vintage airplane - sep 2011
TRANSCRIPT
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SEPTEMBER 2011
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Our L-4 was based in the US During WWII from 1943 to 1945. We bought
it early this year and have enjoyed every minute of it. The stearman was built
in 1942 during WWII and we have owned it since 1975.
Owning and operating antique aircraft has been a part of our family for 3
generations going back to 1963 when my father Tom bought a Piper Tri-
pacer. Our family has owned aircraft ever since. Our aviation roots rundeep in this family, and that is why we choose AUA as our agency. They
have a long distinguished record of service with the types of aircraft we
operate, and understand our problems and concerns.
— Mark Henley
The Henley’s Mark,Tanner, and Johnathan
■ Mark is an ATP and has beena pilot since 1976
■ Tanner is a student pilot whoflies every chance she gets
■ Jonathan is 18 and has beena private pilot for one year
a
n s A
U
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2 Straight & Level A wonderful week and a heartfelt set of thank-yous by Geoff Robison
3 News
5 Friends of the Red Barn 2011
6 A Handsome 1947 Piper Super Cruiser Paying tribute to aviation’s role in pipeline patrol by Sparky Barnes Sargent
14 Lloyd Stearman His airplanes and his legacy by Philip Handleman
20 Tribute to a Classic Focke-Wulf Fw.44J Stieglitz reborn in Germany by Stefan Degraef and Edwin Borremans
24 Light Plane Heritage De Havilland’s Little Birch by Bob Whittier
30 The Vintage Instructor It’s all in the feet by Steve Krog, CFI
32 The Vintage Mechanic Engine cowls for drag reduction—Part 2 by Robert G. Lock
36 Mystery Plane by H.G. Frautschy
A I R P L A N E SEPTEMBER
C O N T E N T S
S T A F FEAA Publisher Rod Hightower
Director of EAA Publications Mary JonesExecutive Director/Editor H.G. Frautschy
Production/Special Project Kathleen WitmanPhotography Jim Koepnick
Copy Editor Colleen WalshSenior Art Director Olivia P. Trabbold
Publication Advertising:Manager/Domestic, Sue Anderson
Tel: 920 426 6127 Email: sanderson@eaa org
Vol. 39, No. 9 2011
20
6
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It was really rejuvenating to get
out of town for a good long
while and take some time in
aviation’s mecca. It was great to
visit with all of my wonderful avia-
tion friends from across the globe.
We all experienced many fantastic
events at Oshkosh this year, and it
is always a highlight to share themwith so many of the attendees at Air-
Venture every year, but this was really
one of the best. As Bob Hope always
sang, “Thanks for the memories.”
This year’s event was really fun for
me. We saw some wonderful aircraft
restorations come our way, and they
kept our judges pretty busy. Cap-ping off the week was the spectacu-
lar Saturday night air show; it was
everything it was promised to be. I
have personally witnessed some re-
ally amazing fireworks in my days,
but never have I seen such a unique
pyrotechnics show as we had during
this year’s AirVenture. The devices
they are setting off are far more ad-
vanced than what we normally see at
the local 4th of July fireworks show;
it was nothing short of phenomenal!
Great show, guys! It was a real crowd-
pleaser. Spread the word, and be sure
a single field with at least 100 Cubs
all parked together. The response
from the many Cub owners has al-
ready been quite impressive. Be sure
to come and join in the fun! P.S. If
your Cub isn’t yellow, that’s quite all
right; we’ve got a spot for you, too!
Feel free to join us.
Congratulations to the staff andleadership of EAA for yet again put-
ting together such an excellent event
for us all to enjoy. I don’t know how
you continue to do this each year,
but it just seems to always to be better
than the last one. Of course, I can’t
fail to mention here the many vol-
unteers who show up every year andgive so much of their time to the or-
ganization to assist us in making it all
happen. Your collective and individ-
ual efforts are so greatly appreciated.
We hope to see you all back next year
for yet another week of great fun.
As many of you are aware, each
year the Vintage Aircraft Association
issues two prestigious awards to rec-
ognize our VAA Volunteers of the
Year. This year’s Flight Line Volunteer
of the Year was awarded to longtime
VAA volunteer Dale Masters. Dale,
your dedicated service to this organi-
teers not only food and beverages,
but also her friendly personality and
warm smile. You are greatly appre-
ciated by all of our volunteers, Pat!
Thanks for your service. Along with
the award, each recipient of the Art
Morgan Memorial Volunteer of the
Year award receives a free one-year
membership to the Vintage AircraftAssociation and a commemorative
clock. Congratulations to you both!
I want to close this month’s col-
umn with a personal note recognizing
our past president and now current
chairman emeritus of EAA. As many
of you are now aware, Tom Poberezny
has elected to retire from his respon-sibilities with the EAA. Tom served
our parent organization admirably
throughout his tenure as president
since 1989, and has worked for EAA in
one capacity or another for a total of
49 years of service to the organization
his father founded in 1953. Through-
out many of the years we’ve been in
Oshkosh I have had the distinct plea-
sure of working with him. No one has
ever done more for the Vintage Air-
craft Association than Tom and his
father, Paul. I will sincerely miss work-
ing with him, and my memories of
Geoff Robison
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VAA
STRAIGHT & LEVEL
A wonderful week and aheartfelt set of thank-yous
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training attendance alone does not
satisfy those requirements.
2) Complete Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration (FAA) Form 8610-1,Me-
chanic’s Application for Inspection Au-thorization, in duplicate.
3) Show evidence the applicant
meets the requirements of §65.93(a)
for both the first and second year in
the form of an activity sheet or log,
training certificates, and/or oral test
results, as applicable.
According to the FAA, the re-
quirement for other activity besides
a refresher training course has al-
ways been an FAA regulatory re-
quirement per FAR 65.93(a) that re-
quires the applicant continue to be
“actively engaged” as a mechanic
by meeting FAR 65.91 paragraphs
(c)(1) through (c)(4), but the docu-
mentation for that requirement hasbeen inconsistently applied by the
FAA field offices due to the previ-
ous definition lacking clarity. Part
of the reason for issuing the revised
policy is to make the requirement
for “actively engaged” beyond the
refresher course clearer. When re-
vised the new language clarifyingthe definition of “actively engaged”
within 8900.1 will read:
NOTE: Actively engaged means an
active role in exercising the privileges of
an airframe and powerplant mechanic
certificate in the maintenance of civil
aircraft. Applicants who inspect,
overhaul, repair, preserve, or
replace parts on aircraft, or
who supervise (i.e., direct and
inspect) those activities, are ac-
tively engaged. The ASI may use
evidence or documentation provided
by the applicant showing inspection,
cated and maintained in accordance
with 14 CFR, can be considered ac-
tively engaged. Individuals instruct-
ing in a FAA part 147 AMT school,
who also engage in the maintenanceof aircraft-related instruction equip-
ment maintained in accordance with
14 CFR standards, can be considered
actively engaged.
Read the second sentence care-
fully (we’ve put it in bold type); it
does not quantify the amount of
work that must be done, it simply
states that any of those activities
is viewed by the FAA as “actively
engaged.” In other words, if you
touch an aircraft once a year to per-
form maintenance within the scope
of practice as an A&P-IA, you’ve
met the definition of “actively en-
gaged” and need only to meet the
requirements of 65.91 (the regula-tion under which an Inspection Au-
thorization is initially issued) and
65.93 (a)(1), or (2), or (3), or (4), or
(5) to be eligible for renewal.
65.93 reads, in part:
(a)…In addition, during the time
the applicant held the inspection au-
thorization, the applicant must showcompletion of one of the activities in Sec.
65.93(a)(1) through (5) below by March
31 of the first year of the 2-year inspec-
tion authorization period, and comple-
tion of one of the five activities during
the second year of the 2-year period:
As explained to us by the FAA,
this means that an A&P mechanic
with an inspection authorization
who performs a single annual, re-
places a single part on an aircraft,
supervises A&P activities, etc. each
year (which means they are, as de-
fined by the new note added to the
We’ll continue to monitor the
implementation of the new pol-
icy published for the FAA’s Flight
Standards Management System
FAA Order 8900.1. Members whoare directly impacted by this policy
are encouraged to send us notes
describing their experiences at
[email protected] , or you can
post your comments on the VAA’s
Red Barn section of the new EAA
Forums website, www.EAAForums.org .
Hightower Provides a Look
to the Future
EAA members can expect to see
a Young Eagles-style program for
adults and a national network of
flying clubs, said EAA President/
CEO Rod Hightower at his AirVen-
ture forum.
The jury is still out on what
the “adult eagles” program will be
called, but Hightower noted that
many people have told him they
Rod Hightower talks with members
about EAA’s future during hisAirVenture forum.
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TM
Diamond Plus LevelGordon Anderson
Charles W. Harris
Matt and Ken Hunsaker
Robert “Bob” LumleyBill and Saundra Pancake
Rick Princell
Wes Schmid
John R. Turgyan
VAA Chapter 10, Tulsa, OK
Diamond LevelJonathan and Ronald Apfelbaum
John W. Cronin Jr.
Richard and Sue Packer
Ben Scott
Ronald E. Tarrson
Platinum Level
Al Hallett
Tom Hildreth
A.J. Hugo
Peter Jensen Jr.
John KephartMark Kolesar
Sarah and Bill Marcy
Dan and Denise Osterhouse
Brad Poling
Roger P. Rose
Carson E. Thompson
Dwayne and Sue Trovillion
Bronze LevelLloyd Austin
L. Tom Baker
Lt. Col. (Ret) Hobart Bates
Dennis and Barbara Beecher
Logan Boles
Bob Kellstrand
Rich Kempf
Dan and Mary Knutson
Marc Krier
Lynn and Gerry LarkinJimmy Leeward
Ballard Leins
Barry Leslie
Joseph Leverone Jr.
Gerald Liang
Russ Luigs
Thomas H. Lymburn
Helen Mahurin
Pfizer Foundation
Roscoe Morton
Steve Moyer
Lynn Oswald
Steven and Judith Oxman
Dwain Pittenger
Jan Douglas Wolfe
Dan Wood
Wynkoop Airport
Supporter LevelCam BlazerCharles Burtch
Rolly Clark
Camille Cyr
Bruce Denney
Geff Galbari
Bruce Graham
Richard Heim
Barry Holtz
Keith Howard
George Jenkins
Walter Kahn
Peter Karalus
John Koons
Thank you for your generous donations!
Friends of the Red Barn 2011STEVE CUKIERSKI
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A Handsome 1947Piper Super Cruiser
Paying tribute to aviation’s role in pipeline patrol
BY SPARKY BARNES SARGENT
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You might say
that Jim Ad-
ams of Pon-
tiac, Illinois,
is the proud
“ p a p a ” o f
one handsome Piper Su-
per Cruiser. After all, it’s
been part of his family
since 1963, and he just
completed its five and a
half year, ground-up resto-
ration. A retired Delta pi-
lot who finished his career
by flying Boeing 757s and
767s, Adams is one of thosegregarious fellows whose
affable laughter is conta-
gious. Within minutes of
meeting him, it’s apparent
that he’s, well…just having
too much fun, and loving
every moment.
His affinity for Cubsstarted years ago, and
eventually precipitated his
airline career. He recalls:
“I was a farm boy from
central Illinois, and some
of my earliest memories
are going with my bach-
elor uncle to air shows.
I had to sneak off as a
kid—I was probably 14—
and pay a guy to take
me for a ride, because
my mother would have
had a kitten if she’d have
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got my private license! I soloed
an Aeronca Champ, immediately
followed by a J-3 Cub, and I have
loved Cubs ever since.”
Piper AircraftRight after World War II, Piper
vigorously fulfilled a leading role in
supplying aircraft for the booming
civilian market. The PA-12 proto-
type was test-flown by Clyde Smith
Sr. in the fall of 1945, and the model
entered production in 1946. The
Super Cruiser sold well; there were
In 1947, a pair of these (modi-
fied) Pipers would add new mean-
ing to the model’s name by making
a super cruise all the way around
the globe. George Truman and Clif-
ford Evans departed Teterboro, New
Jersey, on August 9 and completed
their world flight when they landed
back at Teterboro on December
10. Their 25,162-mile flight took
122 days, 23 hours, 4 minutes and
demonstrated to the world the de-
pendability and utility of private
airplanes. (“A 1947 Global Flyer— E S S A R G E N T
SPARKY BARNES SARGENT
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decreased demand and overabun-dant supply.
Super Cruiser NC2827M (s/n 12-1306) rolled
outside the Lock Haven factory
on December 17, 1946, just seven
months after a devastating flood
nearly swallowed the manufactur-ing plant, which was located in a val-
ley alongside the Susquehanna River.
NC2827M was powered by a 100-hp
Lycoming O-235C, with a Sensenich
wood prop, according to the facto-
ry’s final inspection form. Just two
days later, it was purchased by Henry
Brown of Rochelle, Illinois, and it
stayed in Illinois until 1954, when it
went to Wisconsin. It quickly went
through more than half a dozen
owners and remained in Wiscon-
sin until September 1963, when the
Rossville Flyers of Illinois (Jim Adams
Close-up view of the old trim system.
Fuselage with fabric and metalized headliner.
The aft section of the fuselage, af-
ter the old fabric was removed—
note the wood stringers.
P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y J I M A
D A M S
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Restoration InspirationIn 2004, it occurred to him that
it just might be a good idea to thor-
oughly rejuvenate NC2827M. “Ihad flown our grandkids in this
Super Cruiser and thought, ‘This
thing has only been re-covered—it’s
never been completely torn down.
Maybe we ought to look at it.’ So
here it is, Tuesday, July 28 [2010],
at Oshkosh, and we just finished it
Friday! We flew it here on Sunday,and it took us exactly one hour and
eight minutes. The engine and air-
frame total time is 1,368.4, and I
have all the logs, starting right with
the build sheet from the factory—
Clyde Smith Jr. got that for me, and
I’m really tickled with that! I’ve got
every little piece of paper that’s ever
had anything to do with it.”
Adams decided to retain many of
the PA-12’s original features, while
updating it for safety, utility, and
cabin comfort. He also owned a
PA-18 Super Cub at the time, and
The wing and cowling have been painted Tennessee Red. (The pipeline pa-
trol Super Cub that Adams sold to his friend is in the background.)
Updated avionics and radio were neatly combined with the original cream-
faced instruments.
The Super Cruiser, looking brand
new from nose to tail.
P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y J I M A
D A M S
S P A R K Y B A R N E S S A R G E
N T
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your nose was outside watching for
pipeline leaks!”
Adams intended to finish the
PA-12, then restore the PA-18 so he
would have two airplanes to rep-
Romans’ Pipeline PatrolIn 1944, Gleason Romans Sr.
started a flying school and mainte-
nance facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
He had five airplanes, which were
ties were pleased with the outcome,
and the engineer was enthusiastic
about this new aerial method of in-
specting pipelines for oil leaks and
encroaching vegetation.Romans then began cultivating
his concept into a thriving business.
His first patrol plane was a Taylor-
craft L2M, which he modified with
an extra fuel tank and an additional
window in the cabin portion of the
fuselage. As he acquired additional
contracts with oil companies, he
continued hiring pilots and buying
patrol airplanes.
This entrepreneur continually
studied ways to enhance the effec-
tiveness of his pipeline patrol, and
he developed some innovative de-
vices. One of his inventions was a
mechanical, electrically stabilized
aerial camera system.“I built a camera and ran a
5-inch-wide raw film across the slit.
It photographed 240 miles of pipe-
line on one roll of film as the aircraft
flew over the pipeline. It was sort
of phenomenal,” recalls Romans
with a chuckle, “and the pipeline
companies liked it. We had to syn-chronize the camera with the air-
craft, so another person would use
a view finder to regulate the speed
of the film as the pilot flew patrol.
We installed a gyro in it, and the
camera was mounted in a gimbaled
ring inside the airplane’s belly, so
the camera stayed straight no mat-
ter what the airplane did. The pilot
flew at 2,000 feet AGL directly over
the right-of-way to take the picture.
That gave us a 1/2-mile width on the
picture, which the pipeline compa-
nies used to count houses along the
The front cover of a Gleason Romans
Pipe Line Patrol Company catalog, the
logo and a photograph taken with the
aerial camera system he invented.
Right: Gleason Romans Pipe Line
Patrol Company logo—note the mul-
titasking bee peering through binoc-
ulars to detect oil leaks, and the oil
derrick in the background.
Fuselage with fabric and metalized headliner.
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mans chuckls and re-
plies, “Oh yes, I was
on standby in Tulsa
to fly emergency pa-
t ro l f l ights . Theycalled me to go out
and find something
wrong with a pipeline. So I set sail in
a J-3 Cub, flying south over this pipe-
line. I came to the top of a little hill,
and I could see that down below, it
was solid black. So I went back and
called them, and they sent a crew
down there, and I went with them.
It was a total black swamp, with oil
inches thick, and we took boots and
waded in there to stop the leak. I was
smoking cigarettes at that time, and I
started to light a cigarette, and there
was dead silence,” he recalls, laugh-
ing and explaining. “That caught
my attention, and I didn’t light up.If I’d lit up we’d all been gone! The
gas cloud over the oil would have
exploded.”
Pilots sometimes encountered an-
other problem while patrolling. “We
had a lot of liability problems with tur-
keys,” recalls Romans. “They’d fly one
way and then the other [in front ofus], as we flew over [the line]. But cat-
tle would get accustomed to us; they
wouldn’t run from us as we patrolled at
about 500 feet. You can tell more about
what you’re looking at from 500 feet,
or as close as we could get without it
blurring with the naked eye.”
At the height of Romans’s busi-
ness, he had 21 airplanes flying from
at least eight locations coast to coast
and from the Gulf of Mexico to Can-
ada, serving about 30 oil compa-
nies. By the late 1950s, his aircraft
had flown more than 1 million miles
appeared in The Southern Aviator, Sep-
tember, 2006.]
Modifications
If Romans were here today to see
the PA-12 that Adams has config-
ured to honor the pipeline patrol, he
would likely be quite pleased with
Adams’ interest and efforts to pro-
mote awareness of this unique facet
of aviation history.
The Super Cruiser was Adams’s
first restoration project, and with
the help of two A&Ps—Lovell Pull-
iam and Harry Pick—he included nu-merous modifications to the airframe
and engine. “We increased visibility
by putting a pipeline patrol window
in a seaplane door, which replaced
the original door; installing a skylight
and diagonal cross-brace in the cabin
overhead; and extending the rear
windows by 16 inches. I’m sure theywould have done that for pipeline pa-
trol; Romans was pretty safety con-
scious. And I think they would have
put the ’47 square windshield in it,
like we did, because the ’46 had a lit-
tle round windshield, and man, that’s
right where you want visibility. We
also installed micro vortex generators
and strobes on the wingtips and belly.
I just used the things I thought they’d
use for safety, while having a little fun
with it and honoring them.”
Additional modifications were
made in the engine room, and for
PA-12 trim was notori-
ous for having a cable
slipping—the double
cable of the PA-18 sys-
tem cured that.”O n e g l a n c e i n -
side the cabin reveals
even more customized features. The
updated avionics and radio neatly
combine with the original cream-
faced instruments, giving the panel
a nostalgic yet modern appearance.
“It could be the only PA-12 with
color weather radar,” chuckles Ad-
ams, explaining, “I have the Air-
Gizmos Box, a Garmin 396 and XM
Weather.” Cabin enhancements in-
clude new plywood floor panels, an
Airtex interior, and inertia reel shoul-
der harnesses. A metalized headliner,
finished in plain polyurethane primer
gray, matches the interior.After installing new aluminum
ribs and stringers, as well as a wing
flap kit, Adams tackled the fabric in-
stallation. “I’m so impressed with
the Superflite System VI,” he com-
ments, explaining, “it’s so simple.
I’ve never covered or painted any-
thing in my life, and I’m proud ofthe way it turned out. I used an
HVLP for painting, and it’s just easy
to do, and easy to repair. I found out
real quick how easy it was to repair.
My buddy was using a ratchet screw-
driver, which is like a lawn dart, and
it slipped out of his hand and went
right through the gear. Two hours
later, I had attached the fabric patch
and repainted it with an airbrush. I
couldn’t believe it went that well.”
Adams’ Piper PatrolSmiling happily, Adams declares
MIKE STEINEKE
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most about a person’s character.
which had a nagging squeak.
The letter was succinct and un-
vin Michael, ultimately took three
educational sabbaticals that culmi-
Lloyd StearmanHis airplanes and his legacy
BY PHILIP HANDLEMAN
O ’ H A R A
C O L L E C T I O N / E A A
A R C H
I V E S - B
O B S
T E E L E
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position at E.M. “Matty” Laird’s air-
plane company in Wichita. Lloyd,
a native Kansan, wasted no time in
applying, for he knew by then that
his heart was in aviation.Up to that point, Lloyd hadn’t
had much luck completing what
he had started. His civil engineer-
ing studies at Kansas State Agricul-
tural College were interrupted by
his enlistment in the Navy when
America entered World War I. Sim-
ilarly, his naval flight training in
the Curtiss N-9 flying boat con-cluded prematurely when the war
ended. Moreover,
his one-year stint
as an apprentic-
ing architect at a
firm in Wichita
seemed to be go-
ing nowhere.L a i rd r e c og -
nized underlying
qualities in the
young Lloyd Stea-
rman and hired
him to perform
a range of draft-
ing and engineer-ing duties. Little did anyone know in
those budding days that once in this
groove, Lloyd’s course would lead
eventually to his banding together
with various aggregations of extraor-
dinarily talented aviation trailblaz-
ers. Nor could anyone have foreseen
then that the dusty little prairie town
to which the scant but growing cadre
of air-minded visionaries gravitated
would become the “Air Capital of
the World,” much as Detroit ripened
into the automobile capital.
An eyewitness to the maiden
tractor. As a measure of his determi-
nation, Lloyd completed his flight
instruction at this time in one of
the very planes he was helping to
build.Three and a half years after Matty
Laird founded his company, he de-
parted due to a dispute with his
patron, local oil tycoon and pilot
Jacob Moellendick. Lloyd, who had
been one of Laird’s protégés, was
promoted to chief engineer of the
renamed Swallow Airplane Manu-
facturing Company. Lloyd’s knackfor design soon led to the New Swal-
low. This aircraft was a significant
upgrade of the baseline product.
The New Swallow was also mean-
ingfully differentiated from the
multitude of war-surplus Jennys, in
that it was configured to carry three
people, had only two wing struts per
side instead of four, and featured a
fully enclosed 90-hp liquid-cooled
Curtiss OX-5 engine. Publicity for
the highly regarded plane was en-
hanced by impressive exhibition
flights made by Walter Beech, a
transplanted Tennessean who had
In the face of Moellendick’s intran-
sigence, Beech and Lloyd sought
backing for a new company.
By the end of 1924, the two frus-
trated men had made the roundsand persuaded several people to
support their venture. One was a
much-admired, self-taught pilot
who had been entertaining crowds
at air shows across the prairie land-
scape for a dozen years. Interest-
ingly, that pilot had reputedly
flown the first plane Lloyd had ever
seen when he was growing up inHarper, Kansas. More recently, one
of Lloyd’s New
S w a l l o w s h a d
been purchased
a n d f l o w n b y
the pilot, Clyde
Cessna.
In early 1925,in a convergence
of aviation emi-
n e n c e s r a r e l y
replicated in the
industry’s long
and consequen-
tial history, Lloyd
Stearman, Wal-ter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and as-
sorted other partners established the
Travel Air Manufacturing Company
in the back room of a Wichita mill-
ing plant. Cognizant of his greatest
strength, Lloyd retained his post as
chief engineer in the new company.
Lloyd stayed at Travel Air for not
quite two years, but in that time
he fathered the Travel Air A, BW,
2000/3000/4000 series of biplanes,
and the Type 5000 cabin mono-
plane. These models represented a
technological progression and ex-
Stearman lent his engineering expertise to the twin-boom Stearman-
Hammond Y-1 aircraft built in 1936 as part of the Bureau of Air Com-
merce’s “$700 safe, affordable” aircraft program.
O’HARA COLLECTION/EAA ARCHIVES-BOB STEELE
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a 26-hour flight that spanned the
2,400 miles from Oakland, California,
to Oahu, Hawaii, in a Travel Air 5000
dubbed the Woolaroc .
Yet, amid the triumphs, tragedy
beset the up-and-coming designer/engineer. After a flight test of a
Model A on August 13, 1926, Lloyd
was taxiing to a hangar at Wichita’s
municipal airport when a collision
occurred. The aircraft’s propeller
struck local businessman George
Theis Jr., killing him.
Lloyd had eyeballed the airportgrounds from the cockpit, but simply
didn’t see the man who parked his
car close to the aircraft right-of-way
and then stepped out inattentively.
Lloyd was heartbroken and extremely
apologetic. In the end, the deadly oc-
currence was deemed an accident.
In October 1926, Lloyd moved
to Venice, California. He was drawn
by the desire to start his own com-
pany in the perennially good fly-
ing weather and favorable business
environment then endemic to the
Golden State. Lloyd was further mo-
A distinctively squared verti-
cal stabilizer and rudder became a
Stearman compositional hallmark.
Advances included wheel brakes
and hydraulic shock absorbers in
a fixed undercarriage. Additionally,the main landing gear legs were po-
sitioned to give a wide stance.
The biplane’s wings had differing
spans. In this sesquiwing configura-
tion, the top wing was considerably
longer than the lower wing. The C
series is perhaps best remembered
for its later variants that used pro-gressively more powerful air-cooled
radial engines.
Despite its outstanding prod-
ucts, the company was inade-
quately capitalized. Under the
circumstances, in 1927 Lloyd was
enticed to return to Wichita. Gen-
erous financing was offered by
Walter Innes Jr., a former business
partner. Lloyd’s company, still with
his name on the marquis, moved
into a large facility north of town.
The stylish Stearman biplanes
that had originated in California
constituted the aerial equivalents of
the period’s chauffeur-driven Rolls-
Royce and Duesenberg limousines.
Paradoxically, Lloyd, who was de-
scribed at the time by a Wichita
newspaper as “modest and unassum-ing,” helped to glamorize aviation.
The company’s success prompted
its takeover by the huge United Air-
craft & Transport syndicate. Under
the new ownership Lloyd remained
president of his company, but om-
inously, the transaction occurred
on August 4, 1929, less than threemonths prior to the stock market
collapse that reverberated from Wall
Street to Main Street and represented
the onset of the Great Depression.
At first, the giant holding com-
pany was undeterred. With its
backing, the Stearman subsidiary
proceeded with a major expansion
in Wichita. Operations were relo-
cated to a factory that doubled the
floor space of the existing facility.
However, production receded
unavoidably due to the faltering
economy. Lloyd pressed forward
The Stearman C3 biplane proved its mettle on the airmail routes of
the 1920s. This is Mike Williams’ beautiful restoration of a C3, kept
on a grass field in southwestern Wisconsin.JIM KOEPNICK
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biplane configuration that mani-
fested elegance in its simplicity.
Lloyd’s new aircraft also preserved
the admirable Stearman tradition
of ruggedness and adaptability withpossible future growth in engine
size, weight, and horsepower.
Because of the drop-off in civil-
ian sales, the company looked to
the military as an important poten-
tial source for new orders. In 1930,
the Army Air Corps embarked on a
quest for a new trainer to replace its
Consolidated PT-3. Not coinciden-tally that same year, the Cloudboy
flew for the first time.
A couple of Cloudboys, desig-
nated XPT-912, were evaluated at
Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. By
the end of the year, Lloyd’s design
had sufficiently whetted the ser-
vice’s appetite that a contract wasissued for four additional aircraft,
with the designation YPT-9, to con-
duct further testing. The company
did not receive the hoped-for pro-
duction contract, but the Cloudboy
military trainer prototype was a cru-
cial step toward development of the
fabled Stearman primary trainer.In any case, Lloyd felt crimped
because he no longer called the
shots at his company, which now
was but one entity in a sprawling
conglomerate. For a while he con-
centrated on his forte of research
and development, but by summer
1931 his entrepreneurial impulses
prevailed. He left Wichita once
again for the seemingly greener
pastures of southern California.
In another confluence of aviation
wizards, Lloyd teamed with Walter
T. Varney, an airline executive whose
tors, bought Lockheed for the sum of
$40,000. (Yes, for less than today’s cost
of an F-22 wheel strut, Lloyd Stearman
and his associates bought the whole
company.) The bankruptcy judge re-
portedly said, “I sure hope you fellows
know what you’re doing.”
Meanwhile, back in Wichita, theStearman Aircraft Company was be-
ing run by its new president, Julius E.
Schaefer. One of the priorities was to
apply the lessons learned in the com-
pany’s loss of the Army trainer com-
petition and offer a winning design
for the next round of acquisitions.
Three company engineers—MacShort, Harold W. Zipp, and J. Jack
Clark—logically took Lloyd’s Cloud-
boy drawings and used them as the
predicate for their design work.
Among the changes they incor-
porated in Lloyd’s original layout
were a cantilevered landing gear
and installation of ailerons on the
lower wings only. Wingtips and tail
surfaces were no longer square but
round. For ease of production, they
stuck with the idea of using readily
available materials.
The fuselage was formed by a tu-
that for the aircraft to be an effective
primary trainer it would have to have
a more definitive break when stalled.
Also, it would have to be more re-
sponsive to control inputs in both
spin entry and recovery. Eventually,
these concerns were addressed by the
insertion of stall-spin strips in theleading edges of the lower wings. The
wings’ narrower camber changed
the airflow at high angles of attack,
which produced the desired effect.
An order for 41 of a slightly al-
tered version, known as the Model
73, was placed by the Navy and des-
ignated the NS-1. The first aircraftwas delivered in December 1934.
The door to military sales was open.
It was an eventful time for the
company because a radical restruc-
turing of the corporate parent was
mandated under antitrust laws en-
acted that year. The United Aircraft
& Transport empire was split into
pieces. The Stearman unit was ap-
portioned to the newly freestand-
ing Boeing Aircraft Company.
Once this corporate upheaval
played out, management and de-
sign personnel at the Stearman
Lloyd Stearman (third from left) with fellow executives of Lockheed Aircraft
in 1934. Left to right: Ron King, controller; Carl Squier, sales manager;
Lloyd Stearman, president; Robert Gross; Cyril Chappelet; and Hall Hibbard.
O ’ H A R A C
O L L E C T I O N / E A A A
R C H I V E S - B O B S
T E E L E
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models until fiscal 1936. The initialbatch of 26 trainers had the 220-hp,
9-cylinder Lycoming R-680-5 radial
engine. The Army designated these
aircraft the PT-13.
Thus, a legend was born. The
Model 75 in its various military des-
ignations came to occupy a place of
honor in the chronicle of flight. Thetype is believed to have taught more
American cadets how to fly during
World War II than any other pri-
mary trainer. The many airworthy
examples today serve as a ubiquitous
bridge to aviation’s glorious past.
With war clouds on the horizon,
government leaders recognized the
dire need for more military pilots.
Trainer production was dramatically
ramped up. In the late 1930s and
early 1940s, the Stearman assembly
lines in Wichita were humming. An
astounding 8,585 Stearman train-
skies, preparing cadets to fly in thegreatest aerial armada ever amassed.
Notable students who received train-
ing in the Model 75 included the
members of the Women Airforce Ser-
vice Pilots, the first women to fly U.S.
military aircraft. African-Americans,
later celebrated as the Tuskegee Air-
men, also learned to fly at the con-trols of the splendid biplane.
Dozens of fighter aces and even
Mercury astronaut John Glenn got
instruction in the Stearman train-
er’s open cockpit. And, in the frigid
skies of the upper Midwest, George
Herbert Walker Bush, bundled in a
full fleece-lined leather flying outfit
and far removed from the trappings
of the White House that he would
experience much later in a different
kind of government service, felt the
invigorating rush of air against his
face aboard the Stearman as a rite
lents of the PT-13 were the N2S-2 and
N2S-5; its equivalents of the PT-17
were the N2S-1, N2S-3, and N2S-4.
Paint schemes were a modeler’s
delight. Prewar Army trainers hadregulation blue fuselage and orange-
yellow wings. The rudder was fes-
tooned in patriotic “candy cane”
or “barber pole” stripes that alter-
nated red and white. Navy training
biplanes in those early years were
painted orange-yellow all over to en-
sure visibility. In 1942, the official
paint schemes for primary trainers ofboth services transitioned to an over-
all silver shade. By then, many of the
trainers were already built and were
not repainted unless repair or main-
tenance reasons required their fabric
covering to be replaced.
The company adopted Kaydet
as the trainer’s official sobriquet. Intime, Army brass embraced the nick-
name. For its part, the Navy was
known for its casual usage of the term
Yellow Peril, which applied equally
to the variants of the N2S and the
Navy’s indigenously produced N3N
biplane trainer. Yet, pilots and their
flightline colleagues have a strong in-dependent streak, and the sanctioned
monikers didn’t ring true; they came
across as either stolid or facile.
Students, instructors, and mechan-
ics referred to the formidable biplane
trainer by its pedigree—Stearman.
The usage spread and has survived
through post-World War II genera-
tions to the present. In fact, when an
aviation neophyte visits an airport
these days and is lucky enough to see
a colorfully decorated wartime train-
ing biplane coasting overhead, some
old wag on the ground, if asked,
Interestingly, the aircraft most closely associated with Lloyd Stearman, the
PT (Model 75) series of trainers that became famous during World War II,
had little of the noted engineer’s involvement, since he’d left the company
to run Lockheed before the aircraft was built. His previous design, the
Cloudboy, served as the basis for the design of the Model 7x series.
BONNIE KRATZ
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Electra. In the process, Lockheed was
stumped as to how the aircraft’s sta-
bility problems could be rectified.
A brash University of Michigan
aeronautical engineering studentnamed Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson
determined through wind tunnel
testing that a split tail was the solu-
tion. Refashioned accordingly, the
Electra hatched many follow-on con-
figurations, eventually morphing into
a patrol bomber that sold in quantity
to the British later in the decade. The
deal secured Lockheed’s place as a ma-jor player in the aviation industry.
Lloyd left Lockheed in 1936. A
succession of jobs followed. For a
while he partnered with Dean Ham-
mond to redesign the twin-boom,
pusher Hammond Model Y light-
plane under the new Stearman-
Hammond banner. Sales of the newmodel were anemic, so in 1938 Lloyd
moved yet again. For the duration of
the war, he was employed as an avia-
tion engineer at the Harvey Machine
Company, which produced engine
cowlings for military planes.
In 1945, Lloyd set out to harness
the old magic he had ignited years be-fore. He established the Stearman En-
gineering Company in California and
channeled his energies into the design
of a purpose-built crop duster. Ironi-
cally, it wasn’t able to compete with
the aircraft that already bore his name,
the Model 75. A spate of Army and
Navy Stearman trainers inundated the
postwar civilian market at incredibly
low government surplus prices. The
tried-and-true biplanes made incom-
parable agricultural applicators.
Rather than resist the obvious
and overwhelming tide, Lloyd spent
he filled out an application, as would
anyone coming in off the street. The
form included a question about past
employment at Lockheed. Lloyd
marked the “Yes” box. The subse-quent question pertained to former
position. Lloyd, not a man of many
words, filled in the blank line with
his old job title: president.
For the next 13 years Lloyd worked
as an engineer for the company he
once headed. One of his assignments
involved work on the needle-nosed
F-104 Starfighter, a Mach 2 intercep-tor conceived and masterminded by
the same Kelly Johnson of Electra re-
design fame. By the time Lloyd retired
from Lockheed in 1968, the industry
he had helped to cultivate looked be-
yond the sky to the heavens. It was
a remarkable genesis from open-
cockpit flying over the windsweptprairies of Kansas to enabling sleek
jets to nibble at the edge of space.
Lloyd and his wife, Virtle Ethyl,
had two children. Son William was
a naval officer in the Pacific during
World War II. With advanced degrees
in international affairs, he went into
the Foreign Service and served bothbehind the Iron Curtain and in Viet-
nam. For 17 years, he worked in the
White House as a member of the Na-
tional Security Council staff, includ-
ing time as an assistant to Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger. Daughter
Marilyn married and had five chil-
dren. One of them, Patrick, learned
to fly and not surprisingly developed
a soft spot for the planes originated
by his grandfather.
Ever the restive dreamer, Lloyd
continued to pursue his concept for
a crop-dusting airplane during retire-
were influenced by Lloyd Stearman.
Only some of the trainers leaving
the Wichita factory had manufac-
turer plates with the Stearman name
etched on them, for in the late sum-mer of 1941 it became Boeing’s
practice to refer to its Stearman unit
as the Wichita Division. Neverthe-
less, the end-users, the people who
flew and maintained the aircraft,
branded the product as they saw fit.
Today, in the absence of a multi-
million-dollar marketing campaign
or a “customer loyalty” programtouted by a sports superstar, the
brand hasn’t been diluted. Rather,
with the passage of time, it has so-
lidified. Conjoining the man with
the machine seems natural, even
destined, for there could hardly be a
better way to immortalize the name
of the aviation pioneer whose visionfostered the venerable airplane.
To fly the Stearman is to connect
with the spirit of an exalted yore.
The cockpits are not hollow, but
overflow with timeless memories
of good flights and happy landings.
The wings don’t weary, but hold the
wind for climbs to where the birdsflutter free and independent. With
each ascent, the charmed ship nur-
tures camaraderie among the souls
privileged to soar in its solid yet airy
frame and burnishes its namesake’s
enduring and proud legacy.
Sources and Further Reading
Stearman: A Pictorial History by
Jim Avis and Martin Bowman,
Motorbooks International, 1997.
Stearman Aircraft: A Detailed His-
tory by Edward H. Phillips, Spe-
cialty Press 2006
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Tribute to a Classic
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22/43n July 1943 Erich Brunotte, Fliegerverein, a Hamm-Lippewiesen FFS A/B 71 colors to honor its most
Focke-Wulf Fw.44JStieglitz reborn
in Germany
PHOTOS AND ARTICLE BY STEFAN DEGRAEF AND EDWIN BORREMANS
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Verkstaden in Västeras as one of the
Swedish air force’s (aka Flygvapnet )
85 Fw.44J training aircraft.
In Flygvapnet service, the Fw.44J
design—an export version basedon the 1935-developed Focke-
Wulf Fw.44D—became known as
Sk12 (“Sk” stands for Skolflygplan
or training aircraft) . Twenty
aircraft, capable of wearing skis
for snow operations during the
winter, were built by AB Svenska
Järnvägsverkstäderna at Linköping
in southern Sweden. The aircraft
department of the Swedish Railway
Workshops, ASJA was incorporated
into SAAB in 1939. The initial batch
of 14 Fw.44Js was delivered factory-
fresh from the Focke-Wulf factory
Various par ts, including original
cockpit instruments and panels,were bought from various collectors,
using Internet/online auctions.
Built in 1940 as “Werknummer 45” in Västeras, Sk12 received Swedish
air force military serial Fv633 and entered operational service with the
Kungliga Krigsflygskolan, as part of Flygflottilj (Air Wing) F5 at Ljungbyhed.
The seven-cylinder Bramo Siemens SH-14 radial engine was stripped,
overhauled, and rebuilt by Dirk Bende of Motobende Gmbh. This company,
based at Köningswinter-Sassenberg near Bonn, specializes in the overhaul of
German-built World War II-era engines and the remanufacturing of engine parts.
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Museum für Naturwissenschaft
und Technik (German Museum
for Physics and Technology) in
Munchen, Bavaria, as part of thiswell-known museum’s permanent
collection of (West) German-
designed and -built biplane aircraft.
Motivation, Patience, Crafts-manship: Stieglitz Overhaul
In November 2001 the aircraft,
wearing a circuslike reddish colorscheme, was integrated in the
“biplane armada” of the Quax-
Verein zur Förderung von historischem
F l u g g e r ä t , b a s e d a t H a m m -
Lippewiesen near Dortmund,
Westphalia. In need of some in-
depth overhaul and the replacement
of authentic aircraft parts, the
redesignated “D-ENAY” was sold to
three active Quax members by its
owner. Immediately after this transfer
of property, the new owners initiated
an in-depth overhaul, restoration,
and rebuild of the aircraft, aiming to
plating is made of aluminum.
Non-genuine parts, built into
the aircraft during previous less
in-depth overhauls in 1963 and
1976, needed to be removed, with
new safety and radio equipment
installed without jeopardizing the
overall classic internal and external
look of the aircraft. It proved to
be a real challenge for everyone
collectors, using Internet/online
auctions (especially eBay).
After nearly three years of
planning, hard work, patience,
and sheer craftsmanship, the
reborn, almost factory-fresh Focke-
Wulf Fw.44J Stiegli tz D-ENAY
(aka Fv633) made its successful
and uneventful maiden flight
at Hamm-Lippewiesen. Shining
The overhauled Stieglitz D-ENAY was painted with
colorful unit markings of Luftwaffe’s World War II-era
Flugzeugführerschüle A/B 71 pilot training school, basedat Prossnitz, Mähren (aka Prostejov, Moravia, in eastern
Czech Republic). Erich Brunotte fl ew the silver-colored
Focke-Wulf Fw.44J Stieglitz biplane advanced trainer.
To highlight the in-depth overhaul of their vintage—butalmost zero-houred—Fw.44J Stieglitz D-ENAY, Quax
pilots wear original World War II wool flying suits, ideally
optimized for open-cockpit operations.
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Light Plane Heritage
published in EAA Experimenter April 1992
DE HAVILLAND’S LITTLE BIRCHBY BOB WHITTIER
EAA 1235
O
ver the years several com-
petitions have been orga-
nized for the purpose ofencouraging people to put
their knowledge of aircraft design to
work to create airplanes able to ful-
fill certain needs. In 1929 there was
a Guggenheim Safe Airplane Com-
cal, homebuilt airplane design.
We have to face the plain fact
that such contests have not exactlyproduced the hoped-for results for
their sponsors. Some entries were
just too freakish to appeal to ulti-
mate users; others were too com-
plicated or expensive. For example,
this contest was going on, sales of
conventional but well-designed
and good-flying Cubs, Taylorcrafts,and Aeroncas grew at a steady pace.
Equally unexpected and dis-
appointing results came out of a
contest held in England in 1923.
Military planes left over from
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Mail newspaper and other parties
sponsored a design competition to
encourage the development of eco-
nomical light airplanes.
The rules which were drawn upspecified that entries be powered
with an engine of not more than
750 cc displacement, which equals
45.75 cubic inches. There were to
be cash prizes for the greatest dis-
tance covered on one Imperial gal-
lon of petrol (which contains 5
quarts), the greatest number of cir-cuits around a 12.25-mile course on
one such gallon, the greatest speed
and altitude attained, and the best
short-field performance. This con-
test was described in an article ti-
tled “The Search for Perfection”
by George A. Hardie Jr. in the July
1987 issue of EAA Experimenter .As an outcome of inexperience
in planning such competitions, the
idea of offering such varied prizes
backfired in that some entrants were
after one price and others after other
prizes. The planes they created were
thus engineered to give the kind of
performance most likely to win in
a chosen category. Some were de-
signed for speed, some for economy,
some for range, and so on. Most of
them were thus “specialist” planes,
and while the best of them did win
the contests they were designed for,
most of them were rather poor gen-
eral-purpose ships. Some were so
light that they could do well only in
still air, for example.
To be fair, some very interesting
designs were created, which taught
everyone valuable lessons in goodand poor approaches to the prob-
lem. And the contest as a whole did
get much publicity and served to
generate interest in economical pri-
vate flying.
The most significant outcome
of all, however, was that everyone
present agreed the plane that im-pressed them as being the very best
for all-around general sport flying
was one which won none of the
prizes. This was the de Havilland
53, which came to be known as the
Humming Bird.
The story goes that one of the pi-
lots who flew it during the Lympnecompetitions was named Hemming
and that people started referring
to his plane as “Hemming’s bird.”
From there it was a short and nat-
ural step to Humming Bird. While
definitely a very light airplane, it
looked acceptably like a “real” air-
plane, rather than the result of some
engineer’s hallucinations. It didn’t
have enough power to capture the
speed prize, it had too much drag
to win the fuel consumption prizes,
and could not reach the 14,400-foot
height that won the altitude prize.
Actually two Humming Birds were
entered at Lympne, one being flown
by Hubert Broad and the other by
Alan Cobham, both very experi-
enced and well-known professional
pilots employed by de Havilland.
The converted 750 cc horizon-tally opposed Douglas motorcycle
engines of 26 hp that powered these
planes gave endless mechanical
problems, as a result of being forced
to work too hard in flight. But when
in the air, these two pilots gave
very impressive demonstrations
and showed convincingly that theHumming Bird was the best gen-
eral-purpose sport plane present.
The various planes entered in the
Lympne contest were designed by
professional aeronautical engineers
employed by prominent firms such
as Avro, Gloster Aircraft Company,
Handley Page Limited, VickersLtd., and, of course, de Havilland
Aircraft Company. The engineer-
ing and production facilities at the
factories were at their disposal, and
it’s intriguing to speculate how the
competition might have turned out
if it hadn’t been divided into differ-
Lead photo: Shown outside the
shops at de Havilland’s Stag Lane
establishment, the first DH 53 flew
in September of 1923. Shortness
of the overhead wing struts left a
substantial portion of the wingspanunaffected by disturbed airflow over
the top surfaces.
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ent performance categories.De Havilland people discussed
at length the design features they
should incorporate in their entry.
For acceptable rapid and economi-
cal construction of the two planes
to be entered in the contest, they
chose easily tooled wood as the
primary material. In some of theirlarger commercial designs, they had
had good results from a new type of
wooden fuselage construction.
In most World War I planes,
wooden longerons and cross-
members were trussed together
with numerous criss-crossed steel
cables. The many eye splices, turn-
buckles, and end fittings neces-sary in this construction called for
much tedious hand labor.
In the new method, spruce lon-
gerons and cross-members were
also used, but the entire fuselage
wide use for aircraft work, it tendedto show unsightly wrinkles if ex-
posed to damp weather for several
days.
The tail surfaces were framed
with wood and covered with doped
fabric, as were the wings. Rudder
and elevator cables all ran outside
of the fuselage, and all were double.This to us seems like overbuilding,
but we have to remember that in
1923, perhaps due to the memories
of having control cables parted by
Albatros and Fokker bullets, British
airworthiness officials had a phobia
about the inspectability and reli-
ability of control cables.
Control horns on the rudder andright and left elevators were posi-
tioned well out from the fuselage.
This was because the spruce strips
that formed the leading edges of
these surfaces were not as well able
surfaced with grass that was kept
mowed, it was felt there was little
likelihood of such a low-riding axle
dragging in tall grass. A useful ad-
vantage of the straight axle was that
it automatically put both wheels
into perfect alignment. Shock struts
originally made use of bungee cord,
but when this proved too bouncy,
firmer rubber discs working in com-
pression were substituted.
The radius strut, which secured
the axle against drag loads, ran
from fittings at the firewall downand back to the outboard ends of
the axle. To the modern American
eye this arrangement makes it ap-
pear as if some mechanic had in-
stalled the landing gear backward.
But de Havilland engineers had a
good reason for using this layout.
Because the drag struts were in ten-sion, lighter tubing could be used
than if they were in compression.
Originally designed to be bolted
to motorcycle frames, the Douglas
engine’s crankcase had a rectangu-
lar bottom with bolt-holes at each
corner. A cast aluminum plate was
designed and made, onto which theengine was bolted, as can be seen
in Figure 2. Wider than the crank-
case, its outer edges bolted to the
fuselage longerons. By creating a
wider base for the engine, it helped
the longerons to take up the two-
cylinder engine’s torque impulses.
Both high-wing and low-wing
designs were discussed at length.A high wing was initially favored
because it could be secured with
struts fastened to its lower side.
This would keep the lift—creating
an upper surface of the wing free of
Location of the Humming Bird’s cockpit gave good view of the ground im-
mediately in front of the wheels, an important thing when taxiing on grass
fields likely to have soft spots, animal burrows, and other traps for the
unwary pilot.
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would benefit from ground effectand probably help to give both
quick takeoff with low power and
a slow landing speed. Since the
proposed airplane would be quite
light, it was also feared that a high-
mounted wing would make for a
rather unsteady airplane when run-
ning crosswind on the ground.As things worked out, the fin-
ished Humming Birds with Douglas
engines weighed only 326 pounds
empty and 524 pounds loaded. De-
spite the rather light wing loading
of 4.08 pounds per square foot, the
planes proved to be quite manageable
on breezy days. Another advantage
of the low-wing design was that insuch small planes, there was no over-
head structure to make getting into
and out of the cockpits awkward. It
was acknowledged that a high wing
would afford more protection to the
As finally decided upon, the over-head wing struts attached to fittings
on the top surfaces of the wings
only 4 feet out from the fuselage.
The angle between the wing sur-
faces and the struts was thus open
enough to minimize the squeezing
effect of air flowing through this re-
gion. At the same time the outer 9feet of each wing worked in air not
affected by overhead strut interfer-
ence. Since the struts would all be
fairly short, their air drag would be
as low as possible.
Since this arrangement would
create considerable bending stresses
on the spars at the points of strut
attachment, deep spars were indi-cated. In 1923 the thin RAF 15 air-
foil was well-known to designers
and still much in use, but it was too
shallow to house deep spars. The so-
lution to this dilemma chosen by de
considered an acceptable extra cost.Remember, they were after aerody-
namic efficiency in hopes of win-
ning a substantial cash prize.
To get adequate strength com-
bined with low weight, tapered
box spars were used. These called
for more labor than the straight,
solid spars so often used on lightairplanes for the sake of low labor
cost, but again with contest money
the aim, box spars seemed the way
to go. Each spar was made up with
top and bottom spruce cap strips
and plywood side webs. Having had
much experience in the use of wood
for aircraft, de Havilland engineers
hit upon a simple but clever way toshape the cap strips. In Figure 3 you
can see how a semicircular groove
has been routed in the inner surface
of a cap strip. This saved a worth-
while amount of weight. Calcula-
The DH 53 had a landing gear of typical de Havilland
style. Note doubled rudder control cables. What ap-
pear to be single elevator cables here were actually
duplicated on the other side of the fuselage.
Details of installation of the original 750 cc Douglas
motorcycle engine of 26 hp. Note mounting plate un-
der crankcase. Long exhaust pipe cut the loud exhaust
bark to an agreeable purr.
FIGURE 1 FIGURE 2
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short and therefore rigid enough
to handle the compression loads to
which they would be subjected in
flight. End fittings were designed
with generous area to take those
loads off the wood and transferthem to the fuselage fittings. These
fittings were robust enough to en-
able them to handle the mild ten-
sion loads they’d experience when
a Humming Bird was operating on
the ground. And, of course, inverted
flight was not contemplated.
The inboard ends of the wing
struts attached to the fuselage aftof the cockpit, an arrangement that
seems curious today. One would
think they’d attach at a point
ahead of the cockpit so as not to
interfere with getting in and out.
root fittings. The tips of the wings
folding back around such pivot lines
would easily clear the tail surfaces.
But as finally built the wings were
made detachable by pulling three
pins for each panel, and perhapsthe odd-looking strut arrangement
was just left as shown on the plans.
A stout steel tube passed through
the fuselage just aft of the pilot to
take wing strut compression loads.
The pilot stepped on a foot plate
mounted atop the left rear spar root,
hauled himself up by grasping the
rear strut, and swung his feet overthe struts to get into the cockpit.
The ailerons were quite large, and
it’s easy to deduce that de Havilland
people felt this would provide gener-
ous control at the fairly low flying
der the wings. Perhaps de Havilland’s
stock room already had these seem-
ingly heavy and complicated units in
stock, so they were used as a matter
of expediency. Today we would weld
together short pieces of steel tubingto make simpler, lighter bell cranks.
Note the stud on the lower surface
of the sprocket. This location gave it
arcs of travel such as to impart differ-
ential action to aileron movement.
In turns, the outboard aileron moved
down a smaller amount than the in-
board one did, to reduce the adverse
yaw effect.Although the Humming Birds
won no prizes at Lympne, the ob-
vious overall practicality of the de-
sign got people to thinking about
these planes. In those days, the Brit-
Routed wing spar cap strips saved a useful amount of
weight but left generous area for secure glue lines.
The aileron control mechanism looks heavier and more
complicated than necessary. Location of aileron push-
pull tube stud gave differential action to the ailerons be-
cause it traveled farther in one direction than the other.
FIGURE 3 FIGURE 4
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Since the baggage allowance wasa paltry 7 pounds, the Birds proved
to be of rather slight use in ferrying
parts and supplies from airfield to
airfield. But pilots had great fun ca-
vorting about in them. Some even
ation, and so one Humming Birdwent to that land. Another went to
Czechoslovakia and a few to Aus-
tralia. One of the Australian Birds
ended up being sold to someone in,
of all places, the remote island of Sa-
a few years later of the two-seater
60-hp Gipsy Moth biplane—and
when that appeared on the scene, de
Havilland fortunes soared!
Because the original Douglas en-
gines proved unreliable, other engines
were fitted to Humming Birds. These
include the V-twin, 697 cc Blackburne
of 24 hp, the 32-hp Bristol Cherub,
the 35-hp A.B.C. Scorpion, and the
40-hp opposed-twin Aeronca.
Some of these engines were fit-
ted with stub exhausts, and when in
flight, sounded like noisy motorcy-cles. Others had long exhaust stacks
running down under their fuselages
and terminating at a point below
the cockpits. People who heard
these in flight saw that engine noise
was thus reduced to a slightly loud
but quite agreeable purr.
A replica powered by a 40-hpContinental A-40 engine was built
in Alberta in 1967. This might get
some readers to thinking that it
would be a fascinating project to
build yet another one today and
power it with one of the new 35-hp
opposed-twin Mosler engines. That
would combine the very best of an-tique and homebuilt planes in one
ship. But here we run into a jolting
example of how sensitive large cor-
porations have become in recent
years about product liability. The
successor company to de Havilland,
British Aerospace, has the original
Humming Bird plans on file, but
even though this design dates backto 1923 and only a few very dedi-
cated people would want to build
replicas, it refuses to sell copies of
these plans—because it is so con-
cerned about product liability.
Large enough to be a docile flier, small enough to be cute, the de
Havilland 53 “Humming Bird” marked a step forward in the devel-
opment of small sport planes. Headrest behind cockpit was actu-
ally an auxiliary fuel tank to increase the cruising range.
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Not long ago I had a young and fairly new private pilot
enroll for a tailwheel endorsement. This person, a very en-
thusiastic pilot, had accrued about 70 hours’ total time in
the previous 18 months. After a preflight briefing, cockpit
briefing, and doing some taxi Figure 7s on the ramp, it was
time to move to the runway. All proceeded as expected un-til we positioned the airplane for takeoff. An instant before
adding full power, I looked down to en-
sure the pilot had correct foot placement
on the rudder pedals. To my surprise the
pilot had removed her feet from the ped-
als and had placed them flat on the floor.
When asked why she had done so, she
replied that her instructor had told herto do that!
At first I thought it was an attention-
getting prank to test me, but she was
dead serious. After the flight I gave this
some thought and mentioned this situ-
ation to another instructor. All we could
come up with was “unbelievable!” How
could a student obtain a private certifi-
cate using this method?Transitioning from a tricycle to a tail-
wheel (conventional) gear airplane is
great fun, somewhat challenging, fre-
quently frustrating early on, and almost always humor-
ous. I’ve experienced this and more while training new
Proper Foot Position Is Vital
Before ever starting the engine, it is important to have
the student get settled in the rear seat. The first thing he
usually does is place his feet on the rudder pedals so that
the arches of his feet make contact with the pedals. It is
very important at this stage to reposition his feet so thatthe ball of each foot is lightly making contact with the
rudder pedals. This allows the foot to
pivot at the ankle when applying rud-
der input. Rudder inputs will be much
more fluid and more easily coordinated
with aileron inputs, as it requires only
ankle pivot. If the arch of the foot is in
contact with the rudder pedal, the entireleg has to move to provide rudder in-
put. This action leads to uncoordinated
inputs when applied with the ailerons,
and we’re always striving for smooth,
fluid, coordinated control inputs.
The first question a transition pilot
will usually ask is, “I can’t access the heel
brake pedals with the balls of my feet
positioned this way. How do I do that?”My response is, “You only use the brakes
three times for a Cub flight: when start-
ing the engine, when doing the engine
run-up, and when stopping in front of the hangar at the
flight’s conclusion. Yes, there are exceptions, such as when
BY Steve Krog, CFI
THE Vintage
Instructor
It’s all in the feet
How could
a student
obtain aprivate
certificate
using this
method?
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usage will also cause severe leg cramps
later in the day.
Toe-Tickling Touch: This in-
volves just barely touching the rudder
pedals for fear of “breaking” some-
thing. This input or lack thereof leads
to significant adverse yaw whenever
attempting to bank the airplane.
Monster Mash: Slamming the
rudder pedal to the floor with a size
14 steel-toed work boot whenever a
slight bit of rudder input is required.
Severe skidding turns are the usual
result, followed by an equally hardskid in the opposite direction when
rolling out of a turn and returning to
straight and level flight.
Arch Pivot Push: Placing the
arches of the feet on the rudder
pedals so as to cause unusual ankle
contortions with little or no rud-
der response. Shin splints are some-times the result of this method of
rudder application.
Footrest Roost: Attempting to
fly a tailwheel airplane with tricy-
cle-plane inputs. For someone at-
tempting to taxi using this method,
the rudder pedals serve as footrests,
never to be moved except when taxi-
ing. One will usually see a lot of rapid
foot movement in search of the toe
brakes, which are not there.
Fluttering Fish: Rapidly moving
the rudder from stop to stop, think-
ing this will help maintain direc-
tional control on takeoff or landing.
Watch for this type of rudder move-
ment at the next pancake breakfast,and you will see that the rudder is
but a blur until the airplane becomes
airborne or comes to a complete stop
on the runway.
Around-the-Clock Rock: The
the phrase “tap and release.” With
the stick or yoke back and the aircraft
aligned with the runway centerline
for takeoff, rest the balls of your feet
very lightly on the rudder pedals. Do
not yet exert any pressure. As you be-
gin smoothly applying full power,
the plane will generally want to yaw
or swerve slightly leftward. Tap and
release the right rudder pedal one or
more times. Do not push the right
rudder and hold it, as this will im-
mediately cause an overcorrection
and the nose of the plane will nowbe pointed rightward. In order to
keep the plane tracking straight for-
ward, the right rudder may need to
be tapped and released several times.
As the control stick or yoke is
moved slightly forward, raising the
tail about a foot above the ground,
you will again experience a slightleftward movement of the nose.
Tap and release the right rudder
as needed to correct this move-
ment, keeping the aircraft tracking
straight forward.
One common mistake I see when
teaching takeoffs to both transition
and first-time tailwheel students is
the attempt to move the airplane
back to the runway centerline after
the aircraft has been allowed to yaw
leftward. In my opinion, this should
never be done. Rather, straighten
the ground track of the plane and
continue the takeoff from that point
forward. Attempting to move the air-
plane back to the centerline will usu-ally induce an interesting S-turning
ground track, often leading to a spec-
tacular trip between and sometimes
over the runway lights.
Once airborne in a proper climb
enced pilot on a tailwheel transition.
Every time he turned, he applied and
held the rudder until completing the
turn. When I corrected him, he told
me that his instructor had taught him
to do that. Once the desired angle of
bank has been established, the con-
trol stick and rudder should be neu-
tralized. By that I mean move the
stick to the center, removing the ai-
leron input, and take your foot off
the rudder. Most of the light single-
engine airplanes we fly have a fair
amount of positive stability designedinto the aircraft. Few or no control in-
puts are needed after establishing the
bank angle to complete a 90-degree
shallow-bank turn until rolling out
to a wings-level attitude at the turn
completion.
When landing, it is important to
take a deep breath while on shortfinal so that your muscles are re-
laxed. This is where one of the
seven rudder mistakes most often
occurs. Unknowingly, we allow
ourselves to get tense in prepara-
tion for a tailwheel landing.
Keep the airplane aligned with the
runway during the level-off and flare
by using slight rudder inputs, again
tapping and releasing the pedal each
time pressure is applied (except in a
crosswind landing). Upon touching
down, tap and release the appropri-
ate rudder pedal, keeping the plane
on a straight-line track throughout
the rollout phase of the landing.
Pushing and holding the rudder willcause overcorrection, leading to an-
other series of runway S-turns. Just
tap and release and repeat as neces-
sary to keep the airplane straight.
Again, if the airplane is allowed to
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Parasite drag is defi ned as the resistance to forward
flight caused by airflow striking the frontal parts of the
air frame. When radial engines aren’t faired, the drag is
substantial, as shown in this NASA sketch in Illustration 1.
Fred E. Weick, who headed the National Advisory Commit-
tee for Aeronautics (NACA) Propeller Wind Tunnel section,conducted early experiments on streamlining the engine
installation and focused initially on the Wright J-5 engine.
His wind tunnel work and computations showed that a re-
markable increase in airspeed could be achieved by fabri-
cating an aluminum cowling and attaching it to the engine.
Illustration 2 shows Weick’s team in the sheet metal
shop, fabricating a cowling for a radial engine at the Lan-
gley Research Center in Virginia. All experimental cowls
were handmade, most likely constructed from drawings
made by Weick and his associates. Whenever experiments
such as Weick’s work on cowlings were conducted, the
data was assembled and placed in a NACA Technical Re-
port. A description of the work accomplished, computa-
tion tables, sketches, and photographs accompanied the
report. The report was made available to manufacturers
who desired to build and market the product. Today these
NACA reports are available at the NASA website (http://
NTRS.NASA.gov/search.jsp ).
BY ROBERT G. LOCK
Engine cowls for drag reductionPart 2
THE Vintage
Mechanic
Illustration 1 NASA
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Illustration 3 shows craftsmen installing a ring cowl to a U.S. Navy ship in preparation for flight tests.
These experiments took place from 1925 to 1929 and were funded by the government, just as NASA is
funded today. NACA was established in 1915 and charged with coordinating research in aeronautics. It
quickly became the prime research organization pushing the boundaries of flight from the early stagesthrough the first supersonic aircraft in 1947. NACA passed the torch to NASA in 1958 and expanded
the role of aeronautics research into space exploration.
In Illustration 4 is a cover sheet for a NACA
Technical Note authored by Weick in July 1928
regarding wind tunnel tests to determine the
drag of a Wright J 5 radial engine The data
Illustration 3NASA
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Illustration 5 is a NACA photograph of the propeller wind
tunnel at the Langley Research Center around 1928. The
aircraft being tested was a Sperry Messenger, a mock-up
of a cabin monoplane with the radial engine fully cowled.
Note that the wind tunnel was constructed of wood. It
was this early research that led to fully cowled engines
in the late 1920s, particularly the famed Lockheed Vega.
The early ships were constructed with the most advanced
monocoque fuselage design of the day; however, their
Wright J-5 engines were uncowled and created a substan-tial amount of drag.
Illustration 6 shows a standard 1928 Lockheed Vega, a
wood monocoque fuselage and cantilever wing design byJohn Northrop. The Wright J-5 engine cylinders protruding
from a streamlined fuselage are quite evident.
Weick’s NACA research
provided a substantial reduc-
tion in parasite drag of an
aircraft. The photos below
are all from NACA/NASA and
With the installation of a NACA pressure cowl as
shown in Illustration 7, airspeed and range were im-mediately increased. On February 4 and 5, 1929, Frank
Hawks, a famous barnstormer and stunt pilot, estab-
lished a new Los Angeles to New York nonstop record of
18 hours and 13 minutes flying a Lockheed Air Express
equipped with a NACA low-drag cowling that increased
the aircraft’s maximum speed from 157 to 177 mph.
The day after the feat, the committee received the fol-
lowing telegram:“COOLING CAREFULLY CHECKED AND OK. RECORD
IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT NEW COWLING. ALL CREDIT DUE
NACA FOR PAINSTAKING AND ACCURATE RESEARCH.
(Signed) GERRY VULTEE, LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT COMPANY”
Illustration 6
Illustration 7
Illustration 5 NASA
LOCKHEED
LOCKHEED
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Show off your pride and joy with afresh set of Vintage Rubber. Thesenewly minted tires are FAA-TSO’dand speed rated to 120 MPH. Some
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Not only do these tires set your vintage plane apart fromthe rest, but also look exceptional on all General Aviationaircraft. Deep 8/32nd tread depth offers above averagetread life and UV treated rubber resists aging.
Intercylinder baffles or deflectors serve to direct air
around the cylinders, thus ensuring pressure air cooling
for the rear of the cylinder. Illustration 9 shows a Pratt &
Whitney Wasp engine complete with all baffling in place.
The baffling actually sealed against cowling, thus forcing
air around cylinder fins for cooling. Also there were scoops
that directed cool flowing air on magnetos and sometimes
the generator to keep those components cool. Illustra-tions 9 and 10 show engine baffl ing. These illustrations
were taken from Aircraft Engine Maintenance .
Illustration 9BRIMM & BOGGESS
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Our June Mystery Plane came to
us from John Schwamm of Carefree,
Arizona. It was a true Mystery Plane,
as John’s father owned the hangar
in the background, but John didn’t
know the identity of the little air-craft. Wes Smith, of Springfield, Ari-
zona, did. Here’s his answer:
The aircraft in question is the 1936
Mendenhall M-1, aka Special. A
Send your answer to EAA,
Vintage Airplane, P.O. Box 3086,
Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086. Your
answer needs to be in no later
than October 10 for inclusion
in the December 2011 issue of
Vintage Airplane.
You can also send your re-sponse via e-mail. Send your
answer to mysteryplane@eaa.
org . Be sure to include your
name plus your city and state
in the body of your note and
put “(Month) Mystery Plane”
in the subject line.
This month’s Mystery Plane comes from W. Duffy Thompson of
Lakeland, Florida. It is of foreign manufacture, but the photo was
taken on the East Coast of the United States.
MYSTERY PLANE
by H.G. FRAUTSCHY
J U N E ’ S M Y S T E RY A N S W E R
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other photos, but I’m hard-pressed to
find them. Aerofiles.com has a fair
write-up, which I used. What tipped
me off were the hangar markings and
origin. At the time, LeVier was flying
in Arizona and California, so it makes
perfect sense that the photo came out
of Arizona. Aside from his name, there
is: “…nt …ction.” There’s also that
big monster sticking out of the hangar.
After receiving the answer, John
added some details, noting that the
answer made perfect sense:
Tony was a good friend of my dad’s.
ternational Airport.
He flew in many
o f t h e H o w a r d
Hughes’ movies, and
one picture I have
shows several of his
World War I Thomas
Morse Scouts in front
of the hangar.
And by the way,
that “…nt …ction”
actually reads “stu-
dent instruction.”
The top reads “TONYSCHWAMM,” under
that is “aerobatics,”
and to the left is “stu-
dent instruction.”
From John Un-
derwood, another
longtime Lockheedman and Califor-
nia aviator, comes
th i s a dd i t i ona l
information:
Your current Mys-
tery Plane is Gene
Mendenhall’s M-1
Special, 16097, which Tony LeVier
flight-tested at Muroc and Rosa-
mond, near what is now Edwards
Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.
These flights were very brief affairs,
because the 25-hp Cyclomotor two-
stroke pusher was prone to overheating
and quit after about five minutes. The
M-1’s final airing was at Telegraph &
Atlantic Airport, where the motor quit
again one Sunday late in 1936, re-
sulting in a crash-landing in soft soil.
The little plane dug in and stopped so
abruptly that Tony’s seat belt snapped
and he kept going. He went halfway
through the nose and was totally im-
mobilized by the surrounding struc-
ture. He was frantic to get out but
could barely move and was sure the
thing would burn before anyone could
reach him. They had to cut it apart to
get him out. He had a few minor cuts
and bruises, but the M-1 was DBRand never flew again. That’s Tony
Schwamm’s hangar at