Well, it was a good day. The weather looked threatening a couple of times, but it decided to take its' nastiness elsewhere.

American Barnstormers at Council Bluffs Airport.

     
       By the time I got there at 2:30, Terry Lamm was already there flying
his H9 Sopwith Camel. Terry was giving the plane a good workout
when I drove in to the field. He told me he had replaced the stock
wheels with Williams Bros. 5" wheels, and says it improves ground
handling noticeably. That was good to hear, since ground handling
has been the Achilles heel of this model. (As I was to be reminded
later.)

       I put up the Easy-Up and started putting airplanes together, when
Larry Bailey pulled up. I stopped and talked for a bit, then
watched as Terry took his Dynaflite SE5a up for a patrol. His sure
flies nice with that 1.20 up front, turning a 17" prop.
I decided that I should go up, too, and fired up the trusty Os .91,
taxied out and took off. I flew around for about ten minutes and
landed.

       We looked to the northwest and noticed dark clouds coming in. About
this time Larry Puls showed up with his Dynaflite SE5a, followed by
John Gilbert. While we were setting up Larry's plane, Terry flew
the H9 Sopwith again.

       Then I took My SE5a up again, doing loops, Split-S turns, etc. I
had fun with it. This was the first time I had flown it since
moving the CG forward, and the added weight to the nose helped
the "pitchy feeling quite a bit, as I had hoped it would.
By this time, Larry was ready for us to fly his plane. After
finding a glow starter that worked, we got it running and taxied
out. I fed in power, and it lifted nicely. I was enjoying his
plane, which was flying nicely. I was going to do one more pass,
then hand it off to him to fly. I was in the process of setting up
for a last "high speed pass" when suddenly parts started coming off
the plane. I immediately chopped throttle, and somebody yelled "It
lost its' rudder!", but as it came closer I could tell that it was
actually the right horizontal stab and elevator. They had
completely departed the aircraft! I expexted to lose control any
time, but I eased it around in a descending turn to bleed off the
altitude, lined up on the runway, and made the best landing "one
elevator landing" I've ever done.

       Fortunately both elevators have their own pushrod, so the plane
never handled as badly as one would expect. Even so, I was stunned
when we went out to the field to retrieve the plane. Not only was it
totally missing the right stab and elevator, but the left was broken
and wobbly, too. So we came quite close to losing the plane
altogether. Fortunately Larry will be able to rebuild a stab and
elevator and be back in the air soon. We aren't sure what caused
the failure. Flutter? Fatigue? Who knows? We never did find the
elevator and stab that departed the aircraft. The experience was
enough to make Terry decide that he'll be adding support wires to
his SE5a tail surfaces.
      

       Well, after nearly destroying Larry's plane, I decided it was time
to tear up one of my own. I fired up the Magnum .91 on my H9
Sopwith Camel, taxied out to the runway, and fed in throttle.
Obviously I had gotten spoiled by the smooth takeoffs with the SEs,
because I wasn't on my toes when it started getting squirrelly.
Realizing that I was "behind" the airplane, I chopped throttle while
it was still on the ground. Other than flipping on its' back, no
harm was done.

       Back to the pits, restarted the engine, taxied back to the field,
engine dies. Back to the pits, but it won't start and stay running
this time. Probably needs the glow plug replaced, since it's the
one I broke the engine in with. So my H9 Camel lives to fly another
day, as I didn't have a replacement with me.
By this time the darker clouds had passed by, and the wind had
died. We flew Terry's SE5a, passing the transmitter around until we
ran his plane out of fuel! The resulting off-field landing failed
to damage anything, but now Terry knows not to fly his plane for
longer than 20 minutes. *grin*

       Then we flew a couple of foam WW1 planes I had brought, a Sopwith
Triplane and an SE5a. Terry was surprised that the Sopwith seemed
so stable, considering that it's not a big plane.
After that I started breaking things down to leave, and started to
notice that I was missing SEVERAL of the screws that hold the wings
on my SE5a. Then I thought back, and realized that I had stopped
tightening them all when I went to greet Larry Bailey when he first
came in. So I had been flying my Dynaflite SE5a with half the
screws loose! Loops, rolls, etc., with some of them missing after
they vibrated out! Yikes! That should have ended badly, with an
airplane going home in a bag. Very lucky I was, indeed. Won't do
THAT again!

       So we dodged the bad weather and flirted with disaster, but we
lucked out. A good time was had by all, and nobody took a plane
home in a bag. (Which just means we really weren't trying hard
enough! LOL!)

       If you weren't there, you missed a good time. But there's always
next month, so mark August 3rd on your calendar! See you there!

"Contact!"
Dean Dingman in Omaha

Larry Puls - 1929 Travel Air 4000