By:      Norm Goyer

The Westland Whirlwind was first used in 1935. It was an excellent low level fighter.

I have always been attracted to aircraft which I thought had beautiful lines from all angles. All aircraft designers are faced with two problems. They know an aircraft has to be appealing to look at and in addition, must be functional in performance and comfort for the intended passenger count. Translation, single seat fighters with a long inverted V or in line engine have the sleekest nose which may end with a spinner which is an extension of the cowling. The best illustration is the all time beautiful, yet functional North American P-51 Mustang. This particular aircraft grew more beautiful as it matured over its World War II years in service. Initially the Mustang had a cockpit which was part of the fuselage. The original P-51 A,  and C did not possess the lines of the D model with the bubble canopy and smaller rear fuselage. It would be hard to find any aircraft that rivaled the beauty of the Mustang. Or would it?

The de Havilland Mosquito was one of Britain's most successful fighter bombers. It was of wood construction.

I was stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, NY for a brief time while in Navy flight training waiting for the next class to start. One day I was on the ramp and a small flight of Grumman F7F Tigercats flew in. Wow, this was a beautiful aircraft. I had built a “shelf model”, now there is a term that many younger folks haven’t heard of. They were also called “solid models” and they were about 12 inches in wingspan and were carved out of balsa or pine and painted. These evolved into the current “plastic models” that were ready to assemble. I had built a solid model of the Grumman XF-5 Skyrocket and it was an interesting airplane but frankly it was just a tad ugly. To me the F7F was the epitome of beauty. That is until I discovered three British twin engine aircraft.

The first one that caught my eye was the  very unusual Whirlwind 1935 design by Westland. The Whirlwind   had a full bubble canopy and a T-tail. The Whirlwind was an outstanding aircraft with four 20 mm cannon which raised havoc with ground targets. Unfortunately, the Rolls 885 hp Peregrine engines were not of the same quality as the larger Merlins in the Spitfire, Hurricane and Mustang. They were not as powerful and proved to be slightly unreliable. But there were other problems as well. The aircraft had limited range, under 300 miles combat radius, which made it marginal as an escort. More troublesome were the continued failures of the Peregrine engine. It was originally intended to be one of Rolls’ main designs, but the Merlin had become much more important to the war effort and the Peregrine was relegated to a secondary status and development cancelled (there being no other aircraft needing the engine); the first deliveries of Peregrine engines did not reach Westland until January 1940 But the aircraft was a winner in the looks department.

The German Messerschmitt Bf. 110 was a similar fighter bomber.

Aircraft designers in World War II years were hampered by lack of larger engines which they could update the aircraft for more speed and vertical performance. In many cases the answer to success in the air was the ability to climb very fast and to “get out of Dodge” even faster. The maximum sized engine was the Merlin and the double row Wasp radial from Pratt & Whitney. Larger radials such as the corn cob were not available until almost the end of the war. The only answer the designers had was to install more engines and build slightly larger aircraft to carry the extra weight of two engines and the fuel to keep them running. Enter the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the British Mosquito, Hornet and the Whirlwind. Germany had several including the very effective Messerschmitt Bf.110. To me, twin booms such as the Lightning are awkward while the lines of the Hornet are almost flawless.

The de Havilland Hornet was essentially a Super Mosquito with low profile Merlins, laminar flow wing and a large dorsal fin. It was not used in World War II.

There is no doubt that the deHavilland built some beautiful aircraft including the twin engine biplane Rapide.  The de Havilland Hornet was actually the Super Mosquito with lower frontal profile Merlins which added to the streamlining which cut drag. The tail was metal with a larger dorsal fin and the wings were thinner with a laminar flow airfoil similar to the Mustang. The  cockpit was moved forward for better pilot visibility.  The Hornet was designed for use in the South Pacific against the Japanese. The Hornet was also used on British aircraft carriers.  The Hornet did not arrive for duty until 1946 but was involved in aerial combat during the English Malaysian conflict. The Hornet broke many speed records for both twin engine aircraft and wooden aircraft. As you can see by looking at the photograph, it was indeed a beautifully designed aircraft from any angle. The coming jet age wrote the end to prop driven fighter aircraft.

The only true helicopter used in combat during World War II was the twin rotor Flettner. It was used on ships.

I was humming along at about 100 knots flying south following the Connecticut River just over the Massachusetts state line enjoying the open air cockpit in my Fairchild PT-19. It was in the early 1950s and the fall foliage colors were in full bloom. A few miles into Connecticut I noticed a very weird aircraft flying beneath me. It had two rotor blades mounted on the cabin about six feet apart and they were spinning in opposite directions, intermeshing. I had never seen anything like that helicopter before. I was approaching restricted airspace so it was time to do a 180 and head home.

The Kaman Husky, built in the United States, was a similar type of intermeshing twin rotors.

One of my pilot buddies knew what it was immediately,. He told me that Kaman Helicopters were building this type of helicopter and were even testing a jet powered version. He had heard that it had very good lifting abilities and didn’t need a tail rotor as there was no tendency to pivot because the turning forces were cancelled out with the counter rotating rotor blades.  I filed the info onto my hard drive in my head and promptly forgot about it.

The Piasecki helicopter also used twin rotors in a tandem configuration.

Many years later I was writing an article about rotary wing aircraft used during World War II and  found the Focke Wulfe twin rotor helicopter being flown in a large gymnasium by German female pilot Hanna Reitsch. This helicopter was very large and complex looking with two large booms attached to the fuselage with a rotor system at the ends of the booms. Awkward looking  but it was very successful. As I searched further through my Luftwaffe  book I came across another very interesting twin rotor helicopter, the Flettner .In fact, I found that the Flettner was the only helicopter actually used in combat during World War II. It was so similar to the Kaman that I had seen years ago that I dug further into its history. I thought that I had found the inspiration that Kaman had used for his design. I researched both companies and found no association, so it appears that two aeronautical engineers had both come up with a similar concept. I dove into Google and Wikipedia  and this is what I learned.

“Intermeshing rotors on a helicopter are a set of two rotors turning in opposite directions, with each rotor mast mounted on the helicopter with a slight angle to the other, in a transversely symmetrical manner, so that the blades intermesh without colliding. The arrangement allows the helicopter to function without the need for a tail rotor. This configuration is sometimes referred to as a synchropter.

Boeing purchased the rights to the Piasecki design and used it in the Vertol series of helicopters used in great numbers by the military.

The arrangement was developed in Germany by Anton Flettner for a small anti-submarine warfare helicopter, the Flettner Fl 265 and later the Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri. During the Cold War the American Kaman Aircraft company produced the HH-43 Huskie, for USAF firefighting purposes. One example of the Kaman K-225 experimental synchropter was fitted with a small turboshaft engine in late 1951, becoming the world’s first gas turbine powered helicopter of any type. Intermeshing rotored helicopters have high stability and powerful lifting capability. The latest Kaman K-MAX model is a dedicated sky crane design used for construction worK.

Hmm….now I know why 80% of RC model helicopters use two rotors, one mounted on top of the other but turning in opposite directions. They are far simpler to fly than a scale helicopter with one rotor and a tail rotor. This concept also answers the reason why aeronautical engineer Piasecki developed the “Flying Banana” which was purchased by Boeing and is now known as the Boeing Vertol. Same principal, cancelled torque forces. I decided to learn a little more about the Kaman Company which appears to be well known in the lifting industry but not used in personal transportation that I can recall.

“Charles Huron Kaman was a 26-year-old engineer in 1945 when he founded Kaman Aircraft Company in the garage of his mother’s West Hartford, Connecticut home with $2,000 invested by two friends. He started the company to demonstrate a new rotor concept he devised to make helicopters more stable and easier to fly. Over the next half-century, Mr. Kaman built the company into a worldwide leader in the aviation industry. Kaman Aircraft, now Kaman Corporation, has become a billion-dollar company.

A pioneer in rotary-winged flight and one of Connecticut’s great inventors and innovators, Kaman achieved many breakthroughs, including the first gas turbine-powered helicopter, the first twin-turbine-powered helicopter, the first remotely controlled helicopter and the first all-composite rotor blade. Over the years his helicopters set numerous records for performance and altitude.”

It appears that there are two helicopter industries at work in this country, and Kaman is the one known for heavy duty work horses or the truck version of a helicopter. I also learned that it was Kaman who finally perfected the remotely piloted helicopter to join our fleet of drones which, like it or not, have already changed the face of aerial combat.

During World War II, Germany used rotary wing kites towed behind ships to raise antennae and provide improved distant vision.

At least every year or so some entrepreneur gets a brilliant idea. “Let’s market an auto gyro. They can do everything that a helicopter can do except maybe VTO, hover, fly backward  and they cost a whole lot less.” So they dig up non aviation investors, sink millions into the latest Whiz Bang Gyro and everybody loses money, ’cause autogyros do work as ultralights, but cannot compete with helicopters. When Sikorsky finally perfected a simple helicopter in early 1930s he effectively killed off the autogyros that were in use at that time. Two firms Kellett and Pitcairn were building auto gyros and having minor success with them. During the early years of World War II the German’s invented or adopted the auto gyro principal to a rotary wing kite which they towed behind surfaced submarines. This provided an eye in the sky to spot surface craft that could not be seen from the submarine. The high flying copter glider would also tow an antenna high in the sky to greatly increase the range of radio signals. The simple rotating wing kite could be assembled on the deck of the submarine and towed aloft. When the mission was complete the kite would be retrieved, dismantled and stored for its next use.  A simple solution for a complex problem.

This is a drawing of the forces needed to create motion from the rotary blades.

After the war the autogyro was basically dead in the water with all development being invested in helicopters which did what autogyros wanted to do but couldn’t. Never say never! Igor Benson, an aviation scientist in North Carolina, took the German rotary wing kite and started manufacturing kits for the glider. He them added a small two stroke drone engine as a pusher and a whole new industry was launched, the Benson gyrocopter. It was a fabulous success with young and old alike. It was super easy to build or assemble and very inexpensive to buy. The rotor head was very simple and used flexible blades to handle the various air loads blades are subjected to. Direction control was  obtained by shifting or moving the whole rotor head in the direction you wanted to go. Yaw was handled with the rudder pedals. Vertical movement was controlled by application of power or lowering of power which slowed down the forward motion of the gyro reducing lift. The blades of an autogyro are unpowered during flight but are spun by air passing from beneath them up and through the blades causing them to spin. A helicopter is a true rotary wing which uses powered blades which are moveable to change pitch. When the power is cut on a helicopter it reverts to autogyro status and as it falls downward air rushing up through the blades keep them spinning. When the unpowered helicopter is close to the ground the pilot increases the angle of attack of the rotor blades which provide a short period of lift as the helicopter settles to the ground. It is called autorotation as explained above. The pilot has one chance at it as the application of angle of attack will eventually stop the blades. In order to rotate the helicopter must be traveling forward at a certain minimum speed or be high enough to auto rotate. A pilot can use a combination of forward speed and height to auto rotate to a safe landing. I apologize to rotary wing   pilots for the simplified explanation of a complex subject.

Dr. Igor Benson used German glider principles to design and market his successful Benson Gyrocopter. Hundreds are still flying.

The military has been perfecting various combinations of helicopter and fixed wing aircraft. Designers have used auxiliary engines in the rear turning a pusher prop to increase the speed. They have pivoted the rotor heads so that they can be used for forward propulsion once in the air. It is safe to say that the entrepreneurs have not given up on trying to sell the obsolete autogyro and it appears that many hybrid aircraft/autogyros and helicopters are being designed as we speak.

I personally learned about autogyros over 60 years ago when I built a four foot model of a de Ciervo autogyro. I tried every combination possible of slanted pylon and various degrees of positive angle of attack and no way could I get the rotors to spin. One day I accidently put on the rotary wing upside down (negative angle of attack)  and when I launched it the darn think flew, and it flew very well. I still have copies of 1950 magazines with pictures of my auto gyro flying.  For model builders reading this it was powered with a McCoy .29 engine and was control line but, this model was so stable that it flew without any lines attached. By luck  I had used flexible steel wire to attach the blades to the rotor, this allowed them to move in all directions. No skill was involved just dumb luck.

Many firms in the 1920s and early 1930s produced their versions of the Cierva autogyro.

All around the world homebuilders and ultralighters are having a blast flying their small gyrocopters, either solo or with a passenger. They love them for what they are.

The Cessna 162 is Cessna's entry level LSA. It was recently priced at $160,000.

Flying is one of the few hobbies, sport or fun activities that does not have an entry level event or objects needed to participate at affordable lower end price ranges. In other words you have to have a large amount of money just to try out the sport to see if you like it. Not only that, you have to devote a lot of time and money, maybe only to find out you are not suitable for the sport or activity and the money is wasted. Even the services during World War II had a weeding-out process, before they spent thousands teaching young folks to be military pilots. It didn’t take the Navy long to figure out if a cadet was going to be pilot material or would be happier as a navigator or bombardier. The PT-17 and the J-3 Cub quickly figured that out. Today there are very limited methods that a potential pilot can determine if he really wants to be a pilot. There are ways but not very attractive prospects in everyone’s mind. The problem of high cost flying continues to plaque the industry.

The Cessna 162 has a glass panel which increases the price.

For instance I have just finished reading the latest Cessna release regarding a price increase on their made-in-China entry level LSA, the Cessna 162. They sure named it correctly, as the new price is approximately $162,000. This is so out of whack with what entry level aircraft should cost that they might as well pull the plug on the whole LSA program. The only possible sales of this overpriced airplane is to large flying schools who want to put it on their line for the very occasional LSA pilot. To be profitable the 162 will have to fly from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm  every day and we all know that is not going to happen. In fact, the whole LSA program has been suspect in my mind for a very long time, way too much money for a certificate that is really pretty restricted. Everyone knows this except the FAA who believe that more controls, more avionics, more technical cockpit training is the answer. Wrong! Just the opposite is true. The feds have managed to kill any desire to learn to fly in thousands of young people. Let’s go back to the big boom in pilot starts that occurred in 1946 to 1950. Huge numbers of returning service men and women headed for the local airport with proof of service and they were taught to fly FREE. At that time, the world thought that every house large and small would have a garage/hangar complete with a $800 new car and a $900 new airplane. Literally hundreds of new aircraft companies were setting up shop. City governments were planning on installing new runways at housing developments. But nothing like that ever happened. A huge number of veterans learned to fly. And then a huge number of the same veterans forgot all about flying. It was fun when it was free, but fairly useless when it cost them money to either buy a plane or rent one.

The Piper J-3 Cub is LSA legal and makes an excellent sport aircraft to restore.

The second big jump in aviation participation was in the early 1970s when a few inventive pilots took their little two-stroke engines out of their homebuilt go-carts, put a propeller on them and installed them on their hang gliders. Talk about instant aviation growth, the number of minimum aircraft doubled and tripled almost overnight. Everyone had to have an  ultralight. Why? They were fun to fly. They were cheap and the FAA had bowed out; let the damn fools kill themselves. The FAA would not even call them aircraft, they were vehicles that could take off. But the fatal accidents continued to rise. The nationally broadcast 20/20 magazine news show crucified the entire ultralight movement. Then the opposition came out f the wood work condemning the sport as way to dangerous. The FAA was then forced to put in place the new Part 103 rules  in an attempt to coral the mavericks and downsize the accidents. The opposite happened, the movement slowed to  a standstill . Only a handful of diehards kept it going on a very limited basis up to and including today.

During this era, I was the editor of several ultralight magazines and I wrote about these little airplanes. I flew them all, and you know what? I had a ball. A large number of the surviving pilots, who had taught themselves how to fly, were remarkably good pilots. They didn’t know much about aeronautical science but they knew how to fly the plane and they flew them very well. Many made the homebuilt crowd look like amateurs as they skillfully piloted their tiny craft through complex maneuver; then at the end of the flight greased them on the runway. They had no license, no insurance, their planes were not certified or inspected, but they flew and they flew well. Certainly many were killed or injured, but they knew the risks when they started. But the good news was that a huge number became certified pilots and bought or built their own aircraft.

The CGS Hawk Sport is a very nice flying ultralight. There are many around just waiting to be restored.

You want to revitalize flying? Drastically reduce the price, red tape and let the young people get started in aviation. It’s that simple. I am sure that there are more folk killed or injured while snow boarding or off-roading or even rock climbing, than flying ultralights. But nobody seems to care about these folks.

Oil millionaire Cox commissioned Curtiss to build a racing monoplane which morphed into the Texas Kitten triplane.

World War One was noted for biplanes and triplanes of all varieties you could think possible. Everyone has their favorite theory of why triplanes did so well in aerial combat, AKA dog fighting. Two words defined the reasons, quick maneuvering and fast climbing ability. Efficiency of wings and a powerful engine will provide a fast climb and short wings with high aspect ratios will provide fast maneuvering. Not many folks realize that it wasn’t Anthony Fokker’s well known DR-1 Triplane which was responsible for three wing fever but the 1916 Sopwith Tripe which convinced the Germans to build their own triplane to level the playing field, the Sopwith Tripe was that good. It was rather a weird looking bird due to the different type of wing construction and attachment to the fuselage which was basically the same as the Sopwith Pup  biplane. The answer was in the wings.

The Sopwith Triplane preceded the Fokker Triplane. Its success prompted Fokker to build their own.

The most effecient wings in the world are those found on high performance gliders. They are very long and very narrow which gives them the high aspect ratio needed for efficiency.  These wings are not fast as they offer to much frontal drag due to their length. But they excel at finding lift and have inherent very high glide ratios. Sopwith took these specifications and designed a set of three wings for use on the Pup fuselage. He also mounted the top wing very high. By adding short narrow wings, he was able to tap into the high lift of the aspect ratio and the quick turning ratio of shorter wings. He needed the extra third wing for the added lift. It worked. The Tripe was a climbing fool and could whip around almost in its own length and evade the early German fighters. The Fokker triplane was designed and built very rapidly because of the Tripe and had an almost immediate impact on the air battles of World War I. It is odd that by the time 1918 came along the Germans had gone in the opposite direction and had built their new Fokker D-VIII monoplane parasol fighter. This was the ultimate dog fighter but, the Germans had lost the air war and the armistice was only months away. When the war had ended, the aircraft that everyone remembered was the Fokker Triplane. It had found its place in aviation history.

When peace had finally settled around the world the aviation community turned to what it loves best, air racing. In 1909 Glenn Curtiss had won the Gordon Bennet race in one of his biplanes. In 1920 a Texas oil millionaire contracted with Curtiss to build him a racing monoplane to enter in France’s Gordon Bennet race to be held in September 1920. He chose Curtiss due to their racing experience and their new 400 hp Challenger engine. The Texas Wildcat was a high wing monoplane with an unusual thin elliptical airfoil. The wing had struts that attached to the end of the wheel axels. In addition, the Wildcat had a cockpit with a forward sliding canopy which preceded its use in military and racing aircraft by ten years as did the symmetrical wing. The Wildcat was state of the art, but it didn’t work. The test flight revealed a super long take off roll and in flight instability which the test pilot blamed on the wing section. Curtiss engineers, working on orders from Cox, had the Morane factory in France build them a new set of biplane wings. This proved to solve the problems but the prototype aircraft was rolled up in a ball due to landing gear failure. Everything Cox and Curtiss was shipped back to the United States.,

The Fokker Triplane ended up being the most recognized aircraft of World War I.

The owner of the Texas Wildcat then decided to change the name and to transform it once again. Enter the Sopwith and Fokker triplane influence. The new Cox Kitten was a triplane using cut down biplane wings. The new Cox Kitten was entered in the 1921 Pulitzer Trophy race and came in second. The winner was a Curtiss racing biplane. Cox decided to go back to producing money via oil wells and sold the Cox Kitten triplane to the US Navy for a dollar. They used it for training for upcoming Navy seaplane races. That ended the triplane era of our aviation history.

This Reno Racer Super Corsair has the Pratt & Whitney 28 cylinder four row 4360 ci radial engine installed.

World War II was responsible for the birth of both the rocket powered aircraft, ICBMs and the jet engine. It also sounded the death knoll of the piston engine to power military and airline aircraft of the future. Germany pioneered the jet, rocket and pulse jet engines with their V-1 (pulse jet), Me.163 Komet which was rocket powered and the V-2 which was rocket powered Intercontinental missile. The Me. 262 used two jet engines for power.  Other countries were working on these projects but it was Germany who advanced them the furthest.

The four row radial has each offset a few inches so cooling air can reach all cylinders.

But at that time, none were suitable for powering long range bombers and troop transports. The four engine bomber with its fighter escort was the winning formula. Available engine sizes were the dominating factor in these aircraft designs and missions. It is interesting to note than the single engine Vietnam era Douglas AD-1 was capable of carrying more bombs than a B-17 of only a few years earlier. Due to lack of suitable engines, the aircraft designers had to add engines to carry a larger load. Germany had troop carriers and glider tugs which were powered with six engines. The designers kept on demanding larger and larger engines but all designs had limiting factors. Two companies did manage to build some very large engines during the war. Pratt & Whitney designed and built their R-4360 Wasp Major four bank radial engine which was air cooled. This engine had four seven cylinder radial engines bolted together back to front, each offset a few degrees to allow air to flow between the rows for cooling. The engine was a nightmare to maintain but quite reliable when powering aircraft, The huge “corn cop”: engine powered these aircraft very successfully, B-50 Superfortress, C-97 Stratofreighter, C-119 Flying Boxcar, Convair B-36 and the Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose)

The Napier Sabre engine is an "H" configuration with four inline six cylinder engines stacked. This engine is liquid cooled.

The English Napier engine was a horsepower of a different color however. This 24 cylinder engine was essentially four inline six cylinder, sleeve valve engines bolted together with two on the bottom with two more laying on top of the bottom two. This configuration is referred to as an “H” engine. This engine ended up being the most powerful reciprocating engine used in World War II. The designer had to use sleeve valves in place of poppet valves in order to get sufficient fuel into the head chamber and for the exhaust to evacuate the cylinder before the next fuel charge was admitted. A sleeve valve has holes in the side of the cylinder for both fuel and exhaust. The sleeve moves up and down over the cylinder opening and closing the intakes and exhaust ports. If my memory serves me an early Willy’s car used a sleeve valve engine. The designers of the Napier engine first attempted to air cool it but had to liquid cool for proper temperature control. Earlier versions of this engine were used successfully in some English Schneider Cup Trophy racers. During the World War II this engine was used in the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest. These engines did not take too well to supercharging due to poor fuel quality but they excelled at low altitude high speed missions. Both the Tempest and Typhoon were the most feared aircraft by  German Fw, 190 pilots, It was very fast and deadly with its firepower. During the battle of Britain it was the Typhoon and the Tempest that were able to knock the V-1 Buzz bomb out of the sky. Pilots found out that you had more chance to knocking them down not by shooting at them but by flying alongside them and tipping them over with your wing  tip. This would cause the controlling  gyros to spin out of sync and the V-1 would auger into the ground. This was where the two Hawker fighters excelled. They were fast enough to catch them and knock them down.

This engine was the most powerful of WWII, it powered the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.

Another interesting fact about the Napier engine was the quality control problems with its production. The test engines were literally handmade and assembled by engineers while the production engines were assembled by production workers in an assembly line atmosphere. It took several years and a new company owner to finally solve the poor quality work. When the war was over Napier dropped all future development work on the H engine and immediately went into jet engine design.

Pratt & Whitney R-4360

• Type: 28-cylinder supercharged air-cooled four-row radial engine
• Bore: 5.75 in. Stroke: 6.00 in. Displacement: 4,362.5 in³
• Length: 96.5 in.
• Diameter: 55 in
• Dry weight: 3,870 lb

Components

• Valve train: Poppet, two valves per cylinder
• Supercharger: Gear-driven single stage variable speed centrifugal type supercharger
• Turbocharger: General Electric CHM-2
• Fuel system: Bendix-Stromberg PR-100E2 pressure carburetor
• Fuel type: 108/135 octane gasoline
• Cooling system: Air-cooled

Performance

• Power output: 4,300 hp
• Specific power: 0.99 hp/in³
• Compression ratio: 6.7 : 1
• Power-to-weight ratio: 1.11 hp/lb

• Type: 24-cylinder supercharged liquid-cooled H-type aircraft piston engine
• Bore: 5.0 in
• Stroke: 4.75 in
• Displacement: 2,240 in³

The first magazine I worked on was still being produced with a huge Linotype machine which even melted the lead to make the type. Very complicated.

I have a lifetime of loving flying. Not business flying, not airline flying, not personal transportation flying but the flying of leather helmets, long white silk scarves blowing in the breeze, two wheels in front and a skid in back. I have always been a promoter of flying for fun. This love of mine has led me to own and fly some very strange aircraft because that is also part of fun flying for me. But I do love a well designed aircraft of any size, one that does its job safely. When I take off I prefer to land where I was headed, unless I am out desert hopping looking for abandoned movie sets, camping areas on a dry lake, or land to watch a batch of RC modelers having a real good time flying their miniature aircraft. Yes, some are not so miniature any more.

The next step was to prepare pages set with a computer and pasted together. Huge rack cameras were used to photography the pages to make the plates for the presses..

Part of my fun flying regime was researching and writing articles for monthly aviation magazines. I have been doing that since 1983. At that time, fun flying aircraft dominated the magazine scene. Each month Sport  Pilot, Kitplanes, Ultralight Magazine, Custom Planes, Air Classics, Air Progress, Private Pilot and Plane and Pilot would arrive loaded with new homebuilts and inexpensive certified aircraft.  A pilot could purchase kits and plans for every imaginable type of aircraft, engines, construction materials and instruments gauges handheld radios as well as completely ready to install instrument panels. Each magazine was loaded with fun stories about inexpensive aircraft, how-to articles as well as in depth review of experimental and homebuilt aircraft. The Editors of the various magazines would fly the aircraft and then relay their impressions to their readers. It was a perfect time for those young and old folks who didn’t want to purchase or didn’t have the funds to purchase a new aircraft. If you had simple carpentry skills you could build and fly your own aircraft. Times have certainly changed.

Currently all page composition is done on computers with Quark Xpress or other page makeup programs. This is the cover of a new book prepared on my computer and then sent over the Internet to the printers. Much cheaper and very fast.

A change in peoples reading habits has done a 180 it seems and suddenly there are only a handful of aviation magazines for hobbyists and fun pilots left. You can still purchase Flying Magazine with its high end editorial style and Kitplanes for the nickel and dime homebuilders whose main goal in life and in aviation is to do it themselves to save them some money. Plane and Pilot edited by Jessica Ambats is on the stands each month with a plethora of articles about the type of planes most flown by private pilots, the new trends in engines, fuel and glass cockpits. Excellent photography by Jessica and in depth flight reports by well known aviation authors continue to keep this magazine viable in today’s weird marketplace. There are two organizations whose main goal is advocacy for us pilots and for aviation in general. AOPA has its own magazine which comes with joining AOPA and it is aimed at the moneyed crowd, business aviation. the Poperenzy’s are now retired but the EAA lives on with a stable of homebuilt journals in every category available both in print and in electronic form. Their main magazine is Sport Aviation and it features homebuilts and experimentals, Warbirds and classic aircraft. EAA is on top of the homebuilt, LSA, Warbird and Antique market place.

A few years ago the unexpected happened, Hatchett sold Flying Magazine to a publishing conglomerate  in Florida. Changes soon followed, big changes and it appears that Flying is now even more popular than ever. Their long time Editor was let go and a new one was hired, he was also let go after a few months and then their long time Senior Editor Robert Goyer was named Editor in Chief.  Robert’s background is 16 years with Flying, and ten years with sport type and small aircraft writing. Robert is at home in an Ultralight as well as the left seat of a Citation. Flying now contains info for all pilots. Underneath the magazine rack visibility Flying has moved rapidly and increasingly into electronic publication with editions for every popular type of  pilot including an Internet Newsletter which comes out very often and has a very wide following. The Editor then proceeded to publish a Flying edition just for iPad owners; iPad is the favorite for almost 100% of pilots due to its available apps for all types of cockpit information. Sounds like all is calm in the magazine world. Well not quite!

John Hazlett of Zephyrhills, Florida, has a Grumman American AA-1 which he installed a Lycoming 140-hp engine for better performance.

No wonder the numbers are falling, somebody stole the fun out of flying and the lack is slowly killing the sport flying industry. I am not talking about aerobatic competition or about airshow type of flying, I am talking about bug smashers, hop scotch Sunday flyers and hangar flyers who spend the weekend telling lies in their hangar and maybe once a month taking the Flying Flea Bag around the patch for its monthly airing. These folks were the backbone of our once flourishing flying hobby. I am one of the leaders of the pack, I loved the fun of flying as well as the exciting family vacations we enjoyed with our various aircraft.

Hazlett primarily uses his plane for weekend fun flights to different airports in Southern Florida.

Folks on the outside of the fence looking in simply don’t realize how important the fun of flying is to continuing in the sport even with the rapidly escalating costs of everything. The shakeout is well underway at this time. The winner in General Aviation seems to be business flying and high end executive business jet winging the movers nd shakers across the country in minutes rather than hours of wasted time. Pilots manage to find their own fun of flying in various ways. I loved to restore and fly military aircraft. I started with Texans, a Wildcat and a B-25. As money became a little harder to come by with a growing family I downsized my aircraft and restored PT-23s, 19s and 26s. These were relatively inexpensive military aircraft and easy to restore because of the many wooden elements. My family sure did have a lot of fun flying the PT-23 all over SoCal, nothing beats an open air cockpit with a growling radial engine up front.

Photos are taken of interesting approaches and John loads them onto his Facebook page.

As you know wood makes an excellent aircraft, they fly as if they were a heavier airplane. There is no oil canning sound effects just an occasional creak or groan as the pressures cause the wood parts to shift against each other. I also owned a PT-19 back in the Northeast and the moist, very rainy and snowy weather caused innumerable problems with the aircraft. I now live in the High Desert which is ideal for all types of aircraft especially wood ones. Of course that is why aviation graveyards are located in the desert.

Hazlett flies two Beach Patrols, one on the Atlantic Ocean side and the other on the gulf shore.

I have a Facebook page which attracts a large number of aviation types and the number of postings about the fun of flying diminish each month. John Hazlett, a pilot who lives in Central Florida seems to have it nailed. Every Friday he posts his weekend itinerary with his two place Grumman American Yanhkee. He loves to take off and head for the east coast of Florida and fly the coast line and then drop in at various airports along the way just to say Hi or grab a coffee and a possum burger. He brings his video camera with him and films an approach or two so he can post his adventures for all his flying buddies to see. His route often takes him and his lucky passenger across the wilds of southern Florida along alligator ally where we get a semi head count of the scaly creatures seen sunbathing in the middle of the highway. Another fun type of flight is John’s beach patrol where he stays legal but low and the folks enjoying either the Atlantic or the Gulf beaches wave as the little Grumman soars by with canopy open. I am sure that friend John’s weekly fun flights have inspired others to do the same. What is amazing about John and his Grumman is that he really has no reason to be flying other than shear fun of flight. And that dear friends is what is slowing happening to many of our pilots they are losing the need for fun flying. John tells me that fuel in Florida at Zephyrhills airport is five dollars a gallon. The 140 Lyc  in John’s Yankee throttled way back and loafing through the sky burns in the 4 or 5 gallon an hour range. When you have no place to go why hurry? Twenty five bucks for an hour of fun flying is a very small price to pay to enjoy your version of personal freedom.

The Gulf coast has some very interesting bridges in the Tampa area.

What the world of General Aviation needs are more pilots like John and his Florida buddies who don’t really need to fly but simply love to fly. They can be seen on every nice weekend cruising their puddle jumpers through the skies of our nation doing nothing more than having fun.

Thousands of Aeronca 7AC Champs were sold to flight schools across the country for the GI Bill Learn to Fly program.

Thanks to Wikipedia for historical information regarding veteran’s learn to fly benefits. NG

I was heavily involved twice in my flying career with the GI Bill as it related to flying. When I was first put on Inactive Reserve Category in 1946 I had a job and a love of aircraft which translated to me becoming an airport bum every minute I had free. I knew how to fly and spent every nickel I could find renting every aircraft that showed up on the flight line in Northampton, Massachusetts. I was also heavily involved with model aircraft competing mostly with pulse jet speed contests. One by one my friends were discharged and headed to the airport with their discharge papers looking to sign up for the free flying. Out of ten members in our model group eight started flight lessons courtesy of Uncle Sam. Six finished with a Private Certificate, only one went on to own his own aircraft. None ever worked in aviation with the exception of me and I did not learn to fly on the GI Bill. The government had the right idea but it never really produced very many professional pilots. But, it sure swelled the ranks of private pilots and gave false promises to aircraft companies about the future of their industry. The government money was pouring in and the flying schools bought thousands of Cubs, Champs and 120s to meet the heavy instructional demands. Plug into the system hundreds of surplus aircraft sold by the government for pennies on the dollars and every small airport in the country was busy.

Local airports often had a large number of Cubs and Champs to meet the GI Bill flying demand.

The US Army Air Force, Navy and Marine programs were discharging thousands of qualified pilots, men and women capable of flying any aircraft in Uncle Sam’s inventory. They didn’t want to purchase tube and fabric aircraft, after flying all metal retractable landing gear equipped military aircraft. Piper, Stinson, WACO, Interstate, Bellanca were still building prewar versions and sales were very slow in the four-passenger category. Then Beechcraft introduced the Bonanza, Cessna the 170 and 195 and North American the Navion. These all metal aircraft established the type of aircraft  modern pilots would buy as family aircraft. The GI Bill had taught many to fly and gradually they were purchasing a few aircraft. But, the feds knew their GI Bill plan was flawed. and they stopped it in 1952.

When Cessna introduced the all metal Cessna 120 and 140 the demand for newer aircraft was sparked. Sales of Cubs and Chamsp decreased rapidly.

America was back at war again with North Korea. In 1952 the GI Bill was changed to correct problems with the original 1944 statue. One significant difference between the 1944 G.I. Bill and the 1952 Act was that tuition was no longer paid directly to the chosen institution of higher education. Instead, veterans received a fixed monthly sum of $110 from which they had to pay for their tuition, fees, books, and living expenses. The decision to end direct tuition payments to schools came after a 1950 House select committee uncovered incidents of overcharging of tuition rates by some institutions under the original G.I. Bill in an attempt to defraud the government. Although the monthly amount proved sufficient for most Korean War veterans, the decision would have negative repercussions for later veterans. By the end of the program on January 31, 1965, approximately 2.4 million of 5.5 million eligible veterans had used their benefits. Roughly 1.2 million had used them to enter higher education, over 860,000 for other vocation training such as flying.  I knew no one who was learning to fly under these provisions, but knew several who used their benefits to purchase homes for their families.

Scenes like this recent Cub crash were commonplace during the post war learn to fly craze.

I became very acquainted with the GI Benefits awarded to veterans of the Vietnam era. I owned an FBO at Apple Valley Airport, in Southern California located very close to George AFB and Edwards AFB, We had flight courses which qualified for veteran higher education. This time the feds really changed the rules and the program was very difficult to work with for the following reasons. If a veteran chose to become a professional pilot he had to pay for his Private Certificate himself before any higher training such as Instrument, Commercial, Multi-engine and ATP courses would be paid for. This requirement was very difficult to overcome. Not many veterans had a couple of thousand dollars to pay for the Private course. We wanted the higher rating courses because that was where the money really was. So we offered a complete package of everything needed to get your Private Certificate for $695.00 including a max of 40 hours of flying with additional hours at very reduced prices. Obviously we lost our shirt on these courses. But, we needed more advanced students. We advertised everywhere and did manage to load up our advanced courses. The problem at first was that the check for advanced flying was sent to the veteran who then had to pay our flight school. Well, some did and others didn’t. The Veteran’s Administration was finally convinced by screaming owners of flight schools to issue the check to the veteran and to the flight school. Our policy was to take the veteran and his check to the local bank and we would not sign the check until it was ready to be cashed. The snail pace of checks being issued almost drove the flight schools out of business. Once a month we had to drive to the Veteran’s Affairs office in LA and camp out until the check was issued. It was a nightmare to get paid by the feds. Federal employees still don’t get the concept that they have to work for a living.

Our flight program was successful but required constant vigilance to survive. Our vet students did very well with a very large percentage of them finding jobs in aviation from flight instructors to airline pilots.

The latest news regarding GI Flight Training just came out and as of Oct. 1, 2011, changes to the “Post-9/11 GI Bill” have taken effect which include flight-training benefits for veterans. The new benefits aim to provide support for short-term vocational training in addition to the traditional college-degree programs. The change is not expected to create a large number of new pilots Only 160 veterans per year, out of about 13,000 are expected to use the new vocational benefits, will likely enroll in flight schools, the Army Times reported. The benefits will pay up to $10,000 per year to cover flight-school fees and tuition. The bill also provides some housing subsidies and pays tuition for some online courses as well. Okay today’s veterans, now is your chance to become a professional pilot.

If the EAA and AOPA can convince the FAA, private pilots will be able to fly a Cessna 172 with a valid driver's license. There are some restrictions.

I am sure that nobody wants to read anymore opinions about the 2011 Reno Air Races. Frankly neither do I, enough is enough. It was a great ride and now it appears to be over. In 1949 the same fate happened to Cleveland, Ohio, home of the famous Thompson and Bendix Air Races. Unfortunately, a P-51 Mustang crashing into a house and killing the pilot, a young mother and her 13 year old baby caused the end of Cleveland Air Races. In both cases the cause was the third dimension which caused the problem. NASCAR, motorcycle and yes, even downhill ski races are two dimensional and can be contained. Air races are three dimensional and are not containable. Officials can move the spectators way way back and the three dimensional aspect will still place the spectators and others on the ground in harm’s way. It is unacceptable to kill mothers and their babies in their bedroom miles away from the race course.

All Piper Cherokees up to 180 hp with fixed gear and fixed pitch prop will be on the list of medical- free aircraft.

In the early 1970s a racing group attempted to put on Reno style  air races at Mojave Airport, deep in the California desert, now the home of future space craft. I was seated in the stands during the final race and for some reason, if my memory is accurate, an F-8 Bearcat, might have been Lyle Sheldon, blew his engine and approached the runway flying very low right over the grandstand or very close to it. He did a masterful job of flying and almost pulled it off but his right landing gear didn’t lock down in time and the plane skidded down the runway using the blades of the prop for one gear leg and the extended gear for the other. That was very close to another disaster. The races are no longer held there. I doubt that was the reason but it sure scared me.

Another subject I am interested in is the reason why a pilot only holding a Private Certificate should have to have a third class medical when LSA pilot does not. IFR and commercial pilots flying professionally need medicals but bug smasher pilots do not. Medical reasons for crashes are so low that they are not even considered. This change in regulation would really jump start all phases of sport flying.

The affordable Grumman American line of fixed gear sport aircraft, up to 180 hp, will then be able to be flown with a driver's license.

It is evident that others in aviation are thinking along the same lines as this appeared on my computer  the morning after I had written the above. This announcement came from the AOPA Convention being held in Hartford, CT, the last weekend in September. I quote from the Internet.

“Sept. 24, 2011, Hartford, Conn. – The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) today unveiled plans that, if successful, could greatly expand the number of pilots who could use the driver’s license medical standard currently available only to sport pilots.

Delivering the keynote address on the final day of the AOPA Aviation Summit, the presidents of AOPA and EAA, Craig L. Fuller and Rod Hightower, respectively, said the two groups are working together to finalize a request to create an exemption allowing pilots flying recreationally to use the driver’s license medical standard. In order to ensure and even enhance safety, pilots would be required to complete a comprehensive course on aero medical factors and self-certification.

Beechcraft Skippers and up to 180 hp fixed gear Musketeers can also be flown without a medical.

“We have more than five years’ experience now with the Sport Pilot certificate and the driver’s license medical standard,” said Hightower. “In that time, we have not had a single medical incapacitation accident. The standard works.”

“Furthermore, our petition would enhance safety by requiring initial and recurrent training about health awareness and medical self-certification for any pilot choosing to use the driver’s license standard,” added Fuller. “It will provide data that can be used to continually refine and evaluate the effectiveness of the standard.”

“EAA and AOPA plan to file their request for exemption after the first of the year. Under the proposed exemption, pilots holding recreational, private, commercial, or airline transport pilot certificates who only fly recreationally could use the same driver’s license medical self-certification standard currently available to sport pilots.”

“As envisioned, the exemption would be limited by aircraft size and type of operations – for example, a single engine aircraft, with 180 hp or less, 4 seats, and fixed gear and operations limited to day, VFR, with one passenger.  That would greatly expand the number of aircraft a pilot might fly while operating under a driver’s license medical standard.”

“EAA and AOPA believe the exemption they plan to request is the next logical step in the journey begun when the FAA permitted sport pilots to use the driver’s license medical standard. Further, the associations believe the exemption will maintain or enhance aviation safety by improving knowledge and awareness of aero medical factors through recurrent education for all pilots utilizing the exemption, and by encouraging pilots to continue flying familiar aircraft.”

“EAA embodies the spirit of aviation through the world’s most engaged community of aviation enthusiasts.  EAA’s 170,000 members and 1,000 local chapters enjoy the fun and camaraderie of sharing their passion for flying, building and restoring recreational aircraft.”

I fall into this category and I heartily applaud the efforts of AOPA and the EAA for actually attempting to coerce the feds to update obsolete regulations which will cut administrative costs as well as greatly increasing the number of active pilots. This idea will work and is definitely a win win situation for all of aviation.