Pieces of Dreams - Rick Thompson's Fairchild restoration

One by one, the myriad of parts of a magnificent airplane are coming together. This little bit here, that little bit there, every one touched by my friend, Rick's, artist's hand. Click on each picture as you read to make it larger.

Note the work accomplished since our last post: the picture on the left is from March, 2013; the one on the right is six months later: September 2013. From these vantage points you can see a fair amount of work has been done: The tail is taking shape and the airplane is "on the gear" by September.

Again, left to right. The picture on the left is from July, 2013 and the one on the right is from February, 2014. By February the vertical stabilizer and rudder were covered and painted and the windshields and trim around the windshields were installed. Note that bowl-shaped apparatus hanging on the front; that is a heat shield shroud called, by antique airplane aficionados, a "dishpan", because it looks like one. That shroud deflects heat from the engine toward the outside of the engine compartment and away from accessories and appliances that occupy the space between the engine and firewall, such as the oil tank, various electrical components, etc.

Going back to September, 2013, the engine cowling was trial-fitted. That "dishpan" shown in the photos above fits inside this cowling. Note the blisters on the outside of the cowling. Those allow room for the intake and exhaust valve covers within an otherwise very crowded space. The cowling fits around the engine fairly tightly to take best advantage of airflow for cooling. The fabric draped over the aft fuselage will be used to cover the tail surfaces.

By February 18, 2014, the original registration numbers and a Fairchild decal adorned the rudder. Note also, the red trim on the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer. The fabric and paintwork are exquisite, evidence of Rick's skill and attention to the smallest detail.

And another look at the tribute to the aviatrix for whom the airplane is named ... "To honor our distant cousin. My cousin Tim's and my grandmother were sisters, we thought it would be fitting to name the ship "Amelia" after our grandmothers' 3rd cousin. Growing up as boys, the name of Miss Earhart was spoken in the family with great reverence." -Rick. 

Next up: Landing gear shrouds, cabin doors and, later this year, Wings.

Fly safe. Stay tuned.

For a chronology of Rick's project, take a look at these prior posts:

http://letsgofly.blogspot.com/2010/06/alex-in-treasure-land.html

http://letsgofly.blogspot.com/2012/07/ricks-fairchild-follow-up.html

http://letsgofly.blogspot.com/2013/07/update-on-ricks-fairchild.html

February is for Flying (as long as you're in Florida)

While the rest of the country shivers and shovels snow, those of us who are blessed to live in nature's paradise (or what's left of it) open the hangar doors, flip the propellator to seek adventure - and, usually, food - where we can find it. There are migratory residents as well - "snowbirds", we call them - who add to the tales told 'round the tables. In my case, the flights need not be terribly long since there are venues of gustatorial delight and friends to share a table within a half hour or so in any direction. The tail is tied down and the hand-holds on the top longerons make starting much safer. 

When the Woody's fan spins, the fun begins.

The view from the pilot's seat is unobstructed by engine or prop or cowling (or anything else). Hanging ten, as it were. This makes for a bit of a transition, especially since the airplane is a taildragger. Takeoffs and landings are lots of fun - I tend to drag the tailwheel on takeoff and flare more than necessary on landing, arriving tailwheel first - and the sensation of speed is amplified a bit when you, as the pilot, ARE the leading element in this formation of parts.

The fueling dilemma has been largely solved. Before, I was adding fuel 5 gallons at a time from portable gas cans; now I have a stopgap fueling solution with a 30-gallon poly tank and a 12-volt pump. It works pretty well and eliminates my having to climb onto the cockpit longerons with a can of gas. The drawback is the ungainly tank. 

A new, 31-gallon aluminum tank is on order from a friend of a  friend and will make my life much easier and safer, since I will be able to mount the pump in the truck bed and back the truck up to the ladder. More importantly, I can ground the whole thing to the airplane and avoid static electricity launching me into orbit. 

The proof is in the flying. When all is said and done, it's all about going up and looking down.

Once More, Dear Friends, Into the Breach!!

The past two months have been well spent, inspecting the Woody's Pusher from stem to stern, inside and out, re-assembling, testing, fixing, replacing, doing what had to be done and after all that it was finally time to take to the air.

No Pusher would be complete without Woody!

The intrepid aviator, suitably decked out for a 53 degree morning flight to Bushnell for breakfast. It's 35 miles and I decided to go ahead despite the chill. 

Woody in the hangar ... that's quite a climb to refuel from five gallon cans so I've ordered a fuel transfer pump and will rig that in the coming week or so.

Woody on the ramp in Iowa before I bought it. Denny decided he wanted an Ercoupe and with winter coming on it was a good time to make the move. 

On the way to Bushnell ... thanks to Spencer for the great in-flight shot!

And another for good measure!

All in all, a grand day for flying, and a grand day to flex the Woody's wings. My test flying is in full swing and the results so far are exactly what I was looking for in a fun flyer. In fact, when Harris L. Woods showed his design to Paul Poberezny of EAA, Paul dubbed it the "Fun Airplane", though the name that stuck was "Woody's Pusher".

Some things, you just have to do

The Callair Cadet is in Malcolm's shop undergoing a thorough restoration, so what's a fellow to fly? 

-Click on the pictures below to make them bigger-

The answer is to scratch an old itch. I've always wanted to feel the wind through my (diminishing) hair and look out through clear air unimpeded by plexiglas. 

A Breezy seemed like a good idea but I flew once (in 1976) with Charlie Shivers in his Breezy and I quickly got the idea that it wouldn't take long, as the airport philosopher Harold said, "to get a bate of flying in a Breezy" (from the auld Gaelic, meaning in this case "to get enough of"). So I did what anyone would do, I looked around for a non-breezy Breezy.

...and the answer came in a flash (after 2 years): the Woody's Pusher

ta-da

 The illusion, at least, that there's something holding you inside makes all the difference

...so does a windscreen

 If you don't see an instrument, you don't need it.

"Woody" was an actual fellow named Harris L. Woods from Holly Springs NC. An engineer by training and avocation, Woody designed some seventeen unique and different aircraft for production and homebuilders, first as an employee of some of the best known aerospace companies in the U.S., then the Benson Gyrocopter company and then as the founder, chief bill payer and janitor of his own Aerosport Corporation. His range was broad; seven of his creations were gyrocopters, two were air-cushion vehicles and the remaining eight were fixed-wing airplanes. The Pusher was patterned loosely after the Curtiss-Wright CW-1 Junior. (One of the designers of the predecessor to the Junior, the "Skeeter", was Walter Beech, who went on to found Beechcraft.)

The Curtiss-Wright CW-1 "Junior", powered by a 45hp Szekely radial engine. This example is in the Smithsonian National Air&Space Museum.

We lost Woody in 1975 but his favorite design flies on. 

For more on Woody and his designs, go to: http://www.oshkosh365.org/saarchive/eaa_articles/1977_02_16.pdf

My new friend Denny saw winter approaching northern Iowa and decided he needed an LSA-compliant trainer instead of the Woody, so we talked, emailed, and talked some more and I ended up doing something I'd never done before: I bought an airplane sight unseen. Denny arranged for a pre-buy and disassembled the airplane - Tony Partain trucked it down to Florida for me (A GREAT service. If you ever need an airplane shipped somewhere, Tony and his driver-partner Michael are TOPS). Malcolm and I helped unload late at night after Michael's very long day. This was the very best way to do this in November. When Malcolm took a look at the workmanship and overall quality of the airplane, he allowed as to I might have a friendly angel looking out for me - it looked really good.

The Woody is going together now and I can't wait to have it flying. That old itch begs for scratching.

The Callair restoration begins .....

Restoring an airplane is like a love affair ... any fool can start - patience and tenacity are required to keep it going - and real skill is needed, long term, to make it turn out well in the end. 

The first part with the airplane is the easy part. You take a sharp knife and a set of screwdrivers, wrenches and elbow grease, mix them all together with a lot of photographs to jog your memory later, and go to work disassembling.

Sometimes Malcolm has to apply a little extra elbow grease ...

 Malcolm is a very experienced restorer and I am fortunate to have him working on my airplane. 

In this picture the wings and tail surfaces are already off, ailerons, elevators and rudder are uncovered and seem to look pretty good. One thing about old airplanes - you never really know the condition of those parts under the exterior fabric until you expose them to the light of day.

Sometimes the exterior will tell a story of its own - the paint had been top coated at some point and was coming unstuck all over the airframe.

My friend Jim in North Carolina rebuilt the engine just before I bought the airplane and it is a dandy. We have it on a stand in my hangar - away from the hustle and bustle of the maintenance hangar.

The smaller parts are collected .....

Boxed to move to my hangar .....

Where they will be cataloged, inspected and reworked .....

While the big stuff goes through its own process of restoration.

The whole affair is planned to take place over a three or four month time frame ... which means maybe four, maybe five (maybe six) months. There are 1952 technology parts that were part of limited production runs and can't be replaced; they will have to be updated with newer parts, subject to the approval of the FAA. (There will be future tales about this.)

But this is, after all, a love affair. Nobody knows how it will take but we're pretty confident it will turn out well. I'll keep you posted.

The Call Aircraft Company

Reuel Call was an American success story through and through. He was born Jan 29, 1908 in Afton, WY and was the founder of, among other things, the Callair Airplane Factory in Afton.

From the resume above, you can see he was a visionary businessman long before he became involved in the manufacture of airplanes. Reuel was a pioneer in the marketing of self-service "independent" gasoline. His were some of the first self-service gasoline stations in the country and his Maverik Country Stores, a chain of convenience stores/gasoline outlets located throughout the mountain west, were supplied by oil from two refineries that he also owned. 

Reuel Call learned to fly in 1930 and was bitten hard and deep by the flying bug. His purchase of a new Kinner Sportster in 1933 (which he flew from California to Wyoming in the dead of winter) must have been an inspiration. With the assistance of his Uncle Ivan, brother Spencer, cousin Barlow and Carl Peterson, the Call team designed and built the original CallAir aircraft. With no aviation background, this visionary group of civil engineers and businessmen tinkered until their plane was ready to fly. There are conflicting accounts; some write that the airplane was ready in 1940, Jane's "All the World's Aircraft" dates the first flight in 1941 (on snow skis) with production following two years later. Design characteristics were strikingly similar to the Kinner Sportster but that flight by Reuel Call to Wyoming in December dictated that the airplane have a closed cabin and, presumably, cabin heat.

CallAir A-2

The first CallAir airplane, the Model A, was a 2-place, low wing, strut braced aircraft powered by a Continental A-80 (80 horsepower) engine. It was woefully underpowered. The next iteration of the aircraft was still a test article, re-engined with a Lycoming engine of 100 horsepower and designated the Model A-1.  Production began in 1944 and with the new Type Certificate (ATC # 758) in hand, the Calls designated their production aircraft as the Model A-2. The A-2 was quickly re-engined in 1946 with a 125 hp, O-290 Lycoming.

The manufacturing run of the 2 and 3 place civilian, A-series transports eventually ran to 218 units, but the glut of surplus aircraft that flooded the market in the late 1940s took its toll on the young company. Even with more power and more load carrying capability in the Continental-powered, 125 hp A-3 (1947) and the Lycoming-powered, 135 hp A-4 (1954), only a few A-series cabin airplanes were built after early 1947. 

The Callair "A" series was noted for its outstanding performance on short, high altitude fields and was equipped with both wheels and skis for summer and winter flying. The most distinctive features of the airplane were the long sloping windshield and the virtually unrestricted visibility enjoyed by pilots who were more accustomed to very poor visibility over the nose of airplanes of the day, particularly when taxiing on the ground.

Reuel Call faced some big challenges and addressed them the way a self-made man would face them: When the market turned downward, Mr. Call simply pulled back production to compensate - and he began looking for other ways to keep the airplane company afloat. 

The A-4, when fitted with a 150 hp Lycoming engine, became the A-5, a real load hauler in its role as a passenger plane. The enterprising Mr. Call took a look at yet another market, removed the right seat and replaced it with a hopper and a distribution chute through the bottom of the fuselage for crop dusting. A tank for liquid spray could be substituted as well, and the next big thing for Callair was born - agricultural applicators. The A-4 "AG" was not the first purpose-built aerial applicator aircraft (that distinction goes to the Huff-Daland "Duster", built from 1924). It was succeeded by the A-5 "AG". The airplane was so successful that CallAir dealers tried twice to buy the company and the second attempt resulted in a sale. The new owners couldn't make a go of it and the company declared bankruptcy. All rights for the CallAir AG airplanes were bought from the creditors by IMCO (Intermountain Manufacturing Company, headed by Barlow Call) in 1960 and a new design series of progressively more capable agricultural airplanes beginning with the A-6 was born.  

Back up a little. One of the challenges Mr. Call faced was a shortage of materials to build his airplanes. The shift from wartime production to peacetime meant the companies that were well established could fall back on stockpiles of materials such as steel tubing, aircraft grade spruce wood, engines and finishing materials; the Calls couldn't do that, having started their company essentially from scratch. It turned out that an aircraft manufacturing company was for sale, and Reuel Call needed it for the supplies that came with it. The airplane was the Interstate Cadet.

There was an extra benefit to be realized by the Interstate acquisition. A shortcoming of the Call Model A design was the low wing configuration; farmers and ranchers liked to look down and that was hard with the low wing. Another problem was that often the pilots had to use unimproved landing sites and low brush did a lot of damage to the underside of the wings. A high wing airplane was needed to relieve these design limitations. 

Interstate Cadets were brought to Afton for repair during the war years and when the Cadet, or L-6 in its military configuration, became available in great numbers, the Calls found a way to keep their workers working by refurbishing and upgrading the former military airplanes to meet the civilian market.  The Cadet had all the attributes the Calls needed: a high wing, good short field and high altitude performance, and a ready supply of cheap airframes and engines thanks to the availability of war surplus machines and parts stocks. 

The Calls knew the farmers and ranchers of the Afton area very well and their refurbished Cadets were a popular choice for herding cattle, horses and sheep, and were effective in the management of predators such as wolves and coyotes. It was only natural that a production line might be in the offing for the sturdy airplane. Once the design and supplies were purchased (supplies from Interstate and type certificate from Max Harlow, who had bought it from Interstate and who, ironically, was the designer of Reuel Call's Kinner Sportster) the Calls set out to gain a production approval. Two S-1A Cadets were built, both were initially test aircraft. The certification status of the first was resolved by badging it as an Interstate (after all, the Calls didn't own the Type Certificate yet). The second was initially experimental, relegated to testing and demonstrations, but was eventually certified in the standard category with the CallAir imprimatur. That one remains on the FAA Aircraft Registry and it is the pride and joy of which I write. 

My Callair S-1A-90C in 2007

Production certification became expensive after the war. There was enough money to be made by refurbishing Cadets and L-6 airplanes to make the continuation of the Callair Cadet line impractical. However, a re-engined, Lycoming-powered, 150 hp version, the Super Cadet "150", quickly became a favorite in the wilds of Alaska. 

Tragedy struck the Call family twice when, on September 16, 1968, Barlow Call died in a mid-air collision while herding horses in his S1-B1 (civilian L-6). His son, Barlow, died following an air crash five months later. The heart had gone out of the program at Afton. 

Barlow Call's widow sold the Type Certificate and remains of the CallAir Cadet project to William A. "Big Deal" Diehl of Anchorage AK in 1969 and the airplane was beefed up and remarketed as the "Arctic Tern". Diehl was bought out by Bart Miller who, in the process of setting up the line in New Hampshire, was tragically killed in 2006 before production began when a piece of equipment toppled over on him. The design is currently in limbo.


Stay tuned for more fascinating ramblings about the refurbishing of the one and only CallAir Cadet.