| Welcome! |
| This
issue is a tad later in the month than we'd prefer, but
the combination of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2009, along
with a delay as we finalized some of the details about
our lead story, pushed us a bit later in the month than
we'd prefer. We hope the lead item was worth the wait
for many of you! |
H.G. Frautschy
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The annual EAA Fly-In and Convention was a resounding
success, with more than 800 showplanes in the Vintage
area, 10,000 airplanes on all of Wittman Field, and our
campgrounds filled to near capacity. Plenty of cool,
pleasant weather and amazing aircraft combined to make
Oshkosh 2009 one of our best yet! We'll be sharing many
of the sights and sounds of the annual get-together in
the coming months in both Vintage Airplane magazine and
online; we look forward to sharing it all with you.
Vintage Aircraft
Online is
intended to be an interactive newsletter in the sense
that we not only encourage your input but also need
the collective brainpower of all of you to keep us
posted on the latest happenings in the world of
vintage aircraft. We’ll be reading what you post
within Oshkosh 365, and of course we’ll
gather input from various sources, but the best and
most informed group of reporters within aviation is
you! Drop us an e-mail at vintageaircraft@eaa.org
and let us know how we’re doing, what you’d like
to see, and most importantly, feel free to contribute!
-H.G. Frautschy |
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| News |
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| Vintage
DER |
| We
received great news during the annual EAA Convention
and Fly-In that the FAA had approved our proposal and
created a new designation within the Designated
Engineering Representative (DER) program- designated
engineering representatives |
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| for
vintage aircraft or vintage DERs (VDERs). The
culmination of two years of effort by EAA, VAA and FAA
staff, the new VDER designation should help reduce the
cost and complexity of obtaining engineering approvals
for vintage aircraft. DERs essentially are
engineers-for hire, recognized by the FAA for their
knowledge of a particular aircraft system-engines,
electrical, structural. Read
more |
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| EAA
AirVenture 2009 Grand Champion Antique |
| According
to the antique airplane judges at EAA AirVenture
Oshkosh 2009, the Waco RNF restored by Joseph
Kaminskas of Biglerville, Pennsylvania was just
about perfect. The 1930 biplane, fresh from its
restoration, was one of the highlights in the vintage
antique parking area. |
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The
morning after his aircraft was awarded the Gold
Lindy for being the top antique airplane, before he
hopped in and took off for home, Joe took a few
moments to tell us about his airplane. Watch the
video here. |
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Great
Web Links
We run across great links regularly as we surf
the web. Here are a few websites we’ve enjoyed
in the past month or so: |
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 Okay, one of the sites is ours, but Joe and Jeri Norris had such a great time on their trip to the
50th annual Waco Reunion at Wynkoop Airport in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, that we need to share it with all of you. Here’s a link to their slideshow:
click
here.
Thanks to a head’s up from Dick and Patsy Jackson, we got a great view of the goings-on at
Waco Reunion from a professional photographer who also attended. Check it out
here.
One of the most commonly asked questions of us here in the Vintage office is “What kind of old
wood propeller do I have?” One of the great things about the web is the incredible breadth of information available on the internet, and sure enough, there’s a website for that question too! Visit it at
http://www.woodenpropeller.com.
And for enthusiasts of World War I aircraft, you’ll spend an evening digging around the website of the
FOKKER-TEAM-SCHORNDORF. Creators of some of the world’s most accurate replicas of German fighters from the “Great War,” there are plenty of photos of their work. View it at
http://www.fokker-team.de
Just as we were finalizing this issue, we received an e-mail from Eye Revolution, a firm in London, England. They’ve just completed a couple of virtual tours of the
Percival Mew Gull and the Miles M.12 Mohawk for the RAF Museum. You can view them here:
Mew Gull
Miles M.12
Why not share your web
find with your fellow Vintage Aircrafters? Just drop us
an e-mail at vintageaircraft@eaa.org with the link, and we’ll get it in the next Vintage
Aircraft Online! |
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| EAA's
efforts to compile an oral history of aviation's
pioneers and those who have helped make aviation
such a fascinating part of our nation's history
has culminated in EAA's Timeless
Voices project. |
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| Hundreds of videos are now
archived at EAA Headquarters. We continue to
create online versions of those videos so that
members and others who have an interest in
aviation can watch and learn from those who have
come before us. This month's featured interview
is Ward Stryker.
Born
in 1912 in Arkansas City, Kansas, Ward had his
first airplane ride at age 7 from a young
barnstormer named Walter Beech. At age 15 he
convinced the superintendent at the Swallow
Aircraft Company in Wichita that he was old
enough to work and was hired as a wing builder.
When the Swallow plant was forced to close in
1929, Ward was lucky enough to get hired at
Cessna as a rib builder, but was laid off two
years later. After several years working in the
Kansas oil fields, he went to work at Lockheed
in Burbank, California, where he built Ventura
bombers and other Lockheed aircraft until 1946.
View the video
here.
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| For
our next visit to EAA's Hints For Homebuilders
video series, here's a handy video for those of
us who have to do some welding on our steel tube
structure.
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Earl
Luce, an active homebuilder, demonstrates a
handy way to create a quick welding jig.
For those of you who have built model airplanes
using a ceiling tile and pins through the plans
to hold the parts in place, the method will be
familiar! Watch
it here. |
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| There's
such a wealth of information contained in the
pages of VAA's Vintage Airplane magazine,
as well as EAA's flagship publication, EAA
Sport Aviation, that we're just bursting at
the archive seams! |
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| Back
in 1972, one of the more ambitious homebuilt
projects was completed by Bill Turner, in
California. Bill had decided to build a replica
of a golden age air racer, the Brown Special,
"Miss Los Angeles" first built in
1934. Turner's replica graced the cover of the
November, 1972 issue of Sport Aviation,
and Turner himself wrote the article about the
creation of the replica. Bill Turner would go on
to build a number of other replica racers,
including the Gee Bee Z, Miles & Atwood
Special, and the Howard Pete. Here's Bill
Turner's article on building the Brown Special. Read
more |
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| Question
of the Month
Q. How many hours
a year do you fly your vintage airplane?
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