Warbird Information Exchange

Then up to Edenvale for lunch, and to watch the boys work on the Champ and the Piel Diamant, and then home.





Matt W photos.


I get a very good feeling when I manage to bring her back into service. Vindicated! Triumphant! Like a load has been lifted...

Dave

Congratulations Very cool project and thread.

_________________
Better is the enemy of Good.

Thanks!

It's funny how a thread like this tends to grow on its own. Today I received a package of photos from Gord Emberley, who flew CF-EKC commercially in the Bush. Here he is in 1954, SE of giant Reindeer Lake in NW Manitoba, at a place called Herriot, on the Russell River. (I don't know what was there then, but a peek at GoogleEarth shows nothing at all there now.)



The caption on the back of the photo says, "Cylinder change", and the dog's name was Patty. (Looks like the kind of place where you'd like to have a good dog.) I think I found the entry in the Journey Log from 1954.

A look at the logbook for that summer shows many cylinder changes -- too many!





From what Gord told me they had scored big-time with a cache of spare parts for the Warner, including plenty of exhaust valves. The price was cheap. What they didn't know was all those valves were rejects; being sold instead of destroyed, courtesy of some unscrupulous supplier.

More photos from 1954. These were taken during the end-of-season change-over from floats to wheels. This first one shows his young son David, taken in The Pas.



Typical bush facilities...



At least there are no bugs that time of year...



Dave

Then in a total coincidence, I was reading an old issue of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society while having breakfast in Hong Kong the other day, and noticed a page of F-24 photos -- and two of them were EKC! (That suremade me snort my coffee...)

The first is from its time as a private floatplane. The owner then was Capt. Bill Barnes, who was one of the old "originals" at Trans-Canada Airlines. (Apparently he was the F/O on the first transcon sched flight in 1938 on a Lockheed 10A.) He used it to get to his cottage for about 5 years, but sold it shortly after the photo.



I see the paint job has been changed from the factory scheme. I had no idea it was red-and-gold. I think that would look pretty sharp!

The next is after it's transition to permanent landplane (at least I think it's permanent), and once again I had no idea it was white-and-blue. It's hard to tell with these old black-and-white photos.



Soon after this photo was taken it was again recovered and painted its current colours.

Lots of interesting stuff in those old CAHS Journals...

Dave

Plus a great stack of cache` for the timeline of your baby, nice find!

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Next winter when you need something to do, you can go back to the red and gold.

_________________
"I love the smell of 100LL in the morning."

We took an actual vacation, a 3 week cruise in SE Asia, starting in Singapore and finishing in Hong Kong. There was no aviating, other than as a pax, but lots of scary boat stuff!



Stopped in 6 ports along the way. Vietnam shore-fishermen still use basket-boats.



Anyway, on EKC, I wanted to make mud-guards for winter. (Wheel pants of course tend to jam up with snow, which then freezes and locks your wheels. And if you take them off then the lower surface of the wing gets sprayed.) So I tried the English Wheel. That's interesting! Very cool to see a flat piece of metal distort into compound curves, all by hand.



I got them made, but before I could think about installing them, and starting the paperwork, summer arrived -- in March! Very strange warm temperatures. So I put them on the shelf and installed the wheel pants instead. This photo was just sent to me by Gus Corrivo, taken at the Gathering last year at Edenvale.

Then went to Gatineau for some rust-remover flying on the Tiger -- a dozen circuits in a strong, blustery crosswind, fortunately onto a wide grass surface. And also attended the "Warbird U Spitfire Ground School". (I'm slated to fly the Hurricane, not the Spit, but you never know...)

Took about 200 photos that night in the hangar, for a Tiger Moth Ground School. What a lousy model... I'm sure not Vanna White...





And then got to fly the P-40. It was just a post-maintenance test flight, to see if the drop-tank is now feeding properly (it's not -- burp, cough, fart x 12 cylinders) but it's always great to fly that airplane, especially after a winter lay-up.

Someone took a video of my return...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3WRVbTB0Wg

Dave

Got a photo from Joe C, who was watching the Allison for rad leaks that day.

Nothing to report regarding the Fairchild, but I spent 4 very busy days at Vintage Wings, finally getting the chance to fly the Hurricane.

It's hard to believe, but I had carte blanche last year to fly it, and couldn't arrange for it to happen. Getting together -- all in one place -- a serviceable airplane, instructor, weather, and the time free, just never happened. (Mind you, being on the road for a month with Yellow Wings was good fun too.) It's hard to understand, but that's the pace of some of these old-airplane summers...

Suiting up, outside the cockpit, so that the straps don't tangle up.



Anyway, we've had work done on that Merlin -- it's a post-war -500 out of a Casa 2111 -- and it is SMOOOOOTH... I hate to say it, but it was smoother than the Allison. Started easily and purred...





The airplane is a bit funky. It flies quite nicely when it's cleaned up. The ailerons are nicer than I expected, and it rolls well, although not as well as the P-40. But it isn't fast. It seems to want to cruise at about 160 kts. And when you dive for a bit of speed to begin aeros, it takes a more nose-down attitude, for longer, to get the entry speeds.



But of course it's impossible not to look out at that wing, and those cannons, and the roundel, and not be thrilled!



Landing is weird. The huge split flaps, which extend nearly straight down, almost blank out the elevators, and if you pull the power to idle so that the prop becomes a disc, the elevators hardly work at all. Thus you must keep a trickle of power on all the time, but that's extremely hard to manipulate because the throttle tension is atrocious -- it's both very very stiff, and yet it creeps! (Known, common Hurricane fault.) On my first flight I never did sort it out. The throttle ended up too much or too little, each time causing the nose to pop up or down, and I landed on the pavement like a jumping bean. Fortunately the gear is quite forgiving, and the aircraft tends to roll straight. Very kind of it, really, to look after me so well.



On my second landing, next day, I wound all the tension off, tried to remember to re-set it if I to do a go-around, got into a groove, and rode it down onto a wheel-landing that squeaked-on in the approved ego-stroking fashion.

Very windy cockpit. I was glad to have the goggles on my helmet -- I used them. (You can see what my instructor, the illustrious Rob Erdos, refers to as the "Merlin Grin".)



And then, once parked, just in case I was ever likely to forget soloing a Hurricane, the occasion was made wetly memorable.



Dave

Dave,
You look quite at home in the Hurricane.

Jim

Some people just have too much fun...
Glad to hear that she's running smooth now. Had a small hand in helping Paul get the valve timing fixed up.

Terry

Dave,

What's the writing below the cockpit? Is that a sponsor of the aircraft? If so I must say that it is the most effective way of doing so as it blends in and looks like it belongs. They even got the font right on the "Is your O2 cylinder turned on?" Pretty neat and much better than slapping a tramp stamp or sticker on it.

I really hope you guys bring it to Geneseo this year!!!

Awesome thread!

Pete

Pete,

I know you asked Dave, but I can answer...

All of the VWC aircraft are dedicated to someone who either flew the type or in the type during the war. That's the text that you see on the side of the cockpit. In the case of the MK IV it's dedicated to FL Donald "Bunny" McLarty. Sorry I don't have Bunny's story in my head so I can't give you details.

Dave's other ride, the P40 is dedicated to our last living WWII ace, Stocky Edwards. The Kittyhawk is actually painted in the colours of an aircraft that Stocky flew in North Africa.

An example of an aircraft dedicated to a passenger vs a pilot is our Lysander. The Lizzie is dedicated to Cliff Stewart who made a habit of running around behind enemy lines setting up radios and occasionally blowing things up. He credited the fact that he made it to 91 years of age to the Lizzie. Of the group of six that he trained with, he was the only one to see the end of the war.

Terry