Warbird Information Exchange

Been on the road for a month with the Yellow Wings tour of VWoC. Busy time, coordinating schedules, hotels, transport, flight training, airshows... and so on.

The idea was to send a flight of yellow WWII training airplanes to the west coast, and on the way east visit every training airfield from that era that's still functional. The flight contained a Harvard, Cornell (PT-26) Finch, and Stearman. (Our Tiger Moth went U/S early in the tour.)

I joined them in Windsor, and, being a volunteer, became flight lead. I took the Fairchild at that point, because we had a spare pilot and I didn't want to drive all that way. (Parked it later and moved onto the Cornell.)



On the ramp in Sarnia.



Taxying out.

The airfields of the wartime-era British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, are in some places in pretty good shape. Here's Centralia, west of London, Ontario. I met Robin there in 1980 -- did OK; brought home a trophy and a wife!



Flight training a new crew at Edenvale.



ponomrev photo

Found my spot



Dave

The "Gathering of the Classics" was well attended with a large off-the-street crowd, and about 130 aircraft made it through the showers. We're particularly proud of the arrival procedures, which allowed them all to land in 2 hours with no ATC, and no incidents bar a couple of go-arounds.

Good crowd. Good line-up.

More photos from the summer. This one at the Gathering.



This one from the Yellow Wings tour, trying to keep the crew fed (they were more interested in beer.)



This one in Welland furing that Tour, when many other WWII trainer owners joined us for a day -- the biggest collection of Fleet-built aircraft in one spot for a long, long time.

Plus I got to fly an aero display at the Waterloo Air Show. Fun stuff!







Unfortunately there are not too many photos of it. Saturday was the best weather day, but the airplane sprung a coolant leak after it came back from this wonderful heritage flight (flown by Paul Kissman -- the Air Force insisted that all members of a 3-plane have Air Force background.)



Now that was a heritage flight! Beats the snot out of the one we mounted in 2009. Terrific the way you could hear the prop and the Allison first, as the formation approached.

Anyway my aero routine that day was cancelled. Then on Sunday a forecast of showers caused most of the photographers to stay home, and although we got the P-40 fixed, and I flew the routine, Sundays are never Saturdays at airshows.

More great images and story here http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/ ... aulie.aspx

Dave

The airplane looks really good in the current issue of AVIATION HISTORY story on Fairchild.
If it wasn't for the 6 current aircraft across the ramp, the shot @ Welland almost looks period with the yellowed lighting and could be 'somewhere on the prarie'.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Hey Dave what's the non yellow plane between the Stearman and Harvard on the ramp?
I found the priarie's a great experience travelling with Yellow Wings, everyone had a story. Also have a better appreciation of what those crop dusters do. Oh yeh saw a moose in Moose Jaw!

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“Try to fly in the middle of the air. The edges are filled with mountains and oceans and rocks and it’s much harder to fly there.”

I see you made the cover photo for the Barnstormers eFlyer. Very nice!

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

The silver aircraft between the Fleet 21 (not Stearman ) and the Harvard is a Fairchild 24 (inline engine) . It was called an Argus by the RCAF

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...it was a plane adrift beneath the moon moving serenely thru beams like an angel of the night .....fair as a song ........aloof from mortal dreams

Oh yeah, look at that!



Yes indeed Steve, as Cam says, it is a Fairchild 24R -- used to be at Warplane Heritage. I met the owner and we had a good F-24 talk.

And you're right about the people you meet -- we had many conversations with WWII vets during the tour. Sure, their numbers are decreasing fast, but there are still a few very impressive 90 year-olds who must be eating something special.

And yes, there's an article in the current Aviation History about Sherman Fairchild, that brilliant man, featuring a certain F-24W photographed over the blue, blue waters of Georgian Bay. Eric Dumigan photo.

Off to the airshow at Gatineau this weekend. We plan to photograph a flight of all our 5 WWII fighters plus the F-86, plus the regular airshow full-meal-deal, and the flight with the Lancaster on Sunday's Battle of Britain day flypast at Rockcliffe. The forecast is good.

Dave

Spectacularly successful airshow weekend at Gatineau. Very sad to hear of other events in the display world, but thankfully all went well with us. Including the practice we had 4 days of warbird flying, and no incidents or accidents. And all of the birds kept flying! In fact they're all serviceable right now and could fly another airshow next weekend -- a real tribute to our maintainers.

Not enough time to post photos now, but here's a taste.



Dave

Dave, what an amazing formation to fly in. It must have been great to see. Sure wish I could have been there but I was having a little fun of my own with Richard P. Hope to see you soon. It has been a long time since our last adventure.

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The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

Dave it was great to see your display of the Kittyhawk at the Wings over Gatineau, you can see the displays evolving as everyone gets more comfortable with the aircraft. Rob's aerobatics in the Hurricane were the first I've ever seen done on this type.
Steve

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“Try to fly in the middle of the air. The edges are filled with mountains and oceans and rocks and it’s much harder to fly there.”

Eric, yes it was a wonderful thing that formation, plus I had Chris, the Snowbird Lead, in my back seat. (He was quite kind considering I've been learning formation flying at this time of my life, not as a kid in the RCAF.) Most of the time I was fully occupied with station-keeping (it was a bumpy day), but occasionally I did glance over and say to myself, "Holy cow -- this is really happening!".

One of the great things about Vintage Wings is that we fly often enough that the airplanes become tools to accomplish a job, rather than just treasured antiques. The fact that they are rare and very valuable gets pushed back into second place, and you become more concerned about the mission. (...an airplane's an airplane... almost). You actually work the airplanes.

Steve, thanks for the remarks. Yes, the P-40 is extremely maneuverable in that it rolls quickly, and you can pull quite a bit of G at low-ish speeds and it won't snap-roll. It telegraphs when it's getting close to the stall quite clearly. Which means that for an aerobatic display you can keep it close to the crowd -- not just fast passes with a roll. (I'm just figuring it all out!)

Anyway, Robin and I took the Fairchild to the Airshow. It stayed parked for the whole time as we helped out and flew in the show.



Unfortunately during Saturday's show, some numb-nuts opened the cabin door and put their kids in there. And of course once this got started there was a line-up of people to do the same thing. I was over in the lunch tent after my aero display, and Dave O says to me, "Are you really letting people sit in your airplane?" I replied with horror, "WHAT!!!" and rushed over and stopped that instantly. (I regret I was not polite, but I could hear the noise of the Master switch snapping back and forth as I got close.) This was my own fault of course. I hadn't roped-off the airplane, or locked it. (I can't believe how much I over-estimated the common-sense of the airshow public.) Anyway, I put signs in the windows, locked the doors, and then grabbed a flight of Air Cadets and positioned them strategically around the airplane. No further problems. But it was a big crowd for us, @25000, I'd never had a problem before anywhere, and all it takes is one brain-dead individual of execrable judgement to start things going the wrong way.



I'm using a line if this ever happens again: "It costs as much as a Ferrari -- would you just go and sit in someone's Ferrari???" (Actually it cost a lot less, of course, but it's a good line.)

Anyway, the airshow was superb, no other word for it. A perfect day, a large crowd, all the airplanes started and ran, and there were no incidents or accidents. The Transport Canada inspector was there and even he had nothing particular to say.

I got to beat up the place in the P-40. Legally!