vintage airplane - may 1974

8/12/2019 Vintage Airplane - May 1974

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THE PRESIDENT S PAGEBy E E Buck HilbertPresident, Antique-Classic Division

THEY RE COMING OUT OF THE WOODS

Photo by Ted Kaston )


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I ~ f ~ I b f R P l ~ f

VOLUME 2 NUMBER 5 MAY 974TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Uptown Swallow . uck Hilbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Reminiscing With Big Nick . . . Nick Rezich . . . . . . 8Cloudland Revisi ted . Leonard Opdycke . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Wasp Powered Northrop Be ta . Jack ox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Around The Antique Classic World . . . . . . . . . 18O N THE COVER Northrop etaPhoto ourtesy Harold Wadleigh BACK CO VE R MonocoupesPhoto by Ted Koston

EDITORIAL STAFFPublisher Paul H. PobereznyAssistan t Ed itor Gene Chase Ed itor Jack CoxAssis tant Ed itor - Go lda Cox


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(Buck Hilbert Photo)Bastille Day for a Swallow The old bird basks in the noonday sun for the first time since 1934


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yard one. day, and apparently abandoned it I took thething and with the help of a welder friend, we built up aflat bed 17x7, installed all the lighting and safety gea rand we were ready. never got to use it. Word gets aroundon things like this and the trailer has been all the way toTexas, down to Arkansas, and out to Iowa, but each timeit was a well meaning friend who used it and each time itcame home it had several glaring defects that called forextensive modifications . One day after I thought all themods were done, and the idea that maybe I'd better use itkept grawin' at me, I tried to bring a load of hay in fromthe field with it. I didn ' t even get it back up here to th ebarn before the running gear broke. That called for a better and bigger axle assembly which is now in place andthe crucial test was about to come, as I arrived on theSwallow scene.

Now understand, this airplane has been stored up in therafters of this commercial garage since '34. The ceiling isabout 30 feet high, and getting it up there was easy. Theyjust hooked a half inch cable to a drum pulley, tied it tothe airplane and the front bumper of a car and backedthe car up a sufficient distance to raise the Swallow up tothe ceiling. t was then secured by means of a chain to asixteen inch beam, and that was " home for the next fortyyears.As the years passed the Swallow was all but swallowedby additions of storage lofts on either side and to the front.As a matter of fact, th e only visible parts of the machineshowing when I first arrived to inspect it were the landinggear axles protruding and extending along the floor orceiling of the lofts on either side. Walking over to stand directly beneath the machine was a very hazardous obstaclestrewn path , and required considerable effort as youthreaded your way past old cars, engines, tooling and debris. Please do n' t misunderstand. The owner, Mr. Bill Irwin, placed these objects there for future use, someday,and every piece had value to him, if no one else, but they

how do we ge t this 125 pound-plus rig up there to the sixteen-inch beam? Easy - we haul it up, and that we did,but not without much gr unting, puffing and words of exasperation. We finally ma de it though, and after hookingup began un tying the various ropes and wires to free thebird from it 's nes t Dario was sitting in the cockpit andbegan payi ng out the chain and lowering hi mself and theairframe to th e flo or.

There is a pause here while a second safety chain istied in an d a smaller back-up chain-fall is installed, just incase. That "jus t in case becomes horrible reality in a fewmoments when th e entire airframe slips its chains and thefuse lage rolls to the right about fifty degrees. Dario ishanging in there and is seen applying opposi te stick andrudder in an obvious attempt to hold her straight and level,but it jus t do es n' t seem to have any effect. The safetychain and second ary chain-fall do their job though and theplunge to the concre te below is averted. We retrench andafter som e mo re grunting and swearing, we disengage theprop from a unit hea ter and finally get down to the floorlevel. The wheels are installed an d we ro ll it out into th esunlight.This is a changing neighborhood, but kids are kids .Within five minutes th e word is ou t an d every kid forthree blocks around is at th e scene. There are big ones, little ones, black ones, white ones, girls and boys and totsand moth ers - and daddys too. There are people everywhere - some were jus t driving by and stopped to look,some are authorities on Fokkers, some on Jennies, andothers know all about the horrible flig ht characteristics ofth ese machines too. But th ey all know one thing, theyhave never seen four dirtier gu ys with such grins on theirfaces.After ga thering up the cowling, the prop, the struts andall the oth er goodies we can handle a t the time, we beginthe loading job . The OXX-6 goes in the pick-up bed, theextras go there too , and we being to think about gettingthis monstrous airframe up on th e trailer, which seems to


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Buck Hilbert Photo)Left. After reading this story, you antique airplanescroungers will give up snooping around old barns in ruralareas and rush to the big cities to haunt old garages Howis this for an unlikely place to find an airplane?

since nine-thirty. We are suddenly very hungry.We don't dare stay at the restaurant too long. The resultant traffic back-up caused by curious rubber-neckersand the curious stares of the other patrons make us suddenly aware of how dirty and disheveled our appearance.We move along west to the Interstate and then around thesouth end of Lake Michigan into Indiana . We are overtakenand studied by State Patrol cars a couple times in lllinoisand once in Ind iana, but they must be afraid to tacklethese maniacs dragging an airplane so we travel on toSouth Bend.It's a three hour trip and we arrive a few minutes before dark. ill Haselton comes out to the Chain 0 LakesAirport and we unload the Swallow and put it into the hangar. The rest of the goodies go over to Bill's where they areplaced in the loft until the time comes when he can workon them. Bud Kilbey arrives on the scene and we takethe OXX-6 over to his shop. Bud is reworking a hot-watereight for the Travel Air he is building. The OXX-6 will

Buck Hilbert Photo)Below. Another view of the neighborhood in which theSwallow has been sequestered for 1 these many years.

many, many new and used old car parts, and, of course,the wood-working machinery along with some choicepieces of select wood to be used just in case . Again,


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(Buck Hilbert Photo)Right. Bill Irwin , the benefactor of today's generation ofantique airplane lovers. Mr . Irwin has had the SwallowCommercial stored in his shop for the past 40 years.

(Buck Hilbert Photo)Below. . . . yeah , an ' I say George Washington

1 fly across the Potomac in one just like this "

it was s tored in a tire loft, and rem embering wh at a scarceitem 550-17 tires we re during th e wa r (WW-II, that is)someone sure could have used that brand new pair that

Once out of th e city traffic, the stares from the pass ingcars and trucks are a real treat. I didn't really believe therewere that many in teres ted people in the world. The S tatePo lice are at it aga in . The radio net aler ts each sector as Ipass th rough and me and th e load are given a better thancursory once over each tim e we enter a new police sector. Only four cylinders of the OXX-6 show with it lying onits side, and thi s evokes so me real curious s tares as carspass by. A Bensen Gy rocopter own er with Michiga n platesabout tw is ted his head off looking my load over. He didn ' toffer to stop though and talk EAA, so I plodded along.About the tim e I was ready to turn off on Highway 20 , Iwas in tercepted by an EAA type in a Mercedes 220D. H ealmost w ore out his eyeballs trying to decide what it was,and , finall y, I waved him over to the sid e of the road wherewe had a rea l nice ten minute talk . H e was from BentonHarbor, Michigan. Although he didn't have a project going he sur e expressed an interes t in the Swallow. I wi sh Iweren' t so lousy with names and could remember th em.I'll see him at Oshkos h though and I' ll ge t it then.Bill Ha se lton is wai ting when I arrive at Chain 0 ' Lakes


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(Buck Hilbert Photo)Dario Toffenetti, co-conspirator with President uck inthis sordid plot to snatch an old timers body from an aeronautical entombment, spirit it across state lines under thevery noses of the authorities and turn the remains over tothat arch-restorer, Bill Haselton, who, with the aid ofstrange instruments and fiendish skill, will attempt tobring the old bird back to life.

The radiator is ahead of the landing gear down on thebelly and the engine is indeed mounted on ash enginebearers. Aside from being a little oily, they look entirelyserviceable just as they are. The original cowling seems tobe in very good condition and Ole Fahlin has promisedto think about building up a prop. The new 30x5 tires that

Th e year was 1932 and America was close to rock bottom . Crude oil was selling for ten cents - yes , ten centsa barrel; wheat for twenty-five cents a bushel and GeneralMotors stock was being quoted just under eight dollars ashare. It was quite common to find college professors,bankers, bums and air line pilots in the soup lines, andjobless veterans were encamped in Washington, D. CBELIEVE-YOU-ME, things were roughI was a struggling fledgling working for Blue Bird AirTransport at the old Chicago Municipal Airport during thisperiod of financial and economic turmoil and it wasduring 1932 that I first met the great Colonel Art Goebel,winner of the famed Pacific Dole Race.

He was working for Phillips 66 as a skywriter writing"Phillips 66" in long hand in colored smoke. Art wasmaking big money and was on an expense account. Hehired me as his ground boy to take care of his TravelAir D-9-4000. The extra money I made working for Artcame just at the time we lost our home because of theDepression and the closing of the banks . When Art foundout that we were without a home, he doubled my pay fromfive dollars to ten dollars and would throw in a five dollartip besides. I really loved him . for a world famousflier, he was not stuck up or arrogant. He taught me howto make smoke and what were then the secrets of skywriting . Most of the other big guys wouldn't give you thetime of day much less help you . Later, when I was skywriting for Muntz TV, I often thought, If it weren't forArt Goebel, I wouldn't be here. Our friendship grew withthe years and peaked when he became president of theOX-5 Club of America.I am saddened with his departure as are many others .I am not sure that there will be many articles and bookswritten about Art in the months to come - I only hopethat whoever writes about him includes his interest in theearly American Indian, his dog, Mike, his home in California and ranch in Texas, which are more museums thanhomes.Art was a real pioneer - he taught himself how to fly


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Wouldn't the FAA have a slobbering fit if you tried thistoday Notice how the stunt man leaves the car - he isfacing the on-coming ladder. Today's stunt men get on inreverse of this - they follow the ladder and lunge for

REMINISCING WITHIG NICKNick Rezich

4213 Centerville Rd.Rockford III. 61102

Art flew with the world famous "Black Cats . Therewere 13 Cats , each with 13 letters in their namesFronty" Nichols, Spider Matlock and Bon MacDougall

started it all. They wore black sweaters with a black cat


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(Art Goebel Collection)Below. he famous Lost Wheel sequence . That's BonMacDougall flying the Jenny in the foreground with SuperStar Gladys Engle on the wing with spare wheelstrapped to her back). Art Goebel maneuvers the Jennythat has lost the wheel in to pick up Gladys. Can any-one identify the camera plane in the background?

R MINIHI


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G WITHI K

Art Goebel Collection)Left. Gladys makes contact and prepares to scamp-er on the wing of Art s Jenny without chute.


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(Art Goebel Collection)Babe Kalerback on the left wing and Gladys Engle on the rightprepare themselves asArt heads under the Pasadena Bridge . heaircraft is Hisso Jenny. he girls have no safety straps and arenot wearing chutes they are merely balancing on the kingposts

W W WOW


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(Art Goebel Collection)A car-to-plane transf er on a city street in LosAngeles . The transfer man has just beensnatched out of the back seat of the car. e wasstanding facing backward in the car and eapedonto the oncoming ladder as the airplane overtook them from behind . just the reverse ofthe way it is done today and much morehazardous .


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(Dick Stouffer Photo)The Pfalz OXI/ nearing completion of restoration at the EAA Museum. Only the in-sta l/ation of the Mercedes engine (fore-ground) and the wings remains. The aircraftis on loan from the Smithsonian.

CLOUDL ND REVISITED ORA TRIPLANE IN V RY GARAGE

By Leonard E Opdycke (EAA 1076)Greenbriar Apts. A-12347 South RoadPoughkeepsie, New York 12601

In England in 1922 you could buy the fuselage from aBristol Fighter for 5 shillings , the wing of a Fokker DVIIfor another 5 shillings, put them together with another 8some, sold it to Paramount Studios in 1926. It found itsway to the Los Angeles County Museum sometime in 1930,and Jack Canary retrieved it in 1953. After his death, it


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Must you give up The Drea m? By no means - th ere arestill ways of achieving it. The Nazis found it necessary tobuild up a reproduction Fokker Dr.I at one of the ea rlyLuftwaffe shows to comm emorate von Richthofen (fate un know n), and Co l. Jarrett built up another for his Muse um he later burned it. And th ere mu s t have been still oth erearly reproductions. On e of th e firs t of the cur rent torrentof building jobs wa s Ed Brennan's Fokker DVII, built witha modified Travel Air fu selage and an inv er ted Ranger engi ne about 1961. Stories about its flyi ng qu alities varied some said they were fine, others said the small prop andhigh speed engine produ ced some bad charac teris tics. Andthe argument has raged ever since, wh eneve r anyone proposes an automobile engine instead or a Mercedes ( bu twas n' t Mercedes an automobile? ).

Stanley Morel's Fokker DVII reproduction is exact, withthe proper engi ne and all the fittings reprodu ced the wayTony (or Reinhold ) imagined them. Some builders, likeWalt Addems and Joe PfeiHer, choose to replace th e woodframe o f the fu se lage with stee l tubing, often square, ra th er than coping with oil-soaked woo d and the continuoustuning job needed to keep the originals in rig. Their twoNieupor t 11 's are oth erwise indistin guishab le from theFrench originals. Some, like Earl Tavan , combine this sortof structural change wi th a new engine - in his SopwithTriplane, a Warner. The repr oductions used in Those Mag-nificent Men In Their Flying Machines al l had minor to-major s tructural changes, but all shar ed new engines,with the a ttendant problems noted above. Some buildersadd brakes and a tailwheel (like th e Tavan Triplane). Onearg um ent cl aims that th ese additions make th e airc ra ftposs ible to handl e in the abse nce of limitless gras s fieldswhich stretch off in every dir ection; others that th e highlittle fighters with their legs fu rther back than modern aircra ft are thereby temp ted to nose over, and that th e tai lskid , o ften with a keelpl ate a ttached un d ern eath , pro

vides a kind of anchor- plu s -tail-steering that the w heeldo es no t. Anoth er argum ent rages .My model Fokker Triplanes we re always small compared to my others, and it seemed to me th at was th eway she was. In fa ct, the top wing stand s som e nine feetoff the ground , in landing pos ition. Some builders pre ferto scale down their reprodu ctions, and built 2/3 and 5/8scale. The fin e Canadian-designed all -wood SES is 2/3 size,and clever mounting of the 85 h. p. Co ntinental keeps theo riginal proportions pr etty we ll, alth ough th e nose is a little long. Hobar t So rre ll built two handso me sma ll FokkerTriplanes (one of which is in th e EAA Muse um ). The fiveSE5s in Darlin Lily and Richthofen And Brown were builtby Slings by's - all sma ll, and to my tas te, ra ther out ofsha pe.Finally, still in the piloted class, come the homebuiltswhich have some remote resembl ance to a WWI ai rcraf t.The Foo Fight er whic h does comb at wi th little SE5s atEAA Fly-Ins, th e Volksjager Parasol and th e late MartyHa edtler's Morane-Sa ulnier Scou t , which is pre tty butun authenti c, are all examples. A t leas t th ey give you th efeeling of flying biplanes and parasols with crosses andcircles on th em, and maybe a sort of Spand au, for goodluck.But there are still authentic pieces and whole airc ra ftin bar ns: George C. Dade came across a whole JN4 in abarn this las t year, and it even turned out to have beenown ed by Lindbergh The EAA Muse um came into a notherJN4 the sa me way and the Air power Mu seum (AAA) happened on a S tand ard Jl so me tim e ago. Keep lookingAuthor Leonard Opdycke publishes an excellent publica-tion called WORLD W R 1 AEROPLANES, covering therestoration of World War I aircraft, the building of repli-cas of these machines and the history of the period. Writehim for details .


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Golden Oldie Of The Month

THE WASP POWERED NORT ROP BETy Jack ox


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Around The Antique Classic WorldflY -IN TIME

Fur a ll e),cep t you lucky people who livt' in Flor ida,Cal ifornia and o ther points so u th , May is th e ope ningmonth of th e new fly-in se\'oled mainly to antique/classic activity. W'e hope someof you \. ; 11 lal..(' so me pictures, co llec t so me info a nd sharet with th e fest of us in The Vintage Airp lane . With twomagazines to gt' l ou t each month, yo ur l'dilor is hardpressed to ge t out to man y fly-ins, much as h e would liketo attend all of them. Su, give us .1 hand - report on tho seevents all during the summer.

SKYFARER AND CURTI SS PUSHER INFODc.u Jack:

The Gener;;l] Skyfarer article la s t r c h requests any:.-mall bi ts of addi tio na l in form.ltlon . I got thir ty minutes inone on 21 Septem ber 1945 a t the Ga rd ena Valley A irp ort ,ius! so uth o f Los Angeles. Modd C 1-80, eln 19, com ple ted9}26!41, NC-4"1801. with a 75 h.p. Lycom ingO- 14S-C engine.

The 1912 Cu r tiss Push er article in the April iss ue asksfor d u cs of one numbere d 3378, and the rC


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Calendar f EventsMAY 17- 19 - WATSONVILLE, CALIFORNIA - 10th Annual West Coast

Antique Fly-In. Antique, Vintage, Classic and Amateur-Built invited.Static di spla ys, flying events, trophies and banqu et. Friday nightget-acqtJainted party. Contact: W. B. Richards, 2490 Greer Rd. , PaloAI to , Calif. 94303.MAY 19 - HARVARD, fLLINOIS - Dacy Chapter AAA Fly-In. Dacy Airport. Spot landing co ntes t on initial landing. Contact: Tom Lowe,823 Kingston Lane, Crystal Lake, Ill . 60014.MAY 24-27 - GILBERTSVILLE, KENTUCKY - Intern ational Swift Association Annual Fly-In. Kentucky Dam State Park. Contact: Charlie Nelson, P. O. Box 644, Athens Tenn. 37303.MAY24-26 - HAMfLTON, OHIO - Annual National Waco Fly-In. Saturday night banque t featuring Clayton J. Brukner as special gues t.Contact Ra y BrandIy, 2650 Wes t Alex.-BeUbrook Rd. , Dayton, Ohio45459.MAY 31/JU NE 1-2 - AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA - 1974 Old South FlyIn. Aiken Municipal Airport. Contact: Old South EAA Fly-In, P. O.Box 911, Lexington, S. 5= 29072.

JU NE 7-9 - DENTON, TEXAS - Texas Chapter of Antique AirplaneAssoc iation Annual Fly-In. Denton Municipal Airport. Contact:Ed McCracken, 1044 East St., Grapevine, Texas 76051.JUNE 8-9 - BURLINGTON, WISCONSIN - 2nd Annual EAA Antique/Class ic Division Spring Fly-In.JUNE 13-16 - TULLAHOMA, TENNESSEE - National Staggerwing ClubFly-In. Contact W. D. Dub Yarbrough, Lannom Mfg. Co., Bo x 500,Tiruahoma Tenn. 37388.

JULY 6-7 - LA RUE, WISCONSIN (NEAR BARABOO) - 6th AnnualAntique Transpor ta tion Mee t. Antiqu e airplanes and air games,steam train rides , antiqu e car games and hill climb, s wap meet.Fun for th e whole family. NO landing or parking faciliti es fo rmod ern aircraft. Contact: Edward C. Wegner, 10 Stafford St., Plym ou th, Wise. 53075.

JULY20-21- SHIRLEY, N. Y. (LONG ISLAND)-12 th Annual Fly-In of theAntiqu e Airplane Club of Greater New York at Brookhaven TownAirport . Dinner dance on Saturday nigh t. Contact Harry E. Geddes,Sec ., 374 Latham Rd ., Mineola, N. Y. 11051 (516) 746-3453.JULY 31 - AUGUST 1 - FOND DU LAC, WISCONSIN - Antique/Classic

Division Participation in EAA/IAC Aerobatic Contest. Spin, Loopand Roll Competition on August 1. Con tact: Don Taylor, ContestChairman, 2 ChandeUe Drive, Hampshire, fll . 60140, (312) 683-2244.JULY 31-AUGUST 6 - OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN - NEW DATES - 22nd

Annual EAA International Fly-In Convention. Largest and best Antiqueand Cla ssic ga thering anywhere. Mak e your p lans and reserva tionsearly.AUGUST 25-SEPTEMB ER 2 - BLAKESBURG , IOWA - Fourth AnnualNational Invitational AAAfAPM Fly-In - Antique Airfield.AUGUST 30-SEPTEMBER 2 - OTI1JMWA, IOWA - Ottumwa AntiqueAirplane Convention. Ottumwa Airport. Sponsored by Antique Airmen, Inc. Contact: J C. Chuck Weber, 441 Berry Rd. , Barrington,Ill . 60010.SEPTEMBER 13-1 5 - GALESBURG, fLLINO IS - 3rd National StearmanFly-In. Contact: Jim Leahy, 445 N. Whitesboro, Galesburg, IU . 61401OR Tom Lowe, 823 Kingston Lane, Crystal Lake, Ill . 60014.

Back Issues f The Vintage i rplaneLimited numbers of back issues of ' HE VINTAGE AIRPLANE are available at SOC each. Copies still onhand at EAA Headquarters are:

March 1973 June 1973 August 1973 October 1973 December 1973 February 1974April 1973 July 1973 September 1973 November 1973 January 1974 March 1974May 1973 . ApriIl974


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vintage airplane - may 1974

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