Shelby Cobra's

On my way over to Mount Vernon, Ohio for the National Waco Club Fly-In six Shelby Cobra's went by me.

It was very interesting to see the 6 at one time. They were going about 5 mph below the speed limit. One got a little behind and stepped on the gas and flat-out walked away from to catch up with the others.

Going to Father's Day Flight Breakfast

Photo by Renee Henry. (Visit her site here.)

Flying up to Quincy yesterday morning, Rolla Henry had me pull up alongside so his daughter Renee could snap a few pix. I really appreciate them as ususally I'm the one taking the pictures and I have so few of my own airplane. Rolla had to slow down for me to stay with him. The poor old Fairchild just has too much out in the breeze to keep up. Looks good though!

American Waco Club Fly-In.

Terry Chastain makes a fly-by in a Waco QCF-2.

This week we had the American Waco Club Fly-In at the airport from Thursday thru Saturday. And it was H-O-T! HOT! Really, really warm. As a result, I got nothing done on the Cub. Next week I'm going over to Mt Vernon, OH for the National Waco Club Fly-In. They're supposed to have 75+ Waco's there.

Today was Father's Day and I tagged along with friends in going to a Flight Breakfast. We had 3 Cessna 170's leading the way with my Fairchild 24 falling quickly behind. It was still fun.

"Hey come back with that!" "I'm going to get you dad!"

Gina was out planting a shrub in the front yard with Lindsay "helping" her. Gina turns around to find the hose and all of a sudden Linds is running towards me giggling "I'm going to get you daddy!" She didn't but it was a fun picture.

I think I have a problem with my intercom...

When I turn it on, all I hear is a loud whining noise, sounds that sound like crying and a whimper of "I want my Mom."

Now before you think I'm a total jerk, let me tell you the story. I asked Linds if she wanted to go flying today. She said yes very affirmatively. She even told her mom, "I go flying with daddy, at airport." I took her out and she was happy. We pulled the plane out, I put a cushion for her to sit on and hoisted her up into the plane. I put the headset on her. Then I started the engine and it happened: the meltdown.

I told her we had to go around the patch at least once. She won't remember it anyway, she's a little over 3 years old. So we took off and the screaming and whining stopped and was replaced by the quiet of wonder. She just looked out the window, taking it all in. I asked her if she wanted to go fly over our house, which she did. We flew over it twice and then came back to the airport and landed on the grass.

As soon as the engine was quiet she asked "Can we go work on our little yellow Cub now?"

That's my girl.

So we went into Glenn's hangar where under very strict adult supervision, she helped me iron a couple parts of the tail I had previously covered. Then we went to Big Al's for lunch and she scored three strawberries off of Connie Stix. One strawberry for the road and it was home to take her nap.

Little Boo helping with the elevator covering.

Took both kids out to the airport Friday morning. Lindsay was a pistol, into everything. I finally corralled her by having her help me with the trimming of the fabric on an elevator and regluing part of a seam that worked it's way loose overnight. She thought she was painting.

Clouds #1

Waking the Dh4 from it's slumber.

Glenn traded places between the Canuck and the Dh-4 today in the hangar. The Dh-4 hasn't flown since last September and has accumulated a nice coat of dust sitting in the Museum hangar. Though still in annual til the end of August, he decided to go ahead and annual it. While he was working on that I loaded up the Swifter to clean off the wings.

After that, I finished covering the one elevator that was left to be covered. Tomorrow I'll iron down the glue seams on all of the tail and start stripping paint off the fairings.

Prepping for the Waco Fly-In.

With the American Waco Club Fly-In coming up a week from Thursday, Glenn shifted gears from working on the Standard to prepping the Curtiss Canuck and De Havilland Dh-4 Mailplane for their first flights this year. After taking the newly-cleaned Zenith back to the hangar, he brought the Canuck down to his hangar for it's annual. I worked on cleaning the Canuck's wings of all the dust they accumulated over the winter (a bunch!) Plan on running the engine tomorrow and if all is well, giving the airplane a short test flight. Then we'll bring the Dh-4 down to the hangar. I got a stabilizer covered on the Cub so I'm moving along slowly and surely.

Cub Progress 6-09-09 Covering the rudder

I spent most of today helping Glenn clean the Zenith after our trip to Bartlesville. I did have a little free time in the afternoon which I used to cover the rudder of the Cub. Two elevators and the wings are all that's left to be covered.

Before Bartlesvillle

Glenn had fixed the brake in 10 minutes but we still had a radio problem. It was intermittant, more not working than working. Jim Mueller, the radio repair guy fortunately was out at Creve Coeur so we grabbed him to come check it out. It turned out to be an antenna problem.

Going to and enjoying Bartlesville

All smiles as Glenn and I head out to Bartlesville for the 23rd Annual Biplane Expo-The Last Biplane Fly-In. I'm up front in the cabin of the Zenith Z6a which is like a kid riding in his dad's Buick.

We didn't get away from the Zenith much as everyone had questions about it. I snapped this one of a Hatz taking off on my fifteen minutes away.

We came back Sunday morning and had to go around a few rainshowers up northeast of Rolla, MO. This was one kicking out lightning bolts so we gave it a wide berth.

Terry Chastain works on the Waco YKS

Terry is changing out the old Hayes expander-tube brakes for new Cleveland units on his Waco YKS. The Hayes were grabbing and weren't working as well as they should have been when he wanted them. Here he's grinding a fitting that held the old brakes on that he couldn't get off the axle.

Hanging up the Cootie

The replica first Waco, called the Cootie and built by Roger Teagarden for John Cournoyer was hung in the museum this week by Doug Loder and Pauly. The real Cootie only flew once. This one will not be allowed to fly. This is a full-size replica with the correct engine.

Hey batta batta!

I love Little League baseball. I loved playing it. I love watching it. I love taking pictures of it.

We went to the park for Gina and Sky's dog training class tonite. Little-boo was fussy, so we went over and watched the game for a while. I only shot 7 frames with the short zoom I had one the camera (only took the one lens.)

I love this frame. To me, it tells so much about what it's like to be 8 years old. The concentration, biting your tongue, throwing your best fastball. It's just classic Americana.

Zenith Ride

Glenn was going up this morning to practice his takeoffs and landings for the Bartlesville Biplane Fly-In this weekend and he asked me to go up to help him check out the intercom.

I took this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YgrrlL7C6M with my digicam so you could see what riding in the cabin of the Zenith is like.

Stearman FAST

Most of the people here were working on obtaining either a 2-ship wing or 2-ship lead card. Stearman Flight is the groups official name and there's a lot of good info on their website: stearmanflight.com. They are the only group dedicated to teaching formation flight in the Stearman. They place a heavy emphasis on briefings and debriefings. They have some very high-time Stearman guys as instructors willing to share their knowledge to help the students develop formation flying skills.

I picked up a great deal of information just sitting in on those briefings and made many new friends. There's very little ego here, more a desire to be a better, proficient pilot in the Stearman.

I'd like to thank John Lohmar and Rod Hightower for setting my attendance up and Les Heikkila for introducing me around and making me feel at home.