The Grassroots fly-in, hosted each year at Brodhead by EAA Chapter 431 and the Midwest Antique Airplane Club (MAAC).  This is always a great event, and 2009 was no exception.  I flew the Waco down to Brodhead for the day on Saturday, September 12^th.  In the front cockpit was Jack Dueck, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  Jack was visiting Oshkosh on some EAA business and was available to tag along to Grassroots.   He’d never been to Brodhead, so he had a really busy day trying to see everything in the hangars as well as all the fly-in traffic.  He even bought a Honda scooter while he was there!!

This year I parked the Waco right next to Tom Brown’s QDC.  Tom’s airplane is the oldest cabin Waco flying, and he doesn’t let it sit still too long.

Here’s another shot of my Waco, looking across the tail of Bob Howie’s RNF.

Other Wacos in attendance included the CRG (one of only two ever built) owned by Pete Heins, here seen parked next to his brother Andy’s YKC-S.

Ok, so I’m way behind.  I’ve been busy, and I’ve basically kept putting off getting this update posted.  I finally got one too many reminders that I haven’t updated lately so I figured I might as well get at it.  Sooooo….

Blakesburg!  After missing the AAA/APM annual fly-in last year due to other commitments, Jeri and I (and the Waco) returned to Blakesburg this year and had the usual marvelous time.  The weather was beautiful, there was a huge turnout, and everyone just had a great time.  Here are just a few highlights.

I parked in the usual Waco parking area, and found my tie-down neighbor to be the EAA Oshkosh award-winning RNF owned by Joe Kaminskas.  Good company!

Another Waco we meet up with at many of the fly-ins is Dave and Jeanne Allen’s ASO.  Dave and Jeanie hail from Elbert, CO.

The theme for this year’s fly-in was “Corporate Wings”.  Here’s just one of the former corporate aircraft in attendance – Chuck Doyle’s Beech 18.

The featured aircraft this year was Howard.  Here’s the bulk of the lineup of 15 Howards that were in attendance.

All told there were almost 400 aircraft registered at the fly-in this year.  One of the rarest of them all was this Harlow.

As always, Blakesburg was an incredibly enjoyable, relaxing event.  We look forward to returning next year and for years to come!

In my last installment I talked about the American Waco Club fly-in at Creve Coeur airport in the St. Louis area, and mentioned that part 2 of the story would be coming shortly.  Well, here it is!  Part 2 of our Great Waco Adventure started on Sunday, June 21^st when we headed for our next stop, Evansville, IN.  We would spend a couple of days with our friends Wayne and Beth Ray before continuing on to the NWC event in Mt. Vernon, OH.  We really enjoyed our time at Wayne and Beth’s, and enjoyed meeting some of the folks in the Evansville area.  Thanks Wayne and Beth!

On Tuesday the 23^rd of June we pointed the Waco east once again, and after a fuel stop in Seymour, IN, we landed at Wyncoop Airport in Mt. Vernon, OH, where the National Waco Club was holding their 50^th Anniversary Reunion.  As you can see in this “self portrait”, my wife Jeri was enjoying the flight!

There were quite a few Wacos on the field already, and there would be a lot more before the event was over.   The folks at Wyncoop were ready for us, and soon we were in our parking spot and getting settled in for the event.  With tie-downs deployed and rental car arranged, it was time to settle back, relax and enjoy the NWC 50^th reunion.

The movie “Field of Dreams” comes to mind.  That film’s tagline, “if you build it, they will come” certainly applies. Andy Heins and Doug Parsons (and all their helpers) “built” the NWC 50^th reunion and the Wacos came.  Over 50 of them!  And some rare ones too!!   With that many Wacos on the field, Wyncoop Airport was indeed a “field of Waco dreams”.  Wyncoop Airport is the perfect venue for this event, and I want to thank owner Brian Wyncoop for making his neat little field available.  In this aerial photo taken by Jim Cunningham from the front seat of our UPF-7, you can see 39 airplanes on the ground.

Here are some of the highlights of the reunion.  First, here’s Harold Johnson’s original 1934 UMF-3.  This airplane has attended all 50 NWC reunions!

Another long-time attendee is Eric Zimmerman’s UPF-7.  This airplane has never been restored, but rather continuously maintained since new.

Dick Jackson arrived in the one and only Waco D.

The only F-2 on the field was Lee Parsons’ beautiful example.

The Waco CRG was designed and built specifically to compete in the 1930 Ford Air tour.  Two CRGs were built, and only one still exists.  It’s owned by Pete Heins, and it looks and sounds wonderful!

There were several “Straightwing” wacos present.  Here’s a lineup that includes (nearest to farthest) Jim Clark’s CSO, Pete Heins’ CRG, and Dave Allan’s ASO.

Dave Allan did a lot of flying during the event.  Here he is taxiing out for another flight.

There were a good number of cabin Wacos in attendance.  Here are three very nice examples.  From left to right; Andy Heins’ 1935 YKC-S, Doug Parsons’ 1934 YKC, and David Parsons’ 1934 UKC.

There were more “little Fs” at the field than I’ve ever seen in one place!  Here are 4 of the 7 that attended.  The two nearest planes are RNFs and the to farthest are INFs.

On Wednesday the 24^th of June a group of us flew about 50 miles west to Mt. Victory, OH for breakfast.  The grass airport is adjacent to a great truck stop/restaurant.  Here’s a view of the place as seen through the struts and wires of our Waco.

Another great fly-out was held on Thursday the 25^th of June.  About 20 Wacos flew to Waco Field in

Troy, OH.  The Field is part of the Waco Historical Society museum, located about half a mile from the original Waco factory.  In fact, when we departed from Waco Field we flew a circle around the original factory buildings, which still stand.  Here’s our Waco sitting in front of the museum hangar at Waco Field.

Sooner than we’d have liked, Sunday the 28^th rolled around and it was time to point the Waco west and make our way back to Oshkosh.  Weather looked OK, but it was to be a slow ride.  The wind was 25 mph right on the nose, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery as we worked our way toward home.  At exactly 2 PM on Sunday, June 28^th we touched down at Wittman Field and brought our Excellent Waco Adventure to an end.

I want to thank everyone who worked so hard on both the AWC fly-in at Creve Coeur and the NWC 50^th Reunion.  Both events were fantastic and everyone involved is to be commended.  We can’t wait to get to future events!  Wacos and Waco people are the best!  Ask Any Pilot!!!!

We recently flew the Waco to two great events – the American Waco Club fly-in at Creve Coeur Airport in St. Louis and the National Waco Club 50^th Reunion in Mt. Vernon, OH.  It was an excellent trip!  We had a great time at both events and at all points in between.  I’m going to break the story up into two parts so that I can cover all the details and include some photos.

We left Oshkosh on June 18^th, headed for Creve Coeur.  Our first challenge was working around (or more accurately between) two large areas of heavy rain, one in central Illinois and the other in central Iowa.  Our timing was right to catch the gap between the two storms and we had a great flight from Oshkosh to Creve Coeur, with a fuel stop in Canton, IL.

When we got to Creve Coeur the first thing we noticed was the temperature.  It was pretty warm!  When we took off from Oshkosh it was 60 degrees, so jackets were in order.  It wasn’t much different in Canton, so we put our jackets back on after our fuel stop.  But somewhere just south of Canton we found the warmer air, and by the time we landed at Creve Coeur we couldn’t get our jackets off fast enough.  This was just a preview of what was to come over the next few days!

Here’s a picture taken shortly after we arrived at Creve Coeur.  We’re parked next to Al Womak’s Waco SRE.

Dick Jackson attended both events with the one and only Waco S3HD, more commonly referred to as simply the “Waco D”.  Here’s the “D” at Creve Coeur shortly after Dick arrived.

Here’s a lineup of three beautiful Wacos including (left to right) Phil and Ruthie Coulson’s UBA, a QCF-2 belonging to John Cournoyer, and a newly-restored YKS-7.

In this picture you can see Jim Wheeler’s ZQC-6 alongside a newly restored UPF7 that features a 300 Lycoming.  I guess that would make it a HPF-7!

This was Jeri’s first time at Creve Coeur, so she took the grand tour of the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum as well as many of the hangars on the field.  There’s always something happening at Creve Coeur, so there’s no shortage of things to look at and people to talk to.  We had a great time renewing old friendships and making new ones.

As is customary, the AWC fly-in included a Saturday morning fly-out to Aero Estates in Belleville, IL.  Mark and Elaine Harter host this event, and as usual it was a very good time.  Thanks to Mark and Elaine for their hospitality!

Here’s our Waco parked at Aero Estates next to a UPF-7 that came all the way from western Colorado to attend the fly-in!

Al Womak parked the SRE next to the Waco D are Aero Estates.

Jeri and I want to thank Phil and Ruthie Coulson and the whole AWC gang, as well as Al Styx, John Cournoyer and all the folks at Creve Coeur, for another wonderful AWC fly-in!  We had a great time and we are already looking forward to next year.

Part 2 of this story will be posted shortly.  Stay tuned!!

Well, here we are in the New Year.  Not much to report on since my last post, since we’ve had no good flying weather (and really no good weather at all) and I haven’t been working on the Waco yet.

I have been working on the annual inspection on the Cessna 180.  I found a few things that require attention, so I’ve been applying myself to that project as time allows.  Once I get the 180 back online I’ll turn to on the Waco.  Hopefully this harsh winter weather we’ve had in December will lead to an early spring.

One can only hope!!

I hate spam!!  Well, the electronic kind anyway.  I just got done with about three days of on and off deleting of spam comments in one of my blog posts.  There were over 1000 comments posted by someone, all junk!  That's a lot of hits on the delete button!!

This is about the 5th or 6th time I've encountered a major spam problem in the comments section of my blog, and I'm pretty much sick of it.  So, as a result I have locked down the comments to allow comments only from registered users of the site.  How do you become a registered user?  Just ask!  Send me an email at "wacojoe @ classicwaco.com" (take out the spaces and leave off the quotation marks).  I'll be happy to add you if you want to be a registered user and post comments.

Now, as far as Waco news goes, there really isn't any.  Jeri and I flew the last flight for 2008 a couple of weeks ago on a nice warm Monday.  The Waco is now tucked into the back corner of the hangar for the winter, ready for its maintenance rotation.  I have some new linings for the brakes to install and a few other little items I want to take care of in addition to the normal annual inspection items.  As always the goal is to have the airplane ready to go in March, so that it can be flying again at the earliest opportunity in 2009.

Stay tuned for a report on how the winter maintenance goes!

I'm a little behind on getting this posted (imagine that!), but that's about the normal schedule for me!

Each year EAA hosts several "fantasy camps" at Pioneer Airport and EAA HQ.  There are camps for the B-17, the Ford Tri-Motor, the Bell 47 helicopter, and the focus of this post - Biplanes!  The Biplane Fantasy Camp was a little different this year for a couple of reasons.  First, the camp was expanded to be a "Vintage Airplane Fantasy Camp".  Rather than focus only on the biplanes, the camp this year included the Spirit of St. Louis.  Camp participants got rides in two different biplanes (more on that in a minute) and also EAA's replica of the Spirit.

Which brings me to the second thing different about this year's camp - it included my Waco!  In the past the folks running the camp have sometimes run into problems with getting everyone up in the biplanes.  Either weather or mechanical issues often threw the schedule into disarray, making it difficult to get all the rides taken care of.  So this year they asked me to provide the Waco as a "backup" in case they had problems.

So the first "first" was bringing the Waco into Pioneer airport.  I've landed at Pioneer a few times during the ski plane fly-ins in my Cubs, and I fly there as a helicopter pilot in the Bell 47.  But the Waco had never been on the ground at Pioneer until this year's fantasy camp.  Here's a picture taken shortly after I arrived with the airplane.

Landing at Pioneer is really enjoyable, and a bit challenging at times due to the proximity to Wittman Field.  But it's a neat airport and a great benefit to EAA members and museum visitors.

Here's a view across the runway toward the EAA museum.

The other biplanes being used for the camp were the EAA's Travel Air and Swallow.  Here they are, ready for action.

As it turned out, the Waco was pressed into service to haul a few rides when the landing gear shock cords on the Swallow started to show signs of problems.  I was happy to fill the gap and give some rides in the Waco, and the campers who rode in the airplane really enjoyed it.

After the camp activities concluded I finished out the weekend by hauling some rides in the Bell 47.  A couple of the biplane campers took rides in the helicopter with me as well.  All in all, a great weekend for all involved.

There won't be much more flying for the biplane this winter, so my next post may very well be retirement of the Waco for the winter.

Cheers!

OK, so once again I've fallen behind on getting stuff posted to my blog. I'm working on the “better late than never” theory. At least that's my excuse (and I'm sticking to it!)

Anyway, the weekend after Labor Day means it's time for the Midwest Antique Airplane Club's (MAAC) Grassroots Fly-in at Brodhead airport in southern Wisconsin. This year the weekend brought beautiful weather, and Jeri and I had a great flight down to Brodhead in the Waco.

When we arrived we were treated to a field pretty much full of a wide variety of really nice airplanes (and really nice people too!). Topping the list of planes in attendance was Addison Pemberton's newly restored Boeing Model 40. Addison and his whole family worked on the restoration, and it's magnificent!!

Here's another plane in attendance at Grassroots that has history as a mail plane – a Stearman 4E.

This Stearman and the Boeing Model 40 went from Brodhead to the east coast to begin an historic flight across the country on an air mail reenactment. They were joined on the mail flight by a Stearman C3B. The whole story of the mail flight can be found on http://www.antiqueairfield.com/.

Of course, this entry wouldn't be complete without a picture of the Waco standing proud on the line at Brodhead!

Another interesting vehicle seen during Grassroots was this antique Ford racing car.

Ted Davis recently finished the restoration of a New Standard D25. He did his best to start wearing it out by hauling rides each day during Grassroots.

There's always a wide variety of airplanes at Grassroots, like these two Cessna amphibs.

So Grassroots 2008 was a great event. I highly recommend membership in MAAC and attendance at Grassroots. This is the place to be if you're a vintage airplane fan!

Thanks to good friend Adam Steineke, classicwaco.com is finally back up and running.  I can fix airplanes, but I am not so good at fixing websites.  Adam was able to find the problem and get things back up for me.  Thanks Adam!!

The Waco has been running great and I've been doing some flying as time and weather has allowed.  Both time and weather have not been as friendly to me this season so I haven't put as many hours on the Waco as I'd like, but the hours I have put on have been thoroughly enjoyable.  The smiles on my passengers' faces have told the story very well!

This coming weekend Jeri and I are planning to attend the Grassroots fly-in at Brodhead, so look for a full report on that event in the near future.

Last night I finally got to fly the Waco for the first time this season.  It's been a long time coming, as spring hasn't really decided to "spring" as of yet here in eastern Wisconsin.  It's been cold, windy, rainy and just basically not very conducive to flying open airplanes so far this season, but last night things finally came around and it didn't take any convincing to get me headed over to the hangar.  I pushed the Waco out, fired it up and went for a beautiful ride!

There was some weather moving in from the west, but it was a beautiful evening around Oshkosh.  Clouds and rain could be seen in the distance, but there was plenty of time to get a nice flight in before the weather arrived.  So I pushed the throttle forward and the Waco responded by eagerly clawing for altitude.

Of course we didn't "claw" for long because open cockpit biplane flying is best served at low altitude.  I climbed up to about 1000 AGL and just enjoyed the evening.

So the season has officially started.  Let's hope that the weather continues to be friendly to open cockpit flying so that the Waco can get its exercise on a regular basis!

Wheel pants, that is.  But more on that in a bit.

You can tell what kind of winter we had here in Oshkosh, WI by looking at how long it's been since I posted to this blog.  We had one of the toughest winters we've had in years here in Wisconsin, and not much flying got done.  Well, actually NO flying got done between the first part of November and the later part of April.  Mostly what we did was plow and shovel snow, or just stay inside and stay warm.  Little by little over that time I performed the annual inspection on the Waco, and also took care of a few minor projects on the airplane.  It is one of those projects I will talk about in this post.

As you can tell by looking at pictures of the Waco in other posts here, she's equipped with a pretty nice looking set of wheel pants on the main wheels.  While these look great on the airplane they did cause a minor problem.  There was no way to check the air in the tires without removing the wheel pants.  This turned what should have been a quick preflight item into an hour-long job.  So one of my winter projects this year was to provide access to check the air in the tires without removing the pants.

Here's what the wheel pants looked like before I started...

Great looking wheel pants, but no way to get at the tire valve stem to check or add air.  I was thinking about how I might want to create some sort of access when I found out that the Waco factory had published a drawing of wheel pant installation that included tire inflation access!  So with the drawing in hand my plan came together.  Here's a picture of the drawing and one of my access cover plates in its "raw" stage...

I made the covers out of .016 2024-T3 aluminum, and finished them by polishing for now.  I'll paint them to match the wheel pants later this summer.  Here's what the covers look like all finished and ready to install...

After finishing the covers I got my courage up and cut a big hole in my nice wheel pant!

Here's a close-up of the new hole in my pant, showing the nut plates installed.  The single hole in the upper right-hand corner of the picture is where the mounting bolt goes into the axle plug.

With the wheel pant mounted back on the airplane, you can see how this will make checking the air in the tires much more accessible....

So here's what the wheel pants look like right now.  Ready for another flying season (minus a little paint on the access cover)!

Now all we need is some flying weather!!

It's that time of year.  Long nights, short days, cold temperatures, and no open cockpit flying.  (At least not for me!)  The Waco is currently undergoing an extended annual inspection, and a few minor modifications and "fixes" will be taken care of too.  Even though the pace is leisurely, everything should be taken care of by the middle of March, which is just right for the weather to start turning around and becoming more open cockpit friendly.

Stay tuned!  I'll post some pictures of some of the work I do as time goes on during the winter, and before we know it we'll have flying season again!

...for heaters and closed cabins.  At least that's the case around here in eastern Wisconsin.  We have had our first snow accumulations, and the daytime highs just barely make it into the 30s.  Not the best Waco weather.

I drained the oil today, officially putting an end to the 2007 Waco flying season.  The Hobbs meter shows 75 hours more than it did at the start of the season, so I would consider the summer of 2007 to be a success!  I've put 129 hours on the plane since picking it up on the first weekend of June 2006.  That's more flying time in two summers than it had accumulated in the 6 summers before!  (it had 90 hours on the clock when I picked it up.)  I'm sure the plane is much happier to be flying, and I'm having a ball with it, so it seems that buying the Waco was a good choice.

This winter will see the normal maintenance and inspection, plus a few minor "fixes" that I want to accomplish.  I'll report on the progress of all these projects as time goes on.  For now, the 180 is in the front of the hangar, ready for winter flying duties, and the Waco is back in the "work corner".  Must be winter time!

I guess time has gotten away from me.  It's been quite a while since I posted anything, but I didn't realize it had be quite THIS long!  It has been a very busy fall, and time flies (whether you're having fun or not)!

September and October were great.  Quite a bit of flying, but lots of other stuff going on too.  One of the highlights was the Midwest Antique Airplane Club's annual "Grassroots" fly-in at Brodhead WI.  I flew the Waco to Brodhead for the day on Saturday, and I was accompanied by Brady Lane, a fellow EAA staffer who did a really neat video presentation of Grassroots. See the video at this link:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184434145/
bclid1184431670/bctid1184468223

I managed to remember my camera as well.  Here are a few pictures from Brodhead.  First, a nice shot of the Brodhead Airport sign being "guarded" by a couple of Pietenpols.

Here's a shot of my Waco at the event.

Of course I always take pictures of other Wacos in attendance as well.  Here is Tom Brown's cabin Waco framed by a really nice F-2 and my F-7.

Here's a full shot of the F-2.  It's for sale in case anyone might be interested!

And of course there were other types at the fly-in too.  Here's a nice shot of a Stearman and a Travel Air parked together.  The Stearman belongs to Merrill and MaDonna McMahon of Wausau, WI.  They just finished a complete restoration of the plane and it's a beauty!  The Travel Air is pretty darned nice too.

And here's a really nice Hatz.

Grassroots is always a great fly-in, and this year was no exception.  Many thanks to all the MAAC members who helped make it happen, as well as the members of EAA Chapter 431, based at Brodhead.  Great Job one and all!