Vol. 27 No.2
Getting Started
Matt Thompson
At the last meeting we agreed to sponsor Flying magazine for
the library’s collection. Since
that time, we’ve also received our insurance certificate – so we’re
official again for 2004. We’re
signed up for the local history room for the balance of the year, sticking to
the fourth Monday of the month. So
there shouldn’t be as much guessing about when we’re having meetings.
Well, I’ve not been doing much flying as of late because of
the cold and the breeze. In
reality, it’s a good time to have a plane in the shop, which is good, because
that’s where the ‘Cruiser is, in the shop, getting a factory overhauled
Lycoming installed. The engine was
finally getting close on time (2400 hours TBO), but it was way overdue on the
years, almost 45 years since major. The
most recent top overhaul was over ten years ago.
The infamous Lycoming oil pump AD didn’t apply to us since it covered
parts manufactured well after our last major!
Despite all that, remarkably, the compression remained in the 70’s, the
case didn’t leak, and in warm weather or with pre-heat, the engine usually
started within a couple of blades. I
hope we are as fortunate with the next one.
It’s too bad that the core goes back to Lycoming and we don’t get to
find out much about the condition when they split the case.
There might be some interesting lessons to learn.
Another thing to report is that the Cruiser now resides in a
hangar at Lincoln Park. It’s
added almost 20 minutes to the trip to the airport.
The flip side is that it saves nearly 20 minutes since the hangar doors
are a heck of a lot easier to deal with than the covers.
Still, the price of a hangar in New Jersey takes my breath away.
For the difference between the hangar and the tie-down, we could put on
the covers and afford to pay someone to recover the airplane every four or five
years.
It’s of interest to note that in 2003, EAA claims there
were 707 centennial home-builts registered versus 588 singles by Cessna, 469 by
Cirrus, 228 by Diamond, and 185 by “New” Piper. I find it very interesting that the new technology planes
have almost outsold the conventional technology planes on the commercial front.
For those that thought composite construction would never catch on, this
ought to be wakeup call. On the
homebuilt front, Van’s had a record year with 414 completions, more that half
of all the homebuilts! There
are over 3500 RV’s flying now. Nearly
half of them are 6’s. Van’s has
sold over 6000 6 kits, so I’m not alone in the perseverance
category.
On the RV-6 front, I’ve actually started working on it
again. I’ve got the aileron hung
on the left wing now and started construction of the second flap.
Mostly, I’ve been waiting for a warm day so I can shoot some primer,
close up the flaps and finish riveting the fuselage bulkheads to the longerons.
The garage has been less than inviting with the cold, so my fuselage
hasn’t gotten much attention lately.
The good news is that my recently turned 7-year old wants to know when
we’re going to get the plane done
because he wants to fly in it. He’s
been helping deburr the multitude of fuselage parts that need fitting before the
skins can be drilled.
Hope everyone is staying healthy in this winter season.
See you at the meeting Monday night.
Off and closed? Brakes
and contact!
REFLECTIONS
Ed Chenevey
A
few items from the EAA web site this month. They have set a goal of 100,000
Young Eagles a year to carry the program along. The anyAWOS site is up and
running. Phone 1-877-anyAWOS (269-2967) and enter the 3 character airport
identifier. Info is at anyAWOS.com. Also Duane Cole passed away the other week.
Bob
Kroll sent in his dues along with a note wishing you all well. Remember, please
make any checks payable to me.
I
went to the Allentown Gun Show last weekend and restocked my larder at the
Farmers Market with sticky buns, Shoo Fly Pie, and Lebanon bologna so I have a
couple of more days of good eating. I probably bought 25 lb of books and other
reading matter and as I was carying this load out to the car, in front of me was
a man dressed in a shirt, tie, and jacket with an attache case in one hand and a
Vickers machine gun on his shoulder. I instantly pictured a Bill Mauldin drawing
of a weary Tommy trudging across a muddy field carrying an ammo can with a
Vickers on his shoulder. If I had had a camera it would have been perfect.
The
cannon guy had an antique 3 in bore British muzzle loading mountain howitzer
with Afghan markings which had been "liberated" during the recent
invasion.There were only two displays. One was the Liberator pistol made by the
Army to drop behind enemy lines. If you watched Mail Call on the History Channel
in the last few weeks the old Gunny blasted a watermellon with one. The other
was a British Spotlight indoor training device from the late 30's. It consisted
of a model airplane moved on a wire scaled to represent an aircraft 400 yards
away at 180 mph and a flashlight device attached to a rifle, machine gun, or sub
machine gun to teach proper lead of a moving target. He had one mounted on an
SMLE rifle and one on a Vickers machine gun with offset sights and an electrical
box which made gun sounds when the trigger was depressed. I know it sounds
inefficient but if 10-15 guys fire one shot with their rifles at a target that
is equivalent to a second of machine gun fire. And it would certainly make a
laison pilot like Mike uncomfortable.
Back
to aircraft. I found an Aeronca ad for the 7AC Champ from the Feb 1946 Saturday
Evening Post. The header is "Anybody Can Fly Aeronca". They claimed a
cruise of 90 mph and that 500 mile trips are a matter of only a few hours. A
fuel stop was not mentioned of course. On the other hand, before the
interstates, a 500 mile trip was very long, particularly in the east where there
were a lot of towns to drive through so that the ability to go non-stop and even
diagonally at 75 mph in an airplane was great. Advertizing was just as
misleading then as now. The ad said that Chiefs would be available in March. I
checked and apparently they were already making 350 Champs a month then so
Aeronca set up a new production line at Dayton airport to produce Chiefs.
One
of the most interesting articles that I found was a Saturday Evening Post
article from November 1935 entitled "207 to Newark" which gives a very
detailed account of the proceedures and details involved in TWA's Flight 10 from
Chicago to Newark with their new Boeing 247's. The last page of the flight log,
small reproductions of the aero maps for both Chicago and Newark and a cockpit
picture are included. Leaving Chicago at 3:15 PM , stopping at Columbus,
Pittsburgh and Camden, and then arriving at Newark at 9:15 is only 5 hours. This
was 1935 remember; actually Sept 3rd. They used a common radio frequency for all
communications and addressed the Chicago tower with a radio call sign (WGEH)
from the ground but not in the air, calling it simply Chicago. I wonder what
frequency bands they were on? Whatever it was, range was long. Over Gary they
talked to Pittsburgh and heard a plane over Bernardsville at 3000 inbound to
Newark. Maybe Art Storm has some ideas.
My
biggest puzzle is why would they fly to Camden rather than to Philadelphia and
where was Camden airport? Based on the flight log which shows it 50 miles from
Coatesville at 097 true it would be 10-12 miles east of the Delaware river SE of
Camden. The little bit of Newark map shows a few airports clearly, Princeton,
Hadly, Somerset Hills, Miller, Keyport, and of course, Newark.There is an
airport in Jersey City, one which I can't read but may be Westfield (on a
straight line about 40% of the way between Hadley and Newark), probably under
the GSP in Clark.There is also one dead south of Newark marked Donovan-Hughes
which may be on the western edge of Staten Island. I'm also interested in where
the airway beacons were. Al Douglas had told me that one was along Rt 22 in
Bound Brook but none shows on the map so I believe that he mean't Mountainside
which is on the map on the west leg of the Newark range which passed over
Basking Ridge (about 278 true out of Newark). The next beacon appears to be
between Bernardsville and Gladstone, undoubtedly on one of the hills. The story
says that the Newark range station was 8000 ft SW of Newark on the runway
heading and that they followed that beam (222 true) up from Camden. There
appears to be a beacon about at Linden, another one in Woodbridge due east of
Hadley which was a field with a beacon, another in North Brunswick and one near
Princeton Junction where a SE range leg intersected, probably from a station
near Bangor Pa. Maybe Mike has some old sectionals with the LF ranges on them.
The whole article is quite detailed and was designed to calm peoples fear of
flying and put them at ease yet there is no mention of TWA other than photo
credits or the aircraft type or manufacturer; something that would never happen
today. From the back of the articles you can learn about the culture of the
time. Did you know that Kellogs sold Decaf as Kaffee-Hag Coffee and that all
Buick car prices included Safety Glass throughout as standard equipment. (I
thought it was required long before that).
I
bought a pictorial article from Feb 1946 on the Hall roadable airplane or flying
car (NX59711). The twin boom tail and wing assembly unbolted from the 3 wheeled
car and after removal of the propeller could be driven on the highway. Powered
by a 130 hp Franklin, it looks as if it has a reduction drive to the propeller.
Another
Saturday Evening Post story from May 1940 by Wolfgang Langewiesche entitled
"Here are your Wings" is encouraging everyone to fly, shows how much
fun it is, etc. He claims to have flown 60,000 miles in 7 years starting in an
E-2 Cub. He calls the planes he flys flivvers and labels them
"Fool-tolerant". By 1940 he's flying with 50 hp, slow, gutless, but
fun. And yes, he's gotten lost. We should all dig up a copy of his "Stick
and Rudder" and reread it to learn what we have forgotten about basic
flying. By writing this, I mean myself although I don't know where my copy is.
The rest of you check your libraries, personal or public. I saw new copies at
Barnes & Nobel a year or so ago.
Most
of the other things I haven't read yet like a 1926 article on the Stout-Ford
Aircraft and Airlines and another from 1927 on the Lindbergh Good Will tour of
the US. It would be an interesting thing to duplicate just as I've always wanted
to fly the old airmail route coast to coast. Oh yeah, I also bought an old air
mail bag. I hope you all are having as much fun as I am.
Cygnet
Chatter
Alvin
Sager
Too late! By the time you
read this the auction will be over. Dave
Richter sent me a link to www.airplanehomes.com.
Check it out. It will fit on
a one acre lot, land or water. It
will always point into the wind. Imagine
living in a Boeing 727. I can’t
wait for the next one to go up for auction.
