Valentine's Day Barbecue at Grass Roots

There's this fellow in central Florida named David Gay who lives and breathes airplanes and architecture and who, with his wife, Ann, decided at some point to build an airport. 

Not just any airport, a real, live airport with a runway that's built up from the surrounding swamp land that nobody wanted, out in the middle of nowhere, where other airplane nuts could gather, live, commune with the air and all that stuff. And they succeeded.

Fly-ins at Grass Roots are usually themed, such as "Biplane" or "Cub" or "Antique" gatherings, but occasionally David opens up to invited guests of mixed persuasions and has an event like the "Valentine's Day" fly-in.

A biplane fly-in from the Grass Roots website

So it was that a gaggle of airplanes and pilots flew over from Spruce Creek Airpark just south of Daytona on the east coast of Florida, and among them were the Fallers, friends from Bayport Aerodrome on Long Island who make their home now at the Creek.

Russ Faller (R) and me, enjoying sunshine

There's a story here that starts with a dumb stunt on my part at a fly-in in New York that resulted in a busted prop and overhauled engine, a stuck valve on the overhauled engine, the freeing up of that valve (by Russ) and his loan of a prop as a favor to me, and my good fortune to meet and fly with his son, Paul, at the big company on Long Island. He's still there, doing well, and we still keep in touch.

So while Paul enjoys big, zippy jets and snow, his Dad and I get to frolic in the sunshine among dope and fabric airplanes, taildragger pilots and barbecue. I wouldn't trade places for the world.

You can find out more about Grass Roots Airpark online (lots available) at: http://www.grassrootsairpark.com

If you cook, they will come

Nothing much comes between Woody and food ... especially when you have to fly to get to it!

Woody, westbound for those fluffy scrambled eggs, sausage, GRITS, waffles, pancakes, assorted condiments and good company.

The Flying FOOLZ (Florida Order Of Lightplane Zealots) can put out a great spread, drawing airplanes (and pilots) of all shapes and sizes for the fun, food and fellowship. For more pictures and a schedule of activities, go to:

http://www.flyingfoolz.org/

(click the pics to make 'em bigger)

The count was something over 90 airplanes and 250 people. Not bad for a breezy, last weekend in January. Certainly better than the weekend weather up nawth (snow, ice, etc).

There were two fly-ins featuring good grub this past weekend; I just decided to go to the one that was closer. The other one was at Melrose Landing, sponsored by FSAACA (Florida Sport Aviation Antique and Classic Association). Reports from the field indicate a good turnout there, too.

More to come. My mouth is watering already.

Fall is for Flying!

Maybe it's the transition to cooler weather, maybe it's just that we get a little spring in our step when the airplane seems to leap off the runway and climb performance is quicker to put more air between the ground and the seat of our pants,  but I sure do welcome fall as a season. The barbecue tastes better, the hot eggs and grits and coffee go down better, the jokes are fresh and there's always a new paint job or a new airplane to admire on the field ... wherever the field may be.

Woody and I missed the fly-in on September 27th with a mechanical problem, but here's a picture of Flying W at Bushnell FL on a sunny day in April of this year. The picture came from the Flying FOOLZ website and a link to that and more from this outstanding EAA Chapter appears below.

The field fills up pretty quickly with airplanes of all descriptions

The Florida Order Of Lightplane Zealots (Flying FOOLZ) is also known as EAA Chapter 1489, and their fly-in breakfasts are a magnet for central Florida pilots. Take a look at their web calendar and all the goings-on at:

http://www.flyingfoolz.org

Tinker Toys

When I was a young(er) squirt, one of my favorite gadgets was a box of something called Tinker Toys. Pilagiarizing shamelessly from Wikipedia, the toy was simple, designed in 1914 by a fellow who fashioned circular blocks of wood about two inches across with holes drilled on the outside of the blocks at 45 degree angles and a transverse hole through the middle. I built all sorts of things with mine - one fellow even built a computer that played tic-tac-toe with his.

For everything you always wanted to know about Tinkertoy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinkertoy

Malcolm must have had or admired a Tinkertoy set when he was growing up because he has displayed the CallAir fuselage in his maintenance hanger for all the world to see. It's resting on sawhorses now but will be "on the gear" pretty soon. First things first, there are control cables and tailwheel assemblies and main gear assemblies to - ahem - assemble, a firewall to build, attachments for things to be attached to and so on. This is when people who are restoring airplanes reach a point when they decide to sell their project as "90% done". Experienced restorers take that tongue in cheek and usually remark that "90% done" means there is only 90% to go.

The CallAir fuselage, ready for decoration. Tinkertoy experience helps.

For everything you always wanted to know about this CallAir, go to earlier posts on this blog.

Meanwhile:

Woody is in for his yearly condition inspection and so far has passed with flying colors ... he'll be back in the skies over Central Florida this weekend. 

Time do fly

In the month or so I've been off these pages there has been some progress on the CallAir Cadet restoration and some flying in the Woody's Pusher department. All good, all to be credited to my life enrichment account (except maybe for the CallAir thing - Malcolm sees more of the enrichment than I do at this point).

That was then (L); This is now (R)

The Cadet fuselage is back from being blasted, inspected and primed from stem to stern. The tubing looked great after nearly 50 years under the old covering. Most of the airport denizens remark that this is an airframe that is really overbuilt, and I agree. To survive training and off-airport landings you need a stout structure and this derivation of the Interstate Cadet has stout in spades. 

We've decided on a few tweaks here and there for purposes of safety such as provisions for shoulder harnesses that will bring the airplane up to today's standards.

With the CallAir's wings and tail feathers covered and ready for finishing and the fuselage work underway, what's a fellow to do but enjoy the year-round, open cockpit flying weather here in Florida ...

Woody and I flail the air regularly from the 3000 foot pool table that is Bob White Field, searching for burgers and Barbecue-du-jour amongst those wonderful aviation people who practice that secret art of porcine preparation. One need not go far - there are fly-ins aplenty in our part of paradise and the parking areas always have room for one more.

Come see us.

Bob White Fly-In

It sure is nice when friends drop in for a little lunch and some chit-chat and it's especially nice to share a fly-in weekend with another airport just 35 miles away ... this past weekend was the annual Halloween fly-in breakfast at Flying W, home of the Flying FOOLZ (Florida Order Of Lightplane Zealots) and the Bob White Fly-in lunch at my home field in Zellwood.

The day couldn't have been nicer and the airplanes and people just kept coming. Pete confirmed we had 90 airplanes and about 200 people, but there could have been more (I had to leave a little early due to a nasty cold coming on and didn't want to spread it around). Here's a link to Joe Dunn's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLoenqqGLjc&list=UUN6LUDNTPddBA9x-PrnOV2g 

This was just a small part of the lunch crowd ... Our airport owner, Pete Counsell, had plenty of hamburgers and hotdogs and fixings and belly washers and even desserts to make it a special gathering and, of course, there were the airplanes. 

When all is said and done, there's just no better way to spend a weekend than to be among birds of a feather on a perfect day for flying.

Pete

Pete beside her Civilian Pilot Training Program Taylorcraft, 1941

When I was about four or five, I learned my aunt, Margaret "Pete" Dowsett, had flown airplanes. This was momentous. There was (and still is) a little airport in my home town and at the time it had a rotating beacon that swept the sky outside my bedroom window nightly with green and white beams of light. The runway was flat, green grass and when I stood at the end it seemed a doorway to every place in the world beyond the mountains that surrounded on every side. My Aunt Pete could fly around the world! I stood in awe.

Born Margaret Joanna Seagle on September 11, 1912, she grew up on the family farm. In the 1930s she followed her younger sister, my mother, as a nursing student at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City and as a nanny to the children of their uncle, the parish priest of New York society's gateway to Heaven - Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church on the upper west side. While in New York, she made a number of friends through the church members. One of those friends was a socialite and member of the St. Stephen's elite named Ruth Nichols. 

Ruth Nichols beside the Lockheed Vega owned by Crosley Radio Corporation and used by her to set records for eastbound and westbound transcontinental flight (with stops), altitude records and speed records. She made a transatlantic solo attempt but crash landed at St. Johns, Newfoundland, breaking her back in five places. Several months later with the airplane rebuilt and herself in a steel corset she set a nonstop distance record for women, flying from Burbank CA to Louisville KY. Nichols became a director of the prestigious Long Island Aviation Country Club, a managing director of the Fairchild Aircraft Manufacturing Company and was inducted posthumously into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1992.

Ruth Nichols was often branded the "Flying Debutante" by the New York press and she hated it. This was a serious pilot. She was introduced to flying with a high school graduation present from her father, who was prominent in his own right as one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders and a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The gift was an airplane ride with Eddie Stinson and, though sickened by Stinson's aerobatics, she was immediately bitten by the flying bug. She secretly took flying lessons while a student at Wellesly College and was one of the first two licensed female pilots in the U.S. Her resume is long and varied and readily available with an internet search but the part that intersected with my Aunt Pete was her enthusiasm for the useful employment of airplanes.

In 1939, Ruth organized Relief Wings, a civilian air ambulance service, and by the fall of 1941 had established centers in most states. Relief Wings was absorbed into the Civil Air Patrol when the United States entered World War II in December 1941. Pete was an early recruit and began her own flight training under the Civilian Pilot Training Program ... but first there was "the parade".

Ruth Nichols (L), unnamed nurse, and 29 year old "Pete" Seagle (R) 

Ruth, Pete and a nurse/student pilot took part in the New York Women's Parade down Fifth Avenue. The parade organizers first refused to grant a permit for an airplane on the back of a flatbed truck, but Ruth picked up the phone and called a family friend - the Mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia - and that was that. Speed's Flying Service removed the wings of the J-3 Cub to make the drive from Flushing, Long Island, into Manhattan and bolted them back on again once their place in the parade was reached.

In 1942, Pete was nursing in Massachusetts. Wartime rules prohibited civilian flying within 50 miles of the coast. The commute to the closest training field proved too much and Pete eventually had to give up her plans to fly. It was a reluctant decision but by no means the end of her love affair with flying.

Photo scans thanks to Granddaughter Christena

Kids do the darndest things. Fall of the year is a wonderful time to fly in the mountains of western North Carolina and it so happened that there was a fellow giving hot air balloon rides so for her 80th and 90th birthdays, Pete was once again in the air, enjoying the view.

So it happens that in the natural course of life we eventually come to the end of it. We don't know when; all we can hope for is that at the end we have given more than we received, loved well and been loved in return. I miss her hugs, miss holding her hand and cannot help but to feel a great loss, now that she is gone. On the other hand, I remember her quick smile, her gentle counsel, her loving tolerance of my shenanigans, and how she waved to me from her garden when I flew over her house so many times. 

Once, on a trip to a faraway place, I found myself in an internet cafe with a book beside me by Antoine de St. Exupery, a French pilot and writer par excellence who was also a friend of Charles and Anne Lindbergh; I was looking for more information on their relationship. Upon St. Ex's death during World War II, Anne Lindbergh wrote of her regrets to her husband. I found his handwritten reply: "Do you have so little faith that you would mourn someone who is dead?" I thought that harsh, writing to someone in mourning, but on reflection, and I have done so many times, it speaks to a greater truth and is a most appropriate remark.

With love,
Margaret Joanna Seagle Dowsett
"Pete"

September 11, 1912

October 13, 2014

Meanwhile, back at the airport ...

... it's a wonderful weld ...

Front and rear brackets and bracing for the Cleveland brake setup

Malcolm and my new best friend, the welder, turned focus on the CallAir airframe last weekend. The result is that the reinforcing brackets, brake platforms and other spots here and there that needed attention were masterfully installed and the fuselage is now ready for blasting and primer. This puts us more firmly on track for an April Fool's Day, 2015, rollout.

Malcolm applying the first fabric blanket ... this is when it gets exciting

On another front, Mal has been taping and prepping the wings for cover and has started the covering on one of the wings. There is no shortage of volunteers waiting to learn this valuable skill so I expect the shop will have a goodly share of visitors and onlookers in the weeks ahead.

Wing panel #1 and the old fabric standing by for reference

In the real world there are fly-ins to attend and the Woody's Pusher is ready and raring to go. Just this weekend, the Flying FOOLZ (Florida Order Of Lightplane Zealots) hosts their fall fly-in breakfast at the Flying W Air ranch at Bushnell FL. With over 3,100 feet of nice soft grass on the runway there's plenty of airplane parking and plenty of room for eating and visiting. It's a great group of people. Report to follow.

Go Placidly Amid the Noise and Haste ...

 These are the days of our lives ... not to be confused with the soap opera of the same name, though in some ways the pace of progress ("sands through the hourglass") keeps a fellow on the edge of his seat, waiting for something, ANYTHING to happen.

Here we are, nearly a year into the restoration of the CallAir Cadet, and I keep staring at the same stripped wings, the same bare airframe day after day, week after week. 

There is progress, however. The old door (on the left) had to be rebuilt and the new door (right) is being fitted to its rightful place. Malcolm is a very thoughtful fellow and suggested a shallow chart pocket be incorporated into the new door and that will be done. It's things like that in a cockpit that begs for storage space which lend a great deal of weight to the adage "haste makes waste", or in this case, "haste wastes an opportunity to make things just a wee bit better than they were before" and why I am not prone to champing at the bit to get this thing done NOW. 

The wood in the old window frames was pretty well shot, so Malcolm made new frames that allow more room for plexiglas area. Again, it's little things like that that keep me in a positive frame of mind as the calendar ticks off day after day. The fuel tank has been cleaned and is almost ready to go back into the fuselage (whenever THAT is ready). The whole is, indeed, the sum of its parts and Malcolm made sure I understood in the beginning that it would seem at times that no progress was being made. He was right.

One of these days, this old bird will come back to life and I, for one, will rejoice. In the meantime, 

... Woody and I ply the skyways of Central Florida in search of food, fun and frolic amid others who do the same.