The First Saturday in May

Today, being the First Saturday in May and, therefore, Kentucky Derby Day, I give you:

The Mint Julep

The Mint Julep, a distinctive Southern drink, popular in the ante bellum South right up through modern times, is a mixture of water, sugar, mint leaves and, above all, bourbon whiskey. While it can be purchased today in modern drinking establishments in the South, those served there bear little resemblance to those served in the home. The serving of this elixir to family and guests on a hot summer afternoon was, and is, accomplished with the greatest fanfare and flourish to show respect for those receiving it. It is as much of a ceremony as it is a drink.
The following is a copy of a letter from Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., USA [(VMI-1906, West Point-1908) killed on Okinawa June 18, 1945] to Major General William D. Connor, [Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point] dated March 30, 1937. Buckner Jr. was the son of General Simon Bolivar Buckner of the Confederate army who surrendered Fort Donelson to General Grant, thus giving Grant his nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. This letter clearly demonstrates the esteem in which a "Mint Julep" is held:

My Dear General Connor:

Your letter requesting my formula for mixing mint juleps leaves me in the same position in which Captain Barber found himself when asked how he was able to carve the image of an elephant from a block of wood. He said that it was a simple process consisting merely of whittling off the part that didn't look like an elephant.

The preparation of the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages can be described only in like terms. A mint julep is not a product of a formula. It is a ceremony and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the Old South, and emblem of hospitality, and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of a happy and congenial thought.

So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as follows:

Go to a spring where cool, crystal-clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew-washed ferns. In a consecrated vessel, dip up a little water at the source. Follow the stream thru its banks of green moss and wild flowers until it broadens and trickles thru beds of mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breeze. Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home. Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age, yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start.

Into a canvas bag pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow, keep it dry and do not allow it to degenerate into slush. Into each goblet, put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from the decanter until the goblets are about one-fourth full. Fill the goblets with snowy ice, sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outside of the goblets dry, and embellish copiously with mint.

Then comes the delicate and important operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glistening coat of white frost.

Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.

When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden where the aroma of the juleps will rise heavenward and make the birds sing. Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblets to your lips, bury your nose in the mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.

Being overcome with thirst, I can write no further.

Sincerely, Lt. Gen. S.B. Buckner, Jr. VMI Class of 1906

Go forward, friends, and rejoice.

The Call of the Air

I confess to a certain weakness when it comes to the underdogs. Having been one myself, especially in my teenage years, I know underdogs possess unknown qualities which must be discovered, one at a time, over time. Thus when an email arrived from a fellow Cub owner accompanied by a brochure for an unusual airplane that happened to be for sale practically in my back yard, I began peeling back the layers to see what might be what.

At first, it looked like a Cub with a glandular condition. What the heck? It’s not a Cub. Look at that gear. Look at the windows. What about the shape of that windscreen? This is not a Cub. It is one thing: “Unusual” and in need of work.

There is no mystery. This is an Interstate Cadet. But not. This is a Callair S1A, a successor to the Interstate Cadet. But maybe not. The genealogy of the design is a bit complicated and I’m just beginning the research to pin down exactly what I have. The design was sold to the Call family of Afton, Wyoming, in 1952 after languishing through another owner. The Calls bought the design as much for the stock of steel tubing and hardware for their other designs as for the airplane itself . One firsthand source revealed that the Calls never built one of these S1A airplanes from scratch themselves; the S1A that was badged as a “Callair” airplane was essentially rebuilt from older Interstate airframes. I do know this: The Continental 90HP engine was an option attributed to the Call family’s ownership of the design, and the recently-overhauled engine on the airplane is the engine that was originally listed with this “Callair” airframe.

Whatever it is, and wherever this research takes me I know this: I won’t run out of projects any time soon. Frumpy or not, they say it’s a great flying airplane … and you can definitely put lipstick on a pig.
I’ll keep you posted.

(or whatever)

Getting the word out – let there be Bar-B-Q !!

Oh boy, this is going to be fun! A couple of us were just thinking one day that it might be a lot of fun to have some barbecue and some friends in for a day of R&R Cub-style. Then the idea began to grow

We have no idea if this thing will go over or not. If nobody shows up at least we won’t go hungry.

C’mon y’all. Let’s go flying!

Flying video and Cub pilots’ Barbecue May 12, 2012

I’d been looking for a way to record my flying adventures without breaking the bank and ran across a pair of sunglasses with a built-in DVR at a trade show. I paid too much – that’s what happens when you find something new and cool that you’ve never seen before. On the upside, when my costly pair had an intermittent audio problem the U.S. seller handled a replacement quickly and without any hassle at all.

I’ve since found that these things can be bought on eBay … just search for “DVR sunglasses” and a lot will pop up. At this early stage in the product cycle I found a few auctions that were just about ready to close without reserve and with no bids! I ordered a couple of pairs and a couple of keychain DVRs for essentially the cost of shipping. Hope they work.

Cub Fly-In Barbecue at the Western North Carolina Air Museum field (Hendersonville NC) on May 12. Be there or be square. No Cubs will be barbecued and hopefully none will be harmed in this production. Other types welcome, of course.

Them’s the brakes – and thanks for friends

One of the really nifty things I enjoy as a Cub owner is other Cub owners, particularly Cub owners who know how to do stuff and don’t mind teaching me how to do the little maintenance things that keep my airplane in the air. I’ve been doofus-ing around for over a month about how my brakes were going kerflooey (note the pilot talk here) and inherited a set of master cylinder diaphragms from Grizzly Stan across the mountains to fix them, but hadn’t mustered up the courage to tackle the job on my own. I looked, talked to several Cub guys about it, thought I’d have to fabricate some inspection/maintenance ports on the underside of the fuselage, when Stan offered to fly over and help me (by doing the work) get back in the air.

Stan Dove right in. One of the telephone advisors suggested just taking the master cylinder apart in situ but I thought that would entail a lot of bending that I just don’t do anymore. I wanted to take the master cylinder out of the airplane (therefore the idea about cutting new inspection/maintenance panels in the belly) but Stan took one look and said we could pull them out without having to go to too much trouble so that’s what we did. I have to write this about Stan: He’s an optimist. And it proved true; the master cylinders were easy to remove. I think I could do it again provided I had someone there to roll under the belly of the airplane and hold my nuts … wait a minute – did that come out right?

The master cylinder is really simple. The assembly is divided by a diaphragm – on the dry side, the brake pedal pushes on a plunger that pushes against the diaphragm – on the other (wet) side is the brake fluid that squirts through tubing into the old-fashioned expansion brakes and causes the Piper Cub to careen somewhat less dramatically down the runway (or almost holds the airplane in place while doing a magneto check before takeoff). I exaggerate – the old brakes work pretty well as long as the diaphragm is in one piece. When they split, diaphragms don’t keep the wet and dry sides separate and you know what happens then … unintended consequences. Above, the split in the diaphragm and the reinstalled product, ready to fly.

This is Stan – happy that the job is over and ready for a taco salad.

The next thing is for me to fly over to his side of the mountains and from there to who knows where?

Treasure is in the Eye of the Beholder

When diving in strange Troves, you occasionally find yourself in the domain of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, but more often than not there’s treasure waiting to be discovered. All it takes is a bit of patience, an appreciation for good conversation, and these things just surface.

First on the wish list that just happened to be available, although it had to be brought in from the Trove in Canada (2 Troves! What good fortune!). It’s a 3 1/2 inch, bubble-faced, Airpath compass, probably made in the 1930s. What a beauty! After speaking with the Airpath guru at Keystone Instruments in Lock Haven PA (home of the Cub), I sent it off for a complete refurbishment.

The next step was to tackle the layers of rust, corrosion and paint on the Cub window and door frames. I did some homework (always a pleasure these days with the internet at my fingertips). There are a number of ways one can remove the crust of ages, from wire brushing to medieval sand blasting (Jeff’s term – hang on, you’ll meet him in a minute). I chose soda blasting and am glad I did. The medium, to paraphrase one of the videos from an Aussie bloke, doesn’t “hammer” the crud off, it cuts it off. The edges of the soda are softer than sand or glass beads or pecan shells but those edges are somewhat sharp so you get very effective cutting with little to no damage to the surface of the piece you’re working. There were videos of soda blasting the printing off flimsy aluminum soft drink cans without damaging the cans, so I decided that was for me.

Enter Jeff Bender of Bender Aviation Services. Now Jeff is a friend of mine and all that, but he also happens to be a very fine airplane mechanic and enjoys the thrill of business ownership, the plusses and the minuses. No matter what day it is or how it happens to be going, Jeff is the same guy every day, super helpful and a great guy to have on your A-list.

Ok, enough of the commercial. Jeff happened to have access to a soda blasting tank (boy, is this a simple setup), so a trip to pick up some soda, protective gloves, eye protection, and so on and we’re off to the races. One note, first: *they* say you can just go to the store and buy boxes of Arm and Hammer or whatever and go to town … I learned there is soda and there is soda. The stuff just soaks up water all by itself. Soda blasting tanks should have a water separator attached or you use nitrogen to keep the compressed stuff dry. The soda that is meant for blasting isn’t quite so hygroscopic (here, from Wikipedia, is what that means: soda is … “so hygroscopic that [it] readily dissolves in the water [it] absorbs: This property is called deliquescence. [beer question – pilots love beer questions]. A hygroscopic material will tend to become damp and "cake" when exposed to moist air (such as salt in salt shakers during humid weather).”) … or soda in soda blasters.

Herewith, a before and after. The excitement of the moment plus foggy goggles, sweat filling my rubber gloves and a general enthusiasm for getting on with the project produced only one B&A picture. The difference, though should give you an idea of how effective the soda blaster was in removing 40+ years’ accumulation of grunge. This isn’t a final product – oh no – but it gives a hint as to how the frame projects will move along.

 

     

A few more quickie pictures and I have to retreat from the computer to do meaningful work around the hacienda and replace the deficit in my “going to the airport” jar.

The Trove

The best way to begin is, I suppose, at the beginning.

My best old friend, David, once took the vow of poverty and taught school for a living (or almost a living) where he ran into a fellow who could draw pretty well and they hit it off. As things happen the other fellow caught the eye of a fairly good sized company who liked the way he drew space shuttles and hired him away from teaching to do just that. Years went by and they ran into each other again after David managed to convince Uncle Sam’s Army that he was a valuable resource or, at least, wouldn’t be in the way. It came to pass that this other guy, whose name is Rick, met up with David and me at an air show/fly in and I came away with a poster/print of one of his paintings. Let a few more years pass and word comes that Rick has been restoring a 1934 Fairchild so David and I went to visit.  Now you’re up to date … for more on the Fairchild, take a look at my post from June 2010 entitled “Alex in Wonderland”.  I’ll update that post eventually.

OK. So last week I took another trip over to see Rick and the Fairchild and lo and behold the lads from Canada were there … they occupy a fair chunk of the warehouse where Rick soldiers away on his project. It’s time to let the cat out of the bag.

Just like your friendly Home Depot or Lowe’s … only for antique airplane nuts like me.

The first thing that struck me was “how in the world did all this stuff get here?” Turns out it took 6 tractor-trailer loads to clean out an old hanger that was full of airframes, engines, parts, bits, pieces and some reasonably complete projects. In addition, there were frequent trips when the lads’ van was piled high with smaller parts. All of it made its way to this one place where it is still in the process of being separated, cataloged and evaluated. A lot of the airframe parts are probably good for patterns, but a fair amount is restorable and reusable.

    

I managed to find some parts for my Piper Cub that are good for restoration and will go a long way toward making my 1941 airplane more original. There is probably a Gormley-Bulsch in there, too.

Unusual hardware like the silver cadmium plated pieces that were used on military airplanes before and during World War II – a favorite with the warbird crowd and hard to find today.

The lists go on and on and can only be appreciated by those who love and restore old airplanes.

To learn more about the lads, go to www.tigerboys.com – there’s a link to their email address on the website.

I think I might have picked up a bonus gift from my trip in the form of a really nasty bug – obviously Canadian – so my initial work on the parts has been delayed until my lungs are up to another dose of rusty dust and toxic chemicals.

The last flight of 2011 – with Stan and Kathy

After a couple of false starts, the great quest for the $100 hamburger brought Stan (the Grizzly Bear) and Kathy (patient chronicler of flights and motorcycle trips) to Rutherford County Airport NC … we had tried a couple of times to meet up there but for various reasons couldn’t make it happen until nearly the last moment of 2011 …

Thanks to Kathy for all the nifty pictures … Griz and I were kept busy navigating and aviating.

Looking east for the first time, the Blue Ridge Parkway with some snow in NC, Houses east of Asheville NC

Griz said the flight down from Tennessee was really nice. They had time to do a little sightseeing on the way, enjoying December scenery that is usually of the white-ish variety, but very little snow so far this year … only a dusting here and there.

Getting down toward the flatlands, that’s Hickory Nut Gorge on the left, Kathy’s reflection on the side window taking a picture of Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. My Dad said he grew up in the bottom of what is now Lake Lure. Directly below the airplane is Lake Lure Inn where a lot of the movie “Dirty Dancing” was made.

So anyway, here are Griz and Kathy just cruising along enjoying the countryside and I’m pulling the Cub out of my hangar to join them. They had further to go, across the Blue Ridge Mountains … I just had to hop over a ridge at World’s Edge and set up a gradual descent to Rutherford County, which is 1,000 feet below my home field.

Final approach for Rutherford County, Kathy in her John Deere hat and Grizzly Stan posing with their Cub.

S&K arrived early - I managed to drag in at about 11:30. The 57A Cafe was just a short walk from the ramp.

I got my picher took, there are the 2 Cubs side by side on the ramp and the 57A Cafe through the Jeep frame.

The burgers and Stan’s taco salad went down just fine but we were mindful that the weather was due to change later in the day so we decided to skedaddle while the skedaddling was good. Outside, the windsock began doing a dance and the winds were already picking up in advance of the weather front. We went through our preflight inspections and performed “armstrong” starts and were off in pretty short order.

I’m first out of the chocks … the weather toward my route looked ok-ish, S&K’s outlook is to the right. What the picture of my route doesn’t show is the rush of southerly wind accelerating on the south face of the mountains.

By the time I taxiied into position on the runway, the windsock was pretty much straight out from the pole. The Cub and I were off the ground before I had pushed the power all the way up. I was hoping the wind would hold because if I had been riding a gust and the wind had gone away, I’d run out of airspeed, altitude and imagination at about the same time. As it was, we kept flying (thank goodness for 85 horsepower)and I set course to cross the ridge at World’s Edge again – you definitely do NOT want to fly Hickory Nut Gorge in windy conditions.

Meanwhile, Stan and Kathy were enjoying a leisurely ride up the long, delirious, burning blue … topping the windswept heights with easy grace … but I’ll let Griz tell his tale:

Oh yeah! once we got past I-40 things started to settle down and even more so once we got across that ridge west of Mt Mitchell where the Blue Ridge Parkway goes along. We had just scattered clouds, tops around 7,000 (LOL) and we actually got to an altitude of 8,500 (it was cold up there), didn't really want to but with those high winds I just felt safer the higher up we were able to go since every now and then we were getting an elevator ride. We almost kept going as I have always been curious if both Kathy and I could get to 10,000' with the 65hp engine, but the numbness in my toes got in the way of holding the stick back. After the last ridge, the NC/TN border, we descended back to 2600' for pattern altitude and it got choppy again. Winds on the runway were only about 5 knots though pretty much in line with the runway. Flight time was 1.5 going down and 1.4 coming back.

Notice the cool, detached “it got choppy” comment? Pilots do that. A pilot can go through the seven tortures of hell and if someone on the ground asks he might say “yeah, it was a little bumpy”.

Climbing through 8,000 feet, Crossing the NC mountains, Last ridge in sight I-26 below. (Whenever I think of “the last ridge” I think of an old movie “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” … the last ridge proved to be too much in that movie but the Gallavanting Grizzly and his Kathy-belle made it just fine).

I’ll spare you the details, but it got “a little bumpy” on the way to World’s Edge. Once over the ridge, though, we are in a little piece of heaven where winds are civilized for the most part and my ride was pretty good for the last few miles to Runway 15 at Johnson Field.

Johnson Field (the grass runway to the right) on a summer day, and the Cub back at home in its hangar.

It just doesn’t get any better than meeting up with friends with Piper Cubs. Maybe the weather could be better next time, maybe a little warmer, maybe we could talk some other Cub people into joining us. So long, 2011. Hello, 2012.