Oldest Cessna

Baldeagle · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:51 pm

I was very privileged this week to ferry the world's oldest flying Cessna (I think there's an earlier Cessna aircraft at the Reynolds Museum in Canada, can anybody confirm?) from its former home in Illinois to its new home at the Eagles Mere Air Museum in Eagles Mere, PA. http://www.eaglesmereairmuseum.org/ . The aircraft was restored by Gar Williams in Naperville, IL and was Grand Champion at both Oshkosh and Blakesburg in 1981, I believe still the only aircraft to accomplish that feat. It has spent the last 5 or 6 years at the museum at Poplar Grove Airport near Rockford, IL. Gar finally decided it was time to sell and George Jenkins of the Eagles Mere museum bought it. George and Chad Wilcox flew out in a C-172 to act as chase, and on Wednesday we got the AW back in the air and ready for the trip. Early Thursday morning we headed south around Chicago and then east towards Pennsylvania.
I thought some photos might be of interest.

At Poplar Grove with Tina and Steve Thomas' Waco SRE

Poplar Grove

Bungees were sagging a little, but otherwise she was in great shape

I'm afraid that some of these are a bit over-exposed. Here's the 110 Warner engine, taken at Wynkoop Airport in Mt. Vernon, OH

Rear view, Mt. Vernon

The rudder looks ample, but is actually too small, and the airplane has a tendance to skid and slip a bit if you aren't careful, and needs some fairly large inputs to keep straight on landing

Note the tailskid, non-steering, but it pivots about 20 degrees each side. Main wheels are 26x4 clinchers with 1925 Model T Ford brakes, which work a little, just enough to help turn around at the end of the runway.

Tail again

Emblem

Entry door is about 24" across the top and about 26" top to bottom

I'm 6' 3" and had to go in head first, face up, then put my back against the far side, pull my feet in between the sticks, turn around and put my back against the door, and then work my left foot around the left stick and onto the rudder pedals. Wouldn't want to have to get out in a hurry.

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Baldeagle · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:59 pm

Some cockpit details

Sticks and instrument panel

The left stick grip was loose so I took it off so that it didn't come off at an inopportune moment.

Cockpit again

Throttle lever in middle, right knob is mixture, left knob is unused, might have been spark retard.

Left side of cockpit showing trip lever/quadrant

You pull the L-shaped lever upwards and then slide it along the quadrant to the appropriate notch. The aircraft is a little nose heavy (probably not so bad with passengers in the back), and even with full nose up trim still requires quite a bit of aft stick pressure to flare for landing.

The compass is mounted on the front of the spar behind your head. Originally the card was printed in reverse and was read via a mirror above the instrument panel, like the Spirit of St. Louis.

No reverse printed compasses could be found so Gar installed a standard Pioneer fishbowl compass. I found that it actually worked quite well and I could use the stud nearest me to line up with a number on the compass card for reference, it was just awkward having to turn around to look at it.

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Baldeagle · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:05 pm

Gar lives at Naper Aero Estates in Naperville, IL, which was right on course on the first leg from Poplar Grove to Rennsalear, IN, so I had to do some figure 8s overhead there and then do a flyby, as he had never seen the airplane fly (from the outside) before.

Photo by Gar

The AW flies quite well for a 1928 aircraft. It has frise type ailerons which are quite effective and not as heavy as the ailerons on a lot of the aircraft of that era. The rudder is too small but the 'plane is reasonably stable directionally, and you get used to it. Elevator is pretty normal, not too heavy, and effective. I ran the 110 Warner at 1675 rpm, which produced a cruise of about 90 mph-- when they raced them back in 1928 they got 125 mph out of them, probably at full power. It would out-climb the 2000 C-172 with 160 hp fuel injected Lycoming and two people on board. Stall was about 45 mph, and one of the surprises was the sharp break and wing drop. A base-to-final stall would be a bad event. It was about 9 flying hours over two days from Poplar Grove to Eagles Mere, the longest leg was from Mt. Vernon, OH to Somerset, PA, 2:25, and after being jammed into that small cockpit for that long I had to walk around the ramp for a while to straighten out my legs. There are two 22 gallon wing tanks, and fuel burn was about 7 gph.

It was quite an amazing experience, and thanks to Gar Williams and George Jenkins for making it possible.

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CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:34 pm

Who needs a compass if you just fly IFR (I Follow Roads)?

The Inspector · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:31 pm

DC-9/MD-80's compasses were mounted behind the cockpit seats on the cockpit aft wall and read through a teeny 1.25X3 inch 'makeup mirror' mounted on the upper lip of the crash pad, should be easy and fairly cheap to locate one now that so many are being retired and scrapped out.
The AW is a very graceful design and very forward thinking in design.

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:33 pm

Very nice. Good pictures, too!

Ryan

AvroAvian · **Posted:** Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:25 am

What a machine! Thanks for posting.

gamary · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2011 5:08 pm **Posts:** 27

Great posting and pictures! Thanks for sharing.

Dave Hadfield · **Joined:** Sun Sep 17, 2006 10:31 pm **Posts:** 1672

Very cool!

Nice to see it still with a tailskid, too.

Dave

stearmoth · **Posted:** Sun Aug 14, 2011 12:47 pm

Thank you very much for posting those nice pictures, Baldeagle!!!!!
We have been at the museum in Poplar Grove about 3 weeks ago and have been told that this Cessna (most beautiful Cessna, isn't it?) will leave for another place in a few weeks. Since we have not been able to take nice photographs of this aeroplane in the museum, we are very grateful, that you took and posted them!!!!

Keep them flying!!!
We enjoyed our stay in the US very much!

Hans & Sam, Switzerland

Airplanejunkie · **Posted:** Mon Aug 15, 2011 8:21 pm

I saw the AW last Saturday up at Eagles Mere. Pretty amazing!! Alas, I failed "Remembering Camera 101."

Baldeagle · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:15 am

Great video thanks to Steve Thomas at Poplar Grove:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2j4qsCV_24

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Roger Cain · **Posted:** Thu Aug 18, 2011 9:30 pm

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

Canso42 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 24, 2011 4:51 pm

Thanks for sharing the story and pix. Steve's video is pretty neat too. I'd never heard of an AW before, so I learned something this week. It's easy to see the 195's ancestry here.

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