In loving memory of the children of Newtown, CT.

OT-Sky and I go to Paul McCartney!

Sky and I before the show; great seats!

 

Paul and his band performing Paperback Writer.

Live and Let Die.

 

Sunday night Sky and I went to one of two US performances by Paul McCartney. Had a great time! Paul played for 2 hours and 45 minutes, did 3 encores and his bass player Brian tweeted they had a ridiculous amount of fun. He played some of his lesser-played work including Ninteen-hundred and eighty-five and Junior's Farm as well as hits like Back in the USSR, Get Back, Live and Let Die, The End.

 

I was a bad dad-I let Sky miss the morning of school the next day, taking him in at 11.

 

For Paul, it was worth it.Thanks Tim for giving me Monday off!

Oshkosh 2011

My friend Richard Vandermeulen did a photo-shoot of Mike Thern's Fairchild 24 along with my own at Oshkosh 2011. He sent me this killer picture.

You can see more of Richard's work at www.aviationimaging.com

Home from Blakesburg-All tuckered out.

Sky was all tuckered out coming home-he slept all the way.

Blakesburg 2012

(Click on pictures to see larger.)

 

Stearmans on the flightline at Blakesburg. Drizzle, high winds and low ceilings put a damper on arrivals but not spirits today at the Antique Airplane Fly-In held at Blakesburg, IA.

Spartan Executive taxis out.

The new restoration center at Antique Airfield. Used to show movies during the fly-in.



Reflection of the flightline in a Staggerwing spinner.

My friend Andy Kisela's beautiful Commonwealth Skyranger.

Needed some help with the annual

Brought my head mechanic out to help me finish the annual. We're going to pass on the wheelpants this time. They need some work and there just isn't time to do it.

Fairchild Annual

Finishing up the Annual Inspection on my Fairchild 24. Trying to make it to the yeary Antique Airplane Association Fly-In up at Blakesburg, IA over Labor Day weekend.

Saturday Morning at the Airport

I began the annual about 10 days ago, just taking my time, no big hurry. Put in a new primer today as the old one is shot.

Looked across the hangar row and saw Doug Gardner working on his recently acquired Pitts project.

Model Mania

It was raining (!) today in St Louis and I had woken up wanting to build a model so Sky and I

went to the hobby shop and purchased a couple models to build.

I paint mine while they're on the sprue tree.

 Sky builds his completely and then paints them.

Hard at work.

Looking for an engine.

Everyone,

I'm looking for an engine for my Cub. It came with a 65 and 4 bad cylinders. I'd like to find a C85-12, price appropriate for condition. If not that, an O-200.

Anyone know of one lying around?

You can reach me at plsurflyin at aol dot com to let me know.

Thanks

don

Gear leg repair.

Trimming a gear leg repair with a cutoff wheel on the Air Sedan.

Just curious...

Where did all you guys that flew Cubs up to Oshkosh end up staying? And what did you do for food?
Inquiring minds want to know

Seeing how the salvaged parts look.

Glenn tries out the salvaged wrap-around from our trip this weekend on the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum's Curtiss-Wright Air Sedan.

Too hot outside, think I'll watch a movie.

Indiana Glenn and the fuselage of Doom sounds good.

Stay tuned for the premiere of "American Antique Airplane Pickers."

Next on American Antique Airplane Pickers, Glenn and Don go to Podunk in search of ultra-rare airplane parts. Battling snakes, ferociously (friendly) dogs, killer (cute) cats, wasps, the heat and the jungle, see what our intrepid duo found.

Two Fairchild 24's for Sale on Ebay.

Wow-never thought I'd see this. There are two Fairchild 24s for sale on ebay.

The first is a 1946 F24R46 with a buy-it-now price of $48k. Opening bid is $40k and as of this writing, has no bids.

The second is a 1937 Fairchild 24 H, current bid is $11,0009 with a buy-it-now of $35k.

I would have listed it under Trade-A-Plane and Barnstormers, maybe they did. To list it on ebay would be a last gasp.

I have no affiliation with either airplane or owner, it's just something I noticed this morning.

Probably not going to Oshkosh this year.

It's too hot, I'm burned out (on Oshkosh) and I'll just get mad at the EAA for what they've turned our fly-in into (a tradeshow-it's not about the building the airplanes anymore.)

If you go, have fun, stay cool and send me a couple pictures.

Globe/Temco Swift Fly-In

Photographs from the Swift Fly-In held this week

at Creve Coeur Airport.

Stuck in PIT

I"m stuck in Pittsburgh babysitting a sick Citaion.

Hope I can make it back by tomorrow for the last day of the Globe Swift Fly-In.

American Waco Club flies out to breakfast.

Early bird gets the donut!

Waco Fly-In

Pictures from the American Waco Club Fly-In.

Top: Scott Johansson taxis out in one of John Cournoyers Wacos.

Bottom: Bill French pulls his engine thru before starting up Friday evening.

Curtiss-Wright Air Sedan disassembly.

Glenn has spent the past few days taking the fabric and metal off of the Curtiss-Wright Air Sedan fuselage. He found a huge mouse nest with seven deceased meeses ( :-) ) in it under the floorboard.

Waco Fly-In begins

The 20th annual American Waco Club Fly-In held at Creve Coeur began today. Around 10 Waco's have arrived so far. The club held a dinner held in the office hangar with everyone in great spirits.

Bringing a dinosaur back to life.

Al wanted to see if there was any life left in the old girl before we took her down for restoration so after two days of Glenn's efforts, he started the Wright-440 up yesterday and ran it for a few minutes.

The airplane now goes into his shop and we'll take it down for restoration starting tuesday. The airplane was a former jump plane, I believe up in Washington state. Glenn is going to restore it as close to factory new as he can.

You can see a video of the engine run at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT_Yixy8Yp4

Airport Dining

Who says people in Wisconsin aren't into aviation? :-)

I found these two attention getters on the north and west side of the Milwaukee airport after having dinner at the Packing House.

Maybe I need to do a book on airplanes mounted for advertising???

If you know of one mounted on a restautant or gas station somewhere, I'd appreciate you letting me know. I already know of two is Seattle.

Finished my short picture book on Creve Coeur today.

I did a short picture book of some of the cool airplanes at Creve Coeur last night to sell at our various fly-ins this year.

You can preview it at:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2619844/62bb5af209214bf0beae67804d02eec9048b2250?ce=blurb_ew&utm_source=widget

Then and now.

First owner of Monosport N8989 around 1930
Restorer Glenn Peck with same Monosport,
now registered N4799E in 2012.

Monosport in flight.

Nice day to wash the plane.

Sky and I went out and washed the plane this morning. Since the airport uses mineral-rich well-water, we took 10 gallons of our own and a garden bug sprayer to rinse it off. The airplane was covered with pollen, it seemed especially bad this year with our lack of a real winter and an early spring.

Monosport takes to the air!

The misty morning began cool and windless. Glenn Peck swung the prop the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum's Mono Monosport-the soul survivor of its type as I held onto the tail. The engine took 3 swings to start in the cool morning air but soon settled in to its familar Kinner idle. Glenn squeezed himself thru the tiny door and gave me the "I have it" sign so I could clear the aircraft.

He taxied the smug-nose Mono-plane out to the grass runway, s-turning to see over the nose. Turning onto the grass runway, I quickly sped to the side of him, driving down the side of the runway to get into position.

The plan was to make a couple fast taxi runs to test out the landing gear which required some work after initial taxi tests. He did these, then applying full power, charged down the freshly mown runway, raised the nose and the airplane became airborne for the first time since 1952. Holding it just a few feet above the runway to check rigging and balance issues, Glenn flew it two-thirds of the way down the runway before cutting the power and letting it settle back to the runway.

He taxied back and pulled to a stop besides me, motioning for me to come over. I went over not knowing what to expect and he was laughing. "The little thing doesn't want to come down. It's go a lot of ground effect," he said chuckling.

"So, are you going to do it or are we going back to the hangar?"

"Oh no, I'm going flying," he said with a big grin on his face.

"Well, what are you waiting on?" I backed away from the plane and he eased the throttle forward to taxi back to the runway threshold.

He lined up and paused a few seconds to collect his thoughts. Then pushing the throttle forward, began his takeoff roll as I raised the camera to my eye. At 9:13 AM the little plane left the ground and climbed back into a sky it hadn't seen in over half a century.

This Monosport is one of 15 built. The aircraft was the forerunner to the Monocoupe. The factory offered it with the choice of either a Warner or Kinner engine.

The pictures are of the two takeoffs and landings Glenn made this day. The aircraft needs a few tweaks as most restorations do but the plan is to fly it Monday or Tuesday to do some air-to-air photography of her. There are no current plans to have the plane go to Oshkosh or Blakesburg.

Taxi Tests

The Monosport Cockpit.
Up on her gear!

Glenn took the Monosport out this morning to run taxi tests on the airplane. He says it feels good, wants to fly.

Gusty winds came up and he wisely took the airplane back to the hangar to try again another day.