Va vol 41 no 5 sep oct 2013

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

•Flying a Helio Courier

•AirVenture Awards

•Vin Fiz

CUB One

Super

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

Editor-in-Chief . . . . . . . J . Mac McClellan

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

VAA Executive Administrator Max Platts920-426-6110 . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

Advertising Director . . . . . Katrina Bradshaw202-577-9292 . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

Advertising Manager . . . . Sue Anderson920-426-6127 . . . . . . . . . [email protected]

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

VAA, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903

Website: www.VintageAircraft.org

Email: [email protected]

www.VintageAircraft.org 1

Jack Pelton EAA Chairman

Edsel B. Ford IIBoard Director, Ford Motor Co.

We are proud of the partnership between Ford and EAA and the benefits we can bring together to AirVenture. Our relationship spans more than a decade, and we continue to expand each year!

Our goal is to enhance the EAA experience for all members and to improve the consideration of Ford Motor Company products.

EAA appreciates Ford’s active involvement at AirVenture by supporting the opening day Chicago concert, the nightly Fly-In Theater, the fantastic Thunderbirds Edition Mustang benefitting the Young Eagles and so much more.

2013 AirVenture was a remarkable week of excitement and fun. Thank you for attending AirVenture and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

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

EAA_Divis_Sep_Thank_You_Ad.indd 1 8/8/13 4:35 PM

Uppermost in the minds of many of our members today is the recent FAA action to assess operational fees for air traffic control ser-vices at AirVenture Oshkosh. To me, this is a particularly troublesome development that arises out of the issues relevant to sequestration as it was applied to the FAA. Early on in this debate Congress responded by exempting the FAA from the budget cuts that sequestration im-posed on them. Of course, we all wrongly assumed that this would eliminate the then “proposed” fees placed on AirVenture Oshkosh. This very burdensome level of fees is really an unfair tax on a signifi-cant aviation event that has been leveled by the FAA without any authority whatsoever to act in this manner. My real purpose here is to merely reach out to our membership and encourage you all to continue to communicate to your representatives in Washington our strong displeasure with this unauthorized attack on general aviation. This action by the FAA has now caught the ire of many of the mem-bers of the GA coalition in our Congress, and this has resulted in a strong admonition to the FAA from them. So, please be sure to also thank those congressional members who have taken a strong position against this unauthorized action by the FAA. Finally, please be as-sured that our government relations group at EAA is deeply engaged on this issue, and we all appreciate their efforts and hope for a posi-tive resolution to all of these issues.

As I pen this edition of Straight & Level, it is actually the day before AirVenture 2013 begins. Many early signs of a successful event are developing right before our eyes. Strong numbers of volunteers, record numbers of registered returning past Grand Champions, a strong number of early arriving display and camping aircraft, and a good number of vintage aircraft that we have never before seen at Oshkosh are all excellent indicators of a successful event.

Of course, by the time you read this month’s Straight & Level column, AirVenture 2013 will be in the history books, and I am optimistic that those of you who came to share the passion had a grand time and enjoyed yet another excellent episode of the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.

It’s also very appropriate to me that we recognize the efforts of the VAA board of directors for their monstrous engagement in this year’s event and the hundreds of vintage volunteers who yet again invested

Straight & Level Vintage AirplaneSTAFF

Oshkosh 2013 is nowin the history books

GEOFF ROBISONVAA PRESIDENT, EAA 268346, VAA 12606

continued on page 63

VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATIONCurrent EAA members may join the Vin-

tage Aircraft Association and receive VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazine for an additional $42 per year.

EAA Membership, VINTAGE AIRPLANE magazine and one year membership in the EAA Vintage Aircraft Association is available for $52 per year (SPORT AVIATION magazine not included). (Add $7 for International Postage.)

FOREIGN MEMBERSHIPSPlease submit your remittance with a

check or draft drawn on a United States bank payable in United States dollars. Add required Foreign Postage amount for each membership.

Member ServicesPO Box 3086

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

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

EAA AirVenture Oshkoshwww.airventure.org

888-322-4636

TM

10 How to? Prepare a surface for fabric covering Robert G. Lock

12 The Vintage Instructor Aviation growth through vintage aircraft Steve Krog, CFI2 SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2013 www.VintageAircraft.org 3

C O N T E N T S

C O V E R S

Vol. 41, No. 5 2013

FRONT COVER: Roger and Darin Megger’s are all smiles in their Super Cub number one. Russ Munson Photo.BACK COVER: Aaron Tippin flies his Helio Courier for Jim Koepnick’s camera lens.

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

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

20Flying a Helio Courier in a Country Kinda Way!Aaron Tippin and his 1959 H-395 HelioJim Busha

28Turning Back the Hands of TimeThe resurrection and restorationof the first Piper Super CubJim Busha

38The Papoose PairA different kind of Cubat AirVentureBudd Davisson

45Coast to Coast With the Vin FizPart 1The 84-day odyssey of Cal RodgersMark Carlson

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

15 Ask the AME Disqualifying medical conditions John Patterson, M.D., AME

16 Good Old Days

@VintageEAA facebook.com/EAAVintage

58 The Vintage Mechanic Aircraft covering, Part 1 Robert G. Lock

63 Gone West & New Members

54 Around the Pylons How to beat your plowshare into a sword Don Berliner

COLUMNS1 Straight and Level Oshkosh 2013 is now in the history books Geoff Robison

8 Join Friends of the Red Barn

4 Air Mail

6 2013 AirVenture Vintage Awards

4 SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2013

Hi Jim,Just got the new Vintage mag. And,

as always, enjoy reading it. Please send this attachment to Don Berliner that wrote the article on the race planes in July/August. In the 1991 EAA Sport Aviation there is also an article on race planes with Pete. Ed Marquart restored Pete’s structure, and I covered and painted it in ’91 just before we took it to Oshkosh. Pete was cut in half to restore, as the front half had been so modified with welding that Ed remade the front for Pete, and Greg Laird made a new aft for Little Audrey as discussed in the at-tached article.

Thanks.Jan Johnson

Jim,I was reading Mr. Berliner’s piece in the July/Au-

gust issue and stopped at the Kadiak Speedster and looked at the attached pictures, and N11312 hit me.

This machine was also owned by Robert Young of Martinsville, Indiana, probably in ’41 plus or minus a year or two. Bob and my father were primary train-ing pilots for a school in Indianapolis owned by Roscoe Turner. They trained the new boys on the basics in J-3s.

Bob and my father, Don Moschenross, are now gone, but in their flying days I loved to go on the Sat-urday tours of various garages and basements in the early ’70s. Bob built a Baby Ace, Pitts, Woody Pusher, and flew them all. My father built a Starlet which was last seen, and was flying in 2001, in the hangar of Vern Bothwell in west central Indiana.

It continued with my building of a Lazair with

many old eyes watching as they helped and advised.I enjoy all the EAA publications and will continue

to support your efforts to support private aviation.Please use this e-mail as you wish and, of course,

send it on to Mr. Berliner.Jim Moschenross EAA 391629

Hi Jim, In the article written by Don Berliner in the July/

August issue I have a photo of one of the airplanes mentioned, which I bought on eBay several years ago. It is of Kadiak Speedster N11312. Since there wasn’t a photo of this aircraft within the article, if interested, I can send a digital file of the photo.

Great magazine! Albert Dyer

Air Mail

Don Berliner’sJuly/August column

Sport Aviation, November 1991


Jim,I very much enjoyed Don’s articles on pre-World War

II racing aircraft. These articles tie in with two articles I wrote about the Hunter brothers that were published in Vintage Airplane in June and July 2012. Gordon Is-rael was a good friend of Kenneth Hunter. In fact, Ken-neth and Gordon Israel built a racing plane and planned to enter in the 1932 National Air Race at Cleveland, Ohio. Kenneth crashed the airplane while testing it at Lambert Field in St. Louis. Israel and Hunter decided not to rebuild the airplane. Gordon Israel went on the work for Grumman Aircraft during WWII.

Walter Hunter purchased the Travel Air Mystery Ship NR614K from Curtiss Wright in June 1931. He replaced the engine with a Curtiss Wright J6 engine that Curtiss Wright gave the Hunter brothers after their record-setting endurance flight. He flew the air-plane to Teterboro, New Jersey, and installed a new Curtiss Wright J6 engine. He flew the airplane to Bur-bank, California, for the Bendix Transcontinental Race. An article in the February 1983 issue of Vintage Air-plane magazine provides details of Walter’s experience on his flight from Burbank to Cleveland. When Wal-ter arrived in Cleveland in NR614K, he flew around the course for the Thompson Trophy race. The engine caught fire again, and Walter was forced to bail out of the airplane. When the airplane struck the ground, the fire was extinguished. The wrecked airplane NR614K was returned to Albert Hunter’s home near Tilden, Illinois. The tail of the wrecked NR614K was donated to the Beech Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, Tennes-

see, by one of Albert Hunter’s daughters and Walter’s niece. The tail of NR614K was used in rebuilding Travel Air Mystery Ship NR614K, which is now on display at the Beech Heritage Museum. The airplane is painted as it was when it won the 1929 Thompson Trophy race. When Walter rebuilt the airplane for the 1931 Bendix Trophy Race, he painted it orange and black, the colors of the University of Illinois.

Robert H. HayesEAA 1021394VAA 721606

Dear Jim,I truly enjoyed the Laird article in the May/June

2013 issue. Amazing that No. 203 survived in the fac-tory crates for all those years! The number of Lairds manufactured needs clarification though.

On page 35 it states, “Were 203 different Lairds built in the various models.”

The first Laird serial number was, in fact, 101 for the first 1923 Swallow and continued to 215. I would say 115 is a more likely number for the various mod-els. There is no data known to me for serial numbers 208 through 215 (if, indeed, these were constructed).

Sincerely, Richard L. SeelyVAA 722449

Thanks for the clarification and history lesson Rich-ard—much appreciated!

—Jim

Kadiak Speedster N11312

www.VintageAircraft.org 76 SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2013

Golden Age (1918 1927) Champion - Bronze LindyTimothy BickfordLimington, Maine1927 Travel Air 4000, N6005

Antique Reserve Grand Champion - Silver LindyMike AraldiLakeland, Florida1938 Waco AGC 8, NC2312

Antique Grand Champion - Gold LindyDave and Jeanne AllenElbert, Colorado1934 Waco YKC, N14137

Classic (September 1945-1955) Outstanding Aeronca Champ - Small PlaqueDuane JonesNew Carlisle, Ohio1946 Aeronca 7AC, N2189E

Outstanding Bellanca - Small PlaqueBryan QuickmireTiny, Ontario, Canada1950 Bellanca 14-19 Cruisemaster, CFGLQ

Outstanding Cessna 120/140 - Small PlaqueThomas WestPhoenix, Arizona1947 Cessna 140, N2574N

Outstanding Cessna 170/180 - Small PlaqueVincent LalomiaMontclair, New Jersey1954 Cessna 170B, N1936C

Outstanding Cessna 190/195 - Small PlaqueMichael PrattLouisville, Kentucky1950 Cessna 195A, N1001D

Outstanding Luscombe - Small PlaqueT.J. StegmanSt. Peters, Missouri1946 Luscombe 8A, NC45896

Outstanding Navion - Small PlaqueGlenn KrafcikHinckley, Ohio1948 Ryan Navion, N4411K

Outstanding Piper J-3 - Small PlaqueMatthew FosterPoplar Grove, Illinois 1945 Piper J-3C-65, N42436

Outstanding Piper Other - Small PlaqueTimothy MooreTrumansburg, New York 1947 Piper PA-11, N4769M

Outstanding Swift - Small PlaqueJames MinorLake Dallas, Texas1946 Globe GC-1B, N3370K

Outstanding Taylorcraft - Small PlaqueMike D. RamosStoughton, Wisconsin1946 Taylorcraft BC12D, N44034 Custom Class A (0-80 hp) - Small PlaqueMichael LazarowiczPort Clinton, Ohio1946 Taylorcraft BC12D, N95817

Custom Class B (81-150 hp) - Small PlaqueJames StrongWilliamsville, New York1950 Luscombe 8F, N815B

Custom Class C (151-235 hp) - Small PlaqueJames SteierOmaha, Nebraska1946 Globe GC-1B, N80973

Custom Class D (236-plus hp) - Small PlaqueWilliam SignsDallas, Texas1954 Beech E18S, N7BS

Best Custom Runner-Up - Large PlaqueJohn ShuttleworthHuntington, Indiana 1949 Cessna 195, N55M

Class I (0-80 hp) - Bronze LindyThomas SchoettmerGreensburg, Indiana1946 Taylorcraft BC12D, N5045M

Class II (81-150 hp) - Bronze LindyDonald LindholmMorning Sun, Iowa1951 Cessna 170A, N1424D

Class III (151-235 hp) - Bronze LindyKarl ReikFort Thomas, Kentucky1948 Stinson 108-3, N6183M

Class IV (236-plus hp) - Bronze LindyRaymond FrankeWalnutport, Pennsylvania1953 Cessna 195B, N195RA

Best Custom - Bronze LindyJames YounggrenHallock, Minnesota1951 Piper PA-18, N1066A

Reserve Grand Champion - Silver LindyKenneth MorrisPoplar Grove, Illinois1950 Cessna 140A, N9467A

Grand Champion - Gold LindyGreg and Cindy HeckmanPolo, Illinois 1946 Funk B85C, N77727

Contemporary (1956-1970) Beech Single Engine - Outstanding in TypeAlex WatsonBrighton, Colorado 1961 Beech 35 B33, N285BW

Cessna 150 - Outstanding in TypeBilly ForesterVersailles, Missouri1964 Cessna 150E, N6232T

Cessna 170/172/175/177 - Outstanding in TypeTom LynchFort Collins, Colorado1967 Cessna 177

Mooney - Outstanding in TypeBrian LocascioOrland Park, Illinois1966 Mooney M20F, N9550M

Piper PA-24 Comanche - Outstanding in TypeMichael SalmenParker, Kansas1964 Piper PA-24 250, N8346P

Piper PA-28 Cherokee - Outstanding in TypeMatt HofeldtSun Prairie, Wisconsin1968 Piper PA-28-180, N6496J

Limited Production - Outstanding in TypeGary WhiteSpokane Valley, Washington 1969 Aero Commander 100, N4153X

Preservation Award - Outstanding in TypeMichael TovaniWindsor, California1957 Champion 7FC, N7557B

Class I Single Engine (0-160 hp) - Bronze LindyChris DemopoulosDyer, Indiana1966 Cessna 172H, N3832R

Class II Single Engine (161-230 hp)-Bronze LindyDale PhillipsWestfield, North Carolina1969 Piper PA-28-180, N6428J

Class III Single Engine (231-plus hp)-Bronze LindyStephen JonesCypress, Texas1959 Beech K35, N5EH

Custom Multiengine - Bronze LindyRasmus NielsenSeattle, Washington1959 Beech G18S, N565US

Outstanding Customized - Bronze LindyDavid SmithMilaca, Minnesota1960 Cessna 175A, N7040E

Reserve Grand Champion - Silver LindyKent StonesLebanon, Kansas1967 Beech E33, N7150N

Grand Champion - Gold LindyLee HusseyMartinsville, Virginia1964 Piper PA-24-400, N8455P

2013 AirVenture Vintage AwardsAntique (through August 1945)Transport Category Runner-UpKeith SwalheimCottage Grove, Wisconsin1934 Stinson SR-5A, N14163

Customized Aircraft Runner UpCharles DoyleWebster, Minnesota1942 Boeing A75N1 (PT-17), N966CD

Bronze Age (1937-1941) Outstanding Closed-Cockpit Monoplane Joseph Flood Franklinville, New Jersey 1945 Aeronca 65-C, N23927

Silver Age (1928-1936) Outstanding Closed-Cockpit Monoplane Glenn Peck Maryland Heights, Missouri 1929 Mono Aircraft Monosport 2, N4799E

Silver Age (1928-1936) Runner-Up Thilo Eckardt Beaumont, Texas 1930 Waco RNF, N107Y

Transport Category Champion - Bronze Lindy James Hawkes Jupiter, Florida 1947 Beech G17S, N80315

Customized Aircraft Champion - Bronze Lindy Sarah Wilson Lakeland, Florida 1929 Stearman 4E, N667K

World War II Era (1942 1945) Champion - Bronze LindyRoger BrownPort St. Lucie, Florida1943 Howard DGA-15P, N29457

Bronze Age (1937 1941) Champion - Bronze LindyJames SavageGibsonia, Pennsylvania1939 Spartan 7W, N17634

Silver Age (1928 1936) Champion - Bronze LindyChris GallowayDavis, California1935 Beech B17E, N14458


VAA members like you are passionate about your affiliation with vintage aviation, and it shows. You’re the most loyal of all EAA members, renew-ing your VAA membership each and every year at a rate higher than any other group within the EAA family. We appreciate your dedication! Each year we give you another opportunity to strengthen your bond with the VAA by inviting you to become a Friend of the Red Barn.

This special opportunity helps VAA put together all the components that make the Vintage area of EAA AirVenture a unique and exciting part of the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration. This special fund was established to cover a significant por-tion of the VAA’s expenses related to serving VAA members during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, so that no dues money is used to support the convention activities.

This is a great opportunity for Vintage members to join together as key financial supporters of the Vintage division. It’s a rewarding experience for

each of us as individuals to be a part of supporting the finest gathering of Antique, Classic, and Con-temporary airplanes in the world.

At whatever level is comfortable for you, won’t you please join those of us who recognize the tre-mendously valuable key role the Vintage Aircraft Association has played in preserving the irreplace-able grassroots and general aviation airplanes of the last 100 years? Your participation in EAA’s Vin-tage Aircraft Association Friends of the Red Barn will help ensure the very finest in EAA AirVenture Oshkosh Vintage programs.

To participate in this year’s campaign, fill out the donation form by visiting our website at www.VintageAircraft.org/programs/redbarn.html to make an online contribution. And to each and ev-ery one of you who has already contributed, or is about to, a heartfelt “thank you” from the of-ficers, directors, staff, and volunteers of the Vin-tage Aircraft Association!

Friends of the Red Barn!Your support is crucial to the success of

VAA’s AirVenture activities and programs

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

•Think of a person; think of his or her contributions to vintage aviation.•Write those contributions in the various categories of the nomination form.•Write a simple letter highlighting these attributes and contributions. Make copies of newspaper or magazine articles that

may substantiate your view.•If at all possible, have another individual (or more) complete a form or write a letter about this person, confirming why the

person is a good candidate for induction. We would like to take this opportunity to mention that if you have nominated someone for the VAA Hall of Fame; nominations for the honor are kept on file for 3 years, after which the nomination must be resubmitted.

Mail nominating materials to: VAA Hall of Fame, c/o Charles W. Harris, Transportation Leasing Corp. PO Box 470350 Tulsa, OK 74147 E-mail: [email protected], your “contemporary” may be a candidate; nominate someone today!

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

•Date submitted.•Name of person nominated.•Address and phone number of nominee.•E-mail address of nominee.•Date of birth of nominee. If deceased, date of death.•Name and relationship of nominee’s closest living relative.•Address and phone of nominee’s closest living relative.•VAA and EAA number, if known. (Nominee must have been or is a VAA member.)•Time span (dates) of the nominee’s contributions to vintage aviation.

(Must be between 1950 to present day.)•Area(s) of contributions to aviation.•Describe the event(s) or nature of activities the nominee has undertaken in aviation to

be worthy of induction into the VAA Hall of Fame.•Describe achievements the nominee has made in other related fields in aviation.•Has the nominee already been honored for his or her involvement in aviation and/or the

contribution you are stating in this petition? If yes, please explain the nature of the honor and/or award the nominee has received.

•Any additional supporting information.•Submitter’s address and phone number, plus e-mail address.•Include any supporting material with your petition.

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

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

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

CALL FOR VINTAGE AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION

Nominations

10 SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER 2013 www.VintageAircraft.org 11

In photo 2, the padding is bonded in place using manufacturer’s approved adhesive. The Champ wing chord is too wide to blanket cover the wing; therefore, three strips of fabric had to be sewn together so there was no need to glue fabric to the leading edge. Do not glue fabric to the padding; it won’t work.

Using this method of leading edge protec-tion will lead to a very smooth covering job where skin overlaps and nail or screw heads cannot be seen. Whenever possible I always use padding on the leading edges and a few

other places on occasion. Photo 3 is a Bücker BU-133 Jungmeister wing I covered many years ago for John Hickman. These wings were narrow chord, and the fabric could be blanketed in place and not require any ma-chine sewing.

The upper Bücker Jungmeister wing as it’s being covered with the Ceconite process back in 1970. This wing is all wood construction, and the leading edge and other areas are cov-ered with padding. The fabric was installed around the leading edge and glued to the inside of the wing spar. A little preshrink-

ing was done to tauten the leading edge and then it was coated with nitrate dope. Then the bottom of the fabric was bonded in place, wrapped all the way around the leading edge, and bonded to the area along the top of the spar. What did the airplane look like when it was finished? Well, here it is in Photo 4.

Preparation of a structure to receive fabric covering requires some thought be given to sharp edges or overlaps that need to be covered with tape. And, depending on what type of fabric attachment is chosen, one may want to cover the leading edge metal with a poly-ester padding that will blend out surface irregularities such as skin overlaps.

I always cover any nail heads on the leading edge with a good grade tape—I particu-larly like to use “gaffer’s tape.” Gaffer’s tape has an adhesive that securely bonds it to an aluminum leading edge. Do that first before installing the polyester padding. Then in-spect the rest of the structure, checking if there are any sharp edges that could penetrate and damage the fabric. I always put tape over trailing edge rivets. See Photo 1.

Polyester padding may then be installed on the leading edge of the wing by bonding it along upper and lower edges of spars. Do not attempt to bond the entire leading edge as the padding needs to be soft and pliable. Right, gaffer’s tape

covers sheet metal attaching screws on a lead-ing edge, and a strip of polyester padding is ready to be bonded in place.

How to?

Prepare a surface for fabric covering

ROBERT G . LOCK

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4


The Vintage Instructor

Aviation growth through vintage aircraft

STEVE KROG, VAA DIRECTOR AND CFI

I’ve watched nearly every aviation alphabet group wring its hands, spend hundreds of hours in meetings, and in some cases spend a lot of money in an attempt to help the general avia-tion community grow. I’ve even been involved in some of these hand-wringing hours-long meet-ings. But to me, much of the invested time, dol-lars, and grandiose ideas are a waste. We’re all collectively focusing on the problem but not on the process for truly understanding the causes, which need to be examined and addressed before the problem can be solved.

Take a look at this example proving my point. If a young man or woman, currently not exposed to aviation, as we all are, decides he or she has an interest in learning to fly, the usual first step taken is visiting the Internet and doing a search under “learn to fly.” This search instantly of-fers 66 pages with 10 to 12 titles per page that talk about learning to fly. If that isn’t confus-ing enough, most of the titles deal with com-puter games about flying. Any person searching through the first few pages will become over-whelmed and click out of the search.

If the individual is persistent, though, and

finally finds a title that actually talks about learn-ing to fly, he or she will find a list dealing with all of the requirements. This information is im-portant, but it doesn’t address the key question of “How can I learn to fly and then affordably continue to fly?” I couldn’t find a single article of the 600 to 700 articles listed that answers this question! And not a single one of these articles addresses the sport pilot category.

A novice who is truly interested in flying might next conduct an Internet search for air-planes. They might even visit the area bookstore and pick up an aviation magazine. There isn’t a single new aircraft available under $100,000, and most are considerably more. That alone is a big negative for a potential new pilot. The nov-ice then discontinues his or her search thinking that learning to fly is an unattainable expensive dream. Another potential pilot lost because of incorrect market perceptions!

Entry Level and TransitionsThink back in time for a moment. Was your

first bicycle a brand-new 10-speed racing bike? Of course not. If your childhood was similar to mine, you learned to ride on a well used but sound bike that you probably purchased from a neighbor or family friend. It was your first bike, and you really didn’t care if it was well used. It was new to you, and that is all that mattered. With a little help and a lot of encouragement, you learned to ride that bike. As you perfected your riding skills, you began looking at your bike

Think back in time for amoment. Was your first bicycle a brand-new 10-speedracing bike?

a bit differently. You may have repainted the frame, added mud flaps, changed the size of the front tire, clothes-pinned a baseball card in the front spokes, or added reflectors, but it was still the first bike.

A year or two later you outgrew your first bike, sold it to another neighborhood kid, and bought a bigger, faster, more complex bike with money you saved. You traded up, so to speak. This bike may not have been brand-new, but it was bigger, faster, and it had some additional bells and whistles.

Then a couple of years later, when you had a part-time job, your income allowed for you to purchase either a new 18-speed racing model, a 12-speed mountain bike, or a lightweight small-frame bike on which you could do all sorts of bike tricks.

This same example could be used for buying a first boat, motorcycle, or downhill skis and boots. But more important, the example parallels how most of us were able to get involved in flying and then owning our first airplane.

Enter Vintage Aircraft The most affordable path toward pleasure fly-

ing today is through vintage aircraft. One doesn’t need to spend more than $100,000 to own and fly an airplane!

However, most individuals wanting to learn to fly are unaware of the cost and variety of the many makes and models qualifying as vintage aircraft. As an industry as a whole, we’ve never

promoted entry-level aviation and aircraft ownership. Rather, like the auto industry, we promote new makes and models and all of the high-end bells and whistles that can be installed in same. Look at the airplane ads in any aviation publication today. Ads directed toward the sport pilot audience promote aircraft in the $120,000 range and up. The ads from the major aircraft manufacturers feature new single-engine aircraft in the $275,000 range and up. We market our-selves out of the potential pilot/aircraft owner audience before ever getting a chance to speak with the potential pilot.

Prospective flight students have regularly con-tacted me expressing interest in both learning to fly as well as owning an airplane. But there is always a “but” that follows: But it costs so much for flight lessons, and airplanes are way out of my league financially.

However, if there is truly a will, there is a way to accomplish the desire of the prospect. A good example is a current flight student. Jeff had a real desire to learn to fly and had conducted the magazine and Internet searches described above. Initially he determined that the cost didn’t jus-tify the desire. The desire to fly continued to burn from within, and Jeff took the next step by attending one or two fly-ins, looking at air-planes, and asking a lot of questions. Soon he came to the conclusion that if he purchased a vintage-era airplane and used it to learn to fly, he could realize his long-term dream.

He came to me one afternoon in late winter, and we discussed his wishes at length. He wanted to get a certificate, own a plane, fly off a private strip on his farm, and not have to get a flight physi-cal every two years. He had no desire to either fly at night or have to deal with Class C or D airspace. Jeff just wanted to en-joy the pleasure of flight.

Not wanting to deal with flight physicals immediately made him a sport pilot candi-date. Then we discussed the various make and model air-craft of the vintage era that met the sport pilot/sport air-plane limitations. Armed with

Cessna 150

this information, Jeff began his search for an air-plane with the enthusiasm of a 16-year-old about to go on his first date.

When Jeff found an airplane that looked and sounded good in the ads for same, he would bring the information to me, and we would discuss flight

characteristics for this particular make and model, anticipated main-tenance costs, and finally what to look for when seeing the airplane firsthand. Armed with a checklist, Jeff began the next step toward acquiring an airplane. After reject-ing one or two planes, he found one that seemed to meet the criteria we had established. A pre-purchase inspection was then arranged. The aircraft was pronounced fit and the sale concluded.

The airplane was located about 100 miles away, so we arranged for a friend to fly us there the following Sunday. I then had the true pleasure of flying the airplane to Hartford with Jeff. As we made our way, I looked over at him. He had a grin equal to that of Ronald McDonald. I commented that he will always remember this day, and it would be third on the list of memorable events, following getting married and the birth of his first child. He paused for a minute or two and then stated, “It might be number one on my list ahead of marriage and first born, but don’t tell my wife that!”

The thought I want to leave with you readers is this: Jeff was persistent in pursuing his dream. By doing so, he was able to ac-quire and then take flight lessons in his own airplane. And he will be able to accomplish his goal for less than $20,000!

There are hundreds of airplanes out there that fit into this or a similar scenario. Champs, Chiefs, Taylorcraft, Luscombes, Cessna 120s and 140s, Cubs, and yes,

even the Cessna 150 all fit. Now, if we can just get all of the alphabet

groups to rethink their approach to attracting new pilots using the bicycle analogy and vintage-era aircraft, we might start to see an increase in pilot numbers.

We have talked in a previous article about the specifically disqualifying medical condi-tions that will require special issuance. These are disease states that require review by the FAA in Oklahoma City or one of the regional FAA offices. Your aviation medical examiner (AME) cannot issue the medical without re-view and will need to defer that decision. This can sometimes take 60-90 days to get FAA ap-proval and will in some cases require further information or testing.

There is very good news in this regard. The FAA has identified 18 medical conditions that can now be issued a medical certificate without special issuance. Hypertension, being so com-mon, has been a condition that the AME could approve with additional testing forwarded to the FAA if it is controlled by an appropriate medication. Almost all medications given for hypertension today are approved. The standards however have been streamlined in the most re-cent modification to make it easier to approve with less required information.

These conditions have been divided into two groups. Group 1 has already been implemented and includes arthritis, asthma, hepatitis C, hypothyroidism, pre-diabetes, migraine and chronic headaches, renal cancer, testicular cancer, and prostate cancer. Criteria have been established that if satisfied, the AME can issue the medical at the time of the physical. With re-gard to the cancers listed here, the airman must have completed treatment, usually radiation or surgery, and have no evidence of current or re-

current disease to be approved.The second group of medical conditions will

have criteria that will soon be released and may have already been instituted by the time this article is published. Again they include several cancer disease states such as Hodgkin’s disease and lymphomas, leukemia, bladder cancer, and colon cancer. The other conditions are carotid artery stenosis (restriction of the main artery in the neck that provides blood to the brain), colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome. Also in-cluded are the ever elusive and nebulous issues surrounding kidney stones. Now criteria have been established that will allow approval where previously the presence of even a tiny stone would require at least a call or consultation with Oklahoma City or the regional office. Being a urologist myself, I am anxiously awaiting the protocol to allow approval without having to make that call.

Obviously this is a step in the right direction, and as these logical decisions bear up over time, hopefully more conditions will be added. There will be some who will not meet the criteria and will continue to undergo the special issuance procedure. At least we now have some specific guidelines for approval rather than a blanket deferral. I hope to have more good news in up-coming articles.


Ask the AMEJOHN PATTERSON, M .D ., AME

Disqualifying medical conditions

Aeronca Champ

Cub

Taylorcraft

BONNIE BARTEL

STEVE CUKIERSKI

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

From the pages of the past . . .


Brochures from the EAA archives advertising the Super Cub

Brochure from the EAA archives advertising the Helio Courier

SCRAPBOOK

Classified AdsWhat would you have found . . .

Aero Digest, July 1940

Aero Digest, December 1940

Aero Digest, December 1940

AeroDigest, July 1935



Aaron Tippin and his 1959 H-395 Helio

Jim Busha

Flying a

Helio Courierin a Country Kinda Way!


JIM KOEPNICK


If you are like most people and think that flying and country music are cool, then I hope after reading this story, looking at the

photos and watching the video on the EAA website, you will unanimously agree that Aaron Tippin’s 1959 H-395 Helio Cou-rier is red hot!

When I last visited with the countr y music singer at his home in Liberty, Tennessee, about six years ago, he told me he was itching to get another airplane to add to his grow-ing stable that at the time in-cluded a PT-17 Stearman, a Bell JetRanger, a Decathlon and

a J-3 Cub—one that fit him like a pair of his favorite blue jeans—well-worn and comfort-able. Aaron said that his next airplane was going to be either a warbird so he could pay tribute to all the brave men and women who have served this country of ours or he was going to buy something that reminded him of his aviation mentor—his dad Willis “Tip” Tippin. So when I caught up with Aaron at Sun ’n Fun a few years ago, he acted as proud as a strutting rooster when he dragged me to his new-est acquisition and told me that he accomplished both of his goals with the purchase of one

airplane—a Helio Courier.A a ro n ’s c re a m - a n d - b l u e

striped Helio was built in 1959 as a civilian model H-395 Super Courier by the Helio Aircraft Company in Pittsburg, Kansas. Powered by a bulletproof six-cylinder O-480 Lycoming en-gine that spins a three-bladed propeller, Aaron knew from past experience that the Helio Cou-rier acted more like a helicopter than it did as an airplane.

“The first time I ever laid eyes on a Helio was when my daddy threw me in the right seat of one when I was just a youngster growing up in Greenville, South Carolina,” said Aaron. “My dad, who had been a fighter pilot in WWII and later instructed in military jet trainers, was work-ing as a corporate pilot for a textile company, and they were considering purchasing a heli-copter to fly from plant to plant with. My dad had done some earlier demonstration flights with the Helio and quickly re-alized its capabilities. He asked them to reconsider the helicop-ter idea and proved his point when he landed the Helio on the well-manicured front lawn of one of the plants. That is the

real jewel of the Helio; with its awesome STOL capabilities, it can take off and land just about anywhere. I kept those great memories of flying with my dad in the Helio tucked away in my back pocket as I entered my own aviation world.”

While Aaron was growing up and learning how to fly in the late 1960s, the United States military had already noticed the flying qualities of the Helio Cou-rier and quickly drafted them into service. The military model was dubbed the U-10 and was used effectively and extensively as a multi-role workhorse in and around the jungles of Vietnam with both the military and CIA. It was a common practice for those pilots to land and take off from hand-carved strips on the sides of mountains with sheer drop-offs at each end. But the military wasn’t the only satis-fied operator of the Helio. Mis-sionary pilots from around the world were enamored by the performance of this homesick angel and began using them, as they still do today, for humani-tarian flights to remote third world airstrips.

With a successful country

music career already estab-lished, Aaron began to stir his memories about his past flying experiences with his father and

decided he had to have himself a Helio Courier. Period.

“I knew I wanted an airplane that I could not only pack my

BRADY LANE PHOTOS


family into, but also one that could carr y just about any-thing I could stuff inside of it,” said Aaron. “I also liked the fact that a Helio is built more like a NASCAR racer with a roll cage wrapped around the cockpit that can sustain up to 15g’s. Flying safely is a huge component es-pecially when I carry my family around with me. I couldn’t get the thoughts of a Helio out of my mind as I kept reminiscing about my dad flying one, and it just seemed that adding a Helio to our family was the right thing to do. As I began my search for a suitable airplane, I had been told that the modern history usage of the Helio was split between two groups of pilots: missionar-ies and drug dealers. Thankfully I found my airplane with a fellow down in Louisiana named Jerry Gonsoulin who was neither a missionary nor a candidate for the FBI’s Most Wanted.”

Although Aaron had origi-nally set his sights on a tricy-cle-geared Helio Courier that was for sale, he had stumbled into Jerry while at Sun ’n Fun a few years ago, and the two of them hit it off immediately with their shared interest in Helios. As Jerry shared his sto-ries with Aaron on how he ac-quired the Helio, what it flew like, and what it meant to be the custodian of this tall-tailed tail-dragger, Aaron knew that this was the airplane he had been searching for. The problem was, though, that Jerry, who wanted Aaron to own this airplane over anyone else, was beginning to have seller’s remorse.

“I bought the Helio back in 1988 from a fella named Valen-tine,” said Jerry. “The airplane had been completely rebuilt, but

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it was involved in some kind of family dispute and had sat in a hangar for 15 years so it had rel-atively low time. After I bought it, I really learned how slow an airplane could fly. I was amazed at times when I slowed it down to 27 mph and still had full con-trol and maneuverability because this airplane will not stall. I also own a Kitfox, and I think that some of the light-sport aircraft and ultralights will perform like the Helio, limited only by their speed and weight, of course. The most impressive thing for me

in the Helio is the STOL takeoff and landings. With those flaps and slats hanging off the wings I sometimes wonder why they poured all that concrete on a long runway—anything over 100 feet is wasted space!

“When I reluctantly put the Helio up for sale, I knew I wanted Aaron to have this airplane. He is such a likable person and is an airplane fanatic. I knew he would be the right pilot to appreciate the Helio flying world. Before I let him fly away with the Helio, though, I made him promise me

that he would keep the lucky penny that my wife, Scotty Ann, glued to the dash before we were married and while we were dat-ing. The first time I saw the Helio fly was when Aaron picked it up and flew it back to Tennessee. I am not ashamed to admit that it brought a tear to my eye, and I got all choked up as I watched him disappear into the distance. I even called Aaron before he landed back home and told him he could have all his money back and then some. Now when we talk, he asks if I still have a spare key for the airplane—he’s afraid I will steal it back!”

With the Helio now regis-tered to Aaron and hangared safely at his private airport in the Volunteer State, Aaron went looking for someone to teach him the finer points of He-lio flying. Aaron admits he is a “training freak” when it comes to checking himself out in a new airplane. Poring over manu-als and talking to other people who have flown this type of air-craft are just a few of the things Aaron did to prepare himself for some serious Helio training.

“I am a heavy believer in training,” said Aaron. “I love to train, and I can see how in the olden days that a guy could flip through the pages of a manual such as this one and slowly transition into the realm of STOL flying. This manual is very straightforward for some-one who already has some tail-wheel experience under their belt. But if you really want to grasp the true capabilities of fly-ing this airplane in all kinds of conditions, then I recommend having a high-time Helio pilot teach you. Lucky for me I found a friend by the name of Steve

Schafer who used to work for my dad. I consider Steve a ‘Helio guru,’ and he used all of his JAARS experience as he ran me up one side of the moun-tain and down the other as he taught me the ins and outs, do’s and don’ts of flying the Helio. For starters I had to change my mental perception on taking off and landing this airplane.

“The tall tail of the Helio was the first thing I had to get used to, especially in a crosswind condition. Like any other tailwheel airplane that wants to weather vane into the wind, this tall tail will acceler-ate that fact if you don’t stay on top of it. One trick I learned on takeoff, especially if it is a crosswind, is to taxi out onto the runway and go to the far side plac-ing the right wheel on the edge of the runway. When I am ready to take off I just ‘lay the whip’ on it and turn the airplane into the wind, and I am usually off the ground in less than 50 feet. Turn the nose back to runway heading and off we go. The landing is just as unconventional. There is really no stall speed with the Helio, and one of the most effective ways of us-ing the Helio is below 50 miles per hour. That’s when the wing slats jump out as you control descent with power. You have to be real careful in this configura-tion because you can hit pretty hard if you’re not careful. Most of my passengers who are first-time Helio fliers get a little nervous when I point the nose straight down at the numbers. But because it all happens so slowly, it’s just a matter of pulling it back into a flare and boom! Touchdown. It truly is the perfect airplane for my backyard runway.”

Aaron’s grass strip lies in the shadow of a mountain on one side and a creek on the other. With a lot of burbles and rolls coming off the sur-rounding hilltops when the wind kicks in, it has some unique characteristics when it comes to operating under these conditions.

“With my 2,000-foot strip I call Soggy Bot-tom—don’t land if it rains hard!—nestled right up against a mountainside, this is Idaho flying in Tennessee,” said Aaron. “Some of my friends who fly over to see me, chicken out when they look down the barrel of that thing and swear that the runway is only a few hundred feet long. It is only when they drive over and walk it off themselves that they realize that it is really 2,000 feet long—that’s three touch-and-goes in a Helio! Whether I am flying out of this strip in my Cub, Stearman, or Helio, it has definitely made me a better pilot. But I have to admit that since I acquired this air-plane, the departures are more helicopter-like,

especially when the wind is blowing.”So what does the future hold for Aaron and

what does sport flying in general mean to him? “My dream would be to paint the Helio in the

colors it wore in Vietnam as a tribute to those brave men and then demonstrate the capabilities of the Helio at air shows just like my dad used to do,” said Aaron. “I would love to share this experi-ence with my aviation friends and peers because it is not only such an impressive machine; it is also the ultimate in STOL flying.

“What does aviation mean to me? It’s the one thing in my life that has remained constant. Although I am a singer/entertainer by trade, deep down inside I am very humbled by the fact that God is just being nice to me. But when it comes time to get away from the day-to-day business side of life, my only escape is in flying. I was raised at an airport, and I still consider myself a ‘ramp rat.’ There is no greater joy for me than to be at an airport at dusk or just before sunrise watching the soft colors of the sky change before my eyes. Like my father before me, flying is the one legacy I want to pass on to my children, hopefully at the controls of our Helio Courier.”

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BRADY LANE

JIM KOEPNICK

Aaron Tippin


Let’s face it; most of us en-joy being number one in some aspect of our lives. Athletes for example enjoy that title when winning a championship, while others like me simply relish in the moment every time I find myself at the front of a check-out line minutes before some-one pulls up with a half-dozen carts full of merchandise. Yeah,

being number one is an awe-some thing—big or small. The same can be said for owning the first airplane off the production line. There is something magi-cal about owning serial No. 1, let alone the bragging rights. But as you are about to find out, EAA Vintage Aircraft Associa-tion members Roger and Darin Meggers of Baker, Montana,

create magic every time they lay their hands on an airplane in need of restoration—even if it’s the serial No. 1 Piper Super Cub.

Born to FlyRoger Meggers doesn’t re-

member a thing about his first airplane ride; he just relays what his father Donald told him later in life.

“I guess I was kind of ‘born into aviation’ because in 1956 my dad f lew my mom to the hospital in rural North Dakota in the back of a PA-11 hours before I was born,” said Roger. “I grew up in aviation; my dad went into the Army Air Force but was washed out due to too many pilots and sent to gunnery school and survived 28 missions over Europe as a waist gunner on a B-17. When he came back he learned how to fly and then opened a crop dusting business using PA-11 Cubs and then on to Super Cubs, 150 and 235 Pawnees, and finally ended up in a Cessna Ag Truck, basically spraying small grains in west-ern North Dakota. I started in aviation at a young age, clean-ing windshields at 5 years old and then became a flagman in the field. I would step out into the field so many steps, my dad would be f lying overhead and line up on me, wiggle his wings and come roaring overhead, and then I would do it all over again. But I didn’t have a lot of interest in aviation until I hit my teen-age years.”

Roger’s father was a farmer as well, so he taught Roger how to turn wrenches. If a tractor broke down, they would jump in the Super Cub, fly to town for parts, and then f ly back and fix it. Roger learned to weld and work

Turning Back the Hands of Time

The resurrection and restoration of the first Piper Super CubJim Busha

RUSS MUNSON


on all the machinery as well—what farmer in his right mind could ever afford to pay someone to fix something! By the time he had turned 14 he had learned to paint trailers, combines, and tractors before turning to cars. But when Roger wasn’t working on the family farm, he was in the air learning how to fly.

“I soloed in November near my 16th birthday, then got my license when I was 17 years old.

“When I hit 20 I went to Florida and received a bunch more rat-ings: CFI, multiengine, and CFII.

“I returned home and took a corporate job in Baker, Mon-tana, and got out of the spraying

business; I liked to travel. But a few years later in 1978 I had second thoughts and bought a Piper Pawnee and started my own spray business in Baker and sprayed up until 1999. I already had a shop in the area called Baker Air Service and got my A&P rating in 1981. I began rebuilding airplanes and started with a Cub, and when I finished that I moved onto another one and rebuilt several over the years. Eventually my son, Da-rin, who is 27 now, joined me when he was old enough to turn a wrench and became inflicted with the same airplane disease I have—we both love old air-

planes! I liked the Cubs because I liked to weld and paint, but I was also fascinated with tube and fabric airplanes. They were a challenge for me because I also strove for perfection. After each project I tried to make the next one even better.”

In Search of Lost TreasureRoger admitted he real ly

didn’t need another airplane to work on, but that didn’t stop him from constantly surfing the web in search of another project.

“There was an airplane adver-tised on eBay out in Caldwell, Idaho, and I looked at it, and it looked like just another ratty-looking Super Cub,” said Roger. “It appeared to have had a rough life, and the seller wanted quite a bit of money for it. I blew it off not knowing the historic signifi-cance of this Piper treasure.”

In 1949 the Piper Aircraft Company produced a new model called the PA-18 Super Cub. The original prototype, serial num-ber 18-1 was test-flown on No-

RUSS

MU

NSO

N P

HOT

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vember 23, 1949. That airplane became the genesis for a series of fabric Piper models that are famous and noted the world over. The PA-18 Super Cub was in production longer than any other aircraft model that Piper ever built. The PA-18 was used extensively in a variety of roles including agricultural work, aerial patrol, search and rescue, bush flying—either on skis or

floats—as well as a military liai-son and missionary—able to get into very remote places. There are some who claim the Piper Super Cub is one of the most popular and recognizable air-craft flying today. Unfortunately, Roger Meggers didn’t recognize what he was looking at the first time on his computer screen. Thank God for second chances.

“The ratty airplane I first saw

on eBay was sold to a Kelly and Norman Coffelt of Bend, Ore-gon, in 2006,” said Roger. They had purchased it from a gentle-man named Eugene Franks who had owned it for 40 years. When the Coffelts bought it, it still had an Irish linen cover on it. They ended up patching it up, repaint-ing it, mounting a new aileron and installing flaps, bolting on 29-inch Bushwheels, along with the installation of a longer pro-peller and a 150-hp engine.

“Kelly had called me a few years later as he was looking at one of our projects and wanted to know if we were interested in a little horse trading. I asked him what he had to barter with, and he replied, ‘It’s just an old Super Cub; actually it’s the old-est one—Super Cub No. 1.’

“I was shocked and it knocked me back a little, and after the shock wore off the detective in me kicked in and I asked what proof he had. Kelly said he had the original logs, which set the hook for me, and I said I would be very interested in it. Unfortu-nately, we couldn’t come up with a deal that we both agreed on, but Kelly promised that if he ever sold it, he would give me first dibs.

Roger and Darin Meggers .

Russ Munson


“About a year later out of the blue he called and said he was ready to sell. But before any money was exchanged he asked me a very serious question. He said, ‘Roger, what would you do with that airplane?’ I told him I would restore to look like the day it rolled out of the Piper factory hangar, right back to the original 90-hp engine, cor-rect wheels, wings, prop, and everything else in-between. Kelly said, ‘That’s exactly what I want to see happen to this

airplane,’ as we shook hands and struck a deal in March of 2010.”

Back to the Future— Restoring serial No. 1

Roger admitted that when he first laid eyes on the Super Cub it looked rather tired. It was painted in a cream and white paint job with red trim, but it was hard to tell what color was what because of the fading. But in the air it flew like a Cub.

“It flew great,” said Roger. “It still had the original struts on it yet, and that was easy to tell be-cause it had the original paint on them. That made me kind of nervous as there had been sev-eral ADs on those. Although the whole airplane was rough-looking

we f lew it for a while, and it flew nice. One thing I noticed right away was that it had sev-eral patches, mostly on the right wing. In fact there were more patches than there were original fabric; it would have been easier to re-cover the whole wing!”

Roger had contacted Clyde “The Cub Doctor” Smith about the airplane, and he was excited about it until he saw a picture of it. Clyde was just about in tears when he saw what had hap-pened to it.

“It had been modified for crop dusting right after it left the factory,” said Roger. “It was sold to Art Witaker who devel-oped the duster sprayer for the Super Cub. They simply pulled the back seat out of it, fabri-cated a duster/sprayer combi-nation to sit in the back seat of the airplane. The airplane spent most of its life as a duster, and looking through the logs there were several props replaced, crunched wingtips, bent land-ing gear, and so on. It was a very hard-working machine.”

When Roger finally made the decision to pull out his razor knife and make the first cut, he knew the fun of flying “No. 1” would be put on hold.

“Taking the razor to it was difficult,” said Roger. “You re-ally have to build up your enthu-siasm because once you make that first cut, that’s when all the work begins!”

Roger was pleasantly sur-prised when he saw the in-nards of the Super Cub. There was very little rust or corrosion. Roger did find that there had been several repair spots that he matched up with the 337s and other records. There was dam-age to the right side of the cock-pit and the tail post area, and these were eventually cut out and replaced with new material.

“We replaced a lot of tubes,” said Roger, “and then after sand-blasting them we put epoxy chro-mate primer on everything. We ended up painting it with poly-urethane enamel to help preserve it—it should last indefinably. We also treated the longerons with oil so it should only have to be re-caulked at some point.”

W h e n R o g e r a n d D a r i n turned to the wings they found that they had been converted with flaps and balanced tail sur-faces, so they completely rebuilt the wings and placed an original unbalanced tail surface on it.

“We took the flap mechanism out of the wing,” said Roger, “and cut all the brackets off the tubes so we could return the wings back to how they came from the factory. To assist in our restora-tion we ended up acquiring a lot of the Piper blueprints and draw-ings over the years from Univair in Denver. Jim Dyer was a god-send as he shared proprietary drawings with us to help us out. Clyde also was a great help by coming out to our shop on two different occasions and ended up covering the wings through

silver, looking just like they did back in 1949.”

Roger is both an A&P and IA, and Darin is also an A&P so dur-ing the cold Montana winter they plugged away at their proj-ect as momentum picked up. They eventually got sidetracked looking for new old stock parts because they strived to keep it original Piper, so it took them a little longer on the rebuild.

“We ended up manufacturing some of the ribs because we just couldn’t find what we wanted,” said Roger. “The most difficult part to locate was the oil pressure/oil temp gauge because in the late 1940s they used a U.S. gauge and then a Stewart gauge after that; they were impossible to find! But Clyde Smith came through again as he ‘just happened to have an old one lying around’ and do-

nated it to me to keep it original. We had Keystone Instruments in Lock Haven overhaul all the instruments for us. It still has a non-sensitive altimeter in it and no electrical system. Darin fabri-cated all the interior panels, There were lots of dents and abuse form the crop-dusting years. But we re-turned the Super Cub back to its former glory by installing a wool headliner just like the original along with an instrument panel supplied to us by Clyde Smith. The seats were another item that we fabricated to look like the origi-nals. I get a lot of compliments about them, but to me they re-minded me of an old school bus seat to tell you the truth!

“There are a lot of parts that just aren’t available anymore that we had to fabricate. One ex-ample was the boot cowl, which

Above left: Early Piper Super Cub ad .

Above right: The Megger’s auto-graphs inside the fuselage .

Far left is a 1955 Fly-ing magazine ad .

Left is the artwork from a matchbook cover .


is very similar to a PA-11 boot cowl, but because they changed the structure of the tubes, the instrument panel stands up a little more vertical than the PA-11 so it takes a different cowl. Like other hard-to-find items we ended up fabricating a new one.”

The Meggers Super Cub unfor-tunately did not retain the orig-inal Continental 90-hp (C-90) engine it left the factory with because it had been replaced back in 1952. Roger acquired another C-90 and refurbished all the parts, assembled it, and overhauled the engine.

“We found an original carbu-retor and magnetos, and I ac-tually installed an un-shielded ignition, which you can’t buy,” said Roger. “I ended up buy-ing the Packard 440 wire from Fresno Air Parts in California with original wire ends, and we built our own ignition harness.”

T he Su p e r C ub s w ings a Sensenich 72GK50 wood pro-peller with a very special insig-nia fixed to both blades.

“In our research we noticed that all the pictures we had from the early PA-18s there was a little orange dot on the prop blades,” said Roger. “We couldn’t tell what it was even by enlarging the photos up, and unfortunately Sensenich didn’t know what I was talking about either. I was fit to be tied and al-most gave up when the answer was right under my nose. Darin came running into the shop one day with an old prop my dad had run through a snow fence with our PA-11 years ago. One end was splintered pretty bad, but the other blade had the decal on it—it was the Sensenich wing design, and the orange circle was a picture of a little bear, and

surrounding it were the words “especially built for Piper.” We were able to locate some origi-nals in Florida, and Sensenich put them on our prop and var-nished the decals right in.”

When it was time for the Su-per Cub to get some new rubber, Roger decided to keep it original and went back to the original Goodrich expander tube brakes and installed 800 by 4 smooth-faced tires on it, and the tail wheel is a Scott 3000. By the time early July 2012 rolled around, the “new and improved” Super Cub No. 1 had been returned to its former glory and was ready to take to the skies once again.

Flying a LegendTo Darin’s surprise, his fa-

ther asked him to complete the

test flight of the Super Cub. Da-rin admitted that working on a piece of history like the serial No. 1 Super Cub took a while to soak in, but once he was air-borne he realized that all their hard work, bloodied knuckles, long hours and sleepless nights finally paid off.

“It was a complete surprise when Dad asked me to do the test flight,” said Darin. “When we rolled it out of the hangar and hand-propped it, it started on the first blade. Everything ran up fine; it felt like a new old Cub taxiing out. The brakes were weak; you could feel every bump and dip in the pavement because the tail wheel is just a solid rubber tire. After the run-up I had to get used to the ‘back-ward tach’ moving left-hand

instead of right; this was also my first time in a 90-hp Super Cub. I had been used to the 125-, 135-, 150-hp models with a lot more get up and go, so I was expecting a weak Cub. It surprised me when I lined up the nose on the centerline, pushed the throttle forward, and glanced down to make sure everything was in the green. When I looked up we were off the ground flying—that quick and going like a rocket!

“At only 783 pounds’ empty weight and 1,500 gross weight, it’s lighter than a 150-hp Super Cub. At 90 hp it’s just as fast as the modern Super Cub, but this one sips fuel and is lighter on the con-trols—ailerons are very responsive. Flying this Super Cub is more fun to fly in my mind than all of the modern stuff I have flown. I am very much into the older airplanes, and I appreciate the original-ity of this airplane and how simple flying was sup-posed to be. It’s just stick and rudder flying, and it still has the new airplane smell!

“There’s a great difference between rebuilding and restoring an airplane to original. On a rebuild, you can specialize the airplane to your needs and update to the latest and greatest through modi-fications or stay semi-original and paint it with any variation of colors you want. Restoring these old airplanes to just how they came from the fac-tory can be very challenging. Figuring out what was used during what years of manufacturing can be overwhelming! A lot of the information is not abundant and can be hard to get a hold of for these vintage aircraft. This can be as simple as what col-ors where used or trying to come up with it since that process or line is no longer available. A person definitely has to have the passion for this kind of thing, and my father and I definitely do.”

Roger echoes Darin’s thoughts about this air-plane project and how it just may have turned back the hands of time for the father and son team.

“It really made me feel a lot younger when I saw it fly for the first time,” said Roger. “I have to admit, seeing it fly I felt as if I was transported back to 1949 really quick! I am satisfied for the most part with this restoration, but I can always do better! As a father, though, it was a great thrill for me to work side by side with my son as the ‘old airplane’ torch that had been passed on to me by my father is now being passed on to a future generation of restorer/pilot. I hope both Darin and Super Cub No. 1 grace the skies for a long time to come.”

So do we, Roger, so do we . . .

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What is it that drives usually sane people to do things that “normal” people would judge to be insane? Or, if not insane, at least much more difficult than a very similar way of doing things. For instance, add the letter “P” to the end of the ever-present J-3 desig-nation, and instantly everything

about the concept skyrockets in complexity. And rarity. And frus-tration. And, most of all, dedica-tion required. All of the foregoing applies to Ingrid Zimmer-Galler, Malcolm Van Kirk, Ben Davidson, and the rest of their happy little band of Papoosers who brought a pair of Lenape Papoose-powered

J-3Ps to EAA AirVenture Osh-kosh 2012.

Considering that AirVenture 2012 was the year of the Cub, with more than 150 J-3s gath-ered on the grounds like Monarch butterflies in migration to honor Cub’s 75th anniversary, it was nearly impossible for any one of the breed to stand out. The J-3Ps, however, with their typical Cub behind-the-firewall appearance, and their anything-but-Cub fire-wall-forward countenance, were hard to miss. The “What’s that?” factor was enormous. As was the cuteness factor. They were Air-Venture 2012 superstars.

The period of the Cub’s birth and growth, the last half of the 1930s, was also the period in which the search for the ideal light aircraft engine was un-derway. Even though the Great Depression had thrown a wet blanket over the economy, the 1930s were still a golden age for aviation, with more devel-opment taking place in all parts of the industry than almost any decade since. Even though bread lines circled the block, the light trainer/personal aircraft market, as represented by the J-3, Taylorcrafts, Luscombes, and their peer group, quite fig-uratively exploded. Enterpris-ing entrepreneurs become fully aware of that fact and recog-nized that the need for small, powerful, economical power-plants would expand as well. This gave birth to a wide range of new engines, all aimed at be-coming the darling of the ever-expanding trainer market.

We saw ever y thing from the tiny, two-cylinder 37-hp Aeronca opposed-twin to the f lathead, four-cylinder A-40 Continentals and O-145 Lycom-

The Papoose PairA different kind of Cub at AirVenture

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ings, to the abbreviated radials like the Szyekely and the Lenape Papoose. The ultimate winner was the amazing A-65 Continen-tal, but it didn’t claim the crown before the others got their time on stage while mounted to the nose of a Cub. None, however, received the public relations splash that accompanied the Pa-poose in a J-3P.

An odd-appearing (to mod-ern eyes), three-cylinder, trian-gular 50-hp radial, the engine would appear on the front of 24 J-3 Cubs (according to most sources) before the competition from the A-65 and its descen-dants put the company out of business. During that time it gained its share of headlines by dragging a Cub from New Jer-sey to Florida and back nonstop. (See the sidebar for details.)

After the war most were re-engined, the often-cantankerous little Papoose replaced with the ever-sweet Continental. Only a very small number of J-3Ps lasted to modern times with their original three-jug oil slinger in place and the two in attendance at AV2012 rep-resent just about the entire fly-ing Papoose Cub population. The black one from the WAAAM (Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile) museum in Hood River, Oregon, was a avery early J-3P with J-2 type wings and aileron hinges on top and was essentially an unrestored, but constantly repaired, airplane, while the yellow one belonging to and restored by Ingrid Zim-mer-Galler with help from Mal-colm Van Kirk and others made only its second post-restoration flight at AirVenture. A resto-ration doesn’t get any fresher than that.

Ben Davidson of WAAAM filled us in on his J-3P’s history and the reason for its vaguely lived-in look. He says, “Essen-tially, even though our airplane went through a long series of owners, it was kept flying, in one form or another, from the day it was originally built in 1938 to today. When new, it was the Piper factory’s Lenape- powered demonstrator.”

“Terry Brant, who started the WAAAM museum,” he contin-ues, “bought the airplane in the early ’90s. He was, among other things, collecting three-cylinder aircraft, which eventually led him to build a 95,000-square-foot museum in Hood River, Oregon, that features, among other things, the world’s largest flying collections of both three-cylinder airplanes and those powered by OX-5s. We have a little of everything there in the way of airplanes and cars, but mostly the museum is about what we personally like and what we think is both historical and that the public will like.”

Ben goes on to say, “When we decided to bring the airplane to Oshkosh, it hadn’t flown in several decades, so we did what amounted to a super annual on it, repairing everything that needed repairing, but did very little actual restoration. This is pretty much how she has looked since last covered in ’74, and at that time she was just repaired, not restored. In fact, it has never been completely restored.”

Although in theory the Pa-poose Cubs could have been flown from their homes to Air-Venture, cooler heads took the reliability of the engine into account and both the WAAAM airplane and the Zimmer-Galler

machine were hauled by trailer to the airport in Hartford, Wis-consin, just outside of Oshkosh, where they were assembled and test-flown before making the short hop to AirVenture. For In-grid’s airplane, it was only the second time the airplane had tasted the sky since sometime in the ’90s.

Ingrid Zimmer-Galler could be seen as an unusual owner

for such an unusual airplane. A nationally recognized expert in ophthalmology and an associ-ate professor of ophthalmology at the John Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute (she specializes in vitreoretinal surgery and is the medical director of the Freder-ick, Maryland, satellite office), she came into aviation as the re-sult of a caring husband.

She says, “My husband ac-

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Ben Davidson, right shows off his pride and joy to an admirer .

Ingrid Zimmer-Galler and Malcolm Van Kirk


tually signed me up for flying lessons while I was doing my residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in the early 1990s, because he thought I was spending too much time in the hospital, and I quickly got hooked on all things aviation.

“While training for a tailwheel endorsement at a flight school in Frederick, Maryland, I no-ticed the Lenape Cub hanging in pieces on a wall in the hangar. It had been totaled in a windstorm 10 years earlier. I learned a lit-tle about its background, and I thought someone ought to get this piece of history back in the air, so I purchased the project from Malcolm Van Kirk who has been instrumental in getting the restoration project completed.”

Ingrid continues, “I spent countless hours researching and collecting information and arti-facts on the history of NX20280 and the record-setting flight it took, flying nonstop from New-ark to Miami and back in 1938. I also spent countless months, actually years, looking for a magneto. . .and additional Le-nape engines. Many thanks go to Charlie Deck in Florida and

Dick Kanode in Maryland for donating two spare Lenape en-gines, which were used to re-store my engine.”

Malcolm continues the air-plane’s history. He says, “I pur-chased the airplane from Dick Kanode. The plane was origi-nally configured back to the Le-nape engine by Dr. Garrison in 1974 when it won outstanding Cub at Oshkosh. After I pur-chased the plane in 1986 it was f lown regularly on evenings, sightseeing along the Potomac River, and on many mornings flying ‘dawn patrol’ with other like-minded antiquers.

Unfortunately the airplane was seriously damaged in an unexpected storm in the early 1990s. “My plan was always to restore the plane,” says Malcolm. “So, when Ingrid wanted to get it in the air again, I transferred the title to her, and together we put the plane in her garage to begin the long way back.”

Malcolm says, “We started by stripping the fuselage and found it had only a little corrosion. We cleaned all of the tubing, fu-selage, rudder, fin, stabilizers, and elevators right there in her garage. We sandblasted late at night until the neighbors com-plained about the noise. We

also epoxy-primed all parts that were in good shape right there.

“Early on it was just the two of us, but as the project moved forward, I had started to work for Cessna Aircraft in the Cessna Pilot Center Program, and it seemed that time was nonexis-tent. So, we made the decision to get outside help so that we could get the plane flying again.

“The damaged parts and spe-cialty items, like the engine mount, were the biggest con-cern. Especially the fuselage, which was seriously bent. So, we located Charlie Deck in Jack-sonville, Florida, who had the jig necessary to get the fuselage straightened out. One fine day we strapped the fuselage to the roof of Ingrid’s Volkswagen Diesel and we headed for Jacksonville. You can’t imagine what we looked like going down Interstate 95, and the questions people asked when we stopped for gas.

“Charlie Deck had his work cut out for him,” Malcolm says. “The fuselage was compressed down-ward and twisted at the tail. The rudder and fin were bent, the engine mount was bent, and the rubber engine mount biscuits were damaged. These were some of the more difficult parts to du-plicate, as the durometer of the rubber used had to be determined and new metal rings, which sand-wich the rubber, remade. For-tunately, we did find a shop in Griffin, Georgia, that took on the project of making a new mount. Of course, the cowling, and all of the fairings, which were quite soft, needed to be made.

“We happened to meet Harry Mutter at the Sentimental Jour-ney Fly-In in Lock Haven. He in-troduced us to Dave Liebegott, who had completed the restora-

The Original Butt-Buster DerbyEWR to MIA to EWR in 63 hours nonstop

What has to be one of the world’s most ambitious light aircraft trips ever attempted was that taken by Ken Kress and Glenn “Boog” Englert in May of 1938 . Both were Piper production test pilots, and they intended to fly from Newark, New Jersey, to Miami, Florida, and back, a distance of 2,400 miles non-stop in, of all things, a Lenape-powered J-3P Cub (the very aircraft restored by Ingrid Zimmer-Galler and Malcolm Van Kirk) . They took off from EWR and landed back on the same airport more than two-and-a-half days later (63 hours, 56 minutes) .

The normal 9 gallons of fuel in the nose tank was augmented by 24 gallons in a streamlined belly tank, which is being replicated for fitting on the Zimmer-Galler Cub . They had refueling stations set up at Raleigh, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Miami, Florida . At each location Kress would fly down the runway and Englert in the back seat would lower a rope with a hook and, on repeated passes down the runway, a Lenape factory worker, often strapped to the front of a car, would send up seven 5-gallon cans, in addition to many quarts of oil, sandwiches, etc .

The aircraft had a “continual loss” oiling system in which a quart of oil was always in a special-built funnel next to the pilot’s head continually feeding the engine through a small hole . It took about an hour for the quart to drain . A small diameter line down a gear leg continually drained oil out at the same rate so the engine would always be using clean oil .

Kress said, “To avoid too many refueling contacts, we decided a 50-hp engine was necessary to allow carrying maximum gasoline . . . we departed Newark 324 pounds over normal gross but got off in 17 seconds . She handled the load excellently, with little or no tendency to be sluggish . At Jack-sonville, we . . . hauled up 45 gallons of gasoline and 19 quarts of oil giving us a gross load of over 1,400 pounds [normal gross was 1,000 pounds] . Boog, of course, was almost buried under oil cans and extra 5-gallon fuel tanks .”

The adventure had many serious, heart-stopping moments, like getting down to less than 10 minutes of fuel before the first can came on board at Jacksonville . Then, on departure, getting lost in fog and smoke and wandering around for three hours in almost zero visibility until finally find-ing Orlando in the middle of the night . This put them so far off course that they had to return to Jacksonville for more fuel .

They couldn’t communicate with the ground except by passing down written notes, but they did have a battery-powered, low-frequency Lear receiver, so they had A-N range navigation available, which saved their bacon when a map blew out of a window and they had to fumble their way to Raleigh on the return trip . They also had battery-powered wingtip navigation lights .

When they arrived at Newark, the airport didn’t know they were arriving, so the runway lights weren’t on and they surprised their reception committee . Upon deplaning, after spending two-and-a-half-days folded up in the Cub’s notoriously cramped seating position, Kress could barely stand, and Englert was so hoarse from shouting at the refueling crews that he could hardly speak .

Still, even at an average speed of 40 mph and 3 .7 gph over the 2,400 mile straight-line distance (some estimates place the actual distance at closer to 3,400 miles because they circled so much while either lost or waiting for weather to clear at refueling stations), they proved a valuable point: light aircraft were indeed viable cross-country transportation, and the “around the patch” image that had hounded light aircraft was forever shattered .

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tion of his Piper that had done a world tour. Dave was a master at all things ‘Cub,’ and we loaded the plane in a U-Haul and moved the project to Clearfield, Penn-sylvania. Work progressed at a pace that was a bit slower than we all wished, but the quality is unsurpassed. Dave rebuilt the wings, covered the fuselage and wings, and got it under paint.

“Unfortunately, some un-foreseen events happened, and the Cub was hangared for the next two years. We finally took the project to Harford County Airport to Bill Gorge shop. Bill Gorge had actually restored the plane for Dr. Garrison in 1974 and was familiar with its idio-syncrasies. So, for the next two years, Bill and his helper, Har-vey Webb, went about the task of completing the project, which included rebuilding the engine, cowling, and wheelpants and doing all the finish work.”

Firewall aft, Malcolm, In-grid, and crew were essentially restoring/repairing a J-3 Cub, but firewall forward was a dif-ferent situation altogether. Fortunately they had the two donor engines for spare parts, but even the prop had drama at-tached to it.

Malcolm says, “The prop is a 72L41, but drawings for the 72L41 had been de-commissioned years ago. So, I took the existing propeller to Sensenich in Plant City, Florida (as carry-on lug-gage on Southwest Airlines), so they could scan it to make a new one. To our dismay, the new propeller didn’t fit the one-of-a-kind prop hub, so we opted to restore the original prop that was on the plane when it was damaged years before.

“The engine was apart, but

I was able to get the overhaul specifications from EAA, and, utilizing a lot of parts from the donor engines, Bill and his helper Harvey completed the overhaul. But, we still had more engine problems ahead of us.

“Finally, in October 2010 we got the call that the plane was ready to test hop. The engine was her normal cantankerous self, hard to start, but she did agree to run for us, and I flew around the patch a few times. I then headed for home, with In-grid shadowing me in a Cessna. Once we arrived in Frederick, I loaded Ingrid on board for her first flight and, as luck would have it, one of the magnetos had failed.

“The magnetos were Edison Splitdorfs, and I located a shop in California to overhaul them both. When the box arrived back to us more than a year later, however, there was only one magneto in the box and the other magneto was inexpli-cably lost. It took yet another year to locate a magneto, which was loaned to us, but it didn’t ‘spark’ properly. I was afraid we wouldn’t make it to OSH this year, when Dick Kanode offered us another Lenape en-gine with magnetos. The needed spare magneto worked fine, and we took the plane apart and trucked it to OSH, where we reassembled it, flew it, and had it on display. Ingrid received a well-deserved Bronze Lindy for her outstanding efforts and years of effort to get NX20280 back to flying condition.”

Malcolm repor ts the air-plane flies about like a normal J-3 but that the engine noise is “…horrible, which combined with the unshielded ignition,

makes radio communication almost impossible.”

Ingrid says, “We hope to fly it, enjoy it, and take others flying in it on sunny, warm-weather weekends. We continue to look for Edison Splitdorf RM-3 mag-netos or parts such as points and condensers.” She also says, “When I saw the airplane sit-ting at Oshkosh, I thought, ‘That’s pretty cool! We finally got it here!’”

When asked whether this was her last restoration, she said, “If another interesting airplane were to come along, I’d love to do it.”

Malcolm adds, “There was no better feeling for a pilot than to see a project of this magnitude come together. It was always a thrill to fly. Also, there’s a whole list of people I want to person-ally thank including Ingrid, whose dedication to this proj-ect was unwavering, and Harry Mutter for getting us to Dave Liebegott. Then Bill Gorge for his expertise and knowledge of this aircraft, his co-worker Har-vey Webb for his outstanding contributions with the metal parts, and Dick Kanode for al-lowing me to own this fine plane in the first place, Then we all have to thank Dr. Garrison for the vision he had all those years ago to restore this Lenape Cub in the first place and saving it from the trash heap. He did his-tory a service.”

It’s universally agreed that ev-ery visitor to AirVenture 2012 owes both crews, the WAAAM folks, and the Maryland Pa-poose Gang a huge vote of thanks. Seeing any Lenape Cub is a real treat, but seeing two of them together was literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us.

Coast to Coast With the Vin Fiz

Part 1

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The CatalystIn January 1910, the first

Los Angeles International Air Meet was held at Dominguez Field in Los Angeles County. Dozens of pilots in Wright and Curtiss biplanes competed in altitude, speed, and endur-ance events. The air meet drew the attention of thousands of spectators eager to see the new wonder of airplanes.

It had only been six years since the Wright brothers had made their historic f light at Kitty Hawk. In the intervening years there had been significant advances in airplane design. But range and speed had increased very little. The average biplane could only manage 70 miles per hour. Range was limited to how much fuel the plane could lift, not the capacity of the fuel tank. An hour-long flight was consid-ered a notable feat in 1910.

Among the spectators at Dominguez Field, watching the daring young men in their flying machines, was a 13-year-old boy who was fascinated by the dart-ing planes and yearned to find his way into the skies. Soon he

would be famous as an aviation pioneer and war hero. His name was Jimmy Doolittle.

The 1910 Dominguez Field air meet was covered by sev-eral papers across the country, most notably, those owned by newspaper mogul William Ran-dolph Hearst.

At that time airplanes were little more than slow, frag-ile, and unreliable wood-and-fabric crates, and the idea of flying from coast to coast was totally ludicrous.

But the seed of such an idea took root in Hearst’s fertile and ambitious mind, and in October 1910, eager to promote aviation and draw readers to his chain of newspapers, he offered the then-staggering sum of $50,000 to anyone who could fly from coast to coast. The challenge was good for one year, starting October 10.

This in itself was a daunting proposition. But Hearst wanted the feat accomplished in 30 days or less.

Today it seems laughable to need so much time.

An airliner can fly from New

York to Los Angeles in about five hours.

With only a little careful prep-aration a private pilot may fly a Cessna or Beechcraft from coast to coast in about two days, al-lowing for fuel and rest stops.

Even a single person in a car can drive the 3,500 miles from New York to Los Angeles in less than a week, provided they don’t mind the grind of driving, cat-naps in rest stops, and fast food.

Hearst was eager to promote an aviation event his newspa-pers could cover on a daily ba-sis, thereby increasing sales and profits.

Cash prizes for aviation feats were nothing new, even in 1910. Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the London Daily Mail, was a fanatically patriotic Briton. In 1908 he put up $10,000 for the first plane to cross the 26 miles of the English Channel between Calais and Dover.

Northcliffe knew there were few U.K.-built planes capable of crossing the Channel, but he pre-ferred that the pilot be an Eng-lishman, or at least an American.

Wilbur Wright was in France

at the time, demonstrating the new Military Flyer to the French government. Northcliffe report-edly offered the elder Wright the sum of $15,000 if he would do it. Wright was tempted, but he turned down the offer. Orville had been demonstrating the same plane at Fort Myer, Vir-ginia, and crashed after a pro-peller fragmented in front of a crowd of Army brass and spec-tators. Orville suffered a bro-ken leg, but his passenger Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed.

Another crash would seriously impair the Wrights’ sales.

As history has shown, the English Channel was conquered by air on July 25, 1909, by Frenchman Louis Blériot.

The ChallengeHearst ’s challenge earned

some attention. The Wrights themselves and their chief com-petitor Glenn H. Curtiss briefly considered entering but realized that any chance of success would entail huge investments of time and money.

By 1911 airplanes were still a novelty most Americans had never seen. They were hardly capable of f lying more than a hundred miles under ideal con-ditions. Between New York and California the terrain varied from small towns and big cities, hills and mountains, cultivated land and vast stretches of open plain and scorching desert, tow-ering granite mountain ranges and dense forests. And not a sin-gle airport.

There were no navigation bea-cons, no air traffic controllers, and no mechanics waiting to repair balky engines or torn fabric. On a cross-country flight a pilot had to hope he would find a conve-

The 84-dayodyssey ofCal Rodgers

Mark Carlson

Cal Rogers


nient road or smooth field to land on. He was on his own, forced to improvise as he went along. And once on the ground he had to make his own repairs and main-tenance. Fuel had to be found and

brought to the airplane.A rough landing or damage

to the airframe might ground a plane for days or weeks until the needed parts could be brought by rail.

This was what faced the pi-lot who chose to accept Hearst’s challenge.

The DaredevilAnd that man was Calbraith

“Cal” Perry Rodgers. Rodgers was born in January 1879 of a wealthy Pittsburgh family. He was a scion of one of the most il-lustrious Navy dynasties in the country. His ancestors included War of 1812 hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the victor on Lake Erie. He also counted among his antecedents Commodore John Rodgers and Commodore Mathew Perry, who had opened Japan to the world in 1853.

With such a pedigree, Cal, as he preferred to be called, was eager to join the Navy. But a bout with scarlet fever as a boy robbed him of much of his hearing. He grew up to be a handsome, 6-foot 4-inch tall

man who loved sailing, foot-ball, and was never seen in pub-lic without a cigar in his wide, smiling mouth.

Rodgers had earned a reputa-tion as a daredevil. His cousin John, named for the commo-dore, had graduated from An-napolis. John was one of the first Navy officers to be chosen to fly the Wright Military Flyers purchased by the U.S. Navy in March 1911.

John Rodgers was sent to

Dayton, Ohio, where he began flight instruction at the Wright Brothers’ Huffman Prairie Fly-ing School. Cal visited him there and was instantly bitten by the flying bug.

He learned to fly under the tutelage of Orville Wright and Al Welsh until he felt ready to solo after a mere 90 minutes of flying time.

He bought a Wright Model B, known as the Headless Wright because it lacked the familiar

forward canard elevator. In do-ing this he became one of the first private citizens to buy a Wright airplane. Pilot’s License No. 49 was issued to him on Au-gust 7, 1911, by the Aero Club of America.

Just three days later Rod-gers entered the Model B in several competitions at an Inter-national Air Meet at Grant Park in Chicago.

He did well, winning a total of $11,925 in several aerial compe-titions and an endurance flight.

The PreparationRodgers had heard of the

Hearst coast to coast flight chal-lenge and decided to try for it. His total flying time amounted to less than 40 hours.

He went about it methodi-cally, securing funding and lo-gistical support from J. Oggen Armour, owner of the Chicago-based Armour Meat Company. Armour was eager to promote a new grape-flavored soft drink called Vin Fiz. With an agree-ment that Rodgers’ plane would have the word s “ VIN FIZ ” painted on the rudders and un-derside of the wings, he was to be paid $5 for each mile flown east of the Mississippi River and $4 for each mile west of that. This would be honored regard-less of whether he beat Hearst’s deadline. Armour also pro-vided a special three-car train that would accompany Rodgers across the country.

With a boxcar carrying spare wings, struts, rudders, wheels, engines, and enough parts and fabric to rebuild the entire plane at least twice, the train was a rolling repair shop and carried a car able to leave the train and drive to wherever Rodgers had

COURTESY MARK CARLSON


landed. His wife, Mabel, and his mother, Mrs. Sweitzer, rode in a comfortable Palmer-Singer touring coach with accommo-dations and baggage. Also on the train were two Wright me-chanics and two assistants su-

pervised by Charlie Taylor, who had been with the Wrights since before Kitty Hawk. The two women were accompanied by a friend, Charles Wiggin.

The boxcars were painted white, so Rodgers would be able

to spot the train easily from the air, and emblazoned with the Vin Fiz logo, prompting the name of Vin Fiz Special.

Rodgers agreed to pay for the fuel, oil, spare parts, and me-chanics’ pay. Taylor was paid $70 per week.

Using his prize money, Rodg-ers purchased a Wright Model EX (for Exhibition) for $5,000. The EX was a modified Wright Model R , which was often called the Roadster or the Baby Wright, and was specifically built for exhibition flying.

The Wrights’ workers length-ened the spruce muslin-covered Model R’s 26.5-foot wing to 31.5-foot with a 5-foot chord. The separation between the up-per and lower wings was just over 40 inches.

The lower profile allowed for better control and maneu-

With a boxcar carrying spare wings, struts, rudders, wheels, engines, and enough parts and fabric to rebuild the entire plane at least twice, the train was a rolling repair shop and carried a car able to leave the train and drive to wherever Rodgers had landed.

ERNIE VISKUPIC, WINGMAN PHOTOGRAPHY SAN DIEGO

ERNIE VISKUPIC, WINGMAN PHOTOGRAPHY SAN DIEGO

bottle of Vin Fiz was wired to one of the wing struts. Rodgers intended to celebrate his vic-tory by drinking it after land-ing in California.

The new plane was instantly dubbed the Wright EX Vin Fiz.

Cal Rodgers was not the only pilot trying for the Hearst prize money.

Robert Fowler and James Ward, who each had more flying time than Rodgers, were ready by early September.

Fowler was the first, taking off from San Francisco on Sep-tember 11 and headed east. But once he reached the towering Si-erra Nevadas, he turned back, unable to climb high enough to clear the mountains.

Two days later Ward took a route west from New York City, but gave up f ive days later, unable to even get out of the state.

Eager to avoid the mountain ranges Rodgers planned his route along railroads from New York, west into Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and then south to Missouri, Oklahoma, and

Texas. From there he would fly into New Mexico and Arizona, and finally into California , headed for the goal of Pasa-dena, the official ending point

of the coast to coast attempt.The total distance was more

than 4,300 miles. Time would be of the essence, and every de-lay would cut into the deadline.

The most distance Rodgers could make in a single flight was about 190 miles. Local condi-tions however were likely to af-fect this goal. Bad weather and engine trouble, even landing too far from the repair train, could make a second flight in a day unlikely.

It was technically possible to make it to California inside the 30-day time limit, but only if ev-erything went right.

The Vin Fiz Special would ei-ther follow Rodgers or lead him, depending on conditions on a particular day.

It was truly an odyssey “where no man had gone before.”


verability, less bracing wire, shorter struts, and reduced wind resistance.

(Note: Some sources say the EX was a Model B, which had a 31-foot wingspan. But the 5.4-foot wing separation was more than 2 feet longer than the Model R and the EX. The author supports the Model R, but this may never be proven.)

With a 35-hp upright inline four-cylinder engine turning chains to twin contra-rotating 8-foot propellers at 450 rpm, the EX could maintain a speed of 55 mph for about three-and-a-half hours under ideal conditions.

The EX had no navigation in-struments, not even a compass. Rodgers would have to navigate visually using railroads, eu-phemistically named the “iron road” or “iron compass.” That meant he could only fly in day-light and with good visibility. Fog and rain would ground him as surely as a broken wing or clogged fuel line.

The only instruments Rodg-ers had on hand were his pock-etwatch, to keep track of flying time and estimated distance, and a weighted shoestring tied to a bracing wire by his head. The string served as a sort of in-clinometer to tell him if he was pitching or rolling the plane.

The engine was fitted on the wing to his right, which made minor in-flight adjust-ments possible.

For good luck an unopened

The only instruments Rodgers had on hand werehis pocketwatch, to keep track of flying time and

estimated distance, and a weighted shoestring tied to a bracing wire by his head.

Taylor and Rogers .

There’s nothing new about turning a fighter into a racer. This has been going on since the first postwar Bendix and Thompson Trophy races at Cleveland in 1946. But turning a racer into a fighter is a very different matter. One at-tempt to do this can be traced back to 1936.

The rumbling of a second world war was increasing, especially in Nazi Germany where Messerschmitt and Heinkel and Junkers were hard at work developing military airplanes in clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Still strapped for cash, the U.S. Army Air Corps was sorely in need of new ideas, as its Cur-tiss and Boeing biplane fight-

ers were already obsolete and soon would be headed for the scrap heap.

Gen. “Hap” Arnold saw a possible solution and promptly dispatched one of his best Wright Field test pilots, Ben Kelsey, who happened to have a

graduate degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT, to the 1936 Los Angeles National Air Races. He was assigned to take a close look at the brand-new French Caudron C-460, which looked faster than anything we had or expected to have in the near future. With a minimum of changes, maybe it could emerge as the Air Corps’ answer to the eternal challenge of a high-speed, low-cost, light-weight fighter.

The C-460 had been designed expressly to win the Coupe Deutsch de la Muerthe, the world’s longest pylon race, consisting of two stages, each for 10 laps of the 100-kilometer (62-mile) three-sided course, with all 1,240 miles to be flown on a single day. The annual event combined the practical test of a long race with some of the ex-citement of a pylon race.

The airplane was as sleek as anything yet to roll out of a factory or workshop. Its drag was the least then possible with an airframe that carried an engine and a pilot, along with landing gear, instruments, and enough fuel. Its engine had been developed for racing.

More than 6,000 miles to the west of the Coupe Deutsch course, as the competitors and the crowd gathered at what would become Los Angeles International Airport in early September of 1936, much of the talk was centered on the long, slender Caudron. The previous year, Ray-mond Delmotte had won the long Coupe Deutsch Race in an identical machine at an average speed of 275.9 mph, while that year’s Thompson Tro-phy race had been won with a speed 50 mph slower. The two otherwise very different types of races may have had the same total number of turns, but the Thompson would offer much shorter straightaways on which to build up speed lost in the turns. In addition, however, Delmotte had set a world speed record for landplanes with a C-460 on a 3-kilometer straight course at 314.3 mph in December of 1934.

Even before any stopwatches had begun to click, Ben Kelsey was hard at work, studying ev-ery aspect of the dark blue speedster from far across the water. While his eyes took in matters of streamlining, his brain was converting the C-460 into an imaginary pursuit plane. In his re-port to the War Department’s Air Corps Mate-riel Division at Wright Field, dated October 12, 1936, he summed up his impressions:

“This plane represented a very fine, well-

engineered design for the purpose. Each detail was apparently the result of careful study, com-bined with experience. As a whole, it is believed it represents an optimum in racing performance with the power available.

“The apparently excellent functioning and de-pendability of the plane and equipment indicate that the design profited by previous experience with similar designs and that this particular plane had been operated for a sufficient time to work the ‘bugs’ out.

“As nearly as can be determined, the engine, which incorporated a built-in blower, could be considered as a 260-hp at 10,000 feet engine, operating full throttle at sea level. To accom-plish this, special fuel approximating a 110 octane rating had to be used. Power estimates vary from 350 hp to 370 hp, depending on the source of the information.”

Kelsey then analyzed the airframe, the specific aspect of the airplane that most interested ob-servers of all viewpoints. More from Kelsey:

“There are several special features that deserve notice. The (canopy) is exceptionally small—about 10-½ inches at the bottom—just large enough for the pilot’s head. This obstruction is located pretty far back on the fuselage, which is advantageous from a drag standpoint, and is very carefully shaped to avoid flat surfaces.

“The wing is full cantilever, tapered, and ex-tremely thin, of symmetrical airfoil sections. This thin section is advantageous but feasible only in a light airplane in which the maneuver factors must be low. The details are extremely fine; the trailing edge is practically a knife edge; the aile-rons nest into the wing without a gap and with no balance. The controls are all internal.

“The airfoil section was supposed to be a sym-metrical section but appeared to be more nearly like some of our earlier racing sections. The thickness at the root was about 10 percent to 12 percent, giving a depth of about 6 inches. The tips were tapered in thickness to practically nothing. It will be noticed that the taper in plan and the aspect ratio are quite normal and appar-ently the result of some nice design study. Split flaps were fitted from aileron to fuselage.

“The wing is located up on the fuselage a lit-tle from the bottom. There seems to be some reason for maintaining the fuselage lines un-der the wing without a break, as well as getting

How to beat yourplowshare into a sword

Don BerlinerEAA 5654, Past President, Society of Air Racing Historians

Around the Pylons


This page shows two shots of the Caudron C .460 .

retracting space for wheels without protruding from the wing.

“The fillet is very small, which is, of course, sat-isfactory for high-speed conditions.

“The tail surfaces are thin and full cantile-ver and as fine in detail as the wing and aileron. These are mounted on an unusually long tail, giving good damping and adequate control with small drag.

“The fuselage is only large enough to accom-modate the powerplant and pilot, having been reduced from the dimensions of the early mod-els. The sides are flat which, when added to the (canopy) which is streamlined as a vertical ob-struction, gives considerable fin area aft, which apparently accounts for the ability to get away with small vertical control and fin surface in spite of the large side area of the motor installation.

“The landing gear is completely retractable by pneumatic means. When retracted there are no obstructions.

“The powerplant is a six-cylinder inverted air-cooled in-line Renault engine. The engine has a displacement of about 465 cubic inches, a bore of 4.25 inches by a stroke of 5.5 inches, and is rated as an 8-liter engine. There is a built-in blower, al-though apparently the compression ratio was not exceptionally high. The fuel used was specially prepared and furnished by Shell. A sample indi-cated that there was no fuel of commercial equiv-alent, but was about 110 octane rating.

“The propeller was driven direct, 6 feet in di-ameter, and automatic two position. This Ratier propeller was operated without controls by com-bination of pneumatic and mechanical means.

It may be assumed that this model is the same as originally on the C-460. The propeller was re-moved and kept under cover when not being flown. The Ratier propeller originally fitted on the C-460 operated only to increase the pitch from a takeoff position to a high-speed position when a certain speed was reached.

“The blades were held in the hub by a coarse thread whose pitch was so designed that the forces acting on the blade in the hub were nor-mal to the thread shoulders. Ball bearings run into the thread between blade and hub meant that the pitch could be changed easily and tended to stay put with little restraint. A spring acting on a sliding cam rotates the blade from low pitch to high. The spring is held in the low pitch posi-tion for takeoff by a little rubber balloon fitted with an automobile valve. The disc out in front has a stem which rests on the air valve.

“When sufficient speed is reached, the pres-sure on the disc causes it to move back into the hub, the stem pressing the air valve and deflating the rubber balloon. This allows the spring to ro-tate the blades into the high pitch position.

“Upon landing, the mechanism must be rein-flated with a bicycle pump to get it into the low pitch position. This is good, then, for only one flight and is especially adapted for getting a racing plane off the ground with a load, then getting into rac-ing high-speed trim at low altitude, which is held until landing, all with a minimum of weight and controls. This is the reverse of our normal pursuit usage where takeoff is rarely a problem, but maneu-vers and changes in altitude require a propeller ca-pable of adapting itself to various conditions.

“The engine was cooled by air let in through an opening in the front, one apparently directed on the cylinder barrels and the heads, the other front opening being the carburetor air intake. There was an outlet gland on the bottom of the fuselage below the wing. In addition, there were a few louvers cut here and there in the after por-tion of the cowl. For oil cooling, large flush sur-face radiators were let into the side of the engine cowling on the side and bottom.”

Kelsey’s analysis was thorough and couched in formal engineering terminology, as would be expected of a professional test pilot who was assigned to weigh the pros and cons of a new design.

A study of the design indicates that there are no modifications which might be made to give tactical usefulness without materially reducing the performance. A rather detailed investigation is being made by the North American (Aviation) Company to determine the feasibility of adopting this design to military purposes.

The first phase of this indicated that pro-viding sufficient wing for landing character-

istics and increased weight, providing satisfactory vision, changing to metal structure, including armament, radio and oxygen, plus the addition of maintenance and service fea-tures would increase the gross weight to about 3,000 pounds or better, and require upwards of 1,000 hp to maintain equiva-lent performance.

This is highly uncertain still, but indicates that when ampli-fied to service use, the plane is not very different from designs now being procured. Certain fea-tures might be retained to im-prove details of normal design.

When asked about this many years later, the long-retired Kelsey said that when Arnold wanted a brief summary, he told his boss that when you take into account all the changes which would have to be made to turn the racer into a pursuit, “…we already have that plane: It’s the Curtiss P-36!” With that, any seri-ous thought of modifying a racer dissolved.

Needless to say, the Caudron C-460 remained a classic racer that sired a string of increasingly powerful racing and record-breaking designs

which were stymied by the refusal of more powerful Renault V-12s to run reliably. The P-36 went on to equip many Army Air Corps squadrons and to lead directly to the production run of 12,000 P-40s. As for Ben Kelsey? He made headlines with a transcontinen-tal dash in a very early P-38 that ended crumpled on a golf course just short of

his goal in New York. With his flying and engi-neering knowledge, he made a highly productive career out of the Army Air Forces, rising to the rank of general. Retired to northern Virginia, he began building a Pitts Special but died before he could complete it.

No original C-460 exists, though a realistic re-production has been built and flown. A fixed-gear predecessor of the C-460 is in the Musee de l’Air at le Bourget Aeroport, north of Paris. As for P-36s, one is in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, while a Hawk 75 export ver-sion is owned by the Imperial War Museum and based at Duxford, north of London.


. . . the Caudron C-460 remained a classic racer that sired a string of increasingly powerful racing and record-breaking designs . . .

Curtiss P-36The Curtiss P-36, which Kelsey figured was the Caudron afternecessary mods .


The subject is aircraft fabrics, and it is not my intent to describe how to cover an aircraft but rather to trace the history of fabrics used in the covering process and touch on the filler materials that were used.

In the beginning, fabric was made by weaving natural fibers, such as cotton or linen. This type of material commonly could be found as bedsheets but could be purchased in the “unshrunk” condi-tion, where water could be used to cause initial shrinking of the fabric after attachment to the structure. Natural fibers were bleached, which re-moved color from the fibers, turning it white. Cot-ton fabric, being a white fiber, was not bleached, but some linen cloth, being a light tan color, was bleached. It is difficult to trace fabric history much before World War I, thus much early data per-tained to those aircraft used from 1914 to 1918. However, it is possible that the pre-WWI ships may have used banana oil to tauten and seal fabric weave in the covering process.

Linen fabric met the British Standard Speci-fication 9BSF1 for the period beginning 1914. Additional specifications and manufacturing in-structions could be found in the “Military Aero-nautics Specifications” dated 1916. I suspect before the advent of WWI there were no speci-fications for aircraft fabric since there were few aircraft around, particularly in the United States. No doubt one had read of the fabric tearing loose from the upper wings of SPAD aircraft when the ship dived to high speeds and the lift forces were greater than what the fabric could withstand.

The principal countries that produced the flax

from which linen fabric is manufactured were Belgium, Russia, and Ireland. During the war the Belgian supply was not available, and the Rus-sian supply was difficult to obtain. Thus Ireland was the only source from which to obtain flax in which to manufacture airplane linen. Therefore, the term “Irish linen” was born.

In the United States, the early Curtiss JN-4 Jenny ships were covered with a linen cloth. Al-though no particular specification can be found, it is, no doubt, very similar or the same as the British Standard Specification 9BSF1 for linen cloth. When the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, experimental work had been underway at the Bureau of Standards on a fab-ric cloth made from long-staple cotton fibers. At first there was a decided prejudice against the use of cotton because the dope that had been used to tauten and seal linen fabric did not work with uniformity on cotton. This led to the devel-opment of a new dope, which provided a big im-provement in cotton fabric usage.

As a result of experiments, two grades of cot-ton airplane cloth finally evolved: Grade A with a maximum weight of 4-plus ounces per square yard and a minimum tensile strength of 80 pounds per inch, and Grade B with a maximum weight of 4 ounces per square yard and a mini-mum tensile strength of 75 pounds per inch. As these cloths went into production, it was shown that Grade A had a tensile strength of 85 to 90 pounds per inch. This was the grade that was universally adopted for aircraft fabric cover-ing after February 1918, because the additional

The Vintage Mechanic

Aircraft covering, Part 1

ROBERT G . LOCK

strength more than compensated for the slight increase in weight.

The first orders for about 20,000 yards of cot-ton airplane fabrics were placed in September 1917, and from that time the use of Irish linen cloth decreased. At the time the armistice was signed, ending WWI, the production of Grade A cotton fabric was approximately 1,200,000 yards per month. By August 1918 the importation of Irish linen fabric by the government for war use was discontinued.

In 1917 the only practical limit to the produc-tion of cotton airplane cloth was the availabil-ity of a large supply of long-staple cotton fibers,

particularly from Egypt. To guard against a shortage of this critical material, the Signal Corps purchased 15,000 bales of sea-island cotton in Novem-ber 1917 so there would never be a shortage of this raw mate-rial for manufacturing airplane cloth. Once the cloth was at-tached to the structure, water and dope were applied.

Dope served a two-fold pro-cess in aircraft fabric covering. First, it tautened the fabric, and second, it sealed the cloth weave and made it water resis-tant. If there were openings be-tween the weave, lifting forces on the wings would be compro-mised. And the fabric had to be smooth to reduce drag forces in flight. Two types of dope were tested: cellulose nitrate and cel-lulose acetate.

Nitrate was made from cel-lulose nitrate and wood chemi-cal solvents that produced a surface similar to photographic film of the time. It burned quite rapidly, resembling a July 4 sparkler! Nitrocellulose dope was preferred for train-ing ships because the enemy was not shooting at them. Ac-etate was made from cellulose acetate and wood chemical sol-vents, such as acetone. It was a slow-burning material; how-

ever, if the ship caught fire in the air, it was go-ing to burn anyway. Cellulose acetate dope was preferred for fighting aircraft because they were being shot at with incendiary bullets that would set the ship on fire. Up to the entry of the United States into WWI, nitrate dope was furnished by various chemical and varnish manufacturers.

The selection of a new dope manufactured from cellulose acetate opened a wide field of research because there was a wartime short-age of the ingredients, which were acetate of lime (acetone), cellulose acetate, acetic anhy-dride, and glacial acetic acid. Acetate of lime is the base from which acetone is made, and in


December 1917, the government took steps to commandeer all the existing supplies of these kindred products. Steps were also taken to im-mediately increase production capacity for air-plane dope, resulting in the government making cash advances to large chemical plants located in Collinwood, Tennessee; Tyrone, Pennsylva-nia; Mechanicsville, New York; Shawinigan Falls, Canada; Kingsport, Tennessee; Lyle, Tennes-see; Freemont, Missouri; Sutton, West Virginia; Shelby, Alabama; and Terre Haute, Indiana.

By the time the armistice was signed, 1,324,356 gallons of dope had been produced by the 10 manufacturing plants, which proved to be adequate to meet all government requirements. After the war ended, there were adequate sup-plies and manufacturing facilities of dope and fabric to meet production requirements for the birth of civil aviation in the United States. The fabric became known as Grade A cotton fabric, and the dope as nitrate and butyrate. Manufac-turing standards and specification for airplane cloth made from long-staple cotton linters were pretty well developed by 1918 and remain today.

Here would be a good time to briefly explain how these early 1914 to 1918 ships were cov-

ered. From the Curtiss JN-4D Handbook dated 1918, “The main panels are covered on the upper and lower surface with fabric. The fabric is care-fully stretched over the framework of the panel. The tension is applied to the linen as necessary for smooth covering, and is directed parallel to the span of the panel. Care is taken not to apply this tension in the direction of the chord, so that when the dope of the linen contracts, it does not alter the wing curve. For sewing the fabric to the ribs, Andover No. 7 harness-maker thread, prop-erly waxed, is used. This thread is taken around each rib, each stitch being properly locked with a knot. The stitches are 4 inches apart. After the fabric has been sewn to the frame, a strip of aeroplane linen, 2-1/4 inches wide, with the threads frayed at the sides 1/8 inch, is doped over the stitches.” Enough nitrocellulose dope is applied to tauten the fabric and seal the weave so as to provide a smooth surface. There was no sil-ver dope applied to block ultraviolet rays of the sun, which rotted the fabric in a short period of time; therefore, all early ships appeared brown or white in color, depending on whether they were covered with linen or cotton cloth. This was the standard covering process for a WWI aircraft.

Early aircraft covering had no protection from the ultraviolet rays of the sun, which de-teriorated cotton and linen cloth at an alarm-ing rate. In the early 1960s, Ray Stits developed a synthetic covering process called Poly-Fiber. He did several tests involving exposure of vari-ous types of fabric to the sun. Stits covered sev-eral 24-inch-square frames with Dacron and cotton fabric and mounted them to a test fence at a 45-degree angle to the sun in Riverside, California, for 13 months. The fabric was un-coated; however, one-fourth of the surface was covered with plywood to block the ultraviolet rays of the sun. (Riverside is very sunny and hot during summer months.) After 13 months, six 1-inch-wide strips were cut for a pull test. For new Grade A cotton fabric with a strength of 80 pounds per inch, the results showed:

• Unexposed – 69.25 pounds per inch (under the plywood protection)

• Exposed – 6.75 pounds per inch (direct expo-sure to the sun)

• Indirect exposure – 43 pounds per inch (back side of panel)

His conclusion was that exposed cotton fabric was reduced to only 8.3 percent of its original 80

pounds per inch. So here the conclusion would lead one to the fact that Grade A cotton fabric needs a good application of silver dope to pro-tect it from the sun’s rays. The first ships covered with linen or cotton cloth did not have any pro-tection, thus deteriorated at a rapid rate. There-fore, when testing Grade A fabric for strength, one could expect the upper surface of a wing to be deteriorated greater than the lower surface because of indirect exposure.

For testing any type of fabric covering on an aircraft, original cotton fabric is the standard for deteriorated strength. All synthetic covering pro-cesses must measure to the minimum standards of cotton aircraft cloth.

Into the early 1920s, the specifications for cot-ton and linen fabric cloth were pretty well estab-lished. From the U.S. Army Air Corps Bulletin 23, dated May 1930, and the Bureau of Aeronautics Index, dated April 1930, the Navy specification for airplane cotton cloth was 27C12; 6-97-B for the Army. Cellulose nitrate dope carried speci-fication 3-151 for the Army and 52D2 for the Navy, while cellulose acetate dope carried speci-

fication 3-110-C for the Army and 52D5 for the Navy. In the civilian world, cellulose nitrate dope became known as just “nitrate,” and cellulose ac-etate dope was commonly known as “butyrate.”

The use of airplane dope that had been de-veloped for WWI is essentially the same today, perhaps with a little modernization. There now is available “tautening” and “nontautening” dope that may be used to control the amount of shrinking of the fabric cloth. Dope is also avail-able in a limited number of pigmented colors. Ni-trate dope has better penetrating qualities than butyrate dope and is still used with the synthetic Ceconite fabric process. It must be noted that nitrate and butyrate dope will not mix and that nitrate dope will not successfully overcoat butyr-ate dope. However, the opposite is true; butyrate dope will overcoat nitrate dope.

There were several companies that made the dope compounds and sold them to the govern-ment during WWI. After the war ended, a few rose to the top in the increasing civilian mar-ket. One was Titanine Incorporated of Union County, New Jersey. The company advertised in 1929 that it had furnished dopes and lac-quers since 1913. The other company was Berry Brothers, producers of Berryloid aircraft fin-ishes. It manufactured varnishes, enamels, and lacquers from its plants in Detroit, Michigan, and Walkerville, Ontario, Canada. The adver-tisements shown in this article are taken from the November 1929 issue of Aero Digest.

In the next installment, we’ll explore further the details of early fabric covering and provide more tidbits of interesting data about the early covering process.

ReferencesThe Curtiss Standard JN-4D Military Tractor

Handbook, 1918 by Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corporation, Buffalo, United States.

How to Cover an Aircraft Using the Poly-Fiber System, April 1998 by Jon Goldenbaum.

Aviation Handbook, 1931 by Edward P. Warner and S. Paul Johnson.

Aero Digest, November 1929. www.Archive.org/stream/

unitedstatesarmy00mixtrich/unitedstatesarmy

http://TheVintageAviator.co.nz/reference/working-irish-linen

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Straight & Levelcontinued from page 1

Gone WestLee R . Koepke

Lee R. Koepke, 87, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, passed away on July 3, 2013. After serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Lee pursued a career as a mechanic and IA. Known for taking a derelict 1937 Lockheed 10 Electra destined to be used for firefighting practice at Willow Run Airport, he restored it for the 1967 Earhart commemorative flight. He went on the flight with pilot Ann Pellegreno, copilot William Payne, and navigator Bill Polhemus. The group successfully located Howland Island on the date, 30 years later, that Earhart was to have landed there. Lee’s Lockheed is in the National Transportation Museum of Canada, representing Trans Canada Airlines’ first purchase of a modern airliner in October 1937. Lee will be remembered by many mechanics who attended the Detroit Institute of Aeronautics that he founded in 1968 and operated until it was purchased by the Michigan Institute of Technology in 1990. Koepke retired as an aircraft mechanic from Republic Air Lines in 1980. As an aeronautical tribute, Lee leaves not only his work as a mechanic but also hundreds of persons whom he taught, mentored, and helped, including his two sons, Jeff and Gary, who became aviation mechanics.

Lee Koepke, Bill Polhemus,Ann Pellegreno and William Payne .

WelcomeNew VAA Members

Jon Shimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frederick, MarylandPatrick Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lucas, TexasWilliam Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hawthorne, CaliforniaLaura White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fall City, WashingtonJorge Rios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Santiago, ChileRobert Camacho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nipomo, CaliforniaRaymond Piantanida . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florahome, FloridaJohn Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Largo, FloridaMike Pastore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Naperville, IllinoisMichael Ganio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ashland, Oregon Gary Merrill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dallas, TexasSteije Ruiters . . . . . . . Loenen aan de Vecht, Netherlands Fred Gleiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cochrane, WisconsinEarl Koski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Crystal Falls, Michigan Jerry Lane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phoenix, Arizona Brent H . Chidsey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Genoa, New YorkJoaquin C . Delgado, Jr . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kingwood, TexasDennis Van Gheem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . De Pere, WisconsinLawrence Buul . . . . . . . . . . . . Harbor Springs, MichiganThomas Monteith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Okeechobee, FloridaJane Mooney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fitchburg, Wisconsin

Larry Coppernoll . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linden, North Carolina Doug Jenkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Universal City, TexasWilliam Miles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lillian, Alabama David Peters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saratoga, CaliforniaDaniel Wiirre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hibbing, MinnesotaMenno Burmeister . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greenwich, New YorkDavid Klevorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saint Louis, MissouriKarl Norman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Butte City, CaliforniaSergio Quadrelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MacaoKeith Swalheim . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cottage Grove, WisconsinGary Van Roy . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sioux Falls, South DakotaRobert Willms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Katy, TexasEugene Bibber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kotzebue, ArkansasBryan Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rockford, IllinoisJames Savage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gibsonia, PennsylvaniaEric Hiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Powell, OhioRichard Broderick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bettendorf, IowaPeter Griffiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Temecula, CaliforniaJeffrey Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Glarus, WisconsinStephen Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . Lopez Island, WashingtonBruce Daniels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Durban, South Africa

thousands of volunteer hours in not only preparation of the grounds, but also their herculean efforts to complete all of the finish work in preparation of AirVenture 2013. I need to also mention the actual execution of a safe and pleasurable event. This group is truly exceptional and is among the very best of EAA/VAA members who serve this organization so well each year at EAA Oshkosh.

Well, now the planning for AirVenture 2014 begins. Hope to see you all there!

As always, please do us all the favor of inviting a friend to join the VAA, and help keep us the strong association we have all enjoyed for so many years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AircraftInsurance

PresidentGeoff Robison

1521 E. MacGregor Dr.New Haven, IN 46774

[email protected]

Vice-PresidentDave Clark

635 Vestal LanePlainfield, IN 46168

[email protected]

SecretarySteve Nesse

2009 Highland Ave.Albert Lea, MN 56007

[email protected]

TreasurerDan Knutson

106 Tena Marie CircleLodi, WI 53555608-592-7224

[email protected]

Ron Alexander118 Huff Daland Circle

Griffin, GA [email protected]

Steve Bender85 Brush Hill Road

Sherborn, MA 01770508-653-7557

[email protected]

David Bennett375 Killdeer Ct

Lincoln, CA 95648916-952-9449

[email protected]

Jerry Brown4605 Hickory Wood Row

Greenwood, IN 46143317-422-9366

[email protected]

Phil Coulson28415 Springbrook Dr.

Lawton, MI 49065269-624-6490

[email protected]

George DaubnerN57W34837 Pondview LnOconomowoc, WI 53066

[email protected]

Dale A. Gustafson7724 Shady Hills Dr.

Indianapolis, IN 46278317-293-4430

[email protected]

Jeannie HillP.O. Box 328

Harvard, IL 60033-0328815-245-4464

Steve Krog1002 Heather Ln.

Hartford, WI 53027262-305-2903

[email protected]

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

[email protected]

Joe Norris264 Old Oregon Rd.Oshkosh, WI 54902

[email protected]

S.H. “Wes” Schmid2359 Lefeber Avenue

Wauwatosa, WI 53213414-771-1545

[email protected]

Tim Popp60568 Springhaven Ct.

Lawton, MI 49065269-624-5036

[email protected]

Robert C. Brauer9345 S. Hoyne

Chicago, IL 60643773-779-2105

[email protected]

Gene Chase8555 S. Lewis Ave., #32

Tulsa, OK 74137918-298-3692

Ronald C. Fritz15401 Sparta Ave.

Kent City, MI 49330616-678-5012

[email protected]

Charles W. HarrisPO Box 470350

Tulsa, OK [email protected]

E.E. “Buck” Hilbert8102 Leech Rd.Union, IL 60180815-923-4591

[email protected]

Gene Morris5936 Steve Court

Roanoke, TX 76262817-491-9110

[email protected]

John TurgyanPO Box 219

New Egypt, NJ 08533609-752-1944

[email protected]

Lynne Dunn145 Cloud Top Lane

Mooresville, NC 28115704-664-1951

[email protected]

Susan Dusenbury1374 Brook Cove Road

Walnut Cove, NC 27052336-591-3931

[email protected]

DIRECTORS

OFFICERS

DIRECTORS EMERITUS

ADVISORS

VAADirectory


What Our Members Are RestoringAre you nearing completion of a restoration? Or is it done and you’re busy flying

and showing it off? If so, we’d like to hear from you. Send us a 4-by-6-inch print from a commercial source or a 4-by-6-inch, 300-dpi digital photo. A JPG from your 2.5-megapixel (or higher) digital camera is fine. You can burn photos to a CD, or if you’re on a high-speed Internet connection, you can e-mail them along with a text-only or Word document describing your airplane. (If your e-mail program asks if you’d like to make the photos smaller, say no.)

For more information, you can also e-mail [email protected].

BOOKSAviation Books. home.windstream.net/av8terz

EMPLOYMENTEstablished Midwestern company seeking seasoned IA with leadership experience.

Candidate must have an extensive background in hands-on restoration activities, be able to manage large projects and be skilled in business development. Our restoration business is unique and requires extensive experience with vintage and Warbird type aircraft. Send resume and salary requirements to [email protected]

WANTEDRestoring a 1929 Alliance Argo, looking for engineering drawings, blue prints, and

anything that could be of help. 508-566-6673, [email protected]

Something to buy, se l l , or t rade?

Classified Word Ads: $5.50 per 10 words, 100 words maximum. Classified ads may be submitted online at www.EAA.org at https://secure.eaa.org/advertising/classified_ad.html

Advertising Closing Dates: 10th of month, two months prior to issue date (i.e., January 10 is the closing date for the March issue). EAA reserves the right to reject any advertising in conflict with its policies.

Rates cover one insertion per issue. Classified ads are not accepted via phone. Payment must accompany order. Word ads may be sent via fax (920-426-4828) or e-mail ([email protected]) using credit card payment. Include name on card, complete address, and type of card, card number, and expiration date. Make checks payable to EAA.

Advertising Correspondence: EAA, Classified Advertising, PO Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086

Vintage Trader

Va vol 41 no 5 sep oct 2013

Documents

Transcript of Va vol 41 no 5 sep oct 2013