Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Guys,and gals, I enjoy your questions and comments. Keep them coming, and I will do my best to reply.

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Percy was finally all in one piece, and was still not pretty, but she had “character”! Did you ever see an ugly dog that you couldn’t help but look at and admire, because it had “character”? Well, that’s the way Percy was, and we all had a certain fondness for the proud old bird.

We had fired up the Gypsy Queen engine a couple of times to check out the systems, and look for leaks, and everything checked out A-O.K. Now it was time to do a taxi test, Eric had given “orders” that he had to be the first to fly the airplane, but his friend Tom and I didn’t see any problem doing a “high speed” taxi down the runway, you know, just to make sure everything was in working order. Tom radioed in for permission to do a taxi test on runway 21, which of course is on the north end of the runway, and the hangar was on the south end, so Sandy, Dale, and whoever else was there could watch us from the upstairs balcony.

It was pretty warm out, and there was a light headwind blowing straight up the runway. I watched Tom move the throttle, and felt a little surge of power, and all of a sudden we both noticed that things were getting smaller on the ground. Tom pulled the power back, and we touched back down on the runway, and then he gave it some power again, and she lifted off again, and we were laughing like hell, so we did another “take-off, and landing. We had done three take-offs and landings in a very short time, and used very little of the runway. Eric was not going to be happy about this if he found out. Since we hadn’t really flown it around the patch, maybe nobody would “rat on us.”

When we taxied back to the hangar and parked on our ramp, Sandy came over and asked if we knew we had lifted off the ground, at least three times, and she could tell by the grin on our faces that, yeah, we knew that. Eric would be in town in a couple of days, and I was hoping that Tom wouldn’t mention our little joy ride.

Eric hadn’t seen Percy in one piece yet, and when he came to the hangar he looked her over, and said that I had made that ugly airplane look pretty darned good. He decided that he would take Tom with him on the first flight, and I was hoping again that he wouldn’t “spill the beans“, and just “play dumb.” They took off, and headed up north , where there were no houses, just open desert, and it seemed like a long time before I saw them coming back into the pattern. I was relieved to see that Percy had got them back home. When they taxied to our ramp, I went over to the left side of Percy, and said to Eric, “well, how did it go”? He had a grin on his face, and said that it flew great. We flew the Percival quite a few times, Eric took Sandy and I for a ride, and we were all having a good time. Eric had to go back to New Jersey, but he said that we could fly Percy while he was gone.

Tom was an airline pilot, and had flown about everything over the years, so I felt comfortable about going up with him the fist time he was pilot in command of Percy, he had been up with Eric, but Eric was doing the flying. We taxied out and when the tower said we were cleared for take off, down the runway we went, and as always Percy got airborne fairly quick. As we were climbing out, I got a funny feeling, glanced at the airspeed indicator, and could see that we were losing speed, about the same time there was “a lot of shaking going on”, and Tom yelled, “what’s that”? I gently pushed the “spade handle” forward, and said, “stick-shaker, stall warning”! He looked at me, and said, “oh”. The Percival had kind of a “droop” nose, and you sat rather high in the cockpit, and some pilots get a little complacent, and fly the nose in relation to the horizon. That didn’t work in Percy, because if you did that, you would be climbing, of course if you were checking the airspeed as you climb, you would quickly make a correction. I went through this drill with a couple of other pilots, then put a piece of tape across the windshield, and told them to fly this, not the nose.

One day, I wanted to go to Falcon Field in Mesa to pick up some parts, and I had one of the guys fly with me there in Percy, it was a short flight, but a long drive by car. I forget who was with me, but as we neared Falcon, I called tower, and said, “Falcon tower, Percival Prentice one-zero-four-one-papa inbound from Scottsdale, landing instructions please”. The response was, “aircraft requesting landing instructions, your speech is garbled, say again aircraft type.” I repeated, “ Percival Prentice”. This time the response was, “aircraft inbound from Scottsdale, your speech is still garbled, we have you in sight, you are clear to land.” After we landed, and were taxiing by the tower, they said, “who built that?” I said, “the English.” Then he said, “WHY?”

Larry

[dxlyj]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

dxlyj, our Hartzel blades were "color coded" with a red, yellow, or green stripe near the hub. The prop was supposed to be indexed with the crankshaft in a certain way so that the red blade absorbed some kind of harmonics or something, and it was supposed to be removed and destroyed after X number of hours, and the yellow blade removed after XX number of hours, but the green blade could be used like maybe forever. Were you aware of this? I seem to recall that blades from an Aero Commander were the same blades.

Larry

Yup. 1/4" chart tape in various colors. Prop shop here in Atlanta wouldn't touch it.

Did you ever do the bars->inches conversion to see what kind of manifold pressure takeoff power was? 50+"??? Even with the mount as absolutely short as we could make it and 12 lbs. of lead in the tail there wasn't enough elevator (much less brakes) for a full power runup.

I tired of the Potez/prop hassle, sold everything (I had 2 engines, 2 props and my dad had the Nord airframe) and am looking for a parallel valve AEIO-540 (not to hijack the thread or your most excellent stories).
Dave

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Dave, I don't recall the bars/inches conversion, but full power run-up was a problem. Even with wheel chocks, and someone in the rear seat, and full up elevator,( I always told whoever was doing it to hold the stick back with the seat belt/ shoulder harness) the tail would "dance". One of our corporate pilots was doing a run-up for me, with no one in the rear seat, and neglected to strap the stick back, and tipped it over and "killed" the prop. Getting rid of the Potez conversion was a good idea, mainly due to the prop situation.

Larry

[dxlyj]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

... Getting rid of the Potez conversion was a good idea, mainly due to the prop situation.

Larry

That and dealing with fuel injection gremlins and 10 hour valve adjustment intervals. I thought "they can't be serious" until I had to come home on 3 cylinders (and even make a "gentle" go around when a 150 pulled onto the runway when I was on short final).
Dave

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

We flew the Nord and Percival a lot, but there were three flights in the Percival that were “special”. Eric and his wife Jennifer had three children during the time he had Percy, Christian, Jonathan, and daughter Kathryn. Each of them were taken on there first flights in Percy when only a few weeks old, Eric thought it would be pretty cool that his children would be the only ones ever that had their first airplane ride in a Percival Prentice.

Eric and I were up front, and Sandy, Jennifer, and the child would be in the rear seats. I thought it really was rather “special”, because it was a good indication of the confidence that he had in me and my ability.

Larry

The other photo is “Nord from Percy” on our way to an Air Show In Casa Grand, Arizona.

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

With the Nord and the Percival done, I had some time to try to finish my Fly Baby project at the Levolor hangar, since Eric had told me that I could work on it there. I already had the A-75 Continental engine assembled, the motor mount fitted to the firewall , and the fuel tank fitted into place. The biggest thing that I had to do now was design and build a rudder bar assembly with pedals, and the brake master cylinders mounted on it for toe brakes. It was pretty complicated, but was a thing of beauty when completed, and nickel plated. I had it all assembled, and sitting on our picnic table and we always had “visitors” dropping by to look at our airplanes, and they would look at it then say something like, “it’s sure pretty, what is it?” There were bell cranks, pivot arms, link rods, and all of that good stuff to look at. Mickey Thompson, or Grant King would have loved it, an exercise in form and function. There was a method to my madness, it needed to be like this so that I could attach hand controls to it, but would still work great for non-physically-challenged pilots.

I had painted the fuselage kind of a metallic green at home, but I had come up with a better paint scheme, so I would have to repaint it, still green, but not metallic. My new scheme would definitely attract attention, it was going to look like a “warbird”, as I had considered from the beginning.

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

The A-75 engine I had built for the Fly Baby required “hand propping” and it made me real nervous having the guys do this, so I removed it, and found a C-85-12 that had the provision for an on onboard electric starter laying in a corner of a hangar at Scottsdale, all covered in dust. It was obvious that it had been there for a long time, but I bought it for $250, and rebuilt it. I had done a few taxi tests with the 75, mainly to get familiar with my hand controls. I had no problems with the controls I had built for a Cessna, to get my pilots license, but the “tail-dragger” was a whole new deal. The Fly Baby had the normal control stick, and another control stick for rudder and brakes that also had a hand throttle on it. I tried several types of throttle controls, motorcycle, ATV thumb type, and so on, but I never had much confidence in any of these methods. When in the FB, I had to cross my legs, so my feet wouldn’t interfere with the “normal” rudder and brake pedals, which was not very comfortable. All of my hand controls were easily removed in about five minutes, so that anyone else could fly the airplane normally. I did a lot of taxi tests getting the tail up, and lifting the mains off a foot or so, sometimes a little more, then sitting it back down, so I sort of flew it, but I don’t think that was really flying! After I put the C-85 on, it made it easy for me to do this “testing” whenever I wanted to, so I did a lot. I wanted to get the FB airborne, and there was a young man that I had got to know, Curtis Clark, who flew about everything, and I asked him if he would fly it for me. He was familiar with my work on the Nord, and Percival, and had been in and out when I was finishing the Fly Baby, so he said he would. I was anxious to see the bird in the air, and get an evaluation of how it flew, so we arranged for a time for him to “do the honors.”

Larry

[Red]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Good looking "Zero" you've got there Larry!

[marada mx3]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Larry:

Great narrative! I have enjoyed these first 54 pages of your biography, especially since they involve race cars and airplanes (my 2 passions as well ). Keep it up! We are all eagerly awaiting the next chapter.

By the way, I can't recall in the 500+ posts if you said that you had an A&P. Just curious.

Thanks!
Tommy

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

marada mx3, Tommy, I got my pilots licence 12-16-83, and my A&P 12-14-84. I will post some things about that soon. I want to get a little further along with some stories first. Thanks for your interest.

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I had seen some Fly Babys and also several photos with different paint schemes, mostly “civilian,” but some with pre, during, and after-WW2 American Army Air Corps, USAF , English, Canadian, schemes, etc. I wanted to do something different, and unique. I had built an R/C model of an A6M-2 “Zero” for a guy that wanted a lot of documentation, paint schemes, markings and so forth a few years earlier, so that became the choice for my “mini-war bird”.

The green upper, and gray bottom was correct, the “hinamaru’s”, (meatballs) were pre-June of 1943, with the white circle around them, the yellow inboard leading edge of the wing was “correct”, the yellow stripe on the vertical fin and rudder, also. Many “Zeros” had, “eagle of the sea “ painted in Japanese on this yellow stripe, as I did also, but I didn’t have it painted on yet in the photos posted. I also had Fly Baby in Japanese painted on the cowl. There were also “no step, no push,” and all of that kind of stuff painted in Japanese in the appropriate areas. You can see the “dummy” machine guns on the wings, they looked pretty real. Later there was a yellow diagonal stripe on the fuselage just behind the cockpit, signifying, “squadron leader”.

Sandy loved to go to “garage sales”, and one day I went with her, and as we turned a corner to find one of these, I spotted what I thought was a “Fly Baby” tail just inside an open garage door. I stopped, and we got out of our van and went to the door of the house and knocked. An older man opened the door, and I immediately asked if that was a Fly Baby in his garage? He smiled, and said, “ how did you know what it was?” I said, “because I have one”. He took us into the garage and was telling us all about it. He had began building it 19 years earlier, and also had an A-75 engine he had bought at that time. He said that he probably wouldn’t live long enough to finish it at the rate he was going, and laughed. I told him that I would help him finish it since it was pretty far along, and it wouldn’t take much time. I told him to come out to the hangar and take a look at mine, then decide if he wanted some help. We agreed to meet at the hangar the next day, and I had my airplane sitting outside the hangar so that he would see it as he pulled in. Just as he drove onto our ramp, and saw it, he yelled out his car window, “I’ll be right back”, then drove away. When he came back in a few minutes, he was carrying something wrapped up in what looked like red velvet, and he walked around the plane, smiling, and showing his approval. He leaned in and looked at my instrument panel, then turned around and handed me this red velvet “package”, then said, “ you have got to have this”. I unwrapped it and inside was a turn and bank indicator, with Japanese writing on it. He said that his father had removed it from a wrecked “Zero” during WW2 while he had been in New Guinea, and brought it back as a souvenir. I told him, “You can’t give me that!” He said, “I just did, it needs to be on your panel”. I would need to make a new instrument panel to install it, but it would be well worth the effort.

We finished his Fly Baby, and he painted it in a civilian scheme, and it looked great. Sandy took several pictures of the two sitting side by side, but I have not been able to find them yet. I wish I could remember that man’s name, his last name was Olsen, I think, he had been an airline pilot, but lost his medical. He said that he was going to fly his Fly Baby one time, then donate it to the San Diego Air Museum.

There was an Air show at Scottsdale, and we put the Howard DGA, the Nord, Percy, Sea Fury, and my Fly Baby on display. They were all in line, with a rope barrier across the front and rear, and I noticed a couple of “old timers” really checking out my airplane, and talking softly to each other, and I was inside the ropes trying to hear what they were discussing. They went around to the rear, and I got close enough to hear what that were saying, and heard, “I don’t remember them being this small.”

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Dale Clarke's P-64 replica, and his Sea Fury that I had the privilege of going flying in with him. We had a wonderful time in both of them. I had tried to have Dale fly Blind Mans Bluff after Joanne Osterud was denied approval, but Lorentzen wouldn't O.K. the deal. I wonder where that Sea Fury is now? Anybody know?

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

When I began building a motor mount to put a Wright 3350-26WD on the Sea Fury, I took some very important measurements before removing the Bristol Centaurus. I wanted to make sure that the propeller was the same distance from the firewall, and the engine centerline was the same. Despite what Frank Sanders had said that the Sea Fury cowling would not fit over the 3350,( he insisted that the 3350 was too big around, although I had measured both, and I knew it would indeed fit), I proceeded on. In one of the photos with this post, you can see that only the four main tubes are running from the firewall to the mount “ring”, and aren’t welded in place. We double and triple checked our measurements before doing any welding. In the other photos the “diagonals” are in place and welded. Frank had told me that I wouldn’t be able to triangulate the mount properly, but as usual, not being encumbered by a degree, it looked right to me. I had the “rings “ rolled here in Phoenix, and machined “bosses” that mated up to RS-40-GSA Lord mounts that were used on a Skyraider. I had hired Tommy Brawner who was now a certified welder, and he stitched it together for me. ( this is the Tommy that went to the Speedway with me back in 72, and also on the Lee Brayton race team, he had got out of racing, and was a welder at the nuke plant they were building west of Phoenix, but when it was done, he needed a job, perfect timing.) The fellow standing by the mount is Nick Grace, from England. Some of you may know of him, Spitfires, ME-109, and all of that. There’s a lot of good stuff on the internet about him, he was killed in an auto accident in 1989, but his wife Caroline learned to fly his Spitfire, and still does air shows, etc. Nick was an engineer, and said that the mount looked great to him, he bought two to take to England to put 3350s on a couple of Hawker Tempests. I think he was killed before this got done.

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Just to prove a point, and also verify that my measurements and numbers were correct, we put a Sea Fury cowl on the airplane with a 3350-26WD on my motor mount. It did in fact fit, and I sent some photos to Frank.

I had planned all along to use a B-26 cowl, because it was a two piece cowling with a top and bottom configuration, and was easier to remove for engine maintenance. The way the Sea Fury cowl was made the propeller had to be removed to get the nose bowl off to get access to the various components on the front of the 3350.

Larry