VOL 30 No 1 JANUARY 2002

STRAIGHT amp LEVELTom Poberezny

2 VAA NEWSIHG Frautschy amp Ric Reynolds

3 MYSTERY PLANE

4 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE - ROY WICKER

6 MY BARNSTORMING DAYSWilliam B Dunn

11 PASS IT TO BUCKBuck Hilbert

12 A FLIGHTBill McClure

14 MIKES OLD-WORLD MOTHBudd Davisson

21 TYPE CLUB LISTNEW MEMBERS

26 CALENDAR

28 CLASSIFIED ADS

30 VAA MERCHANDISE

WWWVINTAGEAIRCRAFTORG

Publlsler TOM POBEREZNY

Edltor-In-Cdef scon SPANGLER

Executive Director Editor HENRY G FRAUTSCHY

VAA Administrative Assistant THERESA BOOKS

Executive Editor MIKE DIFRISCO

Contributing Editors JOHN UNDERWOOD BUDD DAVISSON

Grapldc Deslglter OLIVIA L PHILLIP

PIotograply Staff JIM KOEPNICK LEEANN ABRAMS

AdvertisingEdltorial Assistmt ISABELLE WISKE

STRAIGHT amp LEVEL FROM EAA

TOM POBEREZNY President EAA

What We Stand For

of Directors and staff to the division presishy Promote skies have been maintained and defended dents Chapter leaders and most imporshy since the Wrights first flight there can be no tantly the general membership there was Preserve resolve to carryon this vigilance in the fushyonly one relevant question How can we ture This is why EAA maintains an accredshyhelp And help they did ited world-class museum Prepare

THE ABILITY TO FLY IS

something we have taken for granted since December 171903 when Orville Wright successfully completed

the first manned powered flight in history Now another date is forever etched in aviation historyshy

September 11 2001 On that day those seeking to destroy the freedom civilized nations cherish made aircraft their asshysault weapons of choice In doing so they called our free acshycess to the sky into question As a member of the general aviation community you know what a chilling time it was

I have never been prouder to be an EAA member than during the aftermath of the at- Protect tacks of September 11 From the EAA Board

negatives into positives bull Promoting Access to the Dream of Flight-At our

roots EAAers are innovators A group unique in aviation we have said to each other If you have a dream of wings and are willing to put hand heart and mind to it well help you make your dream come true

Today through more than 1000 local Chapters traveling EAA SportAir Workshops EAA AirVenture Oshkosh forums and workshops the unique resources of the Boeing Aeroshynautical Library our Technical Counselor program the Auto Fuel Research support of the ultralight movement and many other initiatives EAA continues to promote responsishyble access to one of Americas most cherished resources-the

sky above us bull Preserving the Heritage of F1ightshy

Without understanding how Americas free

EAAs ability to defend the freedom of flight was not born on September 11 On that terrible day we started collecting dividends on the accomplishments and credibility that EAA and its members have been investing in and developing for the past SO years And EAAers from all walks of life and a myriad of aviation interests have conshytributed to that investment at all levels from their commushynity to the Capitol

Thinking about the programs EAA and the EAA Aviation Foundation have undertaken since our inception I realized once again that virtually everything our membership has done has been aimed at preserving the freedom of flightshyand providing access to the sky Essentially all of EAAs work falls into four categories

bull Protecting the Right to Fly-This includes our govshyernment relations programs our ongOing vigilance and communication with elected and appointed officials and our well-established working relationships with governshyment agencies that touch general aviation

EAAers have worked on behalf of Chicagos beleaguered Meigs Field Working in conjunction with the Tuskegee Airshymen EAAers have given thousands of inner city youth a taste of what the sky offers through Young Eagles flights

In Southern California EAAers saved the Borrego Springs aerobatic airspace with Young Eagles flights and visits in school classrooms to share information to turn

Preserving-and presenting-aviation hisshytory is why we continually tour America with one of the worlds few remaining fl y ing B-17s This is why the EAA Warbirds of America work tirelessly to Keep em Flying It is why we have created two flying reproductions of the Spirit of St Louis and display many historically significant aircraft in the EAA AirVenture Museum

bull Preparing the Future of Flight-You are aware of EAAs Young Eagles program which has to date given more than 760000 young people the experience of flight

You may not be as familiar with EAAs other ongOing edshyucational initiatives for those who wish to continue their investigation of aviation as they move toward adulthood These programs include the EAA Air Academy and the Scishyence-Math-Technology Project which provides educators with a curriculum that uses the excitement of flight to moshytivate students to learn

Supplemented by fun exciting extracurricular activities and competition such as our Wild Blue Wonders EAA provides well-rounded educational programs that are deshysigned to help young people follow their dreams and make them real

Protect Promote Preserve Prepare These are the four fundamental pillars of maintaining Americas free skies for all of us And they define the mission to which EAA has reshymained true for nearly SO years ~

VINTAGE AIRPLAN E

COMPILED BY HG FRAUTSCHY amp RIC REYNOLDS

ENHANCED CLASS BAIRSPACE NOW HISTORY

Enhanced Class B Eliminated FAA Issues New Series of NOTAMs

Enhanced Class B airspace was eliminated on Wednesday Decemshyber 19 by a series of new NOTAMs issued by the FAA In addition the FAA reduced temporary flight reshystriction (TFR) locations surrounding New York City Washington DC and Boston opening up several GA and reliever airports that had been closed to operations for 100 days following the terrorist attacks of Sepshytember 11

In the aftermath of September II this is continued good news as we proceed on the road back to full

FRONT COVER Complete with a fabric instrument-training hood Mike Williams DHS2A Tiger Moth motors above the countryshyside EAA photo by Jim Koepnick shot with a Canon EOS In equipped with an SO-200 mm lens on 100 ASA Fuji slide film EAA Cessna 210 photo plane flown by Bruce Moore

BACK COVER Last Biplane Victory is the title of this oil painting by Domenic DeNardo SO Carpenter St Providence RI 02903 It deshypicts Slovak Warrant Officer Frantisek Cyprich in his Avia B534-IV fighter having shot down a Hungarian Junkers Jushy523m piloted by Gyorgy Gach Mistaking a Hungarians shaking fist for a friendlier gesture Cyprich waves to the crew of the Junkers The date September 2 1944 would mark the last aerial combat victory by a pilot using a biplane Domenics work was preshysented with a Par Excellence ribbon during the 2001 EAA Sport Aviation Art Competition You can reach Domenic at his studio phone number of 401421-2651

JANUARY 2002

strength said EAA President Tom Poberezny Our compliments to everyone who has worked to proshyduce this result I am especially proud of our EAA staff members who did their part in helping restore our flight privileges in this unpreceshydented series of events

These actions by the FAA are a dishyrect result of recommendations that FAA developed and forwarded to the Department of Transportation (DOT) on November 12 and subsequently to the Office of Homeland Security for final coordination and approval

The newly issued NOTAMs authorshyize blimp news and traffic reporting sightseeing tour and banner-towing operations to resume in the three arshyeas (We highly encourage EAA members to check NOTAMs continushyally over the next several days as we expect them to be modified)

In Washington the IS-nautical mile TFR was replaced by a 15shystatute mile special security area (per FAR 997) It is centered on the WaShington Monument and exshytends from the surface up to but not including FL1S0 The NOTAM also provided a special I-nautical mile rashydius cutout for Freeway Airport Mitchellville Maryland which alshylows operations to resume there for the first time since the attacks Four airports remain trapped in the new Washington DC TFR includshying Bower Schman amp Welch Heliport QY20) Potomac Airfield Airport (VKX) Washington ExecushytiveHyde Field Airport (W32) and College Park Airport (CGS)

In New York the TFR was re shyduced to a 2-nautical mile radius from the disasterhazard area at ground zero and extends from the surface to 8000 feet AGL All airports in the New York area that had been closed are now open for operations

In Boston the TFR was reduced to 3 miles from the point 4 nautical miles on the 317-degree radial of the

Boston VORDME and extends from the surface to 3000 feet AGL All the airports in the Boston area that had been closed are now open with the exception of Logan International Airport unless authorized by ATC

The FAA has stressed to pilots that the NOTAMs issued regarding such sensitive areas as nuclear power plants and open air assemblies are still in efshyfect More details on these breaking developments are sure to come Please note that these NOTAM restrictions apply across the entire United States and not just to the now-eliminated enhanced Class B areas

Of particular interest to vinshytage aircraft owners

Some of the best news is that for the areas outside of the remaining TFRs vintage aircraft may now opershyate as they did before Septembers restrictions Pilots can now fly vintage aircraft that does not have an engineshydriven electrical system without getting an FAA waiver for each flight

All references to the ECBs and their required waivers have been elimishynated Therefore the transponder rules contained within FAR 91215 apply This includes FAR 91215(b)(3) which says that aircraft not originally certificated with an engine-driven electrical system or which have not subsequently been certificated with such a system and had it installed in the airframe may conduct operations in the airspace within 30 nautical miles of the Class B airport-providshying you stay out of Class A B or C airspace areas (unless you have reshyceived an ATC waiver for those areas via phone radio fax e-mail etc)

This is certainly great news for many pilots and we look forward to the day when all operations esshypecially those still affected at College Park Airport and the other three fields near Washington DC will be open to law-abiding freeshydom-loving aviators

continued on page 27

2

STERY PLA E

BY HG FRAUTSCHY

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO EAA VINTAGE AIRPLANE PO Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086 YOUR ANSWER NEEDS TO BE IN NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 10 FOR INCLUSION

IN THE APRIL 2002 ISSUE OF Vintage Airplane You CAN ALSO SEND YOUR RESPONSE VIA E-MAIL

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO vintageeaaorg BE SURE TO INCLUDE BOTH YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS (ESshy

PECIALLY YOUR CITY AND STATE) IN THE BODY OF YOUR NOTE

AND PUT (MONTH) MYSTERY PLANE IN THE SUBJECT LINE

Not every Mystery Plane is a successful aircraft (I do reshyquire that at the very least it has flown once) and the October Mystery Plane fits in the not so good but inshyteresting category

Paul CQ Stephenson sent us the original photoshygraph along with a note which read in part

Enclosed is a photograph of what looks like a homeshybuilt racer a lot like the Travel Air Mystery Ship I dont know where I collected it but I ran across it when I was putting things away after the move up here to Utah Youre welcome to put it with the EAA files if youd Iike-I just hate to throw pictures of airplanes away

Also enclosed is the backing of the picture where the caption is noted on it Id be interested in knowing what

W I LLARD PARKER WINGED BULLET

it was who built it and where The caption scrawled on the cardboard backing that

came with Pauls submission reads Winged Bullet Had it built for the Gardner Cup

races circa 1931 Cirrus 4 cyl motor Too heavy when loaded with 60 gallons gas Also too heavily constructed and poorly designed Could not perform properly at sea level let alone fields at 5000 altitude Finally sold the motor after 20 hours time and junked the airplane Cirshyrus motor was as I remember 90 hp

As pointed out by member Albert Aplin of Chuluota Florida the Winged Bullet is briefly mentioned in The Golden Age ofAir Racing by Truman C Weaver and Wes Schmid A photo is published on page 189 and a listing of the little racer is on page 544

The Willard Parker Winged Bullet never did make the big time probably for the reasons stated on the caption included with the photograph George jevnager Hopshykins Minnesota mentioned in his answer that the airplane was also known as the 1929 Air-istocrat SR-5

Other correct answers were received from Don Hill Belmond Iowa (he was the longtime friend of race pilot johnny Livingston and once saw the Winged Bullet) Wayne Van Valkenburgh jasper Georgia Larry Beidleshyman Granada Hills California ~

This months Mystery Plane is a biplane from a book print donated to EAA by Don Macor

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 3

COMPILED BY HG FRAUTSCHY amp RIC REYNOLDS

ENHANCED CLASS BAIRSPACE NOW HISTORY

Enhanced Class B Eliminated FAA Issues New Series of NOTAMs

Enhanced Class B airspace was eliminated on Wednesday Decemshyber 19 by a series of new NOTAMs issued by the FAA In addition the FAA reduced temporary flight reshystriction (TFR) locations surrounding New York City Washington DC and Boston opening up several GA and reliever airports that had been closed to operations for 100 days following the terrorist attacks of Sepshytember 11

In the aftermath of September II this is continued good news as we proceed on the road back to full

FRONT COVER Complete with a fabric instrument-training hood Mike Williams DHS2A Tiger Moth motors above the countryshyside EAA photo by Jim Koepnick shot with a Canon EOS In equipped with an SO-200 mm lens on 100 ASA Fuji slide film EAA Cessna 210 photo plane flown by Bruce Moore

BACK COVER Last Biplane Victory is the title of this oil painting by Domenic DeNardo SO Carpenter St Providence RI 02903 It deshypicts Slovak Warrant Officer Frantisek Cyprich in his Avia B534-IV fighter having shot down a Hungarian Junkers Jushy523m piloted by Gyorgy Gach Mistaking a Hungarians shaking fist for a friendlier gesture Cyprich waves to the crew of the Junkers The date September 2 1944 would mark the last aerial combat victory by a pilot using a biplane Domenics work was preshysented with a Par Excellence ribbon during the 2001 EAA Sport Aviation Art Competition You can reach Domenic at his studio phone number of 401421-2651

JANUARY 2002

strength said EAA President Tom Poberezny Our compliments to everyone who has worked to proshyduce this result I am especially proud of our EAA staff members who did their part in helping restore our flight privileges in this unpreceshydented series of events

These actions by the FAA are a dishyrect result of recommendations that FAA developed and forwarded to the Department of Transportation (DOT) on November 12 and subsequently to the Office of Homeland Security for final coordination and approval

The newly issued NOTAMs authorshyize blimp news and traffic reporting sightseeing tour and banner-towing operations to resume in the three arshyeas (We highly encourage EAA members to check NOTAMs continushyally over the next several days as we expect them to be modified)

In Washington the IS-nautical mile TFR was replaced by a 15shystatute mile special security area (per FAR 997) It is centered on the WaShington Monument and exshytends from the surface up to but not including FL1S0 The NOTAM also provided a special I-nautical mile rashydius cutout for Freeway Airport Mitchellville Maryland which alshylows operations to resume there for the first time since the attacks Four airports remain trapped in the new Washington DC TFR includshying Bower Schman amp Welch Heliport QY20) Potomac Airfield Airport (VKX) Washington ExecushytiveHyde Field Airport (W32) and College Park Airport (CGS)

In New York the TFR was re shyduced to a 2-nautical mile radius from the disasterhazard area at ground zero and extends from the surface to 8000 feet AGL All airports in the New York area that had been closed are now open for operations

In Boston the TFR was reduced to 3 miles from the point 4 nautical miles on the 317-degree radial of the

Boston VORDME and extends from the surface to 3000 feet AGL All the airports in the Boston area that had been closed are now open with the exception of Logan International Airport unless authorized by ATC

The FAA has stressed to pilots that the NOTAMs issued regarding such sensitive areas as nuclear power plants and open air assemblies are still in efshyfect More details on these breaking developments are sure to come Please note that these NOTAM restrictions apply across the entire United States and not just to the now-eliminated enhanced Class B areas

Of particular interest to vinshytage aircraft owners

Some of the best news is that for the areas outside of the remaining TFRs vintage aircraft may now opershyate as they did before Septembers restrictions Pilots can now fly vintage aircraft that does not have an engineshydriven electrical system without getting an FAA waiver for each flight

All references to the ECBs and their required waivers have been elimishynated Therefore the transponder rules contained within FAR 91215 apply This includes FAR 91215(b)(3) which says that aircraft not originally certificated with an engine-driven electrical system or which have not subsequently been certificated with such a system and had it installed in the airframe may conduct operations in the airspace within 30 nautical miles of the Class B airport-providshying you stay out of Class A B or C airspace areas (unless you have reshyceived an ATC waiver for those areas via phone radio fax e-mail etc)

This is certainly great news for many pilots and we look forward to the day when all operations esshypecially those still affected at College Park Airport and the other three fields near Washington DC will be open to law-abiding freeshydom-loving aviators

continued on page 27

2

STERY PLA E

BY HG FRAUTSCHY

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO EAA VINTAGE AIRPLANE PO Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086 YOUR ANSWER NEEDS TO BE IN NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 10 FOR INCLUSION

IN THE APRIL 2002 ISSUE OF Vintage Airplane You CAN ALSO SEND YOUR RESPONSE VIA E-MAIL

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO vintageeaaorg BE SURE TO INCLUDE BOTH YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS (ESshy

PECIALLY YOUR CITY AND STATE) IN THE BODY OF YOUR NOTE

AND PUT (MONTH) MYSTERY PLANE IN THE SUBJECT LINE

Not every Mystery Plane is a successful aircraft (I do reshyquire that at the very least it has flown once) and the October Mystery Plane fits in the not so good but inshyteresting category

Paul CQ Stephenson sent us the original photoshygraph along with a note which read in part

Enclosed is a photograph of what looks like a homeshybuilt racer a lot like the Travel Air Mystery Ship I dont know where I collected it but I ran across it when I was putting things away after the move up here to Utah Youre welcome to put it with the EAA files if youd Iike-I just hate to throw pictures of airplanes away

Also enclosed is the backing of the picture where the caption is noted on it Id be interested in knowing what

W I LLARD PARKER WINGED BULLET

it was who built it and where The caption scrawled on the cardboard backing that

came with Pauls submission reads Winged Bullet Had it built for the Gardner Cup

races circa 1931 Cirrus 4 cyl motor Too heavy when loaded with 60 gallons gas Also too heavily constructed and poorly designed Could not perform properly at sea level let alone fields at 5000 altitude Finally sold the motor after 20 hours time and junked the airplane Cirshyrus motor was as I remember 90 hp

As pointed out by member Albert Aplin of Chuluota Florida the Winged Bullet is briefly mentioned in The Golden Age ofAir Racing by Truman C Weaver and Wes Schmid A photo is published on page 189 and a listing of the little racer is on page 544

The Willard Parker Winged Bullet never did make the big time probably for the reasons stated on the caption included with the photograph George jevnager Hopshykins Minnesota mentioned in his answer that the airplane was also known as the 1929 Air-istocrat SR-5

Other correct answers were received from Don Hill Belmond Iowa (he was the longtime friend of race pilot johnny Livingston and once saw the Winged Bullet) Wayne Van Valkenburgh jasper Georgia Larry Beidleshyman Granada Hills California ~

This months Mystery Plane is a biplane from a book print donated to EAA by Don Macor

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 3

STERY PLA E

BY HG FRAUTSCHY

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO EAA VINTAGE AIRPLANE PO Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086 YOUR ANSWER NEEDS TO BE IN NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 10 FOR INCLUSION

IN THE APRIL 2002 ISSUE OF Vintage Airplane You CAN ALSO SEND YOUR RESPONSE VIA E-MAIL

SEND YOUR ANSWER TO vintageeaaorg BE SURE TO INCLUDE BOTH YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS (ESshy

PECIALLY YOUR CITY AND STATE) IN THE BODY OF YOUR NOTE

AND PUT (MONTH) MYSTERY PLANE IN THE SUBJECT LINE

Not every Mystery Plane is a successful aircraft (I do reshyquire that at the very least it has flown once) and the October Mystery Plane fits in the not so good but inshyteresting category

Paul CQ Stephenson sent us the original photoshygraph along with a note which read in part

Enclosed is a photograph of what looks like a homeshybuilt racer a lot like the Travel Air Mystery Ship I dont know where I collected it but I ran across it when I was putting things away after the move up here to Utah Youre welcome to put it with the EAA files if youd Iike-I just hate to throw pictures of airplanes away

Also enclosed is the backing of the picture where the caption is noted on it Id be interested in knowing what

W I LLARD PARKER WINGED BULLET

it was who built it and where The caption scrawled on the cardboard backing that

came with Pauls submission reads Winged Bullet Had it built for the Gardner Cup

races circa 1931 Cirrus 4 cyl motor Too heavy when loaded with 60 gallons gas Also too heavily constructed and poorly designed Could not perform properly at sea level let alone fields at 5000 altitude Finally sold the motor after 20 hours time and junked the airplane Cirshyrus motor was as I remember 90 hp

As pointed out by member Albert Aplin of Chuluota Florida the Winged Bullet is briefly mentioned in The Golden Age ofAir Racing by Truman C Weaver and Wes Schmid A photo is published on page 189 and a listing of the little racer is on page 544

The Willard Parker Winged Bullet never did make the big time probably for the reasons stated on the caption included with the photograph George jevnager Hopshykins Minnesota mentioned in his answer that the airplane was also known as the 1929 Air-istocrat SR-5

Other correct answers were received from Don Hill Belmond Iowa (he was the longtime friend of race pilot johnny Livingston and once saw the Winged Bullet) Wayne Van Valkenburgh jasper Georgia Larry Beidleshyman Granada Hills California ~

This months Mystery Plane is a biplane from a book print donated to EAA by Don Macor

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 3

Alifetime of accomplishments behind him Dr Roy Wicker shows little sign of slowing

down As a World War II naval aviashytor he flew blimps including the Goodyear Model K on anti-submashyrine patrols Later he flew fixed-wing navy aircraft including his favorite the Douglass Dauntless (SBD) After discharge he headed off to dental school and started a long career as a dentist in the Atlanta and then Quitshyman Georgia areas

He loves to fly and his enjoyshyment of aviation has never wavered As soon as his practice was estabshylished in the late 1950s Roy bought a Cessna 170 then a 180 plus a club share of a Piper Colt

By the early 1960s Roy chose to get even more deeply involved in sport aviation Since he was a youngster Roy was particularly fascinated with the airplanes and aviators of World War 1 The ieuport 24bis looked like it would make a great subject for a replica project and Roy wasted little time in re-creating a stick-for-stick 120-hp LeRhone-rotary-powered fullshysize replica Roys biplane finished in the markings of French ace Charles Nungesser was completed in 1965 It proved to be a fascinating time mashychine for those who were fortunate to see the airplane fly and for Roy whose admiration for World War I pilots exshypanded

JANUARY 2002

2001 VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

Roy WICKER

Roys remarkable Nieuport 24bis replica complete with a 120-hp LeRhone rotary engine was built in the first half of the 1960s Roy started the project with a hammer hacksaw and a rattail file

When the Nieuport was displayed at Huntsville Alabama Roy and his family including daughter Cornelia sons Roy III and Dan and Roys wife Dollie were visited by Dr Werner Von Braun (right) and his son Peter (in the sailor suit) Much of Von Brauns rocket work was done in Huntsville the home of the Armys Redstone Arsenal

4

His experience with his new old airplane led him to the restoration arena and over the years hes creshyated a steady stream of beautiful restorations including a Warnershypowered Fleet 1 trainer and a Cessna C-34 His most recent restoration was chosen as the Grand Champion Antique during the 1993 EAA Sun n Fun Fly-In In partnership with

Barbara Kitchens Roy restored a very special Davis D-1W Originally owned by Walter Davis owner of Davis Airshycraft of Richmond Indiana it was dubbed Whistler II lt had a bump cowl sliding canopy and wheelpants As reshystored by Roy the D-1W is the spitting

image of its

former self and it

continues to turn heads nearly a

decade after its restoration

Along the way inshyterspersed between his restorations Roy

built a Marquart Charger that also wowed

spectators His vintage orientation still showed in his homebuilt as he finished it in the markings of a preshywar Curtiss Helldiver as it flew off the Saratoga with the navy squadron Fighting 6 His latest projshyect is an RV-8 homebuilt hes building with Lee Ballard

Roy continues to offer his expertshyise and skills to his many friends in the aviation world He has left a lasting mark on the aviation and vintage aircraft world with his breathtaking craftsmanship and never-ending desire to re-create the glory days of the past

Our congratulations to Roy on his induction into the VAA Hall of Fame

After graduation from the Citadel Roy signed up with the Navy and flew Navy blimps from the Santa Cruz Brazil blimp base The base was established near Rio de Janeiro because of the nearly new Zeppelin hangar built for the Graf Zeppelin

Roys restored Cessna C-34 Airmaster in

1975

His first restoration was a Warner-powshyered Fleet Model 1 biplane which deshy

lighted Roy with its excellent flying

qualities Spectashytors were equally

thrilled by the outshystanding

workmanship Roy a career dentist

had used in reshybuilding the Fleet

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 5

Days WILLIAM B DUNN

Before Dutch Redfield started teaching secondary flight training he was goshying up one day to practice acrobatics and invited me

along We put on helmets and gogshygles strapped on our parachutes climbed aboard and were off-it was a thrill even before we started any maneuvers Dutch could talk to m e through a gadget called a Gosport which was nothing but a hose running from his mouth to my ears but I couldnt talk to him I guess when he started instructing he would ask the students if th ey understood and they would nod their h eads up and down-th ey probably wouldnt dare shake it Sideways Dutch would practice snap rolls slow rolls loops Cubanshyeights the whole bit Luckily I didn t get sick

Then he said Do you have a fear of heights I Before I could nod my h ead up and down he rolled th e Waco over on its back and holding it inverted he told me to tilt m y head back and look at the ground Im now upside down hanging by

JANUARY 2002

Bill climbs out steeply with the New Standard in the summer of 1941 The colshyors as confirmed by Bill by looking at some old movie footage are an orange fuselage and rudder with yellow stripes and yellow wings and horizontal tail

my seat belt looking at the ground with nothing between it and me but space Well Im here to tell you its the most fright ening thing yo u could pOSSibly imagine for anyone who even thinks he or she has a fear of heights It was unbelievable Looking over the balcony in a tall building and straight down got me This was the same on ly 10 times more so I was never overly enthused about aerobatics altho ugh I did snap roll (slowly and poorly) and loop and spin my Taylorcraft I rode with Harold in this Cu lver Cadet while he snap rolled it at cruisi ng speed Man would it ever snap roll Harold apparently didnt undershystand about wing loadings any better than Macl McGlynn Later I looped some other planes which probably werent meant to be and I had some great rides in my Navy training However I really wasnt cut out to be a stunt pilot

I somehow survived my learning years-early learning years that is in that you never seem to finish learnshying as long as you fly-and got my commercial rating I passed the writshyten for my instructors rating and was waiting to take my flight test when an eve nt took place that changed my plans ConSiderably

It was early summer 1941 and I was standing outside of Harry Wards hangar Harry and I were chatting when a big old biplane taxied in This was a BIG biplane The pilot jumped out and walked over to greet Harry His name was Ralph Barneyl Barnard and Harry introduced us Barney told Harry that he had just accepted a job with Scintilla a manshyufacturer in Sydney New York flying a Stinson Gullwing He would have to quit barnstorming with that big old biplane a New Standard that was built in 1929 and he was lookshying for a pilot Harry told him that I

6

was available and that I had a Barney signaled for me to keep commercial certificate Barney it running He climbed up on told me to jump in and take it the wing and told me that he around the field This too knew I cou ld do better than was going to be one of my that and to take it around more memorable flights again What a great guy The

I had never flown anything next time around I made a but a Taylorcraft although I good landing and Barney gave had made the aforementioned me the job What a great expeshyflight with Dutch The only rience it was going to be similarity between the Waco To qualify for the job I had and the Standard was that they to get a horsepower rating were both open cockpi t bishy The Waco UPF-7 biplane planes As I stated the would fill the bill I needed Standard was BIG It had a five hours as I remember to front cockpit that had a bench get the rating in the back that could hold The eAA inspector gave me two normal size people or my flight test which really three small ones Ahead of that didnt amount to much more was two seats for two more than a couple of landings and The Standard was sometimes takeoffs When we finished he referred to as a Bathtub Stanshy volunteered some advice He dard because of that front noted from looking at my logshycockpit The pilots cockpit book that I had practically was just behind The plane nothing but Taylorcraft time had a SO-foot top wing a and then he advised me smaller bottom wing and against taking a job flying large tall wheels It had terrific something like the Standard lift from that wing and the Only 19 years old with a fresh commercial pilots that was sitting in the hangar tall wheels were designed to certificate in his pocket and Bill Dunn thought he getting some work done I go over woodchuck holesshy was a seasoned barnstormer as he herded the guessed that the word had gotshyand a lot of other things mammoth biplane around upstate New York Bill has ten out about my new job I

Barney gave me a cockpit never stopped flying only recently selling his beloved think what had him conshycheck and pointed out the Grumman Widgeon after 35 years of stewardship cerned and rightfully so was unique rudder controls and that a pilot named Pepsi had brakes Two L-shaped bars spun in the previous week up hung down in the cockpit to the over that huge empty front cockpit at Pulaski New York and killed the right and left of the pilots feet with this flight reminded me a bit of my two passengers in the front cockpit the bottom of the L facing inward first solo It was very exciting but He had been flying a New Standard Thats where your feet were to be lonely The Standard was ready to fly on placed to control the rudders Two I took off to the north and then that Friday and we were to begin more L-shaped bars or rods hung circled around to the left and proshy carrying passengers the next day I down inside of those facing in the ceeded to make my approach to took it out and shot a few takeoffs opposite direction Those were the land in the same direction I figured and landings and then proceeded to brake controls You would have to I would land in full view of Harry Fulton New York to get ready for take your feet off the rudder controls and Barney standing alongside my new job to use the brakes Most unusual Harrys hangar They would get to The field at Fulton was just a big

Barney threw the prop and I taxshy observe what was probably the worst grass field west of town It had no ied out Alone of course because landing that the poor old Standard hangars and of course no runways there were no dual controls and I could have ever suffered I proceeded Our advance agent had circulated certainly couldnt expect Barney to to level off way too high and it posters around town announcing take a joy ride up there in the front dropped in that the Goodwill Flyers would be cockpit Barney was foolish enough Kaboom carrying passengers that weekend We to let me fly his airplane but he I thought Thats great idiot had a sound truck with loud speakers wasnt that foolish you just blew a great job on the roof and crowd control ropes

After I took off and looked out I taxied in feeling very sheepish to keep the crowd back Our advance

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 7

agent was Tommy Baker He was an old parachute jumper and was nickshynamed Diamond because he had a good-sized diamond in one of his eyeteeth My boss was Woody Wisshyner Woody was only about 30 r was 19 We split the total take My pershycentage was only 16 percent I never did know what Woody and Tommy got r always figured that Barney got SO percent as well he should have I made $100 a week at my percentage and I was tickled pink in spite of the fact that r was the only pilot and doshying most of the work Fulton was where I got my feet wet It was where my barnstorming career started and almost ended

We started carrying passengers on Saturday As the passengers boarded the plane I would stand up in my cockpit and lean forward and advise them on how to put on their seat belts I was told to make very short flights Just extend the downwind over Fulton and land The customers were paying only SO cents a ride so they couldnt complain After two or three flights Woody came out to the plane and asked me why I was takshying so long to leave the line r told him about advising the passengers to put on their seat belts He told me not to do that anymore as it was deshylaying the departures He also told me that the belts werent any good anyway If they were anything like mine then that was the truth Mine was a big wide belt that was ripped half apart at the hinge In fact a couple of weeks later when I got to be a hotshot I would loop the Stanshydard over the town when I arrived at a new location I would put my shoulder under the cowl on the left side of the cockpit and hold on to the seat with my left hand after opening the throttle If r should fall out of the loop I didnt want to fall out of the airplane

While flying at Fulton I began to gain more and more confidence By Saturday afternoon I would make a fancy climbing turn out make a wide turn over town on my downshywind and side slip in on my final to

JANUARY 2002

a series of landings that were getting better all the time I found that I had to side slip in order to see beshycause r sat back so far I couldnt see over the nose

On Sunday I noted that a yellow Cub was also using the field for takeshyoffs and landings I made it a point to be sure of where it was at all times I was beginning to step up my taxishying speed We had a good crowd and we wanted to get in as many hops as we could before dark I had been carrying passengers for a coushyple of hours and started out for another hop when I noted that the Cub was coming in on its final apshyproach I poured the coal to the Standard and was taxiing really fast to my takeoff spot when suddenly I got the surprise of my young life Right out from under my right wing taxied another Cub

The Cub pilot never knew how close he came to having that big Wright engine chew up his airplane and possibly anyone aboard I was stunned Apparently the Cub that I saw was another Cub coming in and the one that I almost hit was the one that I should have been looking for I was never going to learn any clearer especially in flyshying the phrase Dont assume anythingI

Woody told me that we would be using small airports like Fulton all the time because of my inexperishyence He lied Our next stop was Canandaigua Our location there wasnt an airport and I doubt that any airplane had ever used the field before-even in an emergency The object of course was to find a field as close to town as possible This was Diamond Bakers job He would make a deal with the owner of the field usually a farmer we would deSignate it our airport and then we were in business

This field in Canandaigua was close to town all right but that was all I could say for it It was right alongside a road and was about 1000 maybe 1200 feet long The length was all right it was the apshy

proaches that were challenging Also the field ran north and south Trees pretty much surrounded the field on the north and west sid e and high-tension lines on the south end Unless I had a real favoring southwest wind that called for a takeoff over the power lines I would take off to the north Once off the ground I would bank through a good-sized opening in the trees and fly over a golf course Then I was over the lake and the town would be on my right To come in to the south I would have to approach beshytween a nice clearing between trees slipping of course most of the way to the ground At the last moment I would completely reverse controls With the stick all the way back I would set down usually nicely on all three pOints Because I had been deshyscending so rapidly in my side slip I found that because of the speed the airplane settled right through ground effect and wanted to go flyshying again To stay on the ground I had to immediately shove forward on the stick to keep it on the main gear It was tricky J felt that I was reshyally getting good This may all sound far-fetched exaggerated at best but it is true

I had one of my many interesting barnstorming experiences while flyshying at Canandaigua J found that people enjoyed what they called the dip They would tell me while getshyting aboard to do a dip The dip consisted of shoving forward on the stick while leveling off after takeoff This would make them light in their seat and give them a thrill in their stomach They loved it I had to keep in mind that they didnt have seat be lts on and not overdo it Woody had told me about a pilot he knew who did overdo it and his passenger left his cockpit and sat on the pilotS windshield Woody swore that it was true Stranger things have happened Anyway I started to give all passengers a little dip whether they asked for it or not

A young girl got aboard with her parents She sat in one of the front

8

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

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Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

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2 0 JANUARY 2002

His experience with his new old airplane led him to the restoration arena and over the years hes creshyated a steady stream of beautiful restorations including a Warnershypowered Fleet 1 trainer and a Cessna C-34 His most recent restoration was chosen as the Grand Champion Antique during the 1993 EAA Sun n Fun Fly-In In partnership with

Barbara Kitchens Roy restored a very special Davis D-1W Originally owned by Walter Davis owner of Davis Airshycraft of Richmond Indiana it was dubbed Whistler II lt had a bump cowl sliding canopy and wheelpants As reshystored by Roy the D-1W is the spitting

image of its

former self and it

continues to turn heads nearly a

decade after its restoration

Along the way inshyterspersed between his restorations Roy

built a Marquart Charger that also wowed

spectators His vintage orientation still showed in his homebuilt as he finished it in the markings of a preshywar Curtiss Helldiver as it flew off the Saratoga with the navy squadron Fighting 6 His latest projshyect is an RV-8 homebuilt hes building with Lee Ballard

Roy continues to offer his expertshyise and skills to his many friends in the aviation world He has left a lasting mark on the aviation and vintage aircraft world with his breathtaking craftsmanship and never-ending desire to re-create the glory days of the past

Our congratulations to Roy on his induction into the VAA Hall of Fame

After graduation from the Citadel Roy signed up with the Navy and flew Navy blimps from the Santa Cruz Brazil blimp base The base was established near Rio de Janeiro because of the nearly new Zeppelin hangar built for the Graf Zeppelin

Roys restored Cessna C-34 Airmaster in

1975

His first restoration was a Warner-powshyered Fleet Model 1 biplane which deshy

lighted Roy with its excellent flying

qualities Spectashytors were equally

thrilled by the outshystanding

workmanship Roy a career dentist

had used in reshybuilding the Fleet

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 5

Days WILLIAM B DUNN

Before Dutch Redfield started teaching secondary flight training he was goshying up one day to practice acrobatics and invited me

along We put on helmets and gogshygles strapped on our parachutes climbed aboard and were off-it was a thrill even before we started any maneuvers Dutch could talk to m e through a gadget called a Gosport which was nothing but a hose running from his mouth to my ears but I couldnt talk to him I guess when he started instructing he would ask the students if th ey understood and they would nod their h eads up and down-th ey probably wouldnt dare shake it Sideways Dutch would practice snap rolls slow rolls loops Cubanshyeights the whole bit Luckily I didn t get sick

Then he said Do you have a fear of heights I Before I could nod my h ead up and down he rolled th e Waco over on its back and holding it inverted he told me to tilt m y head back and look at the ground Im now upside down hanging by

JANUARY 2002

Bill climbs out steeply with the New Standard in the summer of 1941 The colshyors as confirmed by Bill by looking at some old movie footage are an orange fuselage and rudder with yellow stripes and yellow wings and horizontal tail

my seat belt looking at the ground with nothing between it and me but space Well Im here to tell you its the most fright ening thing yo u could pOSSibly imagine for anyone who even thinks he or she has a fear of heights It was unbelievable Looking over the balcony in a tall building and straight down got me This was the same on ly 10 times more so I was never overly enthused about aerobatics altho ugh I did snap roll (slowly and poorly) and loop and spin my Taylorcraft I rode with Harold in this Cu lver Cadet while he snap rolled it at cruisi ng speed Man would it ever snap roll Harold apparently didnt undershystand about wing loadings any better than Macl McGlynn Later I looped some other planes which probably werent meant to be and I had some great rides in my Navy training However I really wasnt cut out to be a stunt pilot

I somehow survived my learning years-early learning years that is in that you never seem to finish learnshying as long as you fly-and got my commercial rating I passed the writshyten for my instructors rating and was waiting to take my flight test when an eve nt took place that changed my plans ConSiderably

It was early summer 1941 and I was standing outside of Harry Wards hangar Harry and I were chatting when a big old biplane taxied in This was a BIG biplane The pilot jumped out and walked over to greet Harry His name was Ralph Barneyl Barnard and Harry introduced us Barney told Harry that he had just accepted a job with Scintilla a manshyufacturer in Sydney New York flying a Stinson Gullwing He would have to quit barnstorming with that big old biplane a New Standard that was built in 1929 and he was lookshying for a pilot Harry told him that I

6

was available and that I had a Barney signaled for me to keep commercial certificate Barney it running He climbed up on told me to jump in and take it the wing and told me that he around the field This too knew I cou ld do better than was going to be one of my that and to take it around more memorable flights again What a great guy The

I had never flown anything next time around I made a but a Taylorcraft although I good landing and Barney gave had made the aforementioned me the job What a great expeshyflight with Dutch The only rience it was going to be similarity between the Waco To qualify for the job I had and the Standard was that they to get a horsepower rating were both open cockpi t bishy The Waco UPF-7 biplane planes As I stated the would fill the bill I needed Standard was BIG It had a five hours as I remember to front cockpit that had a bench get the rating in the back that could hold The eAA inspector gave me two normal size people or my flight test which really three small ones Ahead of that didnt amount to much more was two seats for two more than a couple of landings and The Standard was sometimes takeoffs When we finished he referred to as a Bathtub Stanshy volunteered some advice He dard because of that front noted from looking at my logshycockpit The pilots cockpit book that I had practically was just behind The plane nothing but Taylorcraft time had a SO-foot top wing a and then he advised me smaller bottom wing and against taking a job flying large tall wheels It had terrific something like the Standard lift from that wing and the Only 19 years old with a fresh commercial pilots that was sitting in the hangar tall wheels were designed to certificate in his pocket and Bill Dunn thought he getting some work done I go over woodchuck holesshy was a seasoned barnstormer as he herded the guessed that the word had gotshyand a lot of other things mammoth biplane around upstate New York Bill has ten out about my new job I

Barney gave me a cockpit never stopped flying only recently selling his beloved think what had him conshycheck and pointed out the Grumman Widgeon after 35 years of stewardship cerned and rightfully so was unique rudder controls and that a pilot named Pepsi had brakes Two L-shaped bars spun in the previous week up hung down in the cockpit to the over that huge empty front cockpit at Pulaski New York and killed the right and left of the pilots feet with this flight reminded me a bit of my two passengers in the front cockpit the bottom of the L facing inward first solo It was very exciting but He had been flying a New Standard Thats where your feet were to be lonely The Standard was ready to fly on placed to control the rudders Two I took off to the north and then that Friday and we were to begin more L-shaped bars or rods hung circled around to the left and proshy carrying passengers the next day I down inside of those facing in the ceeded to make my approach to took it out and shot a few takeoffs opposite direction Those were the land in the same direction I figured and landings and then proceeded to brake controls You would have to I would land in full view of Harry Fulton New York to get ready for take your feet off the rudder controls and Barney standing alongside my new job to use the brakes Most unusual Harrys hangar They would get to The field at Fulton was just a big

Barney threw the prop and I taxshy observe what was probably the worst grass field west of town It had no ied out Alone of course because landing that the poor old Standard hangars and of course no runways there were no dual controls and I could have ever suffered I proceeded Our advance agent had circulated certainly couldnt expect Barney to to level off way too high and it posters around town announcing take a joy ride up there in the front dropped in that the Goodwill Flyers would be cockpit Barney was foolish enough Kaboom carrying passengers that weekend We to let me fly his airplane but he I thought Thats great idiot had a sound truck with loud speakers wasnt that foolish you just blew a great job on the roof and crowd control ropes

After I took off and looked out I taxied in feeling very sheepish to keep the crowd back Our advance

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 7

agent was Tommy Baker He was an old parachute jumper and was nickshynamed Diamond because he had a good-sized diamond in one of his eyeteeth My boss was Woody Wisshyner Woody was only about 30 r was 19 We split the total take My pershycentage was only 16 percent I never did know what Woody and Tommy got r always figured that Barney got SO percent as well he should have I made $100 a week at my percentage and I was tickled pink in spite of the fact that r was the only pilot and doshying most of the work Fulton was where I got my feet wet It was where my barnstorming career started and almost ended

We started carrying passengers on Saturday As the passengers boarded the plane I would stand up in my cockpit and lean forward and advise them on how to put on their seat belts I was told to make very short flights Just extend the downwind over Fulton and land The customers were paying only SO cents a ride so they couldnt complain After two or three flights Woody came out to the plane and asked me why I was takshying so long to leave the line r told him about advising the passengers to put on their seat belts He told me not to do that anymore as it was deshylaying the departures He also told me that the belts werent any good anyway If they were anything like mine then that was the truth Mine was a big wide belt that was ripped half apart at the hinge In fact a couple of weeks later when I got to be a hotshot I would loop the Stanshydard over the town when I arrived at a new location I would put my shoulder under the cowl on the left side of the cockpit and hold on to the seat with my left hand after opening the throttle If r should fall out of the loop I didnt want to fall out of the airplane

While flying at Fulton I began to gain more and more confidence By Saturday afternoon I would make a fancy climbing turn out make a wide turn over town on my downshywind and side slip in on my final to

JANUARY 2002

a series of landings that were getting better all the time I found that I had to side slip in order to see beshycause r sat back so far I couldnt see over the nose

On Sunday I noted that a yellow Cub was also using the field for takeshyoffs and landings I made it a point to be sure of where it was at all times I was beginning to step up my taxishying speed We had a good crowd and we wanted to get in as many hops as we could before dark I had been carrying passengers for a coushyple of hours and started out for another hop when I noted that the Cub was coming in on its final apshyproach I poured the coal to the Standard and was taxiing really fast to my takeoff spot when suddenly I got the surprise of my young life Right out from under my right wing taxied another Cub

The Cub pilot never knew how close he came to having that big Wright engine chew up his airplane and possibly anyone aboard I was stunned Apparently the Cub that I saw was another Cub coming in and the one that I almost hit was the one that I should have been looking for I was never going to learn any clearer especially in flyshying the phrase Dont assume anythingI

Woody told me that we would be using small airports like Fulton all the time because of my inexperishyence He lied Our next stop was Canandaigua Our location there wasnt an airport and I doubt that any airplane had ever used the field before-even in an emergency The object of course was to find a field as close to town as possible This was Diamond Bakers job He would make a deal with the owner of the field usually a farmer we would deSignate it our airport and then we were in business

This field in Canandaigua was close to town all right but that was all I could say for it It was right alongside a road and was about 1000 maybe 1200 feet long The length was all right it was the apshy

proaches that were challenging Also the field ran north and south Trees pretty much surrounded the field on the north and west sid e and high-tension lines on the south end Unless I had a real favoring southwest wind that called for a takeoff over the power lines I would take off to the north Once off the ground I would bank through a good-sized opening in the trees and fly over a golf course Then I was over the lake and the town would be on my right To come in to the south I would have to approach beshytween a nice clearing between trees slipping of course most of the way to the ground At the last moment I would completely reverse controls With the stick all the way back I would set down usually nicely on all three pOints Because I had been deshyscending so rapidly in my side slip I found that because of the speed the airplane settled right through ground effect and wanted to go flyshying again To stay on the ground I had to immediately shove forward on the stick to keep it on the main gear It was tricky J felt that I was reshyally getting good This may all sound far-fetched exaggerated at best but it is true

I had one of my many interesting barnstorming experiences while flyshying at Canandaigua J found that people enjoyed what they called the dip They would tell me while getshyting aboard to do a dip The dip consisted of shoving forward on the stick while leveling off after takeoff This would make them light in their seat and give them a thrill in their stomach They loved it I had to keep in mind that they didnt have seat be lts on and not overdo it Woody had told me about a pilot he knew who did overdo it and his passenger left his cockpit and sat on the pilotS windshield Woody swore that it was true Stranger things have happened Anyway I started to give all passengers a little dip whether they asked for it or not

A young girl got aboard with her parents She sat in one of the front

8

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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2 0 JANUARY 2002

Days WILLIAM B DUNN

Before Dutch Redfield started teaching secondary flight training he was goshying up one day to practice acrobatics and invited me

along We put on helmets and gogshygles strapped on our parachutes climbed aboard and were off-it was a thrill even before we started any maneuvers Dutch could talk to m e through a gadget called a Gosport which was nothing but a hose running from his mouth to my ears but I couldnt talk to him I guess when he started instructing he would ask the students if th ey understood and they would nod their h eads up and down-th ey probably wouldnt dare shake it Sideways Dutch would practice snap rolls slow rolls loops Cubanshyeights the whole bit Luckily I didn t get sick

Then he said Do you have a fear of heights I Before I could nod my h ead up and down he rolled th e Waco over on its back and holding it inverted he told me to tilt m y head back and look at the ground Im now upside down hanging by

JANUARY 2002

Bill climbs out steeply with the New Standard in the summer of 1941 The colshyors as confirmed by Bill by looking at some old movie footage are an orange fuselage and rudder with yellow stripes and yellow wings and horizontal tail

my seat belt looking at the ground with nothing between it and me but space Well Im here to tell you its the most fright ening thing yo u could pOSSibly imagine for anyone who even thinks he or she has a fear of heights It was unbelievable Looking over the balcony in a tall building and straight down got me This was the same on ly 10 times more so I was never overly enthused about aerobatics altho ugh I did snap roll (slowly and poorly) and loop and spin my Taylorcraft I rode with Harold in this Cu lver Cadet while he snap rolled it at cruisi ng speed Man would it ever snap roll Harold apparently didnt undershystand about wing loadings any better than Macl McGlynn Later I looped some other planes which probably werent meant to be and I had some great rides in my Navy training However I really wasnt cut out to be a stunt pilot

I somehow survived my learning years-early learning years that is in that you never seem to finish learnshying as long as you fly-and got my commercial rating I passed the writshyten for my instructors rating and was waiting to take my flight test when an eve nt took place that changed my plans ConSiderably

It was early summer 1941 and I was standing outside of Harry Wards hangar Harry and I were chatting when a big old biplane taxied in This was a BIG biplane The pilot jumped out and walked over to greet Harry His name was Ralph Barneyl Barnard and Harry introduced us Barney told Harry that he had just accepted a job with Scintilla a manshyufacturer in Sydney New York flying a Stinson Gullwing He would have to quit barnstorming with that big old biplane a New Standard that was built in 1929 and he was lookshying for a pilot Harry told him that I

6

was available and that I had a Barney signaled for me to keep commercial certificate Barney it running He climbed up on told me to jump in and take it the wing and told me that he around the field This too knew I cou ld do better than was going to be one of my that and to take it around more memorable flights again What a great guy The

I had never flown anything next time around I made a but a Taylorcraft although I good landing and Barney gave had made the aforementioned me the job What a great expeshyflight with Dutch The only rience it was going to be similarity between the Waco To qualify for the job I had and the Standard was that they to get a horsepower rating were both open cockpi t bishy The Waco UPF-7 biplane planes As I stated the would fill the bill I needed Standard was BIG It had a five hours as I remember to front cockpit that had a bench get the rating in the back that could hold The eAA inspector gave me two normal size people or my flight test which really three small ones Ahead of that didnt amount to much more was two seats for two more than a couple of landings and The Standard was sometimes takeoffs When we finished he referred to as a Bathtub Stanshy volunteered some advice He dard because of that front noted from looking at my logshycockpit The pilots cockpit book that I had practically was just behind The plane nothing but Taylorcraft time had a SO-foot top wing a and then he advised me smaller bottom wing and against taking a job flying large tall wheels It had terrific something like the Standard lift from that wing and the Only 19 years old with a fresh commercial pilots that was sitting in the hangar tall wheels were designed to certificate in his pocket and Bill Dunn thought he getting some work done I go over woodchuck holesshy was a seasoned barnstormer as he herded the guessed that the word had gotshyand a lot of other things mammoth biplane around upstate New York Bill has ten out about my new job I

Barney gave me a cockpit never stopped flying only recently selling his beloved think what had him conshycheck and pointed out the Grumman Widgeon after 35 years of stewardship cerned and rightfully so was unique rudder controls and that a pilot named Pepsi had brakes Two L-shaped bars spun in the previous week up hung down in the cockpit to the over that huge empty front cockpit at Pulaski New York and killed the right and left of the pilots feet with this flight reminded me a bit of my two passengers in the front cockpit the bottom of the L facing inward first solo It was very exciting but He had been flying a New Standard Thats where your feet were to be lonely The Standard was ready to fly on placed to control the rudders Two I took off to the north and then that Friday and we were to begin more L-shaped bars or rods hung circled around to the left and proshy carrying passengers the next day I down inside of those facing in the ceeded to make my approach to took it out and shot a few takeoffs opposite direction Those were the land in the same direction I figured and landings and then proceeded to brake controls You would have to I would land in full view of Harry Fulton New York to get ready for take your feet off the rudder controls and Barney standing alongside my new job to use the brakes Most unusual Harrys hangar They would get to The field at Fulton was just a big

Barney threw the prop and I taxshy observe what was probably the worst grass field west of town It had no ied out Alone of course because landing that the poor old Standard hangars and of course no runways there were no dual controls and I could have ever suffered I proceeded Our advance agent had circulated certainly couldnt expect Barney to to level off way too high and it posters around town announcing take a joy ride up there in the front dropped in that the Goodwill Flyers would be cockpit Barney was foolish enough Kaboom carrying passengers that weekend We to let me fly his airplane but he I thought Thats great idiot had a sound truck with loud speakers wasnt that foolish you just blew a great job on the roof and crowd control ropes

After I took off and looked out I taxied in feeling very sheepish to keep the crowd back Our advance

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 7

agent was Tommy Baker He was an old parachute jumper and was nickshynamed Diamond because he had a good-sized diamond in one of his eyeteeth My boss was Woody Wisshyner Woody was only about 30 r was 19 We split the total take My pershycentage was only 16 percent I never did know what Woody and Tommy got r always figured that Barney got SO percent as well he should have I made $100 a week at my percentage and I was tickled pink in spite of the fact that r was the only pilot and doshying most of the work Fulton was where I got my feet wet It was where my barnstorming career started and almost ended

We started carrying passengers on Saturday As the passengers boarded the plane I would stand up in my cockpit and lean forward and advise them on how to put on their seat belts I was told to make very short flights Just extend the downwind over Fulton and land The customers were paying only SO cents a ride so they couldnt complain After two or three flights Woody came out to the plane and asked me why I was takshying so long to leave the line r told him about advising the passengers to put on their seat belts He told me not to do that anymore as it was deshylaying the departures He also told me that the belts werent any good anyway If they were anything like mine then that was the truth Mine was a big wide belt that was ripped half apart at the hinge In fact a couple of weeks later when I got to be a hotshot I would loop the Stanshydard over the town when I arrived at a new location I would put my shoulder under the cowl on the left side of the cockpit and hold on to the seat with my left hand after opening the throttle If r should fall out of the loop I didnt want to fall out of the airplane

While flying at Fulton I began to gain more and more confidence By Saturday afternoon I would make a fancy climbing turn out make a wide turn over town on my downshywind and side slip in on my final to

JANUARY 2002

a series of landings that were getting better all the time I found that I had to side slip in order to see beshycause r sat back so far I couldnt see over the nose

On Sunday I noted that a yellow Cub was also using the field for takeshyoffs and landings I made it a point to be sure of where it was at all times I was beginning to step up my taxishying speed We had a good crowd and we wanted to get in as many hops as we could before dark I had been carrying passengers for a coushyple of hours and started out for another hop when I noted that the Cub was coming in on its final apshyproach I poured the coal to the Standard and was taxiing really fast to my takeoff spot when suddenly I got the surprise of my young life Right out from under my right wing taxied another Cub

The Cub pilot never knew how close he came to having that big Wright engine chew up his airplane and possibly anyone aboard I was stunned Apparently the Cub that I saw was another Cub coming in and the one that I almost hit was the one that I should have been looking for I was never going to learn any clearer especially in flyshying the phrase Dont assume anythingI

Woody told me that we would be using small airports like Fulton all the time because of my inexperishyence He lied Our next stop was Canandaigua Our location there wasnt an airport and I doubt that any airplane had ever used the field before-even in an emergency The object of course was to find a field as close to town as possible This was Diamond Bakers job He would make a deal with the owner of the field usually a farmer we would deSignate it our airport and then we were in business

This field in Canandaigua was close to town all right but that was all I could say for it It was right alongside a road and was about 1000 maybe 1200 feet long The length was all right it was the apshy

proaches that were challenging Also the field ran north and south Trees pretty much surrounded the field on the north and west sid e and high-tension lines on the south end Unless I had a real favoring southwest wind that called for a takeoff over the power lines I would take off to the north Once off the ground I would bank through a good-sized opening in the trees and fly over a golf course Then I was over the lake and the town would be on my right To come in to the south I would have to approach beshytween a nice clearing between trees slipping of course most of the way to the ground At the last moment I would completely reverse controls With the stick all the way back I would set down usually nicely on all three pOints Because I had been deshyscending so rapidly in my side slip I found that because of the speed the airplane settled right through ground effect and wanted to go flyshying again To stay on the ground I had to immediately shove forward on the stick to keep it on the main gear It was tricky J felt that I was reshyally getting good This may all sound far-fetched exaggerated at best but it is true

I had one of my many interesting barnstorming experiences while flyshying at Canandaigua J found that people enjoyed what they called the dip They would tell me while getshyting aboard to do a dip The dip consisted of shoving forward on the stick while leveling off after takeoff This would make them light in their seat and give them a thrill in their stomach They loved it I had to keep in mind that they didnt have seat be lts on and not overdo it Woody had told me about a pilot he knew who did overdo it and his passenger left his cockpit and sat on the pilotS windshield Woody swore that it was true Stranger things have happened Anyway I started to give all passengers a little dip whether they asked for it or not

A young girl got aboard with her parents She sat in one of the front

8

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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was available and that I had a Barney signaled for me to keep commercial certificate Barney it running He climbed up on told me to jump in and take it the wing and told me that he around the field This too knew I cou ld do better than was going to be one of my that and to take it around more memorable flights again What a great guy The

I had never flown anything next time around I made a but a Taylorcraft although I good landing and Barney gave had made the aforementioned me the job What a great expeshyflight with Dutch The only rience it was going to be similarity between the Waco To qualify for the job I had and the Standard was that they to get a horsepower rating were both open cockpi t bishy The Waco UPF-7 biplane planes As I stated the would fill the bill I needed Standard was BIG It had a five hours as I remember to front cockpit that had a bench get the rating in the back that could hold The eAA inspector gave me two normal size people or my flight test which really three small ones Ahead of that didnt amount to much more was two seats for two more than a couple of landings and The Standard was sometimes takeoffs When we finished he referred to as a Bathtub Stanshy volunteered some advice He dard because of that front noted from looking at my logshycockpit The pilots cockpit book that I had practically was just behind The plane nothing but Taylorcraft time had a SO-foot top wing a and then he advised me smaller bottom wing and against taking a job flying large tall wheels It had terrific something like the Standard lift from that wing and the Only 19 years old with a fresh commercial pilots that was sitting in the hangar tall wheels were designed to certificate in his pocket and Bill Dunn thought he getting some work done I go over woodchuck holesshy was a seasoned barnstormer as he herded the guessed that the word had gotshyand a lot of other things mammoth biplane around upstate New York Bill has ten out about my new job I

Barney gave me a cockpit never stopped flying only recently selling his beloved think what had him conshycheck and pointed out the Grumman Widgeon after 35 years of stewardship cerned and rightfully so was unique rudder controls and that a pilot named Pepsi had brakes Two L-shaped bars spun in the previous week up hung down in the cockpit to the over that huge empty front cockpit at Pulaski New York and killed the right and left of the pilots feet with this flight reminded me a bit of my two passengers in the front cockpit the bottom of the L facing inward first solo It was very exciting but He had been flying a New Standard Thats where your feet were to be lonely The Standard was ready to fly on placed to control the rudders Two I took off to the north and then that Friday and we were to begin more L-shaped bars or rods hung circled around to the left and proshy carrying passengers the next day I down inside of those facing in the ceeded to make my approach to took it out and shot a few takeoffs opposite direction Those were the land in the same direction I figured and landings and then proceeded to brake controls You would have to I would land in full view of Harry Fulton New York to get ready for take your feet off the rudder controls and Barney standing alongside my new job to use the brakes Most unusual Harrys hangar They would get to The field at Fulton was just a big

Barney threw the prop and I taxshy observe what was probably the worst grass field west of town It had no ied out Alone of course because landing that the poor old Standard hangars and of course no runways there were no dual controls and I could have ever suffered I proceeded Our advance agent had circulated certainly couldnt expect Barney to to level off way too high and it posters around town announcing take a joy ride up there in the front dropped in that the Goodwill Flyers would be cockpit Barney was foolish enough Kaboom carrying passengers that weekend We to let me fly his airplane but he I thought Thats great idiot had a sound truck with loud speakers wasnt that foolish you just blew a great job on the roof and crowd control ropes

After I took off and looked out I taxied in feeling very sheepish to keep the crowd back Our advance

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 7

agent was Tommy Baker He was an old parachute jumper and was nickshynamed Diamond because he had a good-sized diamond in one of his eyeteeth My boss was Woody Wisshyner Woody was only about 30 r was 19 We split the total take My pershycentage was only 16 percent I never did know what Woody and Tommy got r always figured that Barney got SO percent as well he should have I made $100 a week at my percentage and I was tickled pink in spite of the fact that r was the only pilot and doshying most of the work Fulton was where I got my feet wet It was where my barnstorming career started and almost ended

We started carrying passengers on Saturday As the passengers boarded the plane I would stand up in my cockpit and lean forward and advise them on how to put on their seat belts I was told to make very short flights Just extend the downwind over Fulton and land The customers were paying only SO cents a ride so they couldnt complain After two or three flights Woody came out to the plane and asked me why I was takshying so long to leave the line r told him about advising the passengers to put on their seat belts He told me not to do that anymore as it was deshylaying the departures He also told me that the belts werent any good anyway If they were anything like mine then that was the truth Mine was a big wide belt that was ripped half apart at the hinge In fact a couple of weeks later when I got to be a hotshot I would loop the Stanshydard over the town when I arrived at a new location I would put my shoulder under the cowl on the left side of the cockpit and hold on to the seat with my left hand after opening the throttle If r should fall out of the loop I didnt want to fall out of the airplane

While flying at Fulton I began to gain more and more confidence By Saturday afternoon I would make a fancy climbing turn out make a wide turn over town on my downshywind and side slip in on my final to

JANUARY 2002

a series of landings that were getting better all the time I found that I had to side slip in order to see beshycause r sat back so far I couldnt see over the nose

On Sunday I noted that a yellow Cub was also using the field for takeshyoffs and landings I made it a point to be sure of where it was at all times I was beginning to step up my taxishying speed We had a good crowd and we wanted to get in as many hops as we could before dark I had been carrying passengers for a coushyple of hours and started out for another hop when I noted that the Cub was coming in on its final apshyproach I poured the coal to the Standard and was taxiing really fast to my takeoff spot when suddenly I got the surprise of my young life Right out from under my right wing taxied another Cub

The Cub pilot never knew how close he came to having that big Wright engine chew up his airplane and possibly anyone aboard I was stunned Apparently the Cub that I saw was another Cub coming in and the one that I almost hit was the one that I should have been looking for I was never going to learn any clearer especially in flyshying the phrase Dont assume anythingI

Woody told me that we would be using small airports like Fulton all the time because of my inexperishyence He lied Our next stop was Canandaigua Our location there wasnt an airport and I doubt that any airplane had ever used the field before-even in an emergency The object of course was to find a field as close to town as possible This was Diamond Bakers job He would make a deal with the owner of the field usually a farmer we would deSignate it our airport and then we were in business

This field in Canandaigua was close to town all right but that was all I could say for it It was right alongside a road and was about 1000 maybe 1200 feet long The length was all right it was the apshy

proaches that were challenging Also the field ran north and south Trees pretty much surrounded the field on the north and west sid e and high-tension lines on the south end Unless I had a real favoring southwest wind that called for a takeoff over the power lines I would take off to the north Once off the ground I would bank through a good-sized opening in the trees and fly over a golf course Then I was over the lake and the town would be on my right To come in to the south I would have to approach beshytween a nice clearing between trees slipping of course most of the way to the ground At the last moment I would completely reverse controls With the stick all the way back I would set down usually nicely on all three pOints Because I had been deshyscending so rapidly in my side slip I found that because of the speed the airplane settled right through ground effect and wanted to go flyshying again To stay on the ground I had to immediately shove forward on the stick to keep it on the main gear It was tricky J felt that I was reshyally getting good This may all sound far-fetched exaggerated at best but it is true

I had one of my many interesting barnstorming experiences while flyshying at Canandaigua J found that people enjoyed what they called the dip They would tell me while getshyting aboard to do a dip The dip consisted of shoving forward on the stick while leveling off after takeoff This would make them light in their seat and give them a thrill in their stomach They loved it I had to keep in mind that they didnt have seat be lts on and not overdo it Woody had told me about a pilot he knew who did overdo it and his passenger left his cockpit and sat on the pilotS windshield Woody swore that it was true Stranger things have happened Anyway I started to give all passengers a little dip whether they asked for it or not

A young girl got aboard with her parents She sat in one of the front

8

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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agent was Tommy Baker He was an old parachute jumper and was nickshynamed Diamond because he had a good-sized diamond in one of his eyeteeth My boss was Woody Wisshyner Woody was only about 30 r was 19 We split the total take My pershycentage was only 16 percent I never did know what Woody and Tommy got r always figured that Barney got SO percent as well he should have I made $100 a week at my percentage and I was tickled pink in spite of the fact that r was the only pilot and doshying most of the work Fulton was where I got my feet wet It was where my barnstorming career started and almost ended

We started carrying passengers on Saturday As the passengers boarded the plane I would stand up in my cockpit and lean forward and advise them on how to put on their seat belts I was told to make very short flights Just extend the downwind over Fulton and land The customers were paying only SO cents a ride so they couldnt complain After two or three flights Woody came out to the plane and asked me why I was takshying so long to leave the line r told him about advising the passengers to put on their seat belts He told me not to do that anymore as it was deshylaying the departures He also told me that the belts werent any good anyway If they were anything like mine then that was the truth Mine was a big wide belt that was ripped half apart at the hinge In fact a couple of weeks later when I got to be a hotshot I would loop the Stanshydard over the town when I arrived at a new location I would put my shoulder under the cowl on the left side of the cockpit and hold on to the seat with my left hand after opening the throttle If r should fall out of the loop I didnt want to fall out of the airplane

While flying at Fulton I began to gain more and more confidence By Saturday afternoon I would make a fancy climbing turn out make a wide turn over town on my downshywind and side slip in on my final to

JANUARY 2002

a series of landings that were getting better all the time I found that I had to side slip in order to see beshycause r sat back so far I couldnt see over the nose

On Sunday I noted that a yellow Cub was also using the field for takeshyoffs and landings I made it a point to be sure of where it was at all times I was beginning to step up my taxishying speed We had a good crowd and we wanted to get in as many hops as we could before dark I had been carrying passengers for a coushyple of hours and started out for another hop when I noted that the Cub was coming in on its final apshyproach I poured the coal to the Standard and was taxiing really fast to my takeoff spot when suddenly I got the surprise of my young life Right out from under my right wing taxied another Cub

The Cub pilot never knew how close he came to having that big Wright engine chew up his airplane and possibly anyone aboard I was stunned Apparently the Cub that I saw was another Cub coming in and the one that I almost hit was the one that I should have been looking for I was never going to learn any clearer especially in flyshying the phrase Dont assume anythingI

Woody told me that we would be using small airports like Fulton all the time because of my inexperishyence He lied Our next stop was Canandaigua Our location there wasnt an airport and I doubt that any airplane had ever used the field before-even in an emergency The object of course was to find a field as close to town as possible This was Diamond Bakers job He would make a deal with the owner of the field usually a farmer we would deSignate it our airport and then we were in business

This field in Canandaigua was close to town all right but that was all I could say for it It was right alongside a road and was about 1000 maybe 1200 feet long The length was all right it was the apshy

proaches that were challenging Also the field ran north and south Trees pretty much surrounded the field on the north and west sid e and high-tension lines on the south end Unless I had a real favoring southwest wind that called for a takeoff over the power lines I would take off to the north Once off the ground I would bank through a good-sized opening in the trees and fly over a golf course Then I was over the lake and the town would be on my right To come in to the south I would have to approach beshytween a nice clearing between trees slipping of course most of the way to the ground At the last moment I would completely reverse controls With the stick all the way back I would set down usually nicely on all three pOints Because I had been deshyscending so rapidly in my side slip I found that because of the speed the airplane settled right through ground effect and wanted to go flyshying again To stay on the ground I had to immediately shove forward on the stick to keep it on the main gear It was tricky J felt that I was reshyally getting good This may all sound far-fetched exaggerated at best but it is true

I had one of my many interesting barnstorming experiences while flyshying at Canandaigua J found that people enjoyed what they called the dip They would tell me while getshyting aboard to do a dip The dip consisted of shoving forward on the stick while leveling off after takeoff This would make them light in their seat and give them a thrill in their stomach They loved it I had to keep in mind that they didnt have seat be lts on and not overdo it Woody had told me about a pilot he knew who did overdo it and his passenger left his cockpit and sat on the pilotS windshield Woody swore that it was true Stranger things have happened Anyway I started to give all passengers a little dip whether they asked for it or not

A young girl got aboard with her parents She sat in one of the front

8

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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2 0 JANUARY 2002

Captain Dunn and Woody The New Standard never built in great numshybers was a tremendous load-hauling biplane The upper wing spanned 45 feet and the 220 hp Wright Whirlwind mounted on the front of the masshysive fuselage could easily haul four or five passengers plus the pilot Even at just 50 cents a ride the airplane made such a profit for the troupe that it would take Bill years before hed earn $100 a week again

seats her folks sat in the back and then we took off As I leveled off I gave the plane its usual dip The young girl turned around laughing but not her mother I saw the mothers h ead fall over on her hu sband s shou ld er It stayed there for the rest of the sh ort flight I thought that she was just scared But I learned differently

When we pulled up to the lin e and stopped the daught er anshynounced that her mother had passed out She also announced that the dip that I had done had been the cause of it I was stunned They lifted her out of the plane and call ed an ambulance I continued my flying but without any more dips Each time I landed I inquired about the lady but it was always bad news She had not come to I was getting frantic when finally they told me that the m edics had brought her around and that she was going to be all right What a relief

Things were more or less uneventshyful for a while after that We worked better fields and I was getting rich Anne and I married and she wou ld visit me most weekends We would eat in diners with Woody and someshytimes Tommy Diamond Baker and we would stay in cheap hotels All hotels in small towns were cheap in those days as a matter of fact Life was exciting and good What a break for a 19-year-old g reenh orn We would sit around one of the hotel rooms on Sunday night and Woody would count out my pay usually in

$1 bills It was always around $100 I didnt know it but I wasn t to make that kind of money again fo r a coushyple of years

A couple of times I a lm os t damshyaged Barneys beautiful bird The first time was in a town west of Rochester up near Lake Ontario We arrived on Friday and were all set for a good weekend We had a ni ce farmers field to work out of except that it ran north and south This was to cost us a lot of business and nearly put us out of business for the rest of the summer

A strong wind came up on Saturshyday right smack out of the west 90 degrees across our fie ld The people started arriving and it was very tempting to take a shot at it Sunday arrived and so did a lot more people We finally decided to give it a go It turned out to be a very bad decision

My first trip was uneventful exshycept that I knew that it was going to be a long and exciting afternoon if we kept at it I could te ll by the amount of crab that I had to hold on fina l that the wind was really too much I straightened it out and held the left wi ng down until it almost hit the ground and landed o n th e left wheel and tai l Then when the right wheel touched down and the old bird naturally wanted to turn into the wind I had to hold full right brake to

keep it strai ght I should have quit right then and there wh ile we were ahead But no with my head up and locked (a n old Navy expression) we loaded up and I took off aga in This next landing was almost my last for the season

The plane took its expected dive to the left and I took my right foot off the rudd e r bar t o take a quick shot at the brake bar My foot hit the back of the front seat instead of the brake and the split second that it took m e to get on it was all it took for the plane to turn almost 90 deshygrees to the str ip We litera lly slid Sideways to a halt I never did know why it didnt go up o n a wing Of course that did it for the day

We were working Batavia when my next adventure came close to endi n g our season Diamond had found us a pretty good farmers field right on the edge of town It ran east and west and on Saturday with a light west wind it was perfect We had a good crowd and had our sound truck and crowd control lines set up on the west end of the field This field was good but it had its peshyculiarities For instance up near the west end where I would take off the field had som e pretty good rolls in it This was fine for departures for I could use them to assist in getting airborne If my timing was right I

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9

would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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would go down one roll and up the next and then I was flying

However landing was a bit differshyent I had to come across a cornfield and land in the only really level porshytion which was perhaps only 200 or 300 feet long

Saturday was great We had a good crowd and with the light west wind I was able to take off to the east and land to the west into the crowd I was averaging three minshyutes gate to gate Diamond was in good spirits as usual When a pretty girl would get on board Diamond would give me a punch signal with his left hand When the girl would step up onto the wing with Diashymonds assistance I would gun the engine a bit as if just clearing it and bingo up would go her skirt Reshymember this was in 1941 Little things like that brightened our days

On Sunday things got different The wind shifted to the south That meant about a 90-degree crosswind It wasnt strong enough to cancel our flights and we had a good crowd I had worked an hour or two making sure that I landed short of the rolls but not in the cornfield I was handling the crosswind like the real pro that I thought I was beginshyning to be Suddenly I landed just a tad too long and found myself in the first roll The Standard dipped down and the old bird almost got airborne It started to turn into the wind blowing in from my left and the rudder wouldnt straighten it out I went over to the right brake and being still light on the wheels it had little effect The plane was now heading due south right toward a row of trees bordering the field

Finally the brakes took effect and the plane started turning to the right The left wingtip brushed the nearest tree and picked up a branch between the navigation light and the wingtip bow With the branch hanging from the wingtip we taxied back to the line When we arrived Woody said over the loudspeaker Hey Captain Dunn I see you had a little frolic in the woods Diamond pulled the

10 JANUARY 2002

branch away and we continued the operation The only damage was the lens in the navigation light

Woody always announced to the crowd that I was Captain Dunn with thousands of hours If they only knew that I was just a 19-year-old kid with fewer than 500 hours

Summer had ended and we were getting into the fall of 1941 The last place we worked on our barnstormshying tour was Elmira And we were working at an airport It had only one grass strip and I kind of missed the farmers fields that we had all to ourselves At Elmira the throttle was starting to bind and I was having trouble getting it to close all the way I had to work it forward and back a few times and it was messing up my approaches somewhat I found myself getting very irritated What I didnt realize was that I was getting burned out I dont believe anybody ever used that expression back in those days

I was the only pilot and I had days especially Saturdays and Sunshydays when I wou ld fly from about nine in the morning until dark The only time that I would be out of the plane was when we were gassing it Even then I had to pass the 5-gallon cans up to Diamond on the wing

I always side slipped the plane with the nose pointed to the right That meant that I had to hold full right rudder on every approach Afshyter landing I had to immediately get on the brakes hard in most cases Some days my knees got almost too sore to touch

It was all worth it however To think that about only 40 of those great New Standards had been built and by the time I got my job fewer than 20 of them were left And when I think of how privileged I was to get in on the last of real barnshystorming I was very lucky indeed

I couldnt tell you how many takeshyoffs and landings I made that summer I do know this however landings and takeoffs were never a problem after that summer On the land that is I could size up a situation and know

whether I could make it or not The season ended and I flew back

to Syracuse from Elmira But not beshyfore getting lost Woody had told me not to pay any attention to my compass because of all the iron that we always had stored up in the front cockpit He claimed that it threw the compass way off I hadnt stored any metal up forward therefore I used it except when I was sure of my dishyrection from landmarks Then I would hold that heading whatever it was All we had to navigate with then was road maps

Well I took off from Elmira and headed up what I thought was the right valley The compass was inshydeed way off Where it should have been showing a northerly heading it was showing more easterly I thought Wait till we get back home and tell everybody how I naVigated with such a lousy compass

The Finger Lakes should have been showing up but they werent Things were really getting confusing I couldshynt believe what was happening I hadnt been lost all summer Sudshydenly I spotted an airport I landed and it turned out to be Endicott Inshydeed the compass was right I had been going up the wrong valley I reshyally was heading east

I gassed up and flew home to Syracuse In a northerly direction I didnt bother to tell anybody about my great navigating

I asked Fred McGlynn what he thought I ought to do next I really didnt want to instruct in Taylorshycrafts Not that it wasnt a good job nothings wrong with Taylorcrafts Mine has served me well McGlynn advised me to enroll in Northeast Airlines Instrument School He had taken the course and had purchased a Howard DGA to teach instrument flying I took his advice

I was still 19 years old when I enshyrolled at Northeast in Boston It was November 1941 Little did any of us know what was going to happen beshyfore the year was out What was about to happen would change our lives forever

CK BY EE BUCK HILBERT EAA 21 VAA 5

PO Box 424 UNION IL 60180

Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

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Reliving my past Back in 68 before the ea rth

cooled my friend Dario Toffenettis wife Ginny dropped one on us about an old airplane she had known about since she was a little girl We were stunned She had never before shown any interest in our airplane diseases so this was as if a bomb went off

That service was the beginning of the Civil Air Mail (CAM) system that resulted in the airline system we know today United American Northwest and the rest all got their start in 1926 most of them with open cockpit airplanes of the era Capital with Wacos Northwest with

Wacos and Delta with Huff-Daland Dusters Varney with the Swallows later merged with Boeing National and Pacific to beshycome United Thats why four stars are in the pishylots wings-each star represents one of the founding airlines

The Swallow I restored and flew back in the 1970s and early So much for the 80s Thanks to the United Airlines Historical Foundation and background The EAA we ll have a flying Swallow at Pioneer Airport Ted Koston restored Swallow took this shot during the 1983 EAA convention in Oshkosh now resides in the

Dario was flabbergasted Ginny how long have we been married he asked

More than 20 years was the answer And you never told me You never asked Well that bit of information led

us to a commercial trucking garage in Northern Chicago and the disshycovery of a Swallow biplane

The rest of the story is that after several yea rs of negotiations we were finally able to get the airplane and then eventually restore that Swallow in the airmail configuration of Varshyney Airlines the predecessor of United Airlines that started airmail service between Pasco Washington and Boise Idaho

Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle Washington after eight years of very enjoyable flyshying during which I re-enacted the first flight on April 6 1976 (50 years after the first) of Varney carrying the same amount of mail Later I traveled the country to honor the pioneers who built the wonderful transportation sysshytem we have today [With your dawn patrols you also managed to wake up many ofus who used to camp in Pauls Park during the EAA conventions back in the early 1980s-EditorJ

Ive had regrets at seeing this wonshyderful old airplane hanging in the museum It represents an era long past and almost forgotten It should be flying its purpose is to continue the honor that is so deserved by those

people who started it all Well were embarking on a projshy

ect at EAA with the support of the United Airlines Historical Foundashytion to restore the EAA Swallow in the same airmail configuration for just that purpose

When completed the airmail Swallow will be based at the EAA FoundationS Pioneer Airport It will be a flying tribute to the airmail pioshyneers Not just the ones who started United but for all open-cockpit airshymail pioneers It will be used to give riders a taste of what it was like to fly the mail

The United Airlines Historical Foundation was formed to preserve the past and inspire the future Its a nonprofit organization put together to save the artifacts and history of the early airmail days The Foundation is not a part of United but it is comshyposed of friends who have strong feelings about the heritage of United and the airmail pioneers Cooperative efforts between EAA and the Foundashytion on the Swallow project are a beginning We hope to have the Swalshylow flying by next summer

More than 25 years ago I emushylated Captain Leon Cuddeback in that re-enactment Im looking forshyward to seeing this airplane fly again in tribute to him and the others like him who did what they had to do

Over to you K

t( ~tAr VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 1

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

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Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

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2 0 JANUARY 2002

~Ugust 1 1999 What a day fm flying The sky is that perfect cobalt blue Just a few puffy clouds give pershyspective to the endless spaces above The temperature is perfect The heat of the last few days has broken giving us this old plane and me one of those rare days where both man and machine just seem to run better

As I fly along the side window is rolled down My left elbow sticks out into the considerable breeze and the sensation is powerful but very pleasshyant on this day The air flowing over the wings and control surfaces and my elbow takes on an entirely differshyent character at this speed It becomes an almost solid thing a thick river of wind that holds both the steel and fabric of this plane and the weight of my body aloft Funny how so many folks have difficulty conceiving how a plane can fly in the thin air They have never stuck their elbows into the wind at a speed like this Thin indeed

Not many airplanes allow you to stick body parts out into the breeze these days But my Staggerwing does Those wonderful roll-down windows are bu t one classic fea ture of a mashychine whose every inch personifies the grace and beauty of a bygone era I have been lucky to own this plane these last 10 years We have flown toshygether in almost every conceivable circumstance for more than a thoushysand hours More time have I logged in this seat than any other single plane I have flown Yet none of those hours were for pay or for war These hours were for the pure joy of flight

And for learning Ah this plane After many thousands of hours in the air you thought you were getting this flying thing down didnt you The Stag knew more But it was willshying to teach and we caught up to each other down the road But it

12 JANUARY 2002

never really stopped teaching this old dog a few tricks

Western Wisconsin now Ive never been over these parts at least not at an altitude where I could actually see things on the ground On this day the world seems wonderful The beauty of the countryside flowing along below restores the soul I wonshyder how we sound how we look to those below Doubtless our passage attracts the interest of some of those folks down there The rumble of a rashydial is not that common a sound these days and certainly those with any love of flight in their veins will take a look to discover the source of that wonderful noise Hey look over there Down a dusty dirt road a horseshydrawn carriage is transporting a family As I thunder overhead it apshypears likely that those good folks are living a more fundamental life pershyhaps members of one of the religious societies I have heard are active in this area Indeed it is Sunday I bet they are on the way home from church I wonder about their percepshytions at this moment I guess what they are experiencing wouldnt vary much from what folks knew more than a hundred years ago Me at least for now Im stuck in 1937 The big biplane that transports me is a time machine I share the same experience of the unknown pilot who first took it to the air more than 60 years ago

The moment seems perfect Yet the day is not perfect After these many years the Stag and I will part comshypany today I still feel sheepish about the time back at Oshkosh when I sat down on my camp chair and felt the tears well up in my eyes My friend Gary Street seemed to understand how I felt Someone just said he would buy this plane from me and someshyhow I said I would sell After the

handshake after he was gone the emotions flowed Never love someshything that cant love you back they say I suppose But this plane did more than love me back It flew me and my family over almost every part of this great land of ours in all kinds of weather for so very long Our girls grew up with this ship named it Big Bird After the birth of our second daughter Kelly I emerged from the hospital into the bright midmorning sun The parents relatives and friends were called the excitement of the miraculous event still charged through my body What to do now Most would have many other ideas but for me the almost Singular path led to the airport The almost Zen-like state my mind assumes while working on planes orients my world So off to the airport to work on the Stag Funny that Kelly has come to share my love of airplanes

Oh yes Working on the Staggershywing More lessons This plane was a great financial stretch for my bride Kathleen and me How lucky can a guy be but to have a wife who can acshytually understand the airplane nuts need for the aeronautical object of his desire But the endless hours laboring on maintenance and improvement projects would have to be done by my hands and the hands of some very special friends

It has become almost a cliche that we in aviation spend our lives and money on flying machines and come to find the highest value not in the planes themselves but in the aviation people we meet along the way Aeroshynautical serendipity People like Norm Rowe Many people have taught me a lot but no one person outside of my parents taught me as much as Norm did Indeed had not arm told me that his good friend and aeronautical

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

mentor Jim Spriggs had a Staggerwing he wanted to sell none of this story would have happened What can you say about somebody who spends countless hours in your hangar workshying with you imparting knowledge and demonstrating skills So many airplane builders and restorers have their mentors Norm is mine

And there are the Staggerwing peoshyple Down in the south central Tennessee town of Tullahoma you can find the Staggerwing Museum headshyquarters of its foundation There each October flock Staggerwings and their cousins from all corners of the world John Parish and Dub Yarborough creshyated a magnificent organization for the preservation and celebration of this classic aircraft If birds of a feather flock together I am proud to have spent time with the members and leaders of this fine organization

Yes this airplane made it possible for me to meet many wonderful peoshyple Like John Collins who was restoring a very early Staggerwing out in California Meeting him at Tullashyhoma I asked how many times hed flown in a Stag Never he said That afternoon in Big Bird we went aloft What a smile on his face John never finished his Staggerwing before he passed away though through his genshyerous donation of the aircraft to the Staggerwing Museum he and it live on That afternoon our Stag was able to show him what it was all about

The Morrison brothers of the Chicago area inherited their dads love of a Staggerwing After he tragically passed on much too soon after comshypleting the restoration of their F-17 the family then experienced another terrible misfortune when the Stag burned in a hangar fire One MoreTime was the familys response Mark and Ron Mom Shirley and all the gang joined forces and rebuilt the plane as a tribute to Bill Meeting them through the Staggerwing Club we became good friends Later my wife Kathleen introduced our daughters first grade teach er to Ron They were married and now have two children It is intershyesting how something that is supposed to be merely a piece of machinery can

Xver fall in love wit~

have such a profound effect on peoshyples lives

Quite a few Young Eagles passed through this cabin Two Pete Henrikshysen and Chris Martin flew in Big Bird in completely different places Chris flew with me out of Fall Creek Field when we lived in Tennessee Later Pete got to know what it was like to fly in a biplane from Falmouth Airpark our new home on Cape Cod Although from widely separated places these two young men met while in the same US Air Force pilot training class Cashysual conversation revealed a shared experience Both had flown in a green Staggerwing Pete is training now on the F-16 Chris on the B-l

Another youngster had a dream to fly that this Staggerwing fulfilled He was referred to me by local EAA conshytacts in Tennessee and his mother told me the boy was very ill and was not expected to survive the cancer that afflicted him His wish was to fly That day we arranged a ride for him in many different airplanes out of the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport He

wanted to save the Stag for last Tired by that point he and his mom climbed aboard The sofa-like back seat was comfortable for them As usual I asked what he would like to see from the air His home his school What was not usual was his telling his mom that he expected his school would look much like this when he looked down on it from heaven Only God knows why a child is called home He passed away a few short weeks later

Yes this day is beautiful It seems that the good Lord wants us to have one last perfect flight together just the two of us this time I feel like a Judas somehow passing this magnificent flying machine on for so many pieces of silver Yet I know that practical reshyalities intrude and there seems to be a voice telling me it is time to move on I never really felt that I truly owned it anyway I honestly felt that for the time we were together I was its stewshyard We kept it up and left it better in many ways than we found it I hope all its future stewards do the same How long will it fly Its bones were put together way back in 37 It was a movie star at 2 Women in the Wind RKO studios Kay FranCis William Gargan Eve Arden And Big Bird Now at 63 it flies me across the upper Midshywest Will it be flying at IOO Later How many things were built so well that their life expectancy is indefinite

So a few landings with her new owner Bill Mavencamp a skilled aviashytor and the Staggerwing passes into my history I am glad a person like Bill has adopted it He seems to undershystand the difficulty of what I do today and pretends not to notice when I fabshyricate one more reason to go into the hangar to see it again

I suppose many aviators undershystand that some airplanes transcend being mere machines How many of us have given our planes an appreciashytive pat when leaving the hangar after a long trip Why would you do that if you did not think that at some level the thing could understand what you were doing that for Well Beech Stagshygerwing E-17B NC18044 I thank you And I think you understand that

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 13

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

14 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

most folks at EAA Air Venture kosh 2001 it wasnt until we

ooked carefully at Mike Williams Tiger Moth that we realized we selshydom if ever see an actual English Moth We see lots of what we think are Tiger Moths but they are actushyally built in Canada and according to Mike Williams there are more than 500 differences between the English and the Canadian versions Most of us would be hard-pressed to list more than 450 of the differences (yeah right) but Mike can regale you for an hour or two listing all of them if you are willing to sit still long enough

Of course the big differences that are noticeable include a canopy on the Canadian birds as well as an abshysence of the horizontal slabs (spin strakes) ahead of the horizontal stashybilizer Then there is the cabin heat to minimize the Canadian weather the lack of slats on the upper wings a plywood leading edge on the lower wings and a tailwheel rather than a skid Of course we all knew those differences right

Mikes Moth is the result of his long climb up the airplane ladder that started with his father a pilot in both World War II (B-25s in the Pacific) and Korea (MASH DC-3s) His dad liked all sorts of airplanes and got Mike started right by skipshyping to the unusual to be had in aviation The Williams airplanes father and sons ranged from a Curshytiss Robin and Ryan PT-22 to a Fairchild 24 a Monocoupe Waco RNF KR-34C and many others In fact if you ask Mike to list the airshycraft he has owned and restored hell rattle off the list but when you continue the conversation hell continually interrupt with something like Oh yeah I forshygot the 1 Count on it

Mike started officially taking flight training when he was 17 years old taking less than fourshyand-a-half hours to solo a 7 AC

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 15

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

The aft cockpit is neatly restored and comes complete with a Sutton harness and Gosport speaking tube

Champ Guess being around his dad helped He flew for quite a while then sti ll not having a cershytificate he bought a Cessna 140 that was badly in need of eve ryshything He tore the airplane down to its und erwea r and started on th e long road even a minor restoration represents He did the work himself including the paint interior and engine This was the airplane in which he got his prishyvate certificate

Even though he set up his own business specializing in the repair of Mercedes and Porsches he conshytinued buying and restoring airplanes on the side Most he sold some he kept His 14S-hp Swift was a keeper

When I went out to buy the Swift he says it had been sitting in the same spot for at least five years There was an unreal amount of dirt and bird droppings on it The fellow who sold it to me howshyever said hed warranty the airplane s basic condition so I bought it I spent an entire day with a hose buckets and a broom trying to dig down to the airplane I knew was beneath all of that crud It turned out to be a pretty good airplane and I flew it home

16 JANUARY 2002

Mike has a definite idea about old airplanes their place in history and his role in working on those airshyplanes They arent making those airplanes any more and every time we modify one that s another one that our children and grandchildren won t get to see in its original conshyfiguration I feel its important that [ bring the airplanes back to as close to original condition as I can while making them safe for flight so fushyture generations will know what they looked like When [ found the Swift I knew I was lucky to find one so origina l so [ avoided any of the airframe mods or hop-up goodies that are so popular these days

The Swift has stayed with him and serves as his normal mode of aerial transportation This is evishydenced by the fact that the airplane logs more than 300 hours a year

Increasingly the airplanes began to overtake hi s normal business in terms of time and certainly in terms of desire He wanted to work on old airplanes He didnt want to work on expensive sports cars and big sedans so he put the automotive business up for sale

I was at Oshkosh 98 and Wednesday of that week the deal to sell my business went through he

says Instantly I went airplane shopshyping I looked at a lot of airplanes and even thought about buying a Waco Then I met Leon Welcher who was here with his Tiger Moth

I really liked the airplane and went over to the EAA library at the museum to look up some informashytion on Moths which included the address and phone number of the American Tiger Moth Club presishydent I ca lled him that day and he sa id they had just rece ived a for sale ad for a Moth project that would run in the next issue of their newsletter No one had seen the ad yet so I called the owner that night This was Wednesday of Oshkosh week The next day I hopped in the Swift and flew down to Tullahoma Tennessee to take a look at the project

The airplane that was for sale had been imported into the US from England in 1974 It had been sitting there for 24 years when I saw it The airplane was complete but much of it was in pretty sad shape The wing spars looked good but the glue in the tail had given up and the tail was literally falling apart It was still wearing its original English cotton which was pink and you could stick a finger through it with

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

no effort at all Mike struck a

deal and came back down with his truck

to carry it home to his shop in Columbus Indishy

ana on November 28 1998 I spent a long time just taking

stuff apart and inventorying the pieces he says Then I made a roshytisserie jig for every major part of the airframe including the wings the fuselage and the engine I work alone so it is essential I be able to move stuff around and change its position with no help

Since it was an English airplane as he was taking it apart Mike knew one of the problems wasnt just figshyuring out what he needed to restore but he had to keep careful track of what bolt went where beshycause of the British predilection for using different types of fasteners

The bolts were a nightmare he laughs It had every kind you could think of from Whitworth and British Fine to British Standard Pipe and Metric Over the years even some AN hardware had sneaked in there

For all intents and purposes the tail was trash he says The origishynal wood was warped and cracked and most of what appeared to be cashysein glue had failed I completely disassembled it and made new pieces where necessary then reassembled it using T-88 epoxy This thing should last for another 100 years now

The wings and fuselage were in much better condition but they still required a major amount of disasshysembly to clean and paint fittings replace bolts and do away with questionable glue joints

The airplane is much more of an antique than something like a Stearman even though they come from the same period Mike says Everything about its structure is very 1920s Plus it adheres to the older English philosophy that says

a Stearman does Because it had been Sitting so long and it had been a fairly humid environment I couldnt let any piece go without taking it apart cleaning the rust and corrosion off and replacing the bolts because practically everyshything had some sort of corrosion on it None of it was bad but it was time to remove it I wanted to bring this airplane back to new condition all the way through

Further complicating much of the disassembly was the fact that many of

the bolts predated the use of self-lockshying nuts So when the airplane had been assembled the bolts the meshychanics didn t want coming loose were locked in place by the simple exshypediency of peening the exposed end over with a hammer Mike says the concept works because he had to work hard to get some of those bolts out

As he was proceeding through the cleaning phase to the more pleasant period of reconstruction and refinshyishing he became more and more fascinated with the history of the

its better to use a whole lot of little A rare sight on a restored Tiger Moth is this instrument training hood which inshypieces than one bigger one For that cludes a pair of small skylights to allow for a bit of light in the cockpit They re reason the wings for instance placed well behind the students head With the hood up there is little in the way have a lot more parts in them than of outside visual cues which helps the student master basic instrument flight

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 17

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

Tiger Moth breed When he wasnt working on the airplane he was reading books and surfing the Intershynet looking for information

He says As I looked at all the old pictures I began to get this image of the airplane as it had been when it was in service For one thing even though it had been camouflaged on the upper surfaces at some point it had started out as a Royal Air Force yellow trainer Also the more I learned about the airplanes the more I realized I hadnt seen many of the pieces of equipment that had made them so unique I decided that when I finished the airplane I wanted it to have as many of the accessories it originally carried as pOSSible

In the normal course of restoring an old airplane it is precisely the types of items that Mike was looking for that prove the most elusive This is especially true of an airplane that had once seen military service Often after the airplane is sold as surplus much of the military equipment is reshymoved and usually discarded Mike had a number of items on his shopshy

ping list that could have proved to be problematic These included the naushytical-appearing binnacle compasses for both cockpits the Gosport comshymunication systems and the instrument flying hood which folded up over th e rear cockpit like an opaque canvas canopy He expected the instrument hood to be nearly imshypossible to find

One of the things that makes restoring an airplane like this much easier today than say 20 years ago he says is the Internet A huge pershycentage of the restorers and enthusiasts have banded together into web sites or e-groups The Tiger Moth community has a really active e-group called Moth Speak If I had a question about how something was supposed to go together or how it should be finished someone on the group would know the answer

When I decided to go looking for stuff like the instrument hood the group was the first place I went On the hood for instance I put up my request and four hours later

owned one Malcom

~ijiiiiliibullbull~~~-r~~ri1~1 Goosey a part-ti me ~ Moth dealer in England had an original complete with the covering and

sold it to me for $170

J~~~It~iil~~~Z~ American The covering had to be replaced but at least I had it for

18 JANUARY 2002

a pattern The Internet made the enshytire restoration process much easier

Another place the Net helped was in locating the right material for the wing walks They were made of a slurry that used ground-up slate just like that used on shingles as the basis I went on the Net and found the shingle company that made the stuff here in the States and they werent too far away from me The problem was however they wanted to sell it by the ton not the pound and I only needed about a gallon I spent a lot of time talking to their secretary and finally talked her out of a gallon of slate if I d come by and give her a ride when the Moth was finished

Mike made up a mixture of epoxy and slate and colored it with alushyminum powder normally used to make silver dope He practically had to trowel that onto the wing walks but it came out looking very original

His Gosport system arrived thanks to contacts made on the Internet too but it was no joy on the Sutton harness seat belt system The Sutton is a four-pOint system in which the straps were punctured by a series of large diameter eyelets that pushed down over a large conical post through which a safety pin of a unique design was pushed The sysshytem is very identifiable and necessary

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

A slate epoxy and powdered alushy One of the most noticeable differences minum slurry was made to replicate between the British and Canadian the heavy but authentic wing walk mashy Moths is the use of automatic wing terial used on the British Tiger Moth slats on the British-built aircraft

The four-cylinder inverted de Havilland Gipsy Major engine became the stanshydard light aircraft engine in Britain for an entire generation

The British-built Tiger Moths also have a pair of extended strakes added to the leading edges of the stabilizers along the fuselage The strakes slowed down the spin rate for the Moths when induced to spin Many DH82As were later modified by having the strakes removed

for true authenticity in the restorashytion Mike e-mailed a digital image of the rotting original to Jack Hooker of Hooker Harness in Rockford Illishynois who made an exact duplicate Hooker says what made it possible to duplicate the harness was that many Russian aerobatic aircraft like the Sukhoi use identical hardware that he was able to adapt Since the belt doesnt have a TSO Mike uses an additional standard belt when flying and tucks it away out of sight while the airplane is parked

Although Mike planned on flying the airplane off every type of runway paved and otherwise he couldnt bring himself to discard the tail skid in favor of a tailwheel even though it would have been more practical Instead he cut a square hole in the middle of the steel shoe at the botshytom of the skid and installed a small roller which works fine on paveshyment Steering is a little on the crude side however as it consists of the rudder slapping against the skid causing it to offset sideways To make up for the marginal steering of the skid he added better brakes

Mike is justifiably proud of the fact that he did every single bit of the work on the airplane himself The only parts which left my shop were the instruments Im comshypletely set up including an English wheel and Pull max machine which I used to make a new cowling

When he rebuilt the engine he used as many new parts as he could find most of which came from Tom Dietrich of Guelph Ontario Canada This included rods pistons valves heads and reconditioned cylinders Without Tom to help me with the parts building up this enshygine would have been an entirely

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 1 9

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

different pro ject It actually turned out to be enjoyable

When it came time to cover and finish the airplane he stayed with the Poly-Fiber system all the way through The colors along with the correct color scheme came from his Internet connections In the course of painting the airplane he ran across a product that he thinks every airplane builder should know about It s a paint remover for your hands that is named Cupran Paint Reshymover for Hands and it is made by Stockhausen He says it is fantastic and available in most automotive paint stores A q uick check on the Internet using the Googlecom webshysite came up w ith many online suppliers for the product The price for a tube ranged from $6 to $8

The prop was originally painted black he says but when I started removing the finish I found it was laminated with alternating layers of rock maple and something that

Mike Williams wears the receiving end of a Gosport tube for communication from the inst ructor to the student

looks like mahogany It was beautishyful and I couldnt bring myself t o paint it black again

He says Someth ing that shou ld be pOinted out is that this may be one of the few a ll -English Tiger Moths because the engine airframe and prop all came from de Havilland

in England The first flight was on July 12

2001 just a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Oshkosh On t he first flight it was a little left wing heavy and it took four tries to get it rigged righ t It ran just fine and I was re shyally pleased with how well it flew It made all the hard work worth while

Mike says he works alone but he is qu ick to po int out that his wife Mamie is his friend and partner in his airplane business which is named Wingworks and has its own website wwwwingworksusacom He says he specializes in unusual restoration work especially metal forming and work He can be reached at 812375shyor mikeWingworksusacom He also says he means it when he says un shyusual restoration work

So whats next for the Williams fami ly Just go to his website and youll understand when we say there is no possible way of knowing what Mike Williams is going to do next

Live the adventure and romance of the early days

of flight with Will Turner pioneer aviator in Chris Daveys exciting new novel The Aviators AppnlItice Will earns his wings in Florida before traveling to England to prove himself as all officer in the fledgling Royal Flying Corps during the tumultuous opening weeks of the First World War

Fi nd out more about Will Turners Flight Logs at t he companion Web site wwwturnerlogscom

Published by Lucky Press and available at all fine booksellers or call 800-345-6665

ISBN 0-9676050-3-2 448 pages $1895 E-mail booksluckypresscom

Will Turners adventures continue with Turner s Flight (Available early 2002)

ExploreilllflWIDU

NASA LANE WALLACE AND BAA PRESENT

Wild Blue Wonders Exploring the Magic ofFlight

Wild Blue Wonders explores the dynamics of flight and aircraft design prepares the reader to begin creating original designs and provides inforshymation about pilots and different types of planes Lane Wallace wrote this wonderful book in collaboration with NASA and EAA to help persuade a youngster to take that next step toward a life in aviation with the Foreword written by Chuck Yaeger it is sure to be a success Containing the components of aviation presented in a user-friendly way this aviation book provides logical analogies relating to flight such as how a curve ball in baseball relates to li ft and Bernoullis Principle

F10883 $1995

To Order Call BOO-B43-3612

Outside US amp Canada call (920) 426-4800

Visit us online at wwweaaorg

Send your order by mail to

EAA Mail Orders PO Box 3086

Oshkosh WI 54903shy

3086

Major credit cards accepted WI residents add 5 sales tax

Shipping and handling NOT included

2 0 JANUARY 2002

Classic Bonanza Association Paul Whitese ll 6355 Stinson Street Plano TX 75093 972-380-5976 commrepsematiccom Dues $1 per year

Twin Bonanza Association Richard I Wa rd 19684 Lakeshore Drive Three Rivers MI 49093 616-279-2540 or 616-279-2535 Fax 616-279-2540 E-mail forward(lJ1net-linknet lttpwwwtwinbollallza COI11 $35yr US amp Canada$45yr foreign Newsletter Quarterly

Bucker Club Chris G Arva nites 16204 Rosemarie Ln Lockport IL 60441 8154361011 Fax 815 4361 01 1 863-3 18-1 231 Nov-Apr Dues $22year US amp Canada $27 Foreign Newsletter 6 per year

National Bucker Jungmiester Club (American Tiger Club) Mrs Frank Price Rt 1 Box 419 Moody TX 7655 7 254-853-9067

Cessna International Bird Dog Association (L-190-1 ) cL Strance 13540 N 151 E Avenue Collinsville OK 74021 -5622 918-371-3233 E-mail CLSL19aoicolll wwwL-J98owWowcoIJ Dues $25 per year Newsletter Quarterly newsletter or web access

Cessna Owner Organization David Hipschman PO Box 5000 lo la WI 54945 888-MYCESSNA 715-445-4053 ceSSllocesslloownerorg ilttpwlvwcessnoownerorg Dues $42 per year Magazine Monthly

Cessna Pilots Association John Frank 3409 Corsair Ci rcle Santa Maria CA 93456 805-922-2580 Fax 805-922-7249 E-mail cpaCessnaorg httpwwwcessnaorg Dues $45 US Canada Mexico

$55 international

International Cessna 120 140 Association Doug Corrigan 604 Sheridan Drive Loves Park IL 61111 815-633-6858 webmastercessna 120-140or httpwwwcessnaI20-140or Dues $15 per year Newsletter Monthly

National Aeronca Association Jim Thompson 806 Lockport Rd PO Box 2219 Terre Haute IN 47802-0219 812-232-1491 Dues $25yr US$35yr Canada$45yr Foreign Magazine 4 per year

International Aeronca Association Buzz Wagner Box 3 401 1st Street East Clark SD 57225 605-532-3862 Fax 605-532-1305 Dues $20 per yea r Newsletter Quarterly

Beech T34 Association Charles H Nogle PO Box 925 Champaign IL 61824-0925 217 -356-3063

Beechcraft-Staggerwing Club Robert A Hoff 10741 S 25 th E Idaho Falls ID 83404-7753 209-848-0426 Dues $25 per yea r Newsletter Quarterly

Twin Beech 18 Society Staggerwing Museum Foundation PO Box 550 Tullahoma TN 37388 931 -455-1 974 Dues $40 per yea r Newsletter Four per year

World Beech craft Society William] Robinson 500 SE Everett Mall Way Ste A7 Everett W A 98208-81 11 800-345-9066 Fax 425-355-6173 billWorldbeechcraftcom httowwwworldbeechcraftcom Dues $30 per year

Bellanca Champion Club Robert Szego PO Box 100 Coxsackie NY 12051-0100 518-731 -6800 szegorbellanca-championcllbcom httpwwwbellanca-championclubcom Dues $33yr-$592 yrs fore ign $411 yr-$682 yrs Newslette r Quarterly B-C Contact

Bird Airplane Club Jeannie Hill PO Box 328 Harvard IL 60033-0328 815-943-7205 Dues postage donation

American Bonanza Society Nancy Johnson Exec Di r PO Box 12888 Wichita KS 67277 316-345-1700 Fax 316-945-1710 bonanza2bonamaorg httpwwwbonanzaorg Dues $50 per year + Chapter dues MagaZine Monthly

ISL

Cessna 150 152 Club Royson Parsons PO Box 1917 Atascadero CA 93423-1917 805-461-1958 Fax 805-461-1035 melllbershipcessnaJSO-1S2com httpwwwcessnalS0-JS2com Dues S25yr US Canada Mexico $40 all others Newsletter Bi-month ly

Cessn a 180185 International Club (own ership required) Scott White PO Box 639 Castlewood VA 24224 540-738-8 134 Fax 540-738-8136 Dues $20 per year

Cessna 195 International Club Dwight M Ewing PO Box 737 Merced CA 95344 209-722-6283 Fax 209-722-5124 ewin gdmpacbell llet httpwwwcessnaJ9Son Dues$25 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Eastern 190 195 Association Cliff Crabs 25575 Butternut Ridge Road North Olmsted OH 44070 440-777-4025 ccrabsaoicom or cassic19Saoicoll1 Dues $15 initial then as required Newsletter Four per year approx

Cessna Airmaste r Club Gar Williams 9 So 135 Aero Drive Naperville IL 60564 630-904-84 16 E-ma il aerocraftaoiCOI11

Cessna 170 Association Inc Velvet Fackeldey PO Box 1667 Leba non MO 65536 417 -532-4847 ileadquarters)cessllaI70org httpwwwcesslla170or Dues $35 per yea r Magazi ne Fly Paper-monthly

170 News-quarterly

Cessna T-50 Ba mboo Bo mbe r Jim Anderson Box 269 Sunwood Marine on St Croix MN 55047 6124333024 Fax 6124335691 E-Mail iialvrmedcol11 i1ttpwwwcessnatSOorg Dues Contact Club for Info Newslet ter Quarterly

West Coast Cessn a 120 140 Club co Don and Linda Brand 9087 Madrone Way Redding CA 96002 530-221-3732 Dues $20 per year Newsletter Bimonthly

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 21

Citabria Owner s Group Carl Petersen 636 lona Lane Roseville MN 55113 E-mail champCitabriacom Website wwwcitabriacom Dues $25 US $40 IntI (US Funds)

Culver Aircraft Assoc Dan Nicholson 723 Baker Dr Tomball TX 77375 281-351-0114 E-mail danngiecom For newsletter and dues info contact the club

Culver Club Larry Low Chairman 60 Skywood Way Woodside CA 94062 650-8510204 Dues $20 per year Newsletter 3 issues annually

Culver Dart Club Lloyd Washburn 2656 East Sand Road Point Clinton OH 43452-2741 419-734-6685

Culver PQ-14 Assoc Ted Heineman 29621 Kensington Drive Laguna Niguel CA 92677 949-495-4540

Ercoupe Owner s Club Carolyn T Carden Membership 7263 Schooners Ct SW A-2 Ocean Isle Beach NC 28469-5644 VoiceFax 910-575-2758 coupecaperaolcom Website wwwercoupeorg Dues $25 per year Newsletter Monthly

Ercoupe Owners Club - Wisconsin Wing Judi Matuscak 6 62 Brever Road Burlington WI 53105-8915 262-539-2495 E-mail jmatusWinet

Fairchild Club John W Berendt President 7645 Echo Point Road Cannon Falls MN 55009 507-263-2414 E-mail (chldrconnectcom httpwwwmiddotfairchildclubcom Dues $15 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Fairchild Fan Club Robert L Taylor P O Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 641-938-2773 641-938-2084 E-Mail aaaapmhlJfcsianet Dues $15 Newsletter (3) 16 pg Newsletters

International Fleet Club Sandy Brown Newsletter Publisher P O Box 511 Marlborough CT 06447-0511 860-267-6562 Fax 860-267-4381 E-mail flvboyntplxnet Dues Contributions Newsletter 3-4 per year approx

22 DECEMBER 2002

Funk Aircraft Owners Association Thad Shelnutt 2836 California Av Carmichael CA 95808 916-971-3452 E-mail pilotthadaolcom President Jon Schroeder PMB 323 100 E Whitestone Cedar Park TX 78613 E-mail [SCHROonrcom Newsletter 10 per year Dues $12 per year

Great Lakes Club Brent L Taylor Editor P O Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 515-938-2773 Dues $15 Newsletter (3) 16 pg Newsletters

The American Yankee Association (Grumman) Stew Wilson 3232 Western Drive Cameron Park CA 95682 530-676-4292 Web Site httpwwwavaorg Dues $30 per year US $30 Foreign (Initiation $750 1st year Foreign $1000)

Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association Greg Burnard PO Box 774 Woodstock ON Canada N4S 8A2 519-842-9922 Website wwwhangarlinecom Dues $35yr Newsletter The Roar -Quarterly

Hatz Club Robert L Taylor P O Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 641-938-2773 641-938-2084 E-mail aaaapmhlJJpcsianet Dues $15 for 3 issues Newsletter (3) 16 pg Newsletters

Am erican Hatz Association Inc Mike Devroy PO Box 5102 Vernon Hills IL 60001-5102 E-mail thayerSmindspringcom httpwwwhatzbiplanesorg Dues $20 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Heath Parasol Club William Schlapman 6431 Paulson Road Winneconne WI 54986 920-582-4454

Howard Club David Schober PO Box 52 Volga WV 26238 E-mail HowardClubaolcom wwwmembersaolcomlHowardClub

Interstate Club Robert L Taylor PO Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 641-938-2773 Fax 641-938-2084 E-mail aaaapmhlJpcsianet

Luscombe Association Steve and Sharon Krog 1002 Heather Lane Hartford WI 53027 262-966-7627 Fax 262-966-9627 E-mail sskrogaolcom Dues $25 US amp Canada $30 Foreign Newsletter 6 per year

Continental Luscombe Association Gordy and Connie Birse Treasurer and Secretary 29604 179th Place SE Kent WA 98042 253-631-8478 E-Mail wizard8Emsncom httpwwwluscombe-claorg Dues US $15 Canada $1750 US Funds Foreign $25 US Funds Newsletter Bimonthly (6 per year)

Maule Rocket Associatio n (MRA) David E Neumeister 5630 S Washington LanSing MI 48911-4999 517 -882-8433 or 800-594-4634 Fax 517-882-8341 or 800-596-8341 aircraftnewsyahoocom Dues $2350 for one year $3050 for 2 years Newsletter 12 issues

Meyer s Air cr a ft Owners Association William E Gaffney Secretary 24 Rt 17K Newburgh NY 12550 914-565-8005 Dues Postage fund donation Newsletter 5-6 per year

Monocoupe Club Bob Coolbaugh Editor 18404 Bel Pre Road Culpeper VA 22701 540-825-0141 or 540-829-9375 monocoupeearthlinknet Dues $15 per yea r Newsletter Monthly Approx

Mooney Aircraft Pilots Association Lela Hughes 100 Sandau Suite 200 San Antonio TX 78216

Western Association o f Mooney Mites (WAMM) Ben Favrholdt 757 W Putnam Ave 6 Porte ville CA 93257 559-782-8925 E-mail n6mxsosinetnet Website httpwwwmooneymitecom Dues None Newsletter via e-mail

N3N Restorers Association H Ronald Kempka 2380 Country Road 217 Cheyenne WY 82009 3076382210 E-mail wyn3naolcom Dues $20 per year Newsletter Quarterly

American Navion Societ y Gary Rankin PMB 335 16420 SE McGillivray 103 Vancouver WA 98683-3461 360-833-9921 Fax 360-833-1074 Flynavionyahoocom wwwnavionsocietyorg Newsletter Bimonthly Dues $45 per year

Navion Skies Type Club Raleigh Morrow PO Box 2678 Lodi CA 95241-2678 209-367-9390 E-mail Navionlinreachcom httpwwwnavionskiescom Dues $45 per year Newsletter Monthly also via e-mail

Brodhead Pietenpol Association Donald Campbell 221 N laSalle St Ste 311 7 Chicago IL 60601 httpwwwpietenpoiofS( Dues $10 per year US Newsletter Quarterly

International Pietenpol Association Robert L Taylor P O Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 515-938-2773 Dues $15 Newsletter (3) 16 pg Newsletters

Cherokee Pilots Assoc PO Box 1996 Lutz FL 33548 8139483616 800-292-6003 Dues $3200 US $3600 Canada amp Mexico $44 00 Foreign MagaZine 11 issues per year

Cub Club Steve and Sharon Krog 1002 Heather Lane Hartford WI 53027 262-966-7627 Fax 262-966-9627 E-mail sskroltaoicom Dues $25 US $29 Canada $30 Foreign Newsletter 6 per year

Flying Apache Assoc (Piper) John J Lumley 6778 Skyline Drive Delray Beach FL 33446 561-499-1115 Fax 561-495-7311 E-mail maiitofivinzapachecscom Dues $25 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Short Wing Piper Club Inc Eleanor and Bob Mills Editors 220 Main Street Halstead KS 67056 316-835-3650 Fax 316-835-3357 membershipshortwingorg httpwwwshortwingorg Dues $30 per year Newsletter Bimonthly

L-4 Grasshopper Wing Bill Collins EditorPublisher RR 2 Box 619 Gould AR 71643-9714 870-263-4668 Dues $10 per year US $15 Canada $20 Foreign-All US Funds Newsletter 6 per year

Piper Owner Society PO Box 5000 lola WI 54945 866-MYPIPER Fax 7154454053 E-Mail piperpiperownerorg httpwwwpiperownerorg Dues $42 per year Magazine Monthly

International Comanche Society Harley McGatha 50 County Road 537 Centre AL 35960 256-927-5044 comanchemaii tdsnet Dues $35 per year Newslette r Monthly

Super Cub Pilots Association Jim Richmond FounderDirector P O Box 9823 Yakima WA 98909 509-248-9491 answerscubcrafters com httpwwwcubcrafterscom

Porterfield Airplane Club Chuck Lebrecht 91 Hickory Loop Ocala FL 34472 352-687-4859 Dues $5 per yea r Newsletter Quarterly

Super Cub Pilots Association Jim Richmond FounderDirector P O Box 9823 Yakima WA 98909 509248-9491 answersClIbcrafterscom httpwwwcubcrafterscom

International Ryan Club Bill Hodges Edi tor and Historian 19 Stoneybrook Ln Searcy AR 72143-6129 501-268-2620 E-mail recmitcsw net Dues $20 per year $25 overseas Airmail and Canada Newsletter Quarterly

1-26 Association (Schweizer) Bob Hurni 516 East Meadow Lane Phoenix AZ 85022 602-993-8840 E-mail bhurniaoicom www126associationorg Dues $15 per year Newsletter 6 per year (plus a directory)

Stearman Restorers Association Jack Davis 1209 San Marino Ave San Marino CA 91108 626-792-0638 E-mail davcostearmannet httpwwwstearmannet Dues $35 per year Newsletter 4 per year

International Stinson Club James Cole 7305 Llano Road Atascadero CA 93422 805-461-5522 E-Mail jimcoieixnet wwwaerol1larcol1ls wschtmi Dues $30 per year Newsletter 11 per yea r

National Stinson Club George Alleman 1229 Rising Hill Road West Placerville CA 95667 Phone amp Fax 530-622-4004 E-mail nscgeorged-webcol1l Dues $20 US amp Ca nada $25 Foreign Newsletter Six per year

Stinson Historical and Restoration Society (or Stinson 108 An tique Airplane Association) Robert Taylor PO Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 641-938-2773 Fax 641 -938-2084 E-mail aaaapmhqpcs ianet

Swift Association SMF Inc Charlie Nelson P O Box 644 Athens TN 37371 423-745-9547 E-mail swiftivchsaoi com httpwwwnapanetnet-arbeaus wift Dues $30 per year Newsletter Monthly

West Coast Swift Wing Gerry and Carol Hampton 3195 Bonanza Dr Cameron Park CA 95682 530-676-7755 E-mail annieCalwebcol1l httpwww napanetneU-arbea llswift Dues $15 per year Newsletter Monthly

Taylorcraft Owners Club Bruce Bixler II 12809 Greenbower NE Al liance OH 44601 330-823-9748 E-mail tocprezYahoocom httpwwwtayiorcraftorg Dues $12 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Virginia Carolinas Taylorcraft Owners Club Tom Pittman Rt 6 Box 189 Appomatox VA 24522 434-352-5128 E-mai l vctocjunocom httpmembersaoicomvctocl Dues $10 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Travel Air Club Robert L Taylor Editor P O Box 127 Blakesburg IA 52536 641-938-2773 Fax 641 -938-2084 E-mail aaapl1lhl pcsianet Dues $15 Newsletter (3) 16 pg Newsletters

Travel Air Restorers Association Jerry Impellezzeri 4925 Wilma Way San Jose CA 95124 408-356-3407 Dues $15 per yea r Newsletter Quarterly

Travel Air Div of Staggerwing Museum Karen Garrick P O Box 550 Tullahoma TN 37388 931-455-1974 wwwstaggerwingcol1l Dues $40 per year Newsletter 4-5 per year

American Waco Club Phil Coulson 2815 Springbrook Dr Lawton MI 49065 616-624-6490 E-mail rcouison51 6cscom wwwal1lericanwacocillbcol1l Dues $25 per year $30 Foreign Newsletter Bi-monthly

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 23

National Waco Club Andy Hein s 3744 Clea rview Rd Dayton OH 45439 937-866-6692 E-mail wllcollsollo lcom Dues $20 per year $25 Foreign Newsletter Bimonthly

Western Waco Association Barry R Branin PO Box 706 Groveland CA 95321 209-962-6121 OYWIlCOjII110COIII Dues $5 per yea r

ewsletter Occasional

MULTIPLE AIRCRAFT ORGANIZATIONS

Arctic Interstate Newsletter David Neumeister 5630 S Washington Lansing MI 48911 -4999 517 -882-8433 or 800-594-4634 Fax 517-882-8341 or 800-596-8341 ll ircmftlewsYlli1oocom Dues $1650yr $20504 yrs Magazine Quarterly

Rorida Antique Biplane Association Inc Larry Robinson 10906 Denoeu Road Boynton Beach FL 33437 56 1-732-3250 Fax 561 -732-2532 E-mail BeyeViewllo1com Dues $48 yea r The Flying Wire Newsletter

National Biplane Association Charles W Harris PO Box 470350 Tulsa OK 74 147-0350 918-622-8400 Fax 918-665-0039 E-mail cWi1i1VSll COI11 www llIltionlllbipllll1ellssnorg wwwbiplilneexpocom Dues $25 individual $40 fam ily add $10 foreign

North American Trainer Association (T6 T28 NA64 NASO PSI B2S) Kathy amp Stoney Stonich 25801 NE Hinness Road Brush Prairie WA 98606 360-256-0066 360-896-5398 E-ma il llatrailleraolcolII Web wWlv llatrailler org Dues $45 US amp Canada $55 foreign Newsletter Quarterly NATA Skylines

Taildragger Club Asa Dean 16216 N 34th Way Phoenix AZ 85032-3 119 Cell 602-622-8335 E-mail IlsataildmRgerclllborg wwwta ildmggerclllb orgtdc

WWI Aeroplanes Inc Leonard Opdycke 15 Crescent Road Poughkeepsie Y 12601 845-473-3679 Dues $30yr - $35 foreign Newsletter 2 Journa ls each 4 years

24 DECEMBER 2002

ORGANIZATIONS

American Aviation Historical Society Bruce Cunningham 2333 Otis Street Santa Ana CA 92704 714-549-48 18 E-mail llai1s2333earthlillkl1et Website wwwaailsonlineorg Dues $45 US amp Ca nada $60 Foreign (US Funds) Newsletter Quarterly and Journal

Eastern Reg US Air Racing Association Jack Dian iska President 26726 Henry Road Bay Village OH 44140 440-871-3781

Flying Farmers International Ka thy Marsh 2120 Airport Rd PO Box 9124 Wichita KS 67277 316-943-4234 Fax 316-943-4235 wwwOyingfarmersorlt Dues $50yr + chapter dues Magazines 6 magazines per year

Flying Octogenarians Erv Mart in PO Box 1055 Wisconsin Rapids WI 54495 715-421-3763

The Howard Aircraft Foundation David Schober PO Box 252 Volga WV 26238 (304) 457-5026 E-mail HowardClllbaolcom llttpmel11bersaolcol11HowardClllb

International Deaf Pilots Association Clyde Smith 1553 Gravel Springs Circle Jacksonville IL 62650 Dues $30 per year active pilots Newsletter

Int l Fellowship of Flying Rotarians 203 Tom Surowka World SecTreas 203A Rubens Drive Nomis FL 34275-4211 941 -966-6636 Fax 941-966-914 1 E-mail sllrowkaiffrorg Website wwwiffrorg

International Liaison Pilot amp Aircraft Assoc Bill Stratton 16518 Ledgestone San Antonio TX 78332-2406 21 0-490-45 72 VoiceFax www celltercompcomILPAindexhtml Dues $35yr US $40yr Foreign Newsle tter Liaismiddoton Spoken Here

International Wheelchair Aviators PO Box 2799 Big Bear City CA 92314 909-585-9663

International Women in Aviation Dr Peggy j Chabrian 101 Corsair Drive Daytona Beach FL 3211 4 386-226-7996 386-226-7998 Website wwwwiai org Dues $39 per year - $29 students Magazine Bi-month ly

Lake AmlJhibian Flyers Club Mark amp Jill Rodstein 7188 Mandarin Drive Boca Raton FL 33433-7412 561-483-65 66 Fax 240-376-48 75 lakeOversclllbavwebcom Dues $54 per year Newslette r Lake Flyer

The Don Luscombe Aviation History Foundation 1890 E Queen Creek Road Chandler AZ 85249 480-917-0969 Fax 480-917-4719 E-mail silvairelllsco l11beorg PartsTech techlllscombeorg httpwwwlliscombeorg Dues $25 US amp Canada $30 Foreign Newsletter 6 per year

National Air Racing Group Betty Sherman 1932 Mahan Avenue Richland WA 99352-2121 509-946-5690 E-mail bettysi1ermangtenet Website wwwpylon com Dues $15 US$20 ou tside US Newsletter

National Association of Priest Pilots Mel Hemann 127 Kaspend Place Cedar Falls lA 506 13-1683 319-266-3889 E-mail N298MHaolcum Dues $20 Newsletter NAPP

The 99s Women Pilots Faith Dunca n Will Rogers Airport Box 965 7100 Terminal Drive Oklahoma City OK 73 159 405-685-7969 Dues $55 per yea r Newsletter Bi-monthly

OX-S Aviation Pioneers Robert F Lang P O Box 201299 Austin TX 78720 512-33 1-6239 Dues $10 per yea r Newsletter 6 per year

Piper Aviation Museum Foundation John R Merinar One Piper Way Lock Haven PA 17745-0052 570-748-8283 Fax 570-893-8357 E-mail piperClIbkcnetorg Website wwwpipenmISelll11conl Dues $30 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Replica Fighters Association Gerald Gerber 6956 E Waco Drive Syracuse IN 46567-9432 219-457-5924 Fax 219-457-8272 E-mai l 44GNKconlinecol1l Web wwwreplicafigi1tersof Dues $20 per yea r Newsletter Bimonthly

Seaplane Pilots Association Michael Volk 4315 Highland Park Blvd Suite C Lakeland FL 33813 863-701-7979 Fax 863-701 -7588 E-mail spaseaplanesorg Web wwwseaplanesorg Dues $40 per year Magazine Bi-monthly

Sentimental Journey to Cub Haven Inc E J Doc Conway P O BoxJ-3 Lock Haven PA 17745-0496 570-893-4200 Fax 570-893-4218 E-mail PipercubkClletorg wwwpipennuseumcol1l Dues $10 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Silver Wings Fraternity PO Box 44208 Cincinnati OH 45244 800-554-1437 E-ma il BGeier3680aolcom Website wwwsilverwingsorg Dues $151st yea r $10 renew Newsletter Bi-monthly

Society of Air Racing Historians Herman Schaub 168 Marion Lane Berea OH 44017 440-234-2301 E-mail i1ennanairracecom Website wwwairracecol11 Dues $20yr US - $23 others Newsletter Bi-monthly

Taylorcraft Foundation Inc Forrest A Barber Exec Dir 13820 Union Ave NE Alliance OH 44601 -9378 330-823-1168 Fax 330-823-1138 E-mail (barberalliancel inkcom Website wwwtaylorcraftorg Dues $10 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Vintage Sailplane Association George Nuse 4310 River Bottom Drive Norcross GA 30092 770-446-5533 Dues $15 per year Newsletter Quarterly

Waco Historical Society Inc Waco Aircraft Museum John R Bosse Treasurer P O Box 62 Troy OH 45373-0062 937335 WACO 1-5pm Sat-Sun Dues $30 per year 91-831 Newsletter 4 per year

If you have changes related to your Type Club list drop a n ote in the m ail deta iling your listing (use the forma t you see o n this page) Send your no te to Edi tor Vintage A irpLane Vi ntage Airshycraft Association Type Clubs PO Box 3086 Osh kosh WI 54903-3086 or Eshymail it to vintageeaaorg

~TMa kOmes NEW MEMBERS Bob K Lehr Cardston AB Canada

Norman J Rix Wetaskiwin AB Canada

Peter Koller Oakville ON Canada David R Kozak St Catherines ON Canada

Yves Ayotte Trois-Rivieres Ouest Po Canada

Tillman David Baker Phil Campbell AL

Glenn E Bell Pine Bluff AR

Harold L Black Tucson AZ

K Ralph Eddy Chandler AZ

Paul R Brunkhorst Fresno CA

Kimberly DeSimone Livermore CA

Mike L Gaylord San Francisco CA

Robert Hinsch Rancho Palos Verdes CA

Sanford Hood San FranCiSCO CA

Ken Neff San jose CA

john Pehrson Sonora CA

Art Teeters Salinas CA

Donald F Daniels Evergreen CO

Wyman Varnedoe Monument CO

George Buzel Trumbull CT

Alphonse Gowlis Waterbury CT

Rodney D Daulton New Port Richey FL

jack De Niro Delray Beach FL

Blaine Hoffman Ocala FL

John A Ritchie Duluth GA

Meredith j Whi llock MCDonough GA

Dale R Severs Gurnee IL

David L Shadle St Charles IL Wi ll iam R Whitaker Baylis IL

Thomas L Brower Zionsville IN john R Norman Newburgh IN

Daniel W Patton Columbus IN

Fredrick S johnson Shelbyville KY Richard Meier Benton KY

Mike Harris Baton Rouge LA

Chris Cosentino Bradford MA Dennis J Ellard Salem MA john Keaney Auburn MA

james E Masterson Natick MA Robert L Morri ll Stoughton MA

Ira Whorf Yarmouth Port MA

Edward A Dudgeon Okemos MI

RogerGomoll Rochester MN Walter I Groskurth Mankato M

jeffrey W Kallberg Minneapolis MN

Kenneth Kuby West St Paul MN

Raymond W Caselman Meadville MO

Karen Rankin Kansas City MO

E Thomas Monroe Hickory C Richard Williams Raleigh NC

Ted Fox Cherry Hill NJ

Walter F Schwarz Red Bank NJ

Richard Appling Winnemucca NV

Robert A Barrett Rochester NY

Eric DeHorta Wooster OH

William S Ennis Jr Tiffin OH

Robert L Schuette Bartlesville OK

james S Wilson Portland OR

Bruce R Sheaffer Lititz PA

Todd Givens Ruffin SC

Robert S Morris Ridgeland SC

Lourie Salley Lexington SC

Alan D Basham Clarksville TN

Gordon D Webster Kingston TN

Michael P Anthony Kerrville TX

Robert E Brownell Rockport TX

Donald G Dickson Seguin TX Daniel A Fox Duncanville TX

Brian Loewecke Keller TX

William j Taylor Willis TX Del G Younglas Westlake TX

jeff H Pierce Salt Lake City UT john F Ward Virginia Beach VA

Frank E Almstead Everett WA john Coussens Stanwood WA

Richard S Drury Friday Harbor WA Rodney W Fisher Gig Harbor WA Paul E Pearson Olympia WA

Robert M Prus Fond du Lac WI Robert Jagodzinski Gay WV

VINTAGE AIRPLANE 25

FLY-IN CALENDAR

The following list of coming even ts is furnished to ollr readers as a matter of inshyformation only and does not constitute approval sponsorship involvement conshytrol or direction of any event (fly-in seminars fly market etc) listed Please send the information to EAA Att Vintage Airplane PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54903-3086 Information should be reshyceived four months prior to the event date

JANUARY 19 2002 - Fort Pierce FLshyEAA Ch 908 Pancake Breakfast 7shy11 am at the EAA Hangar St Lucie International Airport Info 561-464-0538 or 561-489-0420

FEBRUARY 100Mondovi WI-SkishyFly-In at Log Cabin Airport Info 715-287-4205

FEBRUARY 23-Fort Pierce FL-EAA Ch 908 Pancake Breakfast 7-11 am at the EAA Hangar St Lucie Internashytional Airport Info 561-464-0538 or 561-489-0420

FEBRUARY 28 thru MARCH 2 -Bozeman MT-Montana Aviation Conference Holiday amp Gran Tree Inns Workshops seminars nationshyally recognized speakers trade show Info phone 406-444-2506 fax 406shy444-2506 e-mail dalkestatemtus

MARCH 1-3-Casa Grande AZ-the Arizona Antique Aircraft Assoc is sponsoring the 44th Annual Cactus Fly-In 480-987-5516

MARCH 23 - Fort Pierce FL-EAA Ch 908 Pancake Breakfast 7-11 am EAA Hangar St Lucie International Airport Info 561-464-0538 or 561shy489-0420

APRIL 20 - Fort Pierce FL-EAA Ch 908 Pancake Breakfast 7-11 am EAA Hangar St Lucie International Airport Info 561-464-0538 or 561shy489-0420

MAY 3-5-Cleveland OH-18th Annual Symposium of the Society of Air Racing Historians Sessions featuring talks by pilots crew members and others at the Holiday Inn-Airport Info Herman Schaub 440-234-2301 or Don Berliner 703-548-0405

MAY 4 5 - Woodland CA-8th Annual Great Valley Fly-In Watts-Woodland Airport (041) Judging of antiques classics and homebuilts Pancake breakfasts food vendors raffle Young Eagles program Info 530-662shy9631 or wwwwoodlandaviationcom

MAY 45 - Dayton OH-Ch 48 Annual Funday Sunday Regional Fly-In at Moraine AirPark (1-73) Camping awards displays Info 937-859-8967 or wwwMoraineAirparkcom

MAY 5 - Rockford IL-EAA Ch 22 FlyshyInDrive-In Breakfast Greater Rfd Airport Courtesy Aircraft Hangar Info 815-397-4995

MAY 18 - Fort Pierce FL-EAA Ch 908 Pancake Breakfast 7-11 am EAA Hangar St Lucie International Airshyport Info 561-464-0538

Fly high with a quality Classic interior Complete interior assemblies ready for installation

Custom quality at economical prices

bull Cushion upholstery sets bull Wall panel sets bull Headliners bull Carpet sets bull Baggage compartment sets bull Firewall covers bull Seat slings

Free catalog of complete product line

Fabric Selection Guide showing actual sample colors and styles of materials $300

Qir~RODUCTS INC 259 Lower Morrisville Rd Dept VA Fallsington PA 19054 (215) 295-4115 website wwwairtexinteriorscom Fax 800394-1247

I couldnt have won

these swell trophies without

Poly-Fiber Roscoe Turner - Famous Race Pilot

Well OK maybe he didnt actually say that but we bet he would have if Poly-Fiber had

been around in the 30s His plane would have been lighter and stronger too and the chance of fire would have been greatly reduced because Poly-Fiber wont support combustion Not on ly that but Gilmores playful claw holes would have been easy to repair Sorry Roscoe

Really easy to use The best manual around40 years of success Nationwide EAA workshopsNew step-by-step video Toll-free technical support

800-362-3490 wwwpolyfibercom e-mail infopolyfibercom

FAX909-684-0 S18

26 JANUARY 2002

VAA NEWS CONTINUED

HALL OF FAME HONORS GO TO VAA TREASURER

National Bip lane Associatio n Chairman and Vintage Aircraft Asshysociation Treasurer Charlie Harris was inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame at the Omniplex in Oklahoma City on September 22 200l

Charlie was one of seven Oklashyhomans who was honored The other six were around-the-world pilot US Senator Jim Inhofe former Braniff Airways Chairman Harding Lawrence around-the-world Stearman p ilot Robert Ragozzino former Tuskegee Airman Nathan Sams former Bell Airshycraft test pilot Bob Stanley and physicist Dr Dean E Wooldridge one of the founders of Thompson Reno Wooldridge or TRW

Incoming US Air Force Chief of Staff and Four Star General John P Jumper was the featured speaker of the evening and since the event was held only 11 days following the terrorist attacks of September 11 seshycurity was extremely tight

Charlie joins the other Oklahoma National Biplane Association memshybers in the Hall who have been inducted in prior years including Mary Jones Wilkinson Joe Cunningshyham Mary Kelly Jan Mauritson and John Bouteller

The black tie affair attracted apshyproximately 400 patrons and guests During the presentation of Robert Ragozzino an audio tape of the sounds of Roberts 450 Pratt amp Whitshyn ey engine was played in the background Inhofes previou sly owned and flown Stearman was prominently shown during the video presentation honoring him and Charlie was videotaped in front of his Pitts S-lS-placing biplanes in the spotlight for the large biplane contingent in attendance

Our hearty congratulations to Charshylie on this well-deserved honor ~

Jan 11-13 2002

Jan 18-20 2002

Jan 18-20 2002

Jan 19 2002

Jan 19-20 2002

Feb 8-1 0 2002

Mar 1-3 2002

Workshop Schedule Griffin GA TIGWELDING

Corona CA RVASSEMBLY

Griffin GA RVASSEMBLY

Oshkosh WI TEST FLYING

YOUR PROJECT

Oshkosh WI SHEET METAL COMPOSITE CONSTRUCT ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

amp AVIONICS FABRIC COVERING INTRO TO BUILDING

Griffin GA TIGWELDING

Oshkosh WI RVASSEMBLY

Mar 1-3 2002 Griffin GA ADVANCED TIG WELDING RVASSEMBLY

Mar 22-24 2002 CoronaCA RVASSEMBLY

Mar232002 DallasTX TEST FLYING

YOUR PROJECT

Mar 23-24 2002 Dallas TX SHEET METAL COMPOSITE CONSTRUCT ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS

amp AVIONICS FABRIC COVERING GAS WELDING

April 20-21 2002 Watsonville CA SHEET METAL COMPOSITE CONSTRUCT FABRIC COVERING

Visit wwwsportaircom for a complete listing of workshops

S EAAIfJORT~lR WORKSHOPS

iro

1-800-WORKSHOP 1-800-967-5746 sportaireaaorg

VINTAGE AIRPLAN E 27

~7bull bull 1M

VINTAGE TRADER

~ Something to buy

sell or trade Classified Word Ads $550 per 10 words 180

words m ax imum with boldface lead-in on first line

C lass ified Display Ads One co lumn wide (2167 inches) by 1 2 or 3 inches high at $20 per inch Black and white only and no freshyquency discounts

Adverti si ng Closing Dates 10th of second month prior to desired issue date (Le January 10 is the closing date for the March issue) VAA reshyserves the right to rejec t any advertising in conflict with its policies Rates cover one inser shytion per issue Classified ads are not accepted via phone Payment must accompany order Word ads may be sent via fax (920426-4828) or e-mail (c1assadseaaorg) using credit ca rd payment (a ll cards accepted) Include name on card complete address type of card ca rd number and expirashytion date Make checks payable to EAA Address advertising correspondence to EAA Publications ClaSSified Ad Manager PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54903-3086

BABBITT BEARING SERVICE - rod bearings main bearings bushings master rods valves piston rings Call us Toll Free 1800233-6934 e-mail ramremfgaolcom Web site wwwrashymenginecom VINTAGE ENGINE MACHINE WORKS N 604 FREYA ST SPOKAN E WA 99202

Airplane T-Shirts 150 Different Airplanes Available

WE PROBABLY HAVE YOUR AIRPLANE wwwairplanetshirtscom

1-800-645-7739

THERES JUST NOTHING LIKE IT ON THE WEB wwwavjation-giftshoPcom

A Web Site With The Pilot In Mind (and those who love airplanes)

For sale reluctantly Warner 145 amp 165 engines 1 each new OH and low time No tire kickers please Two Curtiss Reed props to go with above engines 1966 Helton Lark 95 Serial 8 Very rare PO-8 certified Target Drone derivative Tri-gear Culver Cadet See Juptners Vol 8-170 Total time AampE 845 hrs I just have too many toys and Im not getshyting any younger Find my name in the Officers amp Directors listing of Vintage and e-mail or call evenings E E Buck Hilbert

1940 J-3 Cub project disassembled 65 Continental engine $7500 firm 863-699-1911

1971 Bellanca 7ACA Champ project 800 hrs total time since new $8500 757-357-0826 cheekvisinet

Wanted Kinner 610 taper shaft prop hub Russ 610-372-7333

28 JANUARY 2002

Aircraft Exhaust Systems JlUnping Branch WV 25969

800-227-5951

30 different engines for fitting

Antiques Warbirds General Aviation 304-466-1724 Fax 304-466-0802

PRIME CLASSIFIED REAL ESTATE

AVAILABLE ON THIS PAGE shy

$20 PER I NCH pER MONTH

TO MAKE

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920-426-6565

FOR MORE INFO

The use of Dacron or similar modern maleriak os a substiule for (oHon ts deg dead giveaway10 Ihe knowing eye They simply do nOllook righl on vinloge aircroh from Rabert Mikesh former curolor of Ihe Nolional Air and Spoce

Museum in his book Restoring Museum Aircraff

VltiTAGE AERO FAPgtRICJ LTD C)lliJfl fll

Dont compromise your restoration with modem coverings finish the job correctly with authentic fabrics

Certificated Grade A(allan Early aircraft (allan

Imported aircraft Linen (beige and tan) German WWl lozenge print fabric

Fabric tapes frayed straight pinked and early Ameri(an pinked Waxed linen lacing (ord

Pure cotton machine and hand sewing thread

Vinlage Aera Fabri(s ltd 18 Journeys End Mendon VI 05701 lei 802middot773middot0686 lax 802middot786middot21 29 websile wwwavdalh(am

Original Nieuporl28 reslored by Vinlage Avionon Services

Wedell-Williams Air Service Authors Robert Hirsch amp Barbara Schultz

A history of air racing at its best l

170 photos 19 detailed drawings $ 1995 plus $395 shipping

Order f rom Litt le Buttes Publishing Co PO Box 2043 Lancaster CA 93539

OR online www middotlecom

want to see your plane or pearls of wisdom in print

Write an article for VINTAGE AIRPLANE

Were always looking for technical articles and photos of your latest restoration We cant offer you money but we can make you ahero among

fellow Vintage Aircraft enthusiasts

Send your submissions to Editor Vintage Airplane

PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54904

e-mail vintageeaaorg

For pOinters on format and content feel free to call

920-426-4825

VINTAGE AIRCRAFT

ASSOCIATION OFFICERS

President Vice-President Espie Butch Joyce George Daubner

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sst IOOCalfmailmsncom davecpdiquestnet

Membership Services Directo~ ENJOY THE MANY BENEFITS OF EAA AND THE EAA VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION

EAA Aviation Center PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54903-3086 Phone (920) 426-4800 Fax (920) 426-4873

Web Site httpwww_eaaorg and httpwwwairventure_org E-Mail villtage eaa_org

EAA and Division Membership Services 800-843-3612 FAX 920-426-6761 (800 AM-700 PM Monday-Friday CSn bull New renew memberships EAA Divisions

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bull Address changes bull Merchandise sales bull Gift memberships

Programs and Activities EAA AirVenture Fax-On-Demand Directory _ 732-885-6711

Auto Fuel STCs 920-426-4843 Build restore information 920-426-4821 Chapters locatingorganizing 920-426-4876 Education _ 920-426-6815

bull EAA Air Academy bull EAA Scholarships

Flight Advisors information 920-426-6522 Flight Instructor information 920-426-6801 Flying Start Program 920-426-6847 Library Services Research 920-426-4848 Medical Questions 920-426-4821 Technical Counselors 920-426-4821 Young Eagles 920-426-4831

Benefits Aircraft Financing (Textron) 800-851-1367 AUA 800-727-3823 AVEMCO 800-638-8440 Term Life and Accidental 800-241-6103 Death Insurance (Harvey Watt amp Company)

Editorial Submitting articlephoto advertising informashytion 920-426-4825 FAX 920-426-4828

EAA Aviation Foundation Artifact Donations 920-426-4877 Financial Support _ 800-236-1025

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION EAA

Membership in the Experimental Aircraft Associshyation Inc is $40 for one year including 12 issues of SPORT AVIATION Family membership is available for an additional $10 annually Junlor Membership (under 19 years of age) is available at $23 annually All major credit cards accep ted for membership (Add $16 for Foreign Postage)

VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION Current EAA members may join the Vintage

Aircraft Associaton and receive VINTAGE AIR shyPLANE magazine for an additional $36 per year

EAA Membership VINTAGE A IRPLANE magazine and one year membership in the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association is available for $46 per year (SPORT AVIATION maga Zine not inshycluded) (Add $7 for Foreign Postage)

lAC Current EAA members may join the Internashy

tional Aerobatic Club Inc Division and receive SPORT AEROBATICS magazine for an addishytional $40 per year

EAA Membership SPORT AEROBATICS magaZine and one year membership in the lAC Division is available for $50 per year (SPORT

AVIATION magazine not included) (Add $10 for Foreign Postage)

WARBIRDS Current EAA members may join the EAA Warshy

birds of America Division and receive WARBlRDS magazine for an additional $35 per year

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EXPERIMENTER magazine for an additional $20 per year

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Membership dues to EAA a nd its divisions are not tax deductible as charitable contributions

Copyright copy2002 by the EM Vintage Aircraft Association All rights reserved

VINTAGE AIRPLANE DSSN 0091-6943) IPM 1482602 is published and owned exclusively by the EM Vintage Aircraft Association of the Experimental Aircraft Association and is published monthly at EM Aviation Center 3000 Poberezny Rd PO Box 3086 Oshkosh Wisconsin 54903-3086 Periodicals Postage paid at Oshkosh Wisconsin 54901 and at additional mailing offices POSTMASTER Send address changes to EM Vintage Aircraft Association PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54903-3086 FOREIGN AND APO ADDRESSES - Please allow at least two months for delivery of VINTAGE AIRPLANE to foreign and APO addresses via surshyface mail ADVERTISING - Vintage Aircraft Association does nol guarantee or endorse any product offered through the advertising We invite constructive criticism and welcome any report of inferior merchandise obtained through our advertising so that corrective measures can be taken

EDITORIAL POLICY Readers are encouraged to submit stories and photographs POIKoY opinions expressed in artKoles are solely those of the authors Responsibility lor accuracy in reporting rests entirely with the contributor No renumeration is made Material should be sent to Editor VINTAGE AIRPLANE PO Box 3086 Oshkosh WI 54903-3086 Phone 920426-4800

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VINTAGE AIRPLANE 29

a Fleece Youth Vests $1295 These soft fleece vests are ava ilable in royal blue grey and green blue sm V00587 grey blue Ig V10509 grey blue xl 110510 grey green Sill V10511 grey green xl I 10514

sm VI0515 md 100516

Ig 110517 xl 110518

b Zippered Sweatshirt 5995 50 cotton50 poly and machine wasbshyable this top has an elegant outline around the Vintage logo with genu ine Austrian crystals Comes in navy or forfest green navy md I 10489 navy Ig I 10490 nm) xl 110491 green Iud 110492

c Leather Valslty Jacket $22995 Leather aud wool are combined to create this classic jacket with embossed vintage airplanes and Vintage logo ottlthlYDtil6 md 100344 Ig V00345

d lravel lUug 100342 $ 1295 Classic sta inless steel mug with plastic handle and cap Standard base fits most cal cup holders

e Coffee Mllg V00234 $495 Enjoy your morning coffee with this blue trimmed Vintage logo mug

f Youth Flight Jacket bull bull bullbull $3895 This classic jacket is sized for young people Made of nylon with knit coilaI cuffs aDd waist Sports an orange liner Youth sizes sm 100605 md V00606 Ig V00607

TELEPHONE ORDERS

800-843-3612 FROM US AND CANADA

ALL O T HERS CALL

920-426-5912

MAIL ORDERS Po Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086

ORDER ONLINE

WWWEAAORG

INTAGE ME AND

a

ORDER ONLINE

WWWEAAOR

g Crew Sweater ~ This dalk navy knit sweater has cotton patches at the shoulder and elbows and sports the Vintage logo ~~ sm V00516 xl V 10525 ct ~E md Vl0523 xxi V00517 49911 Ig Vl0524

Leather 8a~s frOID Vinta~e Aircraft

An embossed logo graces each of these finely crafted genuine leather bags which come in either tan or black

h Leathel Pouch $2195 tan V00584 black V00513

Flapped soft leather bag has shoulder strap Approximate size 75h x 5v x 15d

i Leathel Blie(case $7995 tan 100497 black 100510

Crafted with a r ich design this case has several interior pockets and goes from home to the boardlOom in style ApplOxishymately 12h x 16w x 45d

j Lealher Backpa(k $4995 tan V00498 black V00511

Perfectly sized with convenient zippered pockets on the inside and outside ApplOxshyimately 11h x 9w x 45d

k LeatheI Pocket Bag (black only) V00512 $4695 Convenient phonesunglass pocket make this bag a definite accessory ApPlOximate size 9h x 6w x 3d

I Adult Burgundy Fleece est $ middot1495

Simi lar to the youth fleece vest th is adult version is a welcomed layer during cold winter activities

Ig 110506sm V00586 xl Vl0507md 110505

m Youth Camo Shht $amp995 Sport shirt features four buttoned pockshyets and Vintage Logo Made of 65 poly35 cotton and is machine washable Youth sizes

SOl V00609 md 100610 Ig 100611 xJ 100612

TELEPHONE ORDERS

800-843-3612 FROM US AND CANADA

A LL OTHERS CALL

920-426-5912

MAIL ORDERS Po Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086

r

Russ King

Aransas Pass TX

Private pilot in SEL in

1981 AampP IA FAA-DAR

Diredor of Quality

for McTurbine Inc

a 145 repair station

specializing in

Lycoming T53 Turboshaft

helicopter engines

AUAis

~ approved

To become a

member of the

Vintage Aircraft

Association call

800-843-3612

And the award for Best Post War Custom Aeronca goes to Russ King stands with his award from the June 2000 Middletown Ohio National Aeronca Fly-In and his N238 7E 1946 Aeronca 7 AC

This was the first airplane I ever flew in

My Dad sold it in 1964 When I

re-acquired it in 1996 I wanted an

insurance company familiar with classic

airplanes to insure my prize AUA is

that company They understand classic

airplanes offer great service and have

very reasonable rates Thanks AUA

for helping to make it affordable to

own and fly the classics - Russ King

The best is affordable

Give AUA a call - its FREE

800-727-3823 Fly with the pros fly with AUA Inc

AUAs Exclusive EAA Vintage Aircraft Assoc Insurance Program

lower liability and hull premiums

Medical payments included

Fleet discounts for multiple aircraft carrying all risk coverages

No hand-propping exclusion

No age penalty

No component parts endorsements

Discounts for claim-free renewals carrying all risk coverages

Remember Were Better Togetherl

ORDER ONLINE

WWWEAAOR

g Crew Sweater ~ This dalk navy knit sweater has cotton patches at the shoulder and elbows and sports the Vintage logo ~~ sm V00516 xl V 10525 ct ~E md Vl0523 xxi V00517 49911 Ig Vl0524

Leather 8a~s frOID Vinta~e Aircraft

An embossed logo graces each of these finely crafted genuine leather bags which come in either tan or black

h Leathel Pouch $2195 tan V00584 black V00513

Flapped soft leather bag has shoulder strap Approximate size 75h x 5v x 15d

i Leathel Blie(case $7995 tan 100497 black 100510

Crafted with a r ich design this case has several interior pockets and goes from home to the boardlOom in style ApplOxishymately 12h x 16w x 45d

j Lealher Backpa(k $4995 tan V00498 black V00511

Perfectly sized with convenient zippered pockets on the inside and outside ApplOxshyimately 11h x 9w x 45d

k LeatheI Pocket Bag (black only) V00512 $4695 Convenient phonesunglass pocket make this bag a definite accessory ApPlOximate size 9h x 6w x 3d

I Adult Burgundy Fleece est $ middot1495

Simi lar to the youth fleece vest th is adult version is a welcomed layer during cold winter activities

Ig 110506sm V00586 xl Vl0507md 110505

m Youth Camo Shht $amp995 Sport shirt features four buttoned pockshyets and Vintage Logo Made of 65 poly35 cotton and is machine washable Youth sizes

SOl V00609 md 100610 Ig 100611 xJ 100612

TELEPHONE ORDERS

800-843-3612 FROM US AND CANADA

A LL OTHERS CALL

920-426-5912

MAIL ORDERS Po Box 3086 OSHKOSH WI 54903-3086

r

Russ King

Aransas Pass TX

Private pilot in SEL in

1981 AampP IA FAA-DAR

Diredor of Quality

for McTurbine Inc

a 145 repair station

specializing in

Lycoming T53 Turboshaft

helicopter engines

AUAis

~ approved

To become a

member of the

Vintage Aircraft

Association call

800-843-3612

And the award for Best Post War Custom Aeronca goes to Russ King stands with his award from the June 2000 Middletown Ohio National Aeronca Fly-In and his N238 7E 1946 Aeronca 7 AC

This was the first airplane I ever flew in

My Dad sold it in 1964 When I

re-acquired it in 1996 I wanted an

insurance company familiar with classic

airplanes to insure my prize AUA is

that company They understand classic

airplanes offer great service and have

very reasonable rates Thanks AUA

for helping to make it affordable to

own and fly the classics - Russ King

The best is affordable

Give AUA a call - its FREE

800-727-3823 Fly with the pros fly with AUA Inc

AUAs Exclusive EAA Vintage Aircraft Assoc Insurance Program

lower liability and hull premiums

Medical payments included

Fleet discounts for multiple aircraft carrying all risk coverages

No hand-propping exclusion

No age penalty

No component parts endorsements

Discounts for claim-free renewals carrying all risk coverages

Remember Were Better Togetherl

r

Russ King

Aransas Pass TX

Private pilot in SEL in

1981 AampP IA FAA-DAR

Diredor of Quality

for McTurbine Inc

a 145 repair station

specializing in

Lycoming T53 Turboshaft

helicopter engines

AUAis

~ approved

To become a

member of the

Vintage Aircraft

Association call

800-843-3612

And the award for Best Post War Custom Aeronca goes to Russ King stands with his award from the June 2000 Middletown Ohio National Aeronca Fly-In and his N238 7E 1946 Aeronca 7 AC

This was the first airplane I ever flew in

My Dad sold it in 1964 When I

re-acquired it in 1996 I wanted an

insurance company familiar with classic

airplanes to insure my prize AUA is

that company They understand classic

airplanes offer great service and have

very reasonable rates Thanks AUA

for helping to make it affordable to

own and fly the classics - Russ King

The best is affordable

Give AUA a call - its FREE

800-727-3823 Fly with the pros fly with AUA Inc

AUAs Exclusive EAA Vintage Aircraft Assoc Insurance Program

lower liability and hull premiums

Medical payments included

Fleet discounts for multiple aircraft carrying all risk coverages

No hand-propping exclusion

No age penalty

No component parts endorsements

Discounts for claim-free renewals carrying all risk coverages

Remember Were Better Togetherl