much time inspect-ing each one, and noting differences and similarities of the breed.

Ancient trees and grass parking invite campers who sleep near their planes, like this Navion, during AirVenture.

Pilot Glenn Larson looked toward the runway at Osh-kosh, past the cabin of his 1939 Cessna Airmaster on Wipline amphibious floats. This working Airmaster has a functional panel that includes the placarded warning: “Do not land on water unless gear is fully retracted.”


Vintage is what you make of it; looming behind a gaggle of Aeroncas, Beeches, Pipers and Cessnas in the fore-ground near the Vintage Aircraft pylon sign is an Air Force B-52H Stratofortress more than a half-century old.

In the world of digital imaging, high contrast reflects the deep blue Oshkosh sky on the upper fuselage of a Cessna 195 taking off. The vintage Cessna is a tribute to elbow grease.


The award-winning 1944 Canadian Cornell at AirVenture 2015 is the pride of Doug Harkes from Wroxeter, Ontario.

Hardwood and steel whirling overhead, six vintage M-1 Garand rifles wheel toward airmen who will catch them flawlessly. The U.S. Air Force’s honor guard performed precision drill maneuvers daily at AirVenture 2015.


Shedding the morning’s raindrops from its broad 41-foot-plus wing, a Stinson Reliant in Shell markings bright-ened the field. The pedigree on this Reliant includes many hours logged by Jimmy Doolittle when he worked for Shell before World War II.

Howard GH-3 navalized version of the DGA shared the grass parking area with a line of civilian Howards at AirVenture 2015.

Mike Merritt flies this Howard in U.S. Navy markings. The rugged military look to the panel adds to the ef-fect. The Navy operated Howard DGA aircraft as the GH Nightingale during World War II. Data plate at bottom of panel vouches this is one of 115 GH-3 versions.

A Canadian Cessna 185 on amphib floats was backed by a vintage Seabee at the southern edge of parking on July 18, 2015.


Thomas Schuettoff topped off the tanks of a beauti-ful red Beech 18 before departing Oshkosh on July 18 to deliver the classic twin to a ferry pilot in Canada, who would take it across the Atlantic to its new owner in Germany.

Looks like the party’s about over for another year. A lone yellow Cub sits where once many planes parked, and many feet tramped the sod into alternating rib-bons of green and brown.

Seen through the cabin of a neighboring classic, this Waco cabin biplane gets a morning wipe-down, to put its best face on show for visitors to AirVenture.

A former Boeing photo chase plane and University of Washington aeronautics department instructional tool, this flame red Beech 18 was on its way to a new owner in Germany when it departed AirVenture 2015.


The residents of Bennington could set their watches by the Con-tinental R-670’s drone. The radial engine echoed against the Green Mountain foothills and loudened as its 220 horses churned toward the scenic town. Checking the his-toric Four Corners Clock on Main Street was unnecessary. The lofty whir always floated through the Vermont air at 4 p.m.

If Bennington’s 15,700 residents gazed upward (and many did), they would eventually spot the Boeing Stearman appearing on the ho-

rizon. The sun glinted off the bi-plane’s bright yellow wings and tail; its blue fuselage melded against the myriad of sky and cloud.

The vintage aircraft would soon commence its honed aerobatic rou-tine. Steep climbs would transcend into loops, rolls, and spins. An hour later it turned west and trun-dled back to the William H. Morse State Airport. The Continental’s rumble faded into the hills as the Stearman PT-17 headed home.

Bennington locals began no-ticing the frolicking in 1987. The

constant flights marked the sea-sons. Falling leaves in October commenced the Stearman’s hi-bernation; its April return signi-fied spring. Summer entailed aerial displays on the Fourth of July and Bennington Battle Day. The Stea-rman was never officially part of the festivities, but it almost always preceded the fireworks.

The years passed and technol-ogy changed. Those watching be-low the Stearman’s open cockpit in the 1990s might have shoul-dered bulky camcorders to re-

A Stearman for the Generations

by Bradley Sunshine


cord the show. Digital cameras evolved and eventually spawned smartphones. The Stearman’s daily repertoire was “YouTubed” in 2007, but time seemed imper-vious to Bennington’s heavens. The Stearman kept flying and em-bodied aviation’s enduring gran-deur and mystique.

Willard A . Van Wormer was

the Stearman’s owner, pilot, me-chanic, and caretaker. He was simply known as “Van” around Bennington, and most residents knew his aerial exploits. Van sel-dom shirked his aerial persona. He had been calling himself (and his

Stearman) the “The Flying Dutchman” for decades and was w e l l i n t o h i s 8 0 s at the dawn of so-cial media. His faded plaid and corduroy b i l l o w e d f ro m h i s Honda 500 motorcy-cle that he rode to the airport. The Stearman awaited in its hangar as the crisp New England air beckoned.

Van’s attachment to his aircraft was unques-tioned; yet why he origi-

nally bought the Stearman remains unclear. He flew PT-17s near the end of World Wat II in the Army Air Corps after instructing for the War Training Service. Stationed in Flor-ida at the Lodwick School of Aero-nautics, Lakeland Field was rife with Stearmans as Van and fellow cadets trained for combat.

Van never discussed his Lake-land experiences. If he harbored any memorable anecdotes, they were forever his own. When he did occasionally mention Stearmans, he complained that they burned too much fuel and handled poorly on the ground. The airplane’s agile feel was a lucky happenstance.

It was quite a surprise then, nearly 40 years later in 1987, when Van announced he was purchasing a Stearman. Hav-ing recently retired from General Electric’s corporate flight depart-ment after 35 years of flying ser-vice, he was searching for a Waco UPF-7 to complement his restored Mooney M20C and BC-12D Tay-lorcraft. Somehow he concluded only a Stearman would suffice.

The aircraft (S/N 75-1804) that would become his prized posses-

Virginia and “Van” Van Wormer


sion had endured a long journey. It was built in Wichita, Kansas, and sold to the Army in 1941 for $9,176. After its military service, it flew in Florida as a crop duster be-fore migrating north to Pennsylva-nia. It eventually landed at Kobelt Airport in Wallkill, New York, giv-ing rides to paying customers.

Van finally crossed paths with the Stearman in Albany, New York. Registered as N52822, it was still airworthy, but time had af-fected its faded fabric and wooden wing spars. There was a sizable dent in one of the upper wings. The aircraft had actually been at Lakeland during Van’s tenure. He never climbed into its cockpit, but in a way, the two had already met. No one knows if this tidbit tickled dormant memories or unspoken sentiment. The Flying Dutchman never told a soul.

The Stearman’s owner delivered the aircraft to Bennington, and Van paid $25,000 for it in cold, hard cash—literally. He disappeared into his home located 2 miles from Morse airport and emerged with half-frozen stacks of bills. His freezer was his makeshift safe.

For the next two years, Van and his wife, Virginia, overhauled and restored the Stearman in their house’s garage. An assortment of aircraft parts covered the walls and f loor as they tenderly prepared the biplane for its new life. It took

a year and 101 yards of Ceconite fabric to re-cover the wings and fu-selage; another 12 months to over-haul the Continental engine.

Van began his daily flying ritual shortly thereafter. Morse airport has a lone 3,700-foot-long paved runway—there are no grass sur-faces approved for takeoff and landing. Van considered this cir-cumstance to be shortsighted. Stearman tires cost $350, and pave-ment hastened their replacement.

Proposing a grass runway to airport management was time-consuming; changing airports was unthinkable. Van’s solution was simple: drive his Cub Cadet lawn tractor to the field and start mowing. He eventually carved out three turf runways that he trimmed weekly. Airport officials conveniently looked the other way when the tractor and Stearman rolled across the homemade sur-faces. Approaching the aging pilot would likely have been futile. He frequently claimed he was hard of hearing and marched to a drum-mer in a band all his own.

Van nevertheless kept his han-gar’s door open and gladly regaled listeners concerning the Stea-rman’s intricacies. After landing in the grass at 5 p.m., he’d comman-deer bystanders to help push the airplane back inside. Nearly every-one asked for rides, but Van sel-dom acquiesced. Offering to pay for

fuel helped; however, this ploy was usually countered by outlandish excuses or his selective hearing tac-tic. Being allowed to simply touch his Stearman was momentous.

Family members were subjected to the same rules. Virginia was the lone exception. Van never denied his wife the chance to fly in the air-craft they had restored together. Their calendar orbited around the National Stearman Fly-In. The an-nual Galesburg, Illinois, event is a haven for Stearman owners and enthusiasts. The airport hosts and displays more than 100 of the bi-planes. Van, though, insisted that his Stearman remain inside for the entire week.

Many remember these quirks, including Pete Jones of Air Repair Inc. The Mississippi-based com-pany specializes in vintage aircraft maintenance. Pete has personally restored Stearmans since 1977. “Willard Van Wormer was a funny guy,” he muses. “[He and Miss Vir-ginia] would come to the Stea-rman fly-in, but they wouldn’t let the thing sit outside. It was the only plane up there that would hangar. He was real fanatical about that. . .and he was real meticulous about that airplane.”

Pete sold the couple engine parts through the years. After ev-ery transaction, Van stated he had to get more “egg money.” He also mentioned other oddities at inop-

portune times. Tossing his (navi-gation) chart case into a river after retiring from General Electric was just one example.

Van also regularly purchased parts from Dusters & Sprayers Supply Inc. He crammed mer-chandise into the Stearman’s ev-ery cranny—so much that Virginia could never tote anything back to Vermont. Their garage and hangar was stockpiled with equipment and tools to keep the Stearman aloft.

In early May of 2011, Benning-ton’s afternoon skies became con-spicuously empty. Four o’clock came and went without the Con-tinental’s rumble. Van had ridden his motorcycle to the airport and opened the hangar’s doors. The Stearman sat poised for another hour of aerobatics at the hands of its longtime partner. Twenty-four years had passed so quickly.

For reasons still unknown, Van inexplicably rode back to his house. He possibly did not feel well, or perhaps he innately understood what was happening to his aged body. He collapsed at home from a stroke and never regained con-sciousness. He succumbed a few days later with Virginia by his side. He was 87 years old.

---One thousand three hundred

miles southwest of Bennington, a grass runway unfurls amidst the Lansing, Kansas, countryside. A

spacious hangar sits in the middle of the private Highcrest Air Park (SN83). Several aircraft, including a Taylorcraft, Mooney, and Gyro-copter, rest on its shiny gray floor. A TWA logo is emblazoned upon the back wall.

W. Dixon Van Wor mer, the lone son of Willard and Virginia, has lived on this slice of aviation utopia since 1975. Donning jeans and cowboy boots, the 69-year-

old has dedicated his life to avi-ation. He was hired by TWA in 1965 at the age of 20 as a Lock-heed Constellation first officer. After upgrading to DC-9 captain five years later, he never looked back. He flew nearly all of the air-line’s aircraft types over the next 40 years. In the 1990s he was tri-ple-qualified as a DC-9, L-1011 TriStar, and Boeing 767 check airman. He captained a papal



charter in 1995 after becoming the 767 fleet standards manager.

His 2004 airline retirement barely elicited pause. He flew 767 freighters in Europe for Star Air and ferried the type around the world on various maintenance con-tracts. He is currently a designated examiner in the Kansas City area for general aviation pilots and flies as often as possible. Family mem-bers never questioned the origin of his aviation passions. The answer rested with the man that spent am-

ple “egg money” on an aircraft he once claimed to loathe.

Much was left unsaid between father and son when the Benning-ton skies silenced in 2011. Van never really told Dixon he was proud of his accomplishments. Later in life he would ask for me-chanical advice—a subtle com-pliment acknowledging that the student had eclipsed the master.

While the two men discussed the S tear man’s maintenance needs, they did not formally plan

its future. Van never stated the Stearman should stay within the family, and Dixon never asked. Van wrote down countless ideas—on scraps of paper, his hangar wall, and even his countertops. His wishes for the Stearman’s future were never explicitly scrawled.

The Van Wormer property in Kansas is devoid of haphazardly scribbled notes. Dixon’s fastidi-ous nature and modesty cocoon his house and hangar. He possesses an encyclopedic memory of aviation history and knowledge. His 30,000 flight hours and countless achieve-ments are summarized by anec-dotes quick to credit others. Even if people managed to forget Dixon, he certainly remembers them.

Beyond the geographic distance and wall musings, unspoken simi-larities had always linked Vermont with Kansas. Father and son both flew and maintained Mooneys and Taylorcraft; each had three daugh-ters. Their personalities could inter-twine like two contrails streaking high above the countryside.

When Dixon flew the Pope in 1995 from Newark, New Jersey, to Baltimore, Maryland, on a specially equipped Boeing 767, the air traf-fic controller cleared him directly through the busy airspace—an anomaly never granted under nor-mal circumstances. Dixon radioed that he would be passing through again soon; the controller replied, “No chance.” The shortcut was a one-time deal. The man who once tossed his chart case into a river could perhaps have made the same comment to air traffic control.

Sometime after his father’s pass-ing, Dixon’s cowboy boots clucked against his hangar’s spotless floor. It was really a matter of available space. There was room to accommo-date the Stearman, and he instinc-tively knew his father would have wanted his beloved aircraft to stay

Virginia with granddaughter Jennifer and son Dixon Van Wormer.

Dixon Van Wormer Jennifer Van Wormer

in the family. Sometimes the most important things are better left un-said; they are just understood.

Dixon scrol led through his iPhone. His eldest daughter, Jen-nifer, harbored her family’s avi-ation zeal and would one day inherit the Stearman from her father. The stockpiled parts and Dixon’s mechanica l apt i tude would keep the Stearman flying past its 100th birthday. Timely devotion was cloaked amidst the unspoken wishes of an emotion-ally guarded ghost.

The phone rang and father and daughter began making arrange-ments to travel to Vermont. Dixon had a few hours in the Stearman; Jennifer had flown with her grand-father once. October was ap-proaching, and the air was turning cold. Dixon believed open-cockpit aircraft should only be flown when temperatures equaled or exceeded the pilot’s age. This trip would be a notable exception as the mercury would never flirt with 70 degrees.

The Stearman meanwhile waited in its enclosed Bennington han-gar. The musty darkness coated its bright yellow and blue fabric. Time had reclaimed its makeshift grass runways as the turf grew and faded. The hands of Bennington’s Main Street Four Corners Clock continued ticking past 4 p.m. Resi-dents did not know it yet, but they would hear the Stearman’s Conti-nental R-670’s drone once more.

---The jet stream softly hissed

across the Boeing 777’s wind-screen. The waves of the Atlantic Ocean bobbed beneath the clouds below. Europe was hours behind the wide-bodied airliner while Washington Dulles airport waited beyond the western horizon. The latitude/longitude waypoints pro-grammed into the flight manage-ment computers slowly passed

across the electronic display units.United Airlines hired First Offi-

cer Jennifer Van Wormer in 1990 shortly after she graduated from the University of North Dakota. She became a Boeing 737 captain in 1999 and later transitioned to the Airbus A320 series. The air-line’s 2002 bankruptcy eventually displaced her to 777 copilot.

Growing up at Highcrest Air Park meant reveling in her father’s aviation stories. He started teach-ing her to fly as soon as she could sit on his lap. She soloed gliders at 14 and their Taylorcraft at 16; the family’s Mooney yielded her in-strument and commercial ratings. Aviation was always the center of her upbringing.

She traveled to Vermont every few years to visit her grandpar-ents and the birthplace of the fam-ily’s aerial history. Van welcomed

his granddaughters with com-ments belonging to a bygone era. If girls were meant to fly, he would say, the sky would be pink. Jen-nifer shrugged off the statement, but like so many others, she never knew exactly how to interpret her grandfather’s self-proclaimed in-sights. Only he knew the riddled answers to his dry humor.

The memories from the past 30 years swelled in the 777’s cock-pit. She recounted the trips with her father in the family’s aircraft; she remembered meeting him in Berlin, Germany, when they both happened to layover there. The joy-ous past was culminating in the awaiting journey. After the jumbo touched down in Washington, Jen-nifer would travel to Vermont. Her father and the Stearman were waiting in Bennington. She smiled with the thought of bringing the



biplane to its new home. Beyond its fabric and storied history, the Stearman was her grandfather’s soul and an iconic family symbol.

---Dixon stood atop the Stearman’s

blue engine cowling and pumped gas into its 46-gallon tank. His mother, Virginia, attentively watched from her wheelchair. The golden “Flying Dutchman W.A. Van Wormer” mon-iker that her husband had painted on his Stearman long ago shone just below her son’s cowboy boots.

The morning skies had cleared and the fall temperatures were cool as the multicolored leaves still clung to the surrounding trees. Several locals had come to the han-gar to see the Stearman off. It was nearly time to go.

Jennifer tenderly pushed Vir-ginia’s wheelchair toward the Stea-rman’s landing gear. It was a final and bittersweet goodbye to the man and aircraft that had been so pivotal in her life. Restoring and overhaul-ing the Stearman in their garage and the countless Galesburg fly-ins were wrapped in those final moments before the aircraft departed Ben-nington a final time. Her husband’s airplane was in the best possible hands, but the Flying Dutchman’s fingerprints would never truly fade

from the Stearman’s fabric. Chills ran through Jennifer’s

body as she grasped the wheel-chair ’s handles. The Stearman stoically loomed ahead. If she worr ied how her grandfather would view her eventually own-ing his beloved aircraft, her con-cerns were unfounded.

Jennifer did not know that her sister, Jill, had stumbled upon a folder within Van’s filing cabinet after his passing. The metal draw-ers were in the garage just feet from where the Stearman had been lovingly restored. She had been searching for the Continental’s engine logbooks. The aged manila she found was stuffed with mate-rial dedicated to his oldest grand-daughter. Van had saved every letter Jennifer had written him. There was also a newspaper article concerning her flying at United.

Van may have talked about women f lying under pink skies, but as soon as he bought the Stea-rman, he likely knew exactly what would become of his beloved air-craft. Dixon and Jennifer were always meant to be part of the Stearman’s future.

The Continental R-670 started, and the Stearman began its final taxi at Bennington. Jennifer sat

in the front seat; Dixon occupied his father’s spot in the rear. Both donned Van’s worn leather hel-mets. The Stearman’s rudder swiv-eled as it made its way to Runway 31. The aircraft would takeoff on an unfamiliar surface: pavement.

When even with the centerline, Dixon pushed the throttle forward. The R-670 roared, and the Stea-rman rolled forward once more. Its tail wheel rose at 20 miles per hour as Dixon’s boots lightly prodded the rudder pedals. He coaxed the stick aft a few seconds later. The Stearman eased from the pave-ment and ascended into the realm where it had always been most at home. Van’s hangar disappeared beneath the yellow wings as Vir-ginia watched the aircraft begin its westerly turn.

Meanwhile the Four Corners C lock on Main Street contin-ued edging forward. If any of the town’s residents listened carefully, they would have heard a familiar drone in the westward skies. The Continental R-670’s rumble would have eventually faded into the sur-rounding trees and hills as Willard A. Van Wormer’s Stearman began its trip to its new Highcrest home.

The Flying Dutchman would not have wanted it any other way. EAA.org/Shop | 800-564-6322

EAA.org/Shop is your holiday gift headquarters. Look for the new 2015 Merchandise Catalog in your mailbox or shop online today!

For offi cial Vintage Aircraft Associationmerchandise, see pages 36-37.

ORDER BEFORE DECEMBER 14

to receive your purchasein time for the holidays.(U.S. ORDERS ONLY.)

Shop our NEW DIGITAL CATALOG now atDIGITAL CATALOG now at

EAA.ORG/CATALOG

. . .but the Flying Dutchman’s finger-prints would never truly fade from the Stearman’s fabric.

Dixon, his daughter Jennifer, and the family’s iconic Stearman.

EAA.org/Shop | 800-564-6322

EAA.org/Shop is your holiday gift headquarters. Look for the new 2015 Merchandise Catalog in your mailbox or shop online today!

For offi cial Vintage Aircraft Associationmerchandise, see pages 36-37.

ORDER BEFORE DECEMBER 14

to receive your purchasein time for the holidays.(U.S. ORDERS ONLY.)

Shop our NEW DIGITAL CATALOG now atDIGITAL CATALOG now at

EAA.ORG/CATALOG


Around the Pylons

The Pulitzer Trophy Air Races were, arguably, the most important aviation events in the United States between the end of World War I and Lindbergh’s 1927 trans-Atlantic flight. The Pulitzer racers set international speed records. The races attracted and focused the public’s atten-tion on aviation. Airplanes, engines, and aviation equip-ment developed, tested, and proved in the races attracted domestic sales and sales in foreign countries that had, since 1910 or so, ignored U.S. aviation products, consider-ing them inferior to those available from Europe.

Despite the successes of the Pulitzers, they are a nearly forgotten part of American aviation history. In two

“Around the Pylons” articles, I discuss the six Pulitzer races, the organizations that hosted them, and the pilots and planes that sped to world records. Part 1 covers 1920 through ’22; Part 2 discusses 1923 through ’25 and ends with possible explanations for the Pulitzers residing in near-obscurity for 90 years.

When the Gordon Bennett Races, the most important and famous international air races from 1909 through 1913 and postponed during World War I, resumed in 1920, three American teams shipped racers to France. None com-pleted a single 100-km lap of the 300-km Gordon Bennett course. The wrecked Curtiss Texas Wildcat1 (photo 1), which

crashed the day before the Gordon Ben-nett, is an apt representation of Ameri-can high-speed aviation at the end of the Gordon Bennett in September 1920.

Only two months later, the U.S. Ar-my’s VCP-R won the first Pulitzer Tro-phy Air Race at, what appeared to be, a new world speed record. The 1920 Pulit-zer set in motion five years of American speed supremacy.

The Pulitzer Trophy, which was the goal for the owners, designers, and pi-lots of Pulitzer Races, had originated four years before the first race, in 1916. To honor their deceased father and commemorate his interest in aviation, the three sons of journalist Joseph Pu-

American race planes, speediest of all, 1920-1922

Part 1by Michael Gough

Curtiss Texas Wildcat. The Wildcat’s wheels collapsed on the rough surface of the landing field at Étampes, France, site of the 1920 Gordon Bennett, on the day before the race.

COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

litzer Sr. announced they would award a trophy annually for the fastest transcontinental crossing of the United States. They also decided to delay the first race until after the end of World War I.

There never was a Pulitzer transcontinental race. Deaths in transcontinental and cross-country races in 1919 alarmed the Pulitzer family and the Aero Club of America (ACA), which sanctioned aerial contests. Neither the fam-ily nor the ACA wanted the Pulitzer Trophy and name as-sociated with such dangerous contests; they changed the Pulitzer contest to a closed-course, around-the-pylons race.

On Thanksgiving Day 1920, some 40,000 spectators watched three dozen airplanes take off in the first Pulitzer Race, at Mitchel Field, Garden City, Long Island, New York. Nothing like that number of airplanes had been seen in a race before; nothing like it would be seen again.

Army Air Service Lt. Corliss Moseley (photo 2) flew VCP-R (photo 3) to victory in the first Pulitzer, and Capt. Harold Hartney piloted an Army Thomas-Morse MB-3 pursuit to second. The third-place finisher was a surprise. Bert Acosta, a Curtiss Company test pilot, flew a civilian-owned, war-sur-plus Italian fighter to third.

Race officials calculated that Moseley had flown the race at 178 mph, 12 mph faster than the winner of the 1920 Gordon Bennett and a new closed-course world record. Jubilation about the record lasted only two days. A former Air Service pilot, who had flown many de Havilland DH-4s, read a news story in the New York Times that a DH-4 had flown the Pulitzer course at 145 mph. Convinced that the speed was impossible, he concluded that the race course had been mis-measured. Gen. Wil-liam “Billy” Mitchell responded to the pilot’s assertion and ordered the course re-measured. The pilot was right. The course was 16 miles short of the nominal length. Re-calculation of the top speed using the correct distance reduced the winning speed to 156.5 mph, respectable but well short of the world re-cord. (Re-calculated, the DH-4’s speed fell to 127 mph.)

Some 40,000 people had attended the Pulitzer; many more saw some of the race as airplanes sped around the triangle course laid out over central Long Island. The race was front page news in the New York Times and many other papers. The ACA, well-satisfied with the first race, looked forward to the next year.

In preparation for the 1921 Pulitzer, the Army ordered three racers from the Thomas-Morse Company, and the Navy ordered two racers from the same company. More im-

portantly, the Navy ordered two racers, powered by Curtiss V-12s, from the Curtiss Company. The Curtiss racer that won the 1921 Pulitzer was a harbinger of things to come. Curtiss racers would win all but one of the remaining five Pulitzers, and Curtiss engines powered every Pulitzer win-ner, including the non-Curtiss winner.

In July, the Army and Navy announced they had no funds to fly their racers in the Pulitzer. Officials in Detroit feared that the absence of military racers would result in dimin-ished interest in the Pulitzer and poor attendance, and De-troit withdrew from its agreement to host the race. There


United States Air Service Lt. Corliss Moseley, pilot of the winning VCP-R in the 1920 Pulitzer.

Verville VCP-R as it appeared in the 1920 Gordon Bennett with its racing number “63” on the fuselage.

COUR

TESY

NAT

ION

AL M

USEU

M O

F TH

E UN

ITED

STA

TES

AIR

FORC

E

COUR

TESY

NAT

ION

AL A

RCH

IVES

AN

D RE

CORD

S AD

MIN

ISTR

ATIO

N


was no fallback host. Would there be no 1921 Pulitzer?

Surprising the ACA, in August, the Aero Club of Omaha and the city of Omaha offered to add the 1921 Pulitzer to their Aero Con-gress planned for early Novem-ber. Likely hoping that an early November snowstorm would not shut down the Pulitzer, the ACA accepted Omaha’s offer.

The Army and Navy, after de-ciding they could not afford to enter racers in the 1921 Pulitzer, agreed to lend their racers back to the companies that had built them and allow the companies to race them. The Thomas-Morse Company flew two racers that it had sold to the Army, and the Curtiss Company flew one that it had sold to the Navy. Three ci-vilian entrants brought the total to six racers.

Race organizers in Omaha faced huge obstacles. Af-ter agreeing to host the Pulitzer, they had only 10 weeks to arrange funding and to build a new airport capable of handling the latest, fastest airplanes. Not until five days before the air meet was funding assured and the airport completed, built during a month of nearly continual down-pours. Omaha had overcome long odds, and the Pulitzer racers took off on the first day of the Aero Congress, No-vember 3. (In my mind, the true heroes of 1921 were the people in Omaha who made the Pulitzer possible.)

Two Curtiss racers—a CR (“Curtiss Racer”) built for the Navy (photo 4) and the Cactus Kitten (photo 5)—finished first and second. An Army Thomas-Morse racer finished third.

S.E.J. Cox, the flamboyant Texas oilman and con man who owned the Texas Wildcat that came to grief at the 1920 Gordon Bennett (photo 1), also owned its stable-mate, the Cactus Kitten. Like the Wildcat, the Kitten had been built to be flown as a monoplane or biplane. For the 1921 Pulitzer, it was rebuilt as a triplane.

Bert Acosta, the third-place finisher in the 1920 Pulitzer, piloted the CR, and Clarence Coombs, a former Curtiss pilot, now employed by Cox, flew the Kitten. Acosta, who had flown the CR from its first flight at the Curtiss factory on Long Is-land, was quite familiar with his racer. Coombs stepped into the Kitten’s cockpit for the first time on race day.

Acosta took off first. Bracing wires on the CR’s wing snapped on the second turn of the first lap. Alert specta-tors saw the wing “appeared slightly unsteady,” but Acosta decided that it was not serious enough to make him alter

his plans for flying the race and flew tight turns around the pylons and flat out on the straightaways.

The Kitten was visibly faster on the straightaways, but Coombs, perhaps because of his unfamiliarity with the racer and, at least equally likely, because the Kitten was a dog to fly, made wider turns, losing ground to Acosta.

Acosta was the only civilian pilot to win a Pulitzer. Coombs’ and the Kitten’s second-place finish would be the only “in the money” finish by a privately owned, American-designed and -built airplane in the Pulitzers. Exuberant S.E.J. Cox said he expected to continue in racing. The fed-eral government changed his plans, prosecuting Cox for mail fraud and imprisoning him in Leavenworth. Upon his release, Cox returned to selling worthless or nearly worth-less “oil land” and “mineral land,” but not to air racing.

After the mis-measured course debacle of 1920, the Omaha course had been carefully measured, and there was no question that Acosta’s announced speed of 176.8 mph, good enough for a new closed-course record, was accurate. It was not an officially recognized record because no official of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) or, in English, “International Aviation Federation,” was present to certify the speed. In the United States in 1921, the ACA was the representative organization of the FAI, and offi-cials from the ACA could have made certain the speed was accurately measured and requested that the FAI certify the record. Unhappily, no such arrangement was made, and Acosta’s record was not officially recognized.

Detroit, which had reneged on hosting the 1921 Pu-litzer, had far more time and money to make its 1922 air

“Curtiss Racer” (CR) or “Navy Curtiss” racer, Bert Acosta, its pilot in the 1920 Pulitzer, and the Pulitzer Trophy in front of the Curtiss Factory, Garden City, New York. (The conical structures on the front of the Lamblin radiators were for display only and were removed before flight.)

COURTESY NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION


meet, called the “First National Air Race,” into a great suc-cess. It did.

Five of the six races at the first National Air Race were contests for landplanes, and those were flown at Army Air Service’s Selfridge Field in Mount Clemens, Michigan, about 25 miles from Detroit.2 The Army and Navy up-graded some 1920 racers and purchased brand new designs to enter a total of 15 airplanes in the 1922 Pulitzer.

The Army’s most important purchase was two Curtiss R-6s (photo 6), slightly smaller and more streamlined devel-opments of the CRs. Importantly, the R-6s were powered by new 450-hp Curtiss D-12s, the latest of the Curtiss V-12s.

The Navy’s much-larger NW-1 (photo 7), a product of the Wright Company, was the R-6s’ most for-midable rival. The NW-1 was a sesquiplane (an airplane with one large and one small wing), a fad-dishly popular design because a French sesquiplane held the abso-lute speed record. Its new Wright 650-hp V-12 engine had a 200-hp advantage over the Curtiss V-12s that powered the R-6s.

The NW-1’s weight and size, partially at least, offset the power advantage of its 650-hp engine. It weighed 3,000 pounds, and its up-per, larger wing spanned 30 feet 6 inches. In contrast, the Army’s 450-hp R-6 weighed 2,100 pounds, and its wings spanned 19 feet.

In addition to the NW-1, the Navy also entered two Cur-tiss CR-2s in the Pulitzer. The CR-2s were cleaned-up ver-sions of the 1921 CR with “wing” or “surface” or “wing” radiators, powered by 450-hp Curtiss V-12s.

Radiators that project into an airplane’s airstream (the Wildcat’s and Kitten’s side-mounted radiators, photos 1 and 5, are examples) produce a great amount of “drag” or “air resistance” that hold down speeds. Far better for high-speed airplanes, pineapple-shaped Lamblin radiators combined excellent cooling capacity and less drag (Lamb-lins are visible on the landing gear struts of the Curtiss CR (photo 4) and on the Wright NW-1 (photo 7)). Still better because they created no additional drag, “wing” or “sur-face” or “skin” radiators—made of thin brass sheets that formed the wing airfoil—were used on Curtiss CR-2s and R-6s and many later racers.

Fifteen racers—all Army and Navy planes—divided into three heats, took off in the 1922 Pulitzer, five laps of a 50-km-long triangle course mostly over Lake St. Clair, to the east of Selfridge Air Field. Eleven racers finished the course. The fact that seven flew faster than Acosta had flown in winning the 1921 Pulitzer provides a measure of improvements made in a year.

Seventy-five thousand spectators watched the two Army R-6s and two Navy CR-2s take off at half-minute intervals in Heat 2 of the Pulitzer, followed by the Navy NW-1, taking off last. Flying away from Selfridge field and disappearing in the distance over Lake St. Clair, the racers returned to fly across Selfridge and around the pylon at heights of 25 to 50 feet. In a torrent of noise, at more than 200 mph, they quickly flashed out of sight over the lake to start another lap.

Marine Lt. Lawson “Sandy” Sanderson in the NW-1

Curtiss Cactus Kitten triplane flown in the 1921 Pulitzer at Omaha (note the radiators on the sides of the fuse-lage). Pilot Clarence Coombs is in the cockpit.

One of the two Curtiss R-6s, purpose-built racers that raced in the 1922 Pulitzer at Selfridge Field, Michigan. Lt. Lester Maitland piloted this R-6 to second place.

COUR

TESY

NAT

ION

AL A

RCH

IVES

AN

D RE

CORD

S AD

MIN

ISTR

ATIO

N



had completed three laps of the race and was over Lake St. Clair on his fourth lap when the NW-1’s over-heating Wright engine forced him to turn back toward shore. He didn’t make it. Ditched in shallow water, the NW-1 flipped over on its back and cat-apulted Sanderson head-down through 4 feet of murky water to the muddy bottom. He pulled himself out and emerged sput-tering and unhurt. The racer was destroyed. Had Sanderson com-pleted the Pulitzer at 186 mph, his average on his three com-pleted laps, he would have placed fifth. Wright’s entry into Pulitzer competition had not ended well, ending in a watery crash and a speed less than the 1-year-old Curtiss CR-2s.

The Curtiss racers finished first, second, third, and fourth in the Pulitzer. The NW-1 did not finish.

The winning pilot, Army Lt. Russell Maughan (photo 8), flew the course at 206 mph; Lester Maitland, in the other R-6 (photo 6), finished at 199 mph. Maughan’s speed was officially recognized as a new closed-course re-cord. The Navy’s two CR-2s followed at 194 and 188 mph, placing third and fourth.

Four days after the Pulitzer, Gen. “Billy” Mitchell flew the winning R-6 to an absolute speed record of 222 mph. (Absolute records were calculated by averaging an air-plane’s speeds in four straight-line flights—two with the wind and two against—over a 1-km course.) Mitchell’s speed record pleased those who admired his taking the same risks as young Air Service pilots, and angered oth-ers who saw the general pulling rank to set a world re-cord. Perhaps to squelch the criticisms, Mitchell arranged speed tests for both R-6s in March 1923. Lt. Maughan (photo 8), winner of the 1922 Pulitzer, set an absolute speed record at 236.6 mph.

The first three Pulitzers had been great successes. Win-ning speeds went from 156.5 mph in 1920 to 205.9 mph in 1922, an overall 32 percent increase. About 150,000 spec-tators had attended air meets featuring the Pulitzers, and probably a greater number had watched the races from un-paid vantage points near race courses. Millions read about the races and watched jerky, grainy newsreels of small, fast, low-flying racers bank around pylons, and grinning, often shy, pilots smiling into the camera before and after races. The fierce Army-Navy and Curtiss-Wright rivalries had added drama to the already-exciting Pulitzers.

What would the future bring? Some may have accurately

predicted part of the future, but surely no one got it all right. Who would have forecast the greatest of all the Pu-litzers in 1923, a pilot’s death and a lower winning speed in 1924, terrible attendance and disappointing speeds in 1925, and a fall into obscurity? Part 2 of this series recap-tures those events.

Michael GoughAs a 5- or 6-year-old, Michael Gough was

fascinated by a model of a Supermarine S-4 (or S-5 or S-6, who can remember so long ago) racer. After retiring, he followed that interest and began researching and writing about airplane racing in the first 30 years of the 20th Century. In 2013, McFarland Publishing Company published his book, The Pulitzer Air Races: American Aviation and Speed Supremacy, 1920-1925.

He and his wife live in Bethesda, Maryland.

Wright NW-1. A large purpose-built sesquiplane racer, it was the Curtiss R-6s’ main competition in the 1922 Pulitzer. Here it is being run up without the streamlined spinner normally installed over the propeller hub.

Lt. Russell Maughan and the Curtiss R-6 he flew to win the 1922 Pulitzer and set an absolute world speed record in March 1923.


COUR

TESY

NAT

ION

AL A

RCH

IVES

AN

D RE

CORD

S AD

MIN

ISTR

ATIO

N

Get Hands-on.The skills you need from the experts you trust. For workshop dates, locations and costs, visit SportAir.org or call 1-800-967-5746. SportAir

Workshops

EAA SportAir Workshops are sponsored byCopyright © 2014 EAA


In the last installment we discussed a couple of tasks on the engine and firewall-forward portion of the airplane. In this issue we will look at a few spe-cialty inspections on the airframe side of things.

Firewall Aft1) Tail-wheel steering inspection. There are three

types of tail-wheel assemblies—locking, steerable, and non-steerable. I have flown all three and can re-port I definitely did not like the non-steerable type: the tail wheel you had to steer with the brakes. They are not common so I won’t take time to discuss them here. Rather, I’ll spend time on the two other types.

Steerable tail wheels are quite common, and there a few key issues to discuss. First, and most impor-tant, a steerable tail wheel is just that—a small wheel at the aft end of the fuselage that moves with input from the pilot’s rudder pedals. So it is most impor-tant that this happens. I’ve been around several tail-wheel-type airplanes that originally had a steerable tail wheel but because of wear or inattention became the non-steerable type. You can perform a simple test of the tail wheel steering capacity of an airplane by jacking up the aft fuselage so the tailwheel clears the ground. First move the rudder by hand and observe the movement of the tail wheel. It should follow the rudder’s movement left and right. Then, hold the tail wheel and move the rudder again. There should be some positive movement of the tail wheel. If there isn’t, then troubleshoot the problem and fix it!

Steerable tail wheels are also designed to track straight ahead so do a symmetry check of the tail

wheel. Put the rudder in neutral and check if the tail wheel is straight down the longitudinal axis of the airplane. You might want to measure from the left and right side of the axle to a fixed point on the main landing gear, say the axle or out to the wingtips. The measurement should be the same on both sides.

When restoring my Command-Aire, I wanted to keep the original configuration of the tailskid but adapt a tail wheel to it. I chose the Scott 3200 steerable tail wheel as was used on the Cessna L-19. As I had collected several parts from L-19s when I was in the military, it seemed practical to build up a unit because money was hard to come by at that time. I added an-other spring to the tailskid and adapted the tail-wheel assembly. To make it steer I adapted a Piper rudder steering arm to the Command-Aire rudder. Then, using the Scott heavy springs, I connected the tail wheel and rudder. It worked well and had just enough steering ca-pacity for the airplane. Figure 1 shows the Command-Aire steerable tail-wheel installation.

It is important to get the correct pivot angle of tail wheel to ground. The following schematic shows how it’s done. See Figure 2.

Perhaps the best tail-wheel steering setup was on the Boeing Stearman Model 75 biplane. It is very rugged and almost indestructible. I know that Henry Sommers has adapted a similar version of the Stearman system to his Travel Air. I adapted a similar arrangement on a Travel Air 4000 a few years ago. The good thing about the Stearman tail-wheel steering is that it can be made to be “soft” or “hard” depending on what the owner wants. The

The Vintage Mechanic

Specialty inspectionPart 2

ROBERT G. LOCK

Locking tail wheels are also common among the older biplanes. The only problem, if there is one, is brake wear because the airplane must be steered on the ground with the brakes. Installing Redline hy-draulic disc brakes that had been approved for BT-13 type drop-center wheels is a good alternative. They work great! They have just the right amount of braking force for the airplane. The tail-wheel assembly complete with shock strut was adapted from a WWII Cessna UC-78/T-50 aircraft, so it has the capacity for the heavy aircraft at 3,400 pounds gross weight. The tail-wheel installation was field approved by the FAA at the time of inspection for an airworthiness certificate.

Main Landing Gear Shock AbsorbersThere are several types of shock struts in current

use. They will fall into two categories:1) Shock cord (bungee) struts with several wraps or

rings installed under tension. This type of shock ab-sorber will last for extended periods if kept free from oil and solvents. Therefore, these cords were normally covered with a vinyl or leather boot or a metallic fair-ing. Replacement is required when the landing gear be-gins to spread out and wheel camber turns to negative. Negative camber is when the measurement between the wheel centerline on top is less than on the bottom. And when one can move the wingtips up and down easily.


FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3

tail-wheel steering system on my Stearman is the best I’ve ever flown with—very responsive to rud-der pedal input. I rarely have to use brakes to steer the airplane. Figure 3 shows the Boeing Stearman tail-wheel steering system.


Replacing the shock cords is not an easy task; it re-quires some expertise and finesse. If you haven’t done it before, go find someone who has! You will need a shock cord installation tool for shock rings. Some air-craft used a length of cord wrapped and tied around the strut assembly. Either will work; the type of in-stallation depends on what the original manufacturer used. In either case it will be necessary to hoist or jack the airplane so the wheels are clear of the floor. If the strut is removable, it will make installation easier. Af-ter cutting the cord from the strut, always clean, in-spect, and repaint if necessary. Carefully replace the rings or cord and reinstall on the airplane. A logbook entry will show the date and time when installation was made. This is good for future reference.

2) Oil/spring shock struts were widely used on early aircraft. They are simple in construction and operation. Consisting of an outer cylinder, an inner piston/strut, and a large spring surrounded by oil, the only major prob-lems were oil leakage and spring compression over time.

The piston assembly was a close fit between the outer cylinder barrel that restricted oil movement from one side of the piston to the other. The piston had small ori-fice holes drilled so the fluid could move from side to side. Therefore, the landing shock was taken by fluid be-ing displaced and the taxi shock was taken by the spring. The Aeronca Champ uses a system like this. The seal is a rope type found in pumps and, for the most part, pro-vides a relatively good seal. However, any fluid lighter than the gear oil will leak out of the seal. I also am care-ful not to overfill the strut. There is enough fluid to keep the piston covered throughout the full range of travel. Figure 4 shows a typical oil/spring strut.

The oil/spring strut gradually evolved into the air/oil or “oleo” pneumatic shock strut. In this strut there is fluid, such as 5606 hydraulic fluid, and a metering pin positioned through a fixed orifice. Air is added to the mix through a high-pressure Schrader valve near the top of the strut. Normally the strut is fully deflated to service fluid. Then compressed air is added to raise the strut to a specified measurement on the exposed part of the piston. When the aircraft touches down, the shock of landing is absorbed by displacing fluid around the metering pin and through the fixed orifice. If the strut is very “spongy” with the aircraft on the ground, the prob-able cause is low fluid. If air is added with a low fluid level, the strut can be extended to its correct extension point, but air doesn’t absorb landing shock well. Air is for absorbing taxi loads only.

The strut is sealed around the piston by chevron seals, which are one-way seals. That is, they only seal in one direction of fluid flow. Some struts are equipped

with O-rings, which seal in both directions of fluid flow. Most piston assemblies (the exposed portion of the strut) are chromed for corrosion protection. Figure 5 shows an air/oil shock strut on the right and an oil/spring strut on the left.

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 5

Why wait?Join EAA today and make your dream of owning an aircraft a reality. EAA members get access to member-exclusive discounts on already industry-low rates and loan fees on the types of aircraft they fl y.

Making your dream a reality starts here. Visit EAA.org/fi nance today.

FinanceSolutionsAdministered by National Aircraft Finance Company

Glen Abrahamson . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maribel, WIGeorge Adkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Brooklyn, IARichard Aldrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lancaster, CARobert Armitage . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fort Bragg, CARoland Ashby . . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Rapids, MITodd Ashcraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aurora, ILGennaro Avolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hood River, ORValerie Barker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pflugerville, TXDavid Bellm . . . . . . . . . . . . North Riverside, ILClifford Bender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plano, ILEdi Bickford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Auburn, NERoy Bischoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Belleville, ILMark Bowden . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kansas City, MOSteve Boyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wooster, OHWilliam Boyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Custar, OHGerald Bradley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dallas, TXDavid Brent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ann Arbor, MIWilliam Brooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vienna, VAKevin Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Watsonville, CARandy Brubaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Traer, IAEric Bruning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Farmington, NHJim Brunnworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamel, ILWilliam Buettner . . . . . . . . . . . . West Bend, WIRobert Burke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clinton, MOJoe Burley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tyrone, GAPaul Burns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maricopa, AZRicardo Byers . . . . . . . . . . . Battle Ground, WATheodore Byrne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eagan, MNMelissa Cabatingan . . . . . . Menomonee Falls, WIStewart Campbell . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kitchener, ONMary Carr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geneseo, ILPatrick Carroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St George, UTRay Carveth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Snohomish, WAJoseph Casey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacksonville, TXDale Cavin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marianna, FLMartin Chapman . . . . . . . . . . . . Bakersfield, CAPaul Ciletti . . . . . . . . . . . Menomonee Falls, WIDarrell Cobb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corsicana, TXRusty Coonfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lonoke, ARAndrew Corsetti . . . . . . . . . . Pembroke Pines, FLWalter Costilow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vestavia, ALSteve Dalton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Easton, MDMark D’Aversa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scottsdale, AZGlenn Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . Gnadenhutten, OHBrian Daw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monmouth, ILBarry Dechert . . . . . . . . . . South Rockwood, MIChristopher DeTuncq . . . . . . . . . Queen Creek, AZLarry Dick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sun City, AZEric Dienst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maple Park, ILBennie du Plessis . . .Randjesfontein, South AfricaJames Dyson . . . . . . . . . . . . Breslau, ON CanadaBruce Ecker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Waverly, IAThomasEdmondson . . . . . . . . . .Kansas City, MOMark Eggenberger . . . . . . . . . . . . Freeman, MOKent Eisenbath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O Fallon, MOLeon Ekiert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Milton, VTRobert Engelhardt . . . . . . . . . . . . . St John’s, FLBob Enos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Somerset, PATom Enyeart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Atkinson, ILWill Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gardendale, TXMary Ann Falsetta . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oshkosh, WIMichelle Falsetta . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oshkosh, WIGene Feher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lancaster, MAFedor Fomichev . . . . . . . . . . . . Round Rock, TXAustyn Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pismo Beach, CALiam Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pismo Beach, CAEmery Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pismo Beach, CADeborah Fortney . . . . . . . . . . . . .Union City, CARoberto Franco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WembleyAllen Friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holland, MIGary Fruchter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scarsdale, NY

David Funk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oshkosh, WIVirginia Gallenberger . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ocala, FLChep Gauntt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kennewick, WAAndrew Goans . . . . . . . . . .Mammoth Spring, ARJames Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nevada City, CAJames Goodnight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . landis, NCStephen Gray . . . . . . . . . . Kitchener, ON CanadaDaniel Gualandri . . . . . . . . . . . . .North Port, FLKurt Gustafson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Winchester, VABruce Gustafson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eugene, ORChriscilla Guyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . Northridge, CAKevin Hackl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lawrence, KSKen Hamilton . . . . . . . . . . . . . Junction City, ORHunter Hamilton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peyton, COTom Hammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Corvallis, ORThomas Handzlik . . . . . . . . . . . . Midlothian, TXSusan Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . North Aurora, ILChristine Harper . . . . . . . . . . . . Beverly Hills, CAJack Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sand Springs, OKJosh Hochberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Santa Rosa, CADavid Hourdequin . . . . . . . . . . . .Hayesville, NCJerry Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Antonio, TXBob Jacoby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Piqua, OHRobert Jamieson . . . . . . . . . . . Douglasville, GAKevin Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lebanon, TNStephen Kellermann . . . . . . . . . . Green Bay, WIKerstin Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lindsay, ONDonal Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Albuquerque, NMSteve Kickert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shakopee, MNPhilip King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stilwell, KSJim Knowles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lee, NHJack Knudson . . . . . . . . . . . . . McDonough, GARobert Lampman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vernon, NYKip Lankenau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carrollton, TXJohn-Michael Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . Van Nuys, CATroy Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clarkston, MIJohn Lindinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Auburn, NESummer Liu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shanghai, ChinaJohn Lorren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steele, MOCory Lovell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . San Francisco, CATom Lynch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fort Collins, COAnthony Madonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chicago, ILMaxim Maiornikov . . . . . . . . . .Laval, QC CanadaMurray Manning . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kitchener, ONMatthew Marchincin. . . . . . . . . . Jamestown, NYJason Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . Prairie Du Sac, WIRory Mason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Auburn, NEDeanna Mcalister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Munith, MIKelly Mcclure . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reisterstown, MDMark Meadows . . . . . . . . . . .Craven, SK CanadaJoel Meanor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keller, TXMichael Mermuys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fenton, MILynn Merrill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Boulder, COJenny Mersal . . . . . . . . . . . . Pompano Beach, FLDavid Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Olathe, KSMathew Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hooper, UTScott Millman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cedar Falls, IAPatty Minder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eden Prairie, MNAmanda Minder . . . . . . . . . . . .Eden Prairie. MNAlyssa Minder . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eden Prairie, MNJeffrey Mitchell . . . . . . . . . . . Grand Island, NEMike Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sherrills Ford, NCShane Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seaside, ORRyan Mudry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Navarre, FLJames Naphas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pitman, NJMichael Nault . . . . . . . . . . . . Lees Summit, MOSusan Neal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Freehold, NYRoy Nepveu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bow, NHDan Newman . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kansas City, MOJason Nichols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selinsgrove, PAStephen Nicholson . . . . . . . . . . . . Lafayette, LA

Frederick Niles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laurel, MDJohn North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peoria, AZGary Olson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Toluca Lake, CABrendan O’Rourke . . . . . . . . . . . Stoughton, WIRolando Ortega . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Davie, FLJohn Papp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Braintree, MALee Ann Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brookings, SDRacette Pierre . . . . . . . . . St Eustache,QC CanadaGregory Pittman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nashville, INJudson Prater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wichita, KSKatherine Pyeatt . . . . . . . . . . . . Northridge, CAJames Pyeatt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Northridge, CAJudy Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Burrton, KSGary Raser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reading, PAMike Redpath . . . . . . . . . . . . . Washington, OKRussell Reed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nunn, COScott Revoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hastings, NYEzra Rickards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Millsboro, DEKevin Robbins . . . . . . . . . . . . . Horseheads, NYDavid Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herndon, VABonita Ruder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maple Park, ILRichard Ruth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gainesville, FLDave Saunders . . . . . . . . . . . North Olmsted, OHKenneth Schamberger . . . . . . . . . . . .Austin, MNRussell Schaub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pensacola, FLMark Schoenike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jefferson, WIGregory Schroeder . . . . . . . . . . . . Roseville, MNMike Schutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hastings, MNAndrew See . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Denton, TXChristopher Shearer . . . . . . . . . Beavercreek, OHNorth Shetter . . . . . . . . . . . . . Menominee, MISatoru Shinohe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tokyo, JapanWes Skinner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semmes, ALGeorge Slad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Albuquerque, NMSteven Slayden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roanoke, TXJames Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fitchburg, WIGary Smrtic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Morgantown, KYDonna Snyder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, TXKevin Snyder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spring, TXMark Solper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fort Pierce, FLMaryruth Stallings . . . . . . . . . . . Vine Grove, KYAndy Stephenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tucson, AZConstance Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . Homewood, CAAlbert Stix IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Louis, MOJohn Strong. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Derwood, MDDoug Sytsma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Canton, MIRobert Szego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coxsackie, NYAlfred Thornton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Casco, WICandy Thornton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Casco, WITommy Tigert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lancaster, TXDebbie Tigert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lancaster, TXTed Vaala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Madison, WIAshwin Van den Aarssen . . . . . . . . Appleton, WIMichael Van Rosendale . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dyer, INRic VanSickle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chicago, ILLuther Veale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Burkburnett, TXTimothy Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aubrey, TXJohn Wassong . . . . . . . . . . . . Corpus Christi, TXKen Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martinez, CAPatrick Weeden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oregon, WIThomas West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wheeling, WVAlan Whitney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ware, MAJeremy Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jacksonville, FLWilliam Wolfe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Auburn, ALScott Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tiburon, CARobert Zelmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . Montgomery, TXLeonard Zimmerman . . . . . . . . . . Middlebury, INRussell Ziprik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ball Ground, GAJosh Zuerner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terre Haute, IN


New Members TM


in the Vintage area each year. Many thanks, Dave! Yet another AirVenture featured program that has ex-

perienced a lot of growth and popularity in recent years is the Vintage Aircraft Judging Awards that is conducted in the Vintage Hangar on Saturday evening. It is particularly humbling to me to have the opportunity to assist in the presentation and congratulate each of the winners of the various classes of Vintage awards. The judges’ decision on who the winners are each year has long been a very guarded secret that is held confidential until the actual an-nouncement by our chief judge. In recent years the judges decided that it would be a good idea to place a sticker on the aircraft that has been judged to be a winner of some type of an award. This has resulted in a larger number of our award winners actually staying to receive their awards. So, stick around on Saturday evening to witness this amaz-ing event and watch the recipients’ enthusiasm and the excitement from the crowd as each award is announced.

Your VAA board of directors will be meeting in Osh-kosh at around the time you receive this publication in your mailbox. We will be spending a fair amount of time critiquing our performance at AirVenture 2015, and hopefully discover and implement some new ideas on where we can add improvements in the Vintage area of operations. Since the 2015 event ended I have received an excellent number of suggested improvements from our 2015 attendees, and I will bring all of these ideas and con-cepts to the boardroom this November. Please continue to reach out and communicate any questions or concerns about the AirVenture event or any other issues you would like some feedback on to your Vintage board members, and we will do our best to address them.

I wanted to also mention here that EAA always hosts an event in Oshkosh in December of each year called the Wright Brothers Memorial Banquet. I routinely attend this event, and we have had an opportunity to hear from a large number of excellent guest speakers. This year is no exception, as EAA recently announced that on Friday, December 11, the guest speaker will be Erik Lindbergh who is the grandson of Charles Lindbergh. Erik has long been engaged in aviation technology and environmental concerns, and I’m pretty certain he will provide some ex-cellent insight into the experiences of his grandfather. I’m pretty certain that tickets to this event will sell quickly, so I am suggesting you get signed up for what is certain to be an exciting and engaging evening. Check it out at www.EAA.org/events.

Straight & Levelcontinued from page 1

AERO CLASSIC“COLLECTOR SERIES”

Vintage Tires New USA Production

Telephone: 800-247-8473 or

323-721-4900 FAX: 323-721-7888

6900 Acco St., Montebello, CA 90640 3400 Chelsea Ave, Memphis, TN 38106

www.desser.com In Support Of Aviation Since 1920….

Show off your pride and joy with a fresh set of Vintage Rubber. These newly minted tires are FAA-TSO’d and speed rated to 120 MPH. Some things are better left the way they

were, and in the 40’s and 50’s, these tires were perfectly in tune to the exciting times in aviation.

Not only do these tires set your vintage plane apart from the rest, but also look exceptional on all General Aviation aircraft. Deep 8/32nd tread depth offers above average tread life and UV treated rubber resists aging.

First impressions last a lifetime, so put these jewels on and bring back the good times..… New General Aviation Sizes Available:

500 x 5, 600 x 6, 700 x 8

Desser has the largest stock and selection of Vintage and Warbird tires in the world. Contact us with your requirements.

VAADirectory

The VAA Insurance Program is brought to you by EAA Insurance and administered by Falcon Insurance Agency, Inc. © 2012 Experimental Aircraft Assoc., Inc.

Standard Category | Vintage | Aerobatics | LSA | Homebuilts | Warbirds | Sea Planes | Powered Parachutes & Trikes | Gliders | Helicopters

The new standard in antique.Introducing the EAA and Vintage Aircraft Association Aircraft Insurance Plan with all

of the special coverage options VAA Members require for hand propping, tailwheel,

grass strips, and unique aircraft. When you insure with the EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan

you are helping VAA to continue to promote the heritage of vintage aviation.

Check out the EAA and VAA Plan today! Go to EAALowerRates.com or call us toll-free at 866-647-4322.


AircraftInsurance


PresidentGeoff Robison

1521 E. MacGregor Dr.New Haven, IN 46774

[email protected]

Vice-PresidentDave Clark

635 Vestal LanePlainfield, IN 46168

[email protected]

SecretarySteve Nesse

2009 Highland Ave.Albert Lea, MN 56007

[email protected]

TreasurerJerry Brown

4605 Hickory Wood RowGreenwood, IN 46143

[email protected]

Ron Alexander118 Huff Daland Circle

Griffin, GA [email protected]

George DaubnerN57W34837 Pondview LnOconomowoc, WI 53066

[email protected]

Robert D. “Bob” Lumley1265 South 124th St.Brookfield, WI 53005

[email protected]

Joe Norris264 Old OR Rd.

Oshkosh, WI [email protected]

Tim Popp60568 Springhaven Ct.

Lawton, MI 49065269-624-5036

[email protected]

Susan Dusenbury1374 Brook Cove Road

Walnut Cove, NC 27052336-591-3931

[email protected]

John Hofmann548 W James St

Columbus, WI [email protected]

Ray L. Johnson347 South 500 EastMarion, IN 46953

[email protected]

David [email protected]

Robert C. [email protected]

Gene Chase

Phil [email protected]

Ronald C. [email protected]

Charles W. [email protected]

E.E. “Buck” [email protected]

Gene [email protected]

S.H. “Wes” [email protected]

John [email protected]

DIRECTORS

ADVISORS

OFFICERS

DIRECTORS EMERITUS

Something to buy, sell, or trade?Classified Word Ads: $5.50 per 10 words, 180

words maximum, with boldface lead-in on first line.Classified Display Ads: One column wide (2.167

inches) by 1, 2, or 3 inches high at $20 per inch. Black and white only, and no frequency discounts.

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

Vintage Trader

MISCELLANEOUSNOS Piper Cub Rudder 1946 with original

fabric and part number on it, Piper Rib stock full length for making new ribs, last stock made on Pipers original draw bench. Call 603-661-6213

Streamline flying wires & tie rods. New manufacture. AN, AGS & metric sizes. AN665 clevis available, www.vintageaero.com or [email protected]

Aircraft Exhaust Custom built performance a i rc ra f t exhaus t and components . By using our unique exhaust mockup process, we can build you a custom exhaust without your a i rc raf t ever leaving your location. 1-866-283-3775 www.experimentalexhaust.com

WANTEDDonate your factory built plane to leave a

significant legacy! A charity that provides miss ion/medical services to remote areas of the world. 970-249-4341 www.samaritanaviation.com

Copyright ©2015 by the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association. All rights reserved.VINTAGE AIRPLANE (USPS 062-750; ISSN 0091-6943) is published and owned exclusively by the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association of the Experimental Aircraft

Association and is published bi-monthly at EAA Aviation Center, 3000 Poberezny Rd., PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54903-3086, e-mail: [email protected]. Membership to Vintage Aircraft Association, which includes 6 issues of Vintage Airplane magazine, is $45 per year for EAA members and $55 for non-EAA members. Periodicals Postage paid at Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54902 and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Vintage Airplane, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086. CPC #40612608. FOREIGN AND APO ADDRESSES—Please allow at least two months for delivery of VINTAGE AIRPLANE to foreign and APO addresses via surface mail. ADVERTISING — Vintage Aircraft Association does not guarantee or endorse any product offered through the advertising. We invite constructive criticism and welcome any report of inferior merchandise obtained through our advertising so that corrective measures can be taken.

EDITORIAL POLICY: Members are encouraged to submit stories and photographs. Policy opinions expressed in articles are solely those of the authors. Responsibility for accuracy in reporting rests entirely with the contributor. No remuneration is made. Material should be sent to: Editor, VINTAGE AIRPLANE, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086. Phone 920-426-4800.

EAA® and EAA SPORT AVIATION®, the EAA Logo® and Aeronautica™ are registered trademarks, trademarks, and service marks of the Experimen-tal Aircraft Association, Inc. The use of these trademarks and service marks without the permission of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Inc. is strictly prohibited.

Earl Nicholas219 Woodland Rd

Libertyville, IL [email protected]

joints, causing joint deformity and painful swelling. Osteoarthritis involves the physical wear and tear on the joints. These differences can be subtle, though typically RA af-fects the middle joints of the fingers and the base joint where the fingers join the hand. OA more commonly affects the joints at the ends of the fingers (Heberden’s nodes). RA sym-metrically affects both sides of the body while OA may affect only one joint on one side of the body. While the patient may be stiff with OA in the morning, activity results in im-provement usually within 20 min-utes, versus RA where the stiffness and pain may last more an hour.

Again, unless the arthritis causes significant range of motion abnor-malities and the treatment does not involve more than the equivalent of 20 mg of prednisone daily, the AME will be available to issue the unre-stricted medical with both rheuma-toid or osteoarthritis.

continued from page 9

Ask the AME


Standard Category | Vintage | Aerobatics | LSA | Homebuilts | Warbirds | Sea Planes | Powered Parachutes & Trikes | Gliders | Helicopters

The new standard in antique.Introducing the EAA and Vintage Aircraft Association Aircraft Insurance Plan with all

of the special coverage options VAA Members require for hand propping, tailwheel,

grass strips, and unique aircraft. When you insure with the EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan

you are helping VAA to continue to promote the heritage of vintage aviation.

Check out the EAA and VAA Plan today! Go to EAALowerRates.com or call us toll-free at 866-647-4322.


AircraftInsurance

Documents

Va vol 43 no 6 nov dec2015