Workday Progress ReportWorkday Progress Report

August 2013August 2013

Cover Photo by Scott Blair

August saw the Tri-City Flyers host a “Wounded Warrior” R/C Fly-In Benefit event on the flying field. Pioneer Flight Museum also hosted the “In-Liners” car club - a group dedicated to in-line en-gines and the automobiles they powered. So not a lot got done in some ways, as many of the volun-teers were drafted into tour guide duties. The heat was bearable (mainly) and we had a good turn-out for the sole workday held during the month.

AIRCRAFT ACTIVITIES

Thomas-Morse S-4C Not much activity on the Thomas-Morse projects in August. Mike and Don Craig did an assessment of the T-2 sheet metal fairings and panels and worked out a methodology to get the team over that hurdle. Mike says he will bring his sheet met-

al tools next workday and start working the issues.

Triplane Usually we like to fly the Triplane when we have crowds like this, but the wind was perpendicular to the runway and varied from light to moderate gusts. So the Triplane’s engine was started and run for the crowd twice, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. The engine started first flip and ran flawlessly.

Pioneer Flight Museum

501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization www.pioneerflightmuseum.org

190 Pershing Lane Kingsbury, Texas 78638

Founder - Roger M. Freeman

PFM Board Members

Steve Freeman Tom Gaylord Terry Bledsoe David Miller Richard Smith PFM Officers Roger Ritter — Web Master

2013 Old Kingsbury Aerodrome Calendar2013 Old Kingsbury Aerodrome Calendar2013 Old Kingsbury Aerodrome Calendar

May 4/5 Kingsbury Spring Fly-In Tri-City Flyers R/C Club

May 11 2013 Spring Air Fair Fly-In Pioneer Flight Museum

Aug 17 Wounded Warrior R/C Fly-In Event Tri-City Flyers R/C Club Oct. 5/6 Celebration of Flight / Memorial Fly-In Tri-City Flyers R/C Club

Nov. 9 2013 Fall Fly-In Pioneer Flight Museum

Left: Don Craig showboats for the camera! Don and

his son, Mike were looking over the belly former and

sheet metal fairing issues on T-2

Above: The Triplane on one of its ground runs. The

engine ran strong, but the winds prevented the aircraft

from flying. Doug Ratchford photo

Fokker D.VII The D.VII was pulled from the hangar and set out on display. All the airplanes were fairly dusty - aside from the usual weather-proofing issues on the hangar someone had pulled out a large indus-trial fan and set it up in the hangar to keep work-

ers cool, apparently. Turning it on immediately creates clouds of dust and dirt in the hangar. Most of the airplanes need a bath.

Canuck The Canuck was pulled from the hangar and put out on display, and Dave Edgerly and Dave Orloff started working on troubleshooting why the en-gine was so stiff and vibrated when the prop was pulled through. They quickly established that a few drops of oil on the water pump shaft relieved most of the problem almost immediately! So the decision was made to try and start the engine for the crowd.

Dave Orloff is about the only guy big enough to really swing that prop, especially when the motor is stiff! Dave O. set to work while Dave Edgerly sat

Above: Mike Craig runs up the Triplane. Doug

Ratchford photo

Below: The crowd watching an engine run

Below: The Fokker D.VII replica on display

Above: The Canuck in the Museum’s display line-up

Doug Ratchford photo

Below: The Canuck’s cockpit

Scott Blair photo

in the cockpit and managed the controls. Dave Orloff was eventually relieved by Mike Craig as the engine showed little sign of life. Big Dave took over when Mike got wore out and was finally able to get the engine to run. Dave E. wasn’t entirely happy with the engine’s performance - it felt a

little rough over 1200 rpm, he suspects we’ll need to adjust the valves and double-check the ignition timing. In the afternoon, Steve flew the Canuck with Char-lotte as passenger, the flight being uneventful.

Steve and Roger have conferred about the trou-blesome water pump. Steve has a son who is an engineer, so the plan is to take the best water pump we have and have him make drawings of the existing parts, then modify the design to incor-porate modern bearings, shafts, shields and seals - essentially make a better “mousetrap”! See whether that works….

Meyers OTW June - Steve reports that the Meyers, OTW is done and ready to return to Texas! Hopefully we’ll see it in September! Steve would really like to get the Meyers OTW and the Ercoupe out of his hangar!!

Ercoupe Even after the engine swap the Ercoupe was expe-riencing temperature issues, so Steve has done some light engine freshening work and set about overhauling the baffling within the cowling. Steve reports that the process is nearing a conclusion and he hopes to try flying the aircraft again soon.

Rearwin Sportster The Rearwin stayed in the hangar the entire day, but it was good to see that the airs continued to hold air! In fact, all the aircraft that recently had tire or inner tube work done were holding air sat-isfactorily.

Rearwin Ken-Royce We finally got some varnish on the wing panel thanks to Steve Richardson, Tom Miller, and Scott Blair! They finished stripping the wing to allow ac-cess to the wood and cleaned some of the accu-mulated dust off the wing before setting about varnishing the wing and elevator. Due to the dry-

Above: the crew prepares the Canuck for an engine

run. Doug Ratchford photo

Below: Dave Orloff (right) recuperates after finally

getting the Canuck propped

Left: Charlotte Parker snags some Canuck stick time.

Pop quiz—is this a high speed pass or a low speed

pass? Answer: How can you tell the difference?

Dave Orloff photo

ing time of the varnish only one side of the wing was completed. Next workday we’ll need to finish varnishing this wing panel and see how much of the mud dauber nests we can get out of the leading edges. We also

need to figure out a way to store the panels that will better protect them. It’ll also be time to pull another wing panel down from the wall and begin prepping it for varnish.

Ryan PT-22 Steve’s PT-22 is out of annual, so couldn’t be flown. He spent some time getting it all legal to fly again - which was a good thing! His truck had to go into the shop and didn’t come out in time, so Ste-ve flew home in the airplane!

TEAM VEHICLES

Model Ts With the R/C event on the field and the In-Liners Club visiting Team Vehicles spent much of their time talking T’s with visitors and giving rides. Kurt Maurer spent much of his day driving the Sig-nal Corps truck and reports the steering / handling is vastly improved since Ian tightened up the front end. In looking into Kurt’s complaints Ian found that the front axle’s kingpins were somewhat loose so he tightened them to Ford’s specs. Previ-ously the vehicle would over-steer into turns - and the faster you were going the worse the tendency. Kurt reports that charming tendency is mostly a thing of the past thanks to Ian’s efforts! Cameron Whitaker and Steve Penaluna serviced the Wrecker prior to Lynn taking it out for a drive. Lynn loaded up Killer and a passenger into the truck and started out and says he got about 50 yards before it stopped running. After sitting awhile it restarted, so he believes it may have a clogged fuel filter. Lynn also replaced the leaking fuel shut-off valve on the Wrecker and replaced it with a spare he happened to have in his car. Lynn also tried firing up the Blue Racer, only to discover it has a serious radiator leak, so the car was quickly parked. All in all, almost all the T’s ex-cept for the ambulances got started and run.

Thor Motorcycle Steve Freeman has a Thor motorcycle that has had a little work done on it several years ago. Kevin Monahan has taken the bits and pieces to his

Above: Scott Blair (foreground left), Tom Miller

(background left) and Steve Richardson varnishing

the Rearwin’s wing panel

Below: The wing at the end of the workday—looking

great in its new coat of varnish!

Scott Blair photo

home workshop to finish the restoration job. The

documentation with the bike indicates it is a Thor IV and is either a 1909, 1910, or 1912 model. Kev-in says the serial number is upper three digits which may lean towards an earlier year of manu-facture. Kevin says the engine made only 4 horse-power and has the heaviest flywheel he’s ever seen on a bike engine!

Indian Kevin Monahan repaired the dented Indian front forks. It appears the bike may have been involved in a minor accident at some point as the fork trav-el stops had dented the backside of one of the fork tubes. Kevin disassembled the front end and re-paired the dent, reassembled the bike and it is running again.

Triumph Dave Edgerly spent some time learning how to operate the Triumph. Dave wants to take the Tri-umph to the annual Harvest Classic bike event in the Austin area. (Kevin wants to take the Indian, though the event is for vintage European and Jap-anese motorcycles!). Dave plans on trying to ped-dle a few T-shirts and stir up some interest in PFM.

MISCELLANEOUS

Shop Hangar Repair Charlotte has been having problems with one of the shop’s hangar doors catching on the siding when the hangar door is opened. Terry (and Char-lotte) set about tucking the siding back under the door trim and pop riveting it in place. The process entailed a forklift to gain the necessary altitude!

Above: The “Thor” logo on the frame

Below: The bits and pieces on the workbench

Both photos by Kevin Monahan

Below: Detail on the Thor’s engine case

Kevin Monahan photo

Above: The Museum’s 1921 Triumph between test

rides by Dave Edgerly

Donations McCulloch 100 - Steve had an acquaintance deliver a McCulloch 100 two-stroke flat-four engine and manual to his shop in Memphis as a donation for the museum. These engines were used to power early drones. Interesting little piece of technology!

Wounded Warrior R/C Fly-In The Tri City Flyers Model Aviation Club co-hosted a model aircraft fly-in as part of an international ef-fort to publicize the hobby of model aviation - the United States had 220 clubs around the nation hosting similar events. Proceeds from the Kings-bury event went to the Wounded Warrior Project. The R/C club selected the Warrior and Family Sup-port Center (WFSC) as the beneficiary for the event. The 12,500 sq. ft. WFSC is located at Ft.

Sam Houston, adjacent to the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC). The WSFC provides co-ordinated services for patients, next-of-kin and extended family members for those wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. The WSFC provides a friendly, comforta-ble environment featuring lounges, big screen TV’s, video games, OCs, library and telephones. In

Above: Terry working on the shop hangar door frame

Doug Ratchford photos

Above: The donated McCulloch drone engine

Above: One of the WWI R/C airplanes flying at the

event. Photo by Ratch

Below: Part of the R/C jet contingent

addition, the Center coordinates more than 100 events per month such as trips to Sea World, mu-seums, baseball games, movies and many more outings. The Tri City Flyers organized and ran the event with the American Legion Post 593 from Converse, Texas donating & cooking food for the participants and guests. SWBC Financial Services provided fi-nancial support. The event was a wonderful success with 42 pilots and many visitors and raised over $1000 for the WSFC. Congratulations and “Thank You” to all who assisted with the event!

In-Liners Auto Club The In-Liners Auto Club visited PFM during the workday—they’d already sent out some “scouts” to check us out but this time the group was much larger. And they brought their cars with them! So while they were looking over our stuff, we were all looking over their stuff. And they had some very tasty vehicles!

Air Cannon Al Sumrall bought a golf ball air cannon (M1916 37mm look alike) from an acquaintance of his so Kingsbury has a cannon now! This thing shoots both Nerf style darts (about 75 feet), and standard golf balls (about 200 yards at higher air pressures)! Al has plans to paint it up, make some functional

Left: Two of the great automobiles driven out by the

In-Liner’s Auto Club

Above & Below: More photos of the vehicles brought

out by the car club. Photos by Ratch

Below: Al Sumrall’s new entertainment!

improvements to make it work better and look more accurate - and most importantly, have fun. Al is already talking smack about shooting down R/C airplanes and setting up a target range with “German infantry & tanks”. Al reports that this type of weapon has quite a bit of historical significance. The gun was mounted in FT-17 tanks and the SPAD XII carried this gun so it has a WWI aviation pedigree also. Its WWII succes-sors would have been the 75MM pack howitzer and the bazooka. Last US use was in the Philip-pines against the Japanese! Al has a link to some additional information about this type of cannon; http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/120342-m1916-37mm-cannon/

Field Bike Ian Whitaker has been working on getting one of the surplus USMC Kawasaki KLR motorcycles to run and had made good progress. Kevin Monahan completed the job, taking the bike to his home

shop to thoroughly clean out the entire fuel sys-tem and effect some small repairs. The bike runs great now! That long travel suspension sure makes running errands around the field quicker, easier, and fairly comfortable! Great job guys! That sums up August’s activities. In September we will begin ramping up for the Fall Fly-In (11/9)! Mark your calendars!!

Above: Oooohh-RAH!!

Above: The Triplane running up! Below: Storing the Bleriot after a hard day on display! Photos by Ratch

Bleriot Data Plate Photo by Ratch

Charlotte gets a new hairstyle compliments of the Canuck!

Photo by Dave Orloff

Dave Edgerly guns the OX-5 Scott Blair photo

Scott Blair Photo