Category: Philosophy

This post has no technical information in it, People who don’t like perspectives, other than their own, shouldn’t read it. If you like it, please consider forwarding this to your friends.

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Builders,

Today, I took one hour to walk through my hangar, and that of my neighbor Paul Salter, and photographed data plates on machines we own. Both Paul and I were taught by our fathers to take great pride in the craftsmanship,  engineering, and manufacturing of our fellow Americans, and this is reflected in the fact that almost everything in each of our hangars was made in the United States of America.

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The age of tools shown reflects that American products were machines built to work and last. This was long before people who knew the price of everything, but the value of nothing, convinced consumers that imported disposable appliances were somehow better products, better for our country, and better for the environment. These lies simultaneously allowed corporations with no loyalty to this country to get rich exporting jobs, and they also permanently crippled hundreds of cities and towns in our country with pervasive underemployment and a withered tax base. This doesn’t even touch on the damage done by astronomic trade deficits.

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Millions of good, stable manufacturing jobs that allowed a parent to  pay a mortgage and send their kids to a fair priced college where systematically disposed of with trade deals and tax polices, while elaborate propaganda blamed workers, unions and product liability, which were small factors compared with the greed. The income and benefits of a manufacturing job was hardly replaced with both mother and father working service sector jobs without benefits, while the children have little supervision.

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Twenty five years after most of these once great companies are gone, the cities that housed them face chronic problems from a labor force that who’s only understanding of the American dream is listening to now distant memories of their parents and grandparents. Into these cities we send police officers, now tasked with the impossible job being cop, domestic councilor, teacher, addiction therapist and role model, all at once, and we act outraged when this can not be accomplished without some tragic errors.

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In the early years, it was the blue collar workers who dreams were dashed, and largely the mobile white collar workers were insulated by moving to the suburbs and the gated communities, but eventually they learned that almost any job can be ‘outsourced.’  Eventually even the people who eluded any damage found out that their kids, graduating from college with a mountain of debt, had to move back home, because they couldn’t pay their expenses and debts, far less start their own lives in an economy that no longer had a manufacturing sector.

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For decades, Americans understood the phrase “Buy American, the job you save might be your own.” All the accomplishments of America, winning WWII, the great middle class, the space program, advancements in medicine, better race relations, all were made possible by a manufacturing based economy. While there are plenty of theories of who was to blame, it is a much better question to ask “Who could have stopped this?” The only answer I have is Americans could have stopped this by simply putting the good of their fellow countrymen ahead of their greed and their belief that “imported” was some kind of a coveted title. Our country wasn’t built by greedy people employing labor in other countries, but it could end that way.

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-ww.

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Data plate from 1954 Briggs and Stratton 1.6 HP engine, Made in Milwaukee. Engine still works perfectly. City was recently the location of riots. People who have good jobs rarely are involved in riots. Notice the tiny print on the very bottom that again says “Made In USA”

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Grace’s Champion propeller driven generator from the 1940s, made in Los Angeles, works perfectly. L.A., once a giant manufacturing town, with a large middle class, now known for it social stress.  Note:”Made in USA”

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My super heavy duty box and pan brake from the 1950s, made in Rockford IL, home of EAA fly-inn’s during the 1960s. Works perfectly. Note it says “Made in USA” on both sides.

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Data plate on Grace’s Goodyear outboard, probably made in the 1940s. At the time, Goodyear was the worlds largest tire company. They no longer are, and the latest Goodyear airships are made in Germany.  Unemployment in Akron was 11.9% in 2010, but it is much lower today: the trick? The people who have given up looking for work are no longer counted.

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My 1947 Sun distributor test machine, 69 years old, works perfectly, I use it every week in the shop. Perhaps you have heard of some of the recent  problems in the city where it was made. I have heard all kinds of things blamed for these issues, but so far, no one has suggested that too many good jobs could be blamed.

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My 1950s 2HP, 2 stroke, Panther lawn mower. Runs, but 16″ cut is a little small to mow an acre of Florida grass. Millions of Clinton small engines were made in Iowa. Their plant was the worlds largest, far bigger than Briggs and Stratton. Today, the average income in Maquoketa IA is the same number as the poverty line in the state.

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Data plate on my 1960s bead blasting cabinet. The company was a huge manufacturer, and it still exists, but reported to Forbes that it moved to UT specifically to find the lowest labor and benefits costs. They are in Chapter 11 since the start of this year.

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A 1960s Briggs 2HP with crank up starter that originally belonged to Grace’s grandfather, used on his Reel lawnmower. Still runs great. Most Briggs engines are only “assembled” in the US, not made here any longer. Flat head engines like this model, were outlawed for sale in California, due to emissions, at the same time the state legalized smoking pot, and countless media stories were run calling the selling of Marijuana a “Good employer”.

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My 1960s Lempco 40 ton press. In WWI and WWII, Lempco was a critical defense contractor. They invented the “Hypermatic” stamping press, which operated at 7,200 stampings per minute. (Yes, that is faster than a GE mini-gun fires, but the hypermatic press can work that way for eight hours at a time.) In 2012 Lempco was sold cheaply to a Japanese firm.

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This is the B&B motor that controls the rotating turntable I use for welding items like intake manifold flanges. The company still exists and is going strong after 75 years, and still located in NY. The motor illustrates that the five boroughs of NYC, particularly Brooklyn and Staten Island were huge manufacturing centers, supporting very large middle classes. Today, half the people in NYC struggle to stay above the poverty line in service jobs, often functioning as servants to the ultra wealthy there. Read: Thought for the Day: “My Dreams”

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My Clinton flat head engine from the early 1950s. The factory started in WWII making parts for M2 Brownings.  Clinton went from being the tenth largest employer in the state of Iowa in the 1950s, to non-existent with the ‘assistance’ of some very creative bankers and financiers from New York.

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The Data plate inside Grace’s 1965 Corvair Greenbriar van. In the 1960s, GM was the largest corporation in the world, and arguably the #1 American employer. Today it is Walmart. Ask yourself which job had better pay and benefits, and pride.

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Paul’s 1965 Bridgeport 8 x 48 vertical mill. The term “Bridgeport” was synonymous with the finest. 51 years after it was made, it still works smoothly and  accurately. The machines were made from 1938 until 2004 when Bridgeport was purchased by global took company Hardinge. They have brought the Bridgeport line back, but it is said they are no longer made from US castings.

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Paul’s Logan screw lathe. Looks dirty, but that is because it works. 90,000 of these machines were made in Chicago between 1940 and 1971, when the plant was closed and moved to lower labor cost by the new owner Houdaille. The new owners tried something new in 1979 called a “Leveraged Buy out”, offering to make themselves a 20 fold increase in their investments. It didn’t work, and the whole business went down, taking the remaining jobs.

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Data Plate on Paul’s Allis Chalmers fork lift transmission. The one on the fork lift itself is no longer legible. Muncie was once home to Dayton Corporation, Delco Remy, General Motors, New Venture Gear, Indiana Steel and Wire, and Westinghouse. Today it has a tiny fraction of its manufacturing jobs left, the cities webpage says they are being ‘replaced’ by service economy jobs in retail and health care.

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Paul’s Delta tool grinder. The Data plate is a work of art. Note how the whole sentence is written out: “Made in the United States of America.”

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The Data Plate on Alan’s 1964 Chevrolet Suburban. It is on the lift at Paul’s hangar. He is mostly through the restoration to daily driver. The truck was bought brand new by Alan’s grandparents, and used to tow their Airstream trailer. It has the original 283 V-8 and Powerglide transmission.

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Paul has a huge DeVilbiss air compressor, probably from the 1940’s It was made in Toledo OH. In 1999 the company as bought and moved, and resold 5 times in the next several years. Compressors sold today with the same name have nothing to do with the original quality units, they are just re-labeled models sourced from various suppliers.

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The Delta motor on Paul’s saw. The title says Rockwell, which means it is likely from the 1960s. The thing I like best bout this is the fact it has the wiring diagram to reverse it’s rotation or change the input voltage is right on the data plate. Today, Delta tools are just junk made in China.

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Data plate on the governor of my Detroit 3-53T diesel. It shows that it was from a single cylinder 71 series generator motor, but this just shows the great interchangeability of the Detroit Diesel series engines that it also works on a three cylinder engine. Designed in 1938 by the most brilliant automotive engineer who ever lived, Charles Kettering.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Kettering) sorry European fans, Robert Bosch is the wrong answer. Detroit Diesels were enormously popular, and saw service in trucks, ships, tanks, landing craft, trains, PBR’s and construction equipment. They were a separate division of GM, and a very large employer in Detroit. Because they are a 2 stroke, they were specifically outlawed in California, although they are still used in US military vehicles. GM sold Detroit to the German firm MTU.
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The Data plate on the Continental C-85 engine in Graces 1946 Taylorcraft. You can not see it well here, but between the wings is a picture of the United States Capitol , along with the motto of Continental Motors which was “As Powerful As the Nation.”  This makes me angry to type, because of course the government of mainland China, yes the commies, actually owns Continental. (Communist Chinese government at Oshkosh) This data plate above all others tells the ugliest story about greed and lack of any sense of allegiance to our country or its people. I am aware that very few people in aviation care about this, it is “Just Business” to them, but it matters to me.

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For further reading: Why “Made in America” matters to me.

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Builders:

News channels in the US will be occupied with pathetic stories of moral corruption today, and there can be no greater leadership contrast today than looking at the nation of Thailand, where their beloved king who has ruled for 70 years, has passed from this life.  Most of my friends know that I spent my childhood living in Thailand. While it has become an ever more popular tourist destination since we were there in the 1970s, few westerners ever took the time to understand that the King of Thailand was an incredible life-long example of real moral power.

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Above, my father speaking with HRH, the King of Thailand, in 1974. Being born in Massachusetts and educated in Switzerland, The king understood both western and eastern worlds. 

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During the cold war, our nation ‘befriended’ a number of terrible despots like Chang Kai-shek, Ferdinand Marcos and the Shaw of Iran. In complete contrast, Thailand shared our vision of a world without communist totalitarians, while being lead by a man whom we could be very proud to consider as an ally. If half our allies in the cold war had been people of his morality, the world would have been a much better place today.

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In the western world, we think of “Kings” in the European tradition, where they pronounce their powers as God’s will, declare themselves infallible, write their own law, have their enemies put in dungeons, behead their ex-wives and declare war on their colonies, all while sitting on vast wealth and great estates, tended by subjects that are beneath them. They declare themselves to have “absolute power” but in reality, they are weak because they lack one critical element: Moral Power. 

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The King of Thailand was the worlds longest serving ruler, having been king for 70 years. Contrary to western monarchy, he was not the head of the faith, nor was he leader of the armed forces; he didn’t derive power from legislation nor from wealth; he took no direct role in politics, and he directly spoke against the concept of infallibility, calling it an insult.   Yet for seven decades he remained the most respected and powerful man in a country of 65 million people. His entire life was a single example of ethical and moral behavior, one that was revered by the people of his nation, and in times of crisis, his leadership by example of ethical behavior, was a compass needle his nation chose to follow.

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Today, in our country, we have two people fighting to be in a position of leadership. I can say without the slightest hesitation, that even though one of them will be ‘elected’, there was never any chance that either one of them would be our nations ‘Leader’, because each of them, a long time ago, did things which permanently crippled any moral power they might ever have. Moral and ethical understanding of life is the critical element without which, no good can come. I would offer my condolences to the people of Thailand, but at this hour, it seems we might be the country who is suffering

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From the 2013 story: Happy Father’s Day William E. Wynne Sr. :

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“Thailand is a constitutional monarchy like England, but the Thais hold the deepest reverent respect for their royal family. The King is the longest serving ruler in the world, and is widely understood as a very positive force in a part of the world that knew very little peace or freedom. He was educated in the United States and knew that his country was on the front lines of the Cold War.

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The location of the photo was a construction site on Doi Inthanon, the tallest mountain in SE Asia. From 1971-74, my father was the OICC (Officer in Charge of Construction) in Thailand. This included numerous military and civilian infrastructure projects in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and places as distant as Diego Garcia. My father worked equally hard on building hospitals and roads as he did building airbases. While all of Thailand’s neighbors, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, fell into savage rule by communist totalitarian regimes that ran from repressive police states to genocide, the Thai people were spared this trip to hell. My father remains very proud of the role he played in preventing their enslavement.

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As a show of respect for our Thai hosts, we lived in a typical Thai home, went to regular schools, learned the language, ate the food and always were deeply respectful of the people, customs and beliefs of our host nation. My father drilled into us that any shortcoming on our part would be tantamount to sabotaging the work that he and many other Americans were doing to ensure excellent relations between the two countries.  Today, 42 years later, I have no patience for any American who goes abroad and forgets what the word “guest” means.  At the conclusion of our time there, the Thai Secretary of Defense presented the Order of the White Elephant to my father. It is the medal on the ribbon around his neck in his official photo above.”

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Builders;

During the hurricane, our power was out for two days. With the hangar flooded, there wasn’t much to do. In the middle of the storm I did ride the dirt bike around the airport, but after visiting neighbors I headed home to read something. The book I picked out was “The Winged Watchman” a 200 page 1960 children’s book which I had retrieved from the book shelves of my parents house last year. It was around when we were kids in the 60’s, and I am sure most of us read it in turn.

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I had never sat down and read the whole book, and was surprised how good it was. It was intended for children, perhaps from 10-15, but it was obviously written by an author who took writing for children as a serious challenge rather than an excuse for weak work.

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The subject of the story is a child’s life in the Netherlands during Nazi occupation. It covers family, faith, work, collaborators, patriotism, hiding partisans, downed airmen and Jews, famine, fear and forgiveness. I got the sense that the book was written 15 years after the war, when children born after it were just old enough to understand what their parents and families had lived through, and it was important to the author that the next generation understand something of this. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, and I’m sure there are great things about them, but I suspect they have less to teach about life than older children’s books did.

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Too few American kids read Anne Frank’s “Diary of a young girl” in school these days, and almost no Americans can place Anne Frank as being hidden for 750 days in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The Winged Watchman was published at the same time that European Neo-Nazis were just emerging to claim that Anne Frank was a hoax, and that she had never lived. If any of the writing in The Winged Watchman  seems slightly heavy handed, perhaps it can be forgiven when seen as having to counter claims that the Germans had arrived as benevolent overseers.

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If there was one good thing about the hurricane, it was reading a book that arrived on our family bookshelves more than five decades earlier, and reflecting on how important it was to my parents that our childhoods be filled with books and reading, even when we were a medium sized family living on the modest income of a junior Naval Officer.  Something that makes me feel very fortunate.

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-ww.

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Builders;

170 years ago, half my DNA lived in Germany, the other half in Ireland.  The first element of the Irish half came to America in the form of a 12 year old girl who walked 90 miles to a port, took 4th class steerage to Castle Garden immigration station, and began 8 years of work as an indentured servant in a wealthy home in New Jersey.

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She had a number of sons, almost all of whom became police officers, among them my Grandfather Michael Wynne and his older brother William Wynne. Starting before WWI, they worked as patrolmen for the Passaic and Clifton departments respectively.

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On Columbus day 1925, my great uncle was on duty for the parade in Clifton. He observed the marchers in the lead holding the Italian flag up high, while intentionally holding the United States flag dipped beneath it. He was not one to tolerate such intentional disrespect, and he stepped off the curb and grabbed the pole of the Italian flag.  When a number of the marchers moved on him, he drew his revolver to make it clear he would not be assaulted without cost.

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The mayor was pressured to fire him, but there was a public outcry, exemplified by the poem in the paper shown below, written by a woman who’s father was a civil war veteran. William Wynne kept his job, but in the long run paid a price for it. He advanced through the ranks, but not at the pace he deserved or one that matched the success of his brothers. If he ever regretted his actions that day, he never mentioned a single word of it to anyone. He put his loyalty to the ideals of this country above all else.

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My Grandfather and his siblings were aware of their heritage, but were not attached to it; They considered themselves 100% American. In their formative years, Teddy Roosevelt was the outspoken president of the United States. One of the things TR spoke against was anyone identifying themselves as a “Hyphenated American.”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphenated_American ) . Roosevelt was absolutely clear that he considered any naturalized citizen just as good as one who was born here, but he had no tolerance for people who were unsure of their loyalty. To some of todays ears, this is terrible, but my grandfather and his siblings understood it without reservation. A century later, I confess to feeling the same way.

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We have all seen the commercial for DNA testing where some person feels their life is changed because they discover that 300 years ago their ancestors lived in a Slavic country, not Spain. I find the very premise laughable, because that person could have traveled to both Slovenia and Spain, and they would really know nothing of the customs, far less the mindset, yet the new results bring them some “identity”.

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Conversely, I have no confusion on these issues: for better or worse, I am an American, period, end of sentence. I have known many Germans, worked with them and have been to Germany; in spite of the fact 50% of my DNA is from there, I feel no attachment to the culture, it isn’t mine to claim. In Munich I was simply a tourist just as I have always been in other countries. I suspect the peoples of those lands would prefer Americans didn’t harbor the fantasy their DNA tests qualify them to understand what it means to be a native of those places.

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Unlike most Americans, I am particularly well read on our history, including its lowest points. I was born 72 years to the day after the US 7th Cavalry killed several hundred people, mostly women and children, at a cold desolate place called Wounded Knee, South Dakota.  This was considered the very last ‘battle’ fought between Native Americans and all the people who had come since Columbus.  398 years of warfare came to an end that day, not with just peace, nor even a fair fight.  On a day where most people are somehow blindly celebrating a man who ushered in the Europeans, you can set yourself apart by reading the story of Wounded Knee, including the really ugly parts where women with infants who ran miles from the battle where run down and executed by US soldiers. There were less that 500 soldiers there, but 22 of them were awarded the Medal of Honor for their ‘heroic’ actions.

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The awareness of my countries failings doesn’t condone or justify weak loyalty. The awareness just requires my vigilance against further mistakes during the ‘watch’ of my adult years as a citizen. There will be national failings, such as this: Political Reality Check , but they should not be cynically accepted as inevitable. It is beyond me why many people believe that our mistakes are made by the other party, my personal feelings are expressed here: Patriotism has no Party .

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Worth reading:   What the 4th of July means to me.

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Your Aviation Connection: Just as I believe that a person can choose to be an American, and make the conscious choice to live within our laws and values, I also believe that anyone, can choose to be an Aviator, and abide by and enjoy the equal protection of the laws of physics chemistry and gravity.  It has been my long experience that the rewards of being an aviator go to the people who give it the ‘loyalty’ of their best efforts, not those who dabble in it with half hearted interest, a hyphenated loyalty where the casual retain the customs of lands outside the airport fence where “It should be alright” is a national moto.

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Read: Risk Management – Human factors ” The evidence that fools present for the existence of luck is vague and anecdotal at best.  Hard, proven and factual evidence for the existence
of Physics, Gravity and Chemistry can be found at any crash site.”

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When I was little, maybe 9, my Father took us to The Jefferson Memorial. There he explained to us that The United States of America was neither a business nor a playground, it is a set of ideals, which made it the last best hope of mankind. The dream that mankind had moved past kings and dictators, past theocrats and oppressors, to a world where individuals governed themselves as equals. We could look at the ceiling and read Jefferson’s words plainly:

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“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

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 From there we went to Arlington, where my father explained that the nation had set aside an eternal resting place for the citizens who had laid down their lives for the ideals of this country, and if he were ever to take a place among them, we should not weep, as it would only mean that he had lived for something greater than himself.

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Builders;

Today in Homebuilding circles, there was a lot of excitement, because word came that one of the most anticipated Homebuilts in 20 years, Jack Bally’s 1/3 scale, scratch build B-17G is very nearly complete, and had all four engines running now.  One of the reasons I have followed the project closely is because Jack’s nephew, Dave Bally, is a fellow Corvair builder, and a great contributor to our efforts to support Corvair builders. I have not yet met Jack in person, but if he is anything like his nephew, it is easy to understand why the man has friends far and wide.

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Dave is the guy who is the first person to show up when we arrive at Oshkosh or Midwestern Corvair Colleges.  Just when you are exhausted from travel, he is full of energy to set up; When you discover the critical piece you left at home, Dave has already figured a way around needing it or fabricated a replacement; When you are tense, Dave is calm, and in no time at all he is setting the pace unloading, unpacking and applying his dry sense of humor to the moment, always making it much better. He always does this, he never lets you know he is coming, he is just there. He actually is the relentlessly positive person I pretend to be.  He is the embodiment of everything I like about EAA people.

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Above, Dave and Grace at Oshkosh 2016. The place looks bare because it is after the show. Not only did Dave help us set up, he also came by after it was over and ‘helped’ us take down the tent and pack everything in the trailer. I have ‘helped’ in quotes because he actually did the lions share of the effective work.

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If you were at any recent Oshkosh, or at this years Zenith Open House or last years Corvair College #34, Dave was at all of these events, pitching in to make each of them better for Corvair builders. At College #34, both Dan Weseman and I agreed that it was Dave, who showed up and assisted builders breaking down cores and getting them going, who was our critical volunteer assistant. Keep in mind that Dave didn’t even bring any of his own engine to the College, he just drove a couple of hundred miles each way to assist other builders.

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Above is Jack Bally, Dave’s uncle with his scale B-17G. Yes, that is a single seat experimental aircraft. you can read more at this site: http://www.theballybomber.com/

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After the crew of volunteers helped us set up the day before Oshkosh 2016, we went out to a very posh restaurant called Jansen’s in the old district of Oshkosh. From the outside it looks like any other brew hall in town, but inside it is pure class, and the food is outstanding. From the left, Dave Bally, John “Nungesser” Schmidt, and Grace.

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OK, here is the photo you I can share since Jack Pelton, Chairman of the EAA has already signed my Major Achievement Award. That is Grace, myself, and ‘Outlaw Kitfox’ builder Mike Maury. The Three of us and Dave and John headed out to dinner together.  When we got to Janson’s, there was only one table left. Since we were all wearing aviation shirts (and a little underdressed for Janson’s), the waitress knew were we in town for Airventure. The local people don’t call it that, nor Oshkosh, they universally refer to it as “EAA”.  She walked right up to us and said “Are you from EAA?” which we replied “Yes.” She lead us right to the only table, which was marked ‘Reserved’. I was exhausted and thought it was very nice they reserved a table for any people attending Airventure.

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Right after we ordered dinner, In walks Jack Pelton, head of the EAA. (He is the guy in the blue polo shirt in the background above) Even with my dulled brain, I quickly understand that our waitress was actually asking if we were from EAA headquarters, the people who actually reserved the table, not asking us if we were attending Airventure. and we had just taken Mr. Pelton’s table, which lead to the slightly childish picture above. A moment later we told our waitress we were more than willing to share it. To his credit, Jack Pelton didn’t raise the slightest fuss, nor complain to the staff, nor did he try to pull rank. He just pulled up a place at the bar and ate dinner with some friends. While I have previously been critical of the upper management of EAA, a number of trusted friends who work at headquarters everyday have assured me that Pelton is actually the right guy to head EAA at this time, just as Paul Poberezny was the right man to be the founder of the association.  I can be opinionated, but I will always listen to rational people who have more first hand experience than I do.

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Builders,

For the last several years we have had a “Corvair College” Face book page. It is a public page, you don’t need a FaceBook page of your own to read it and follow it. Originally it was made by Shelley Tumino to support the work she does as our Corvair College on line sign up administrator. Over time Shelley expanded it as a news site for Corvair powered planes and their builders.

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Because of the expanding popularity of the site, I am now going to link it directly to this blog and I have also asked Rachel Weseman from SPA/Panther to also share her Corvair/Panther and Corvair support stuff there also. This will greatly boost the content on the Corvair College FB page while keeping the ‘all Corvair’ theme.

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While the stories that Rachel, Shelley and myself post to the page are available from our regular sources, the one thing that is good about having it on the Corvair College FB page is that we can easily share links to the individual FB pages of Corvair builders and flyers, so everyone can see them without having to have a FB page of their own or already be ‘friends’ with that person on FB. There are also a number of events like the Zenith open House and the Deland aviation Showcase (which have their own Face Book pages) which should  directly appeal to Corvair builders and we can get them all in one place on the Corvair College Face book page.

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I have my own Face Book Page, but I intend to kill it shortly. I understand why many people like their personal FB pages and enjoy sharing with friends, but it really isn’t for me . I am a bigger fan of people in person than on line, and truthfully, I have only 2 friends from before I was 26 that I every correspond with anyway. The ‘friends’ I have on my page are really 98% from aviation anyway, and they can all move over to the Corvair College Face Book Page.  If you were one of the scores of people who I failed to respond to a FB Friend request, I apologize, I intended to move to the Corvair College page a long time ago and not have a personal page.

 

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The Corvair College Face Book Page, click on it:

https://www.facebook.com/CorvairCollege

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Another post on information resources that builders should read:

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Outlook 2016 – The Corvair ‘Information Network’ now in gear.

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Above, Shelley Tumino, Co-host of Corvair Colleges #22, 28, 32 and 36, stands in front of the tear drop trailer she hand crafted.  The picture was taken at the 2015 Pietenpol gathering at Brodhead WI. Nearly everything in the picture was packed into the trailer for the trip from Texas. The woman is seriously into organization, logistics and deployment. Shelley had a long career in the Armed Forces.  Shelley takes having fun and camping more seriously than some countries take mobilizing for conflicts.

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Builders:

I am now about to demonstrate my commitment to the risk management of today’s homebuilders, by “Touching the Third Rail” of homebuilding, I am going to say something that strongly disagrees with a man who since his passing has been elevated to infallible sainthood in homebuilding,  Tony Bingelis. This will certainly generate hate mail, but that’s OK it just keeps the Christmas card list short.

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Before people get up in arms, let me make several statements: Tony Bingelis was a real homebuilder, He made about 10 planes, he wrote a lot of useful articles, particularly in the era when many homebuilts were plans built, and the plans lacked a lot of finishing details. Critically, while his writing didn’t include phrases like “I might be wrong about this” no where did he claim to be infallible. That aspect of his legend came later, not from people who appreciated his books (like me) but from people who wanted to have an infallible saint to follow, who’s comments were often vague enough to seem to support their particular personal myth they wanted to believe.

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Want an example? In his book on power plants, Bingelis’s advice on prop length is  “Keep your prop as long as possible, as long as possible” Sounds like a witty clever idea, but doesn’t constitute any learning, testing or experience. It is just a catch phrase that countless people have used as ‘evidence’  that their belief that props turning over 2200 rpm are inefficient, and any prop smaller than 72″ makes no thrust. Let’s compare an actual data point, from a contemporary of Bingelis: Steve Wittman. get a look at this story: From The Past: With Steve Wittman 20 years ago today. I went flying with him, his prop was a Cessna 150 prop cut down to 62″, and when we were doing 195mph, it was turning 3,600 rpm. Anyone who understands anything about the life’s work of Wittman knows that if the plane would have been 1 mph faster with a 63″ prop, it would have had one. My point is that Bingelis published a lot of great detail design stuff, but when he didn’t have first hand experience, he resorted to vague hangar mythology statements like his one on props, that later generations would treat as some kind of religious body of wisdom, which is a bad concept, in a field where we are supposed to Learn Build and fly.

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One of the first things people are going to say is that Bingelis’s book has a disclaimer in the introduction. It does, stating that none of the information is guaranteed to work. Actually this is one of the things I dislike about his writing. Go back and read it with a fresh set of eyes. Nearly every chapter has a subtitle disclaimer in it saying ‘this may not work for you, you should ask around. Read his comments on tank sealers: he will not come out and say “Don’t use it” he kind of says it but has a CYA, statement about how you should “ask around for yourself. ” If that was how one was to get information, why was the book written?

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What is wrong with a Fiberglass tank in the fuselage? First , It is the least crash worthy of any tank material. Second, they put stuff in fuel today that was not even dreamed of when Bingelis’s book was written in 1986.  The stuff can even be regional, and it might be in the tank of fuel you get on a cross country, after years without issue. Third, fuel tank sealers that worked great 15 years ago, don’t reliably work against the ethanol content in fuel today. Fourth, I have done a lot of high end composite work, and most home made fuel tanks including the one pictures are brittle pieces of crap, because the guy who laid them up had no training, and put about twice as much resin in the weave as desirable.

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So what is the real lesson here? I had a guy tell me that he is building a Pietenpol, and his Piet buddies, told him that Bingelis’s books are “timeless” and that he didn’t need anything other than the plans. I pointed out to him that I own an original set of 1930’s flying and glider manuals, I love them, they worth more than $1,500, but I am not going to build a Pietenpol tank out of soldered tern plate, just because that is what is shown in the plans, and 1930 or 1986, it doesn’t matter, dated information is dated information. Books on aerodynamics structures and physics of flight don’t change, however, books on materials and process do, and only a foolish person would restrict himself to information 30 years old.

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Today, there are lots of sources for proven information. There are modern day Steve Wittmans, and you should follow them, because their suggestions are based not on quaint sayings, but on tests you can study and understand.

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Above, a fiberglass 12 gallon aux tank that flew for several years in the passenger compartment of my friends Caviler, a wooden low wing plane with a 60mph landing speed. The book is one of Bingelis’s three, immensely popular books. In this one, it details all the attributes of making this kind of tank, even on planes where the tank is in the fuselage, with narry a word about the kind of risk this is. The book was published 30 years ago and Bingels has been dead for 15 years. Perhaps if he was alive he might revise his recommendations in light of modern opinions about such tanks.

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If you or your buddy have such a tank in your plane, I am not suggesting that it is “Un-airworthy” , but I am asking you as an intelligent human being to do some research and consider things. If your buddy says, “It’s been in there for years, I have seen plenty of them. besides, it is in Tony Bingelis’s book”  Then he is just the kind of mythology spreader I am speaking of, and it is a waste of time to try to get him to think, he just wants an infallible source to cite as validation for him being too cheap or lazy to change it. Please read carefully: If you have seen my story:Steel tube fuselages, “Safe” planes and 250mph accidents, and you decide that you still are ok with this kind of tank, because you have given it open minded thought, I am ok with that, that is actual thinking, not validation.

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Above, dull hatchet, half hearted swipe, and it is right through. Aluminum would do much better, and I doubt any human could put a dull axe through a rotationally molded plastic tank. There are countless plastic tanks, look at SummitRacing.com and search “Fuel Cell” Yes, they are cheaper than the materials in a fiberglass tank.

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I have been an aircraft mechanic for 25 years. If I was doing an inspection on a 70 year old plane, but only used the AD’s written up to 1986, under the justification that it was a “classic” plane and the information about it couldn’t have gotten any better since 1986, the FAA would take away my License, period. If some one was hurt in the plane because it was not compliant with a post 1986 AD, then I would be looking at a complementary vacation at a federal gated community. Experimental aircraft don’t have AD’s but the logic of using up to date information is exactly the same.

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Why this stuff matters to me: I have been burned over 40% of my body. I have written very plainly about the experience, and written articles like this: Pietenpol Fuel lines and Cabanes but quite frankly, I think most people don’t really care. Improving the fuel lines in a Pietenpol could be done for about $100 and four hours work, yet, years later, 75% of the planes still have hard fuel lines on them. Some people don’t care, others don’t like me personally and will not improve their plane, just because the suggestion came from me. I write this knowing that the great majority of people will not take the information seriously. I am OK with that, I don’t base my happiness on the actions of others.

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-ww.

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To read about the contributions of Tony Bingelis to Homebuilding follow this EAA link:

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http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-communities-and-interests/homebuilt-aircraft-and-homebuilt-aircraft-kits/eaa-homebuilt-airplane-programs-and-resources/eaa-tony-bingelis-award/learn-more-about-tony-bingelis

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Builders:

For a number of years after 9/11, my Father would often speak with a nurse who worked in his cardiologist’s office. The woman had lost her brother on 9/11, he was working as a police officer in the World Trade Center. The woman had learned that my father, for a very small reason, had not been on the 89th floor that day. She held out hope against hope, that some similar reason had drawn her brother away before the collapse. She came to believe that my father, who was very kind to her and patiently listened, believed her.

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Eventually they found her brother’s service pistol, identified it by it’s serial number. This didn’t convince her he was gone. My father, when directly confronted with this woman’s anguish, wouldn’t do anything to extinguish the tiny flame of hope she desperately kept. Between WWII, Korea and Vietnam, my father had seen plenty of hope extinguished, but something inside him couldn’t be a participant in it now, particularly when it became apparent that fewer and fewer people in the woman’s life could once again listen to her consider the possibility that her brother might be in a hospital somewhere, misidentified with a brain injury.

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Although each of these conversations distressed him deeply, my Father never made any attempt to change offices nor arrive on the woman’s day off.  It was just a quiet obligation that he felt that fate had handed him. After a number of years, the woman no longer worked in the office. My father never said anything about it, but it was obvious that it relieved him of a great weight.

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Today, on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, the nation’s remembrance is beginning to feel a little rehearsed. Every year, more people become distant from it, just like the woman’s co-workers in her office. In time it was fading for them, but not for her. I have no idea where she is today, but I hope she has found some measure of peace at her own pace. It’s a nice thought, and I want it to be true, but I keep having a disturbing image of a very lonely human being carefully studying the images of todays televised remembrance, looking once again for the face of her brother.

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I took the photo above on 9/12/01. The letter is taped to Washington Rock, a 500′ ridge a few miles from my parents’ house in N.J. It has a direct view of lower Manhattan from 10 miles. Hundreds of people stood in silence there and watched the smoke pour out of the city. The letter was a note to a dead friend promising to take care of his children and to raise them as he would have. Below it is my Father’s business card. Note the address of World Trade Center #2. Read the whole story at this link: Thought for the Day – 9/11

Builders:

In the middle of the night, the classic movie channel ran a little remembered film from 1969,” The Gypsy Moths.” I stayed up to watch it straight through. The film has always meant something to me since I first saw it in the 1970s.  I had not seen it in 25 years.  Of course the film never changes, but my life has, and in this way, some pieces of literature and art that have always spoken to you, offer an excellent yardstick to see what you have learned thought and felt in the last quarter century. And so it was, and I watched the film again, uninterrupted in the quiet hours of the night.

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Burt Lancaster, in the dark jumpsuit, was the center of the film. He was 56 at the time, at the peak of his power in Hollywood. He spent the late 1960s making films like “The Swimmer” which were important to him, but had no hope of being popular, widely appreciated nor commercially successful. “The Gypsy Moths” is one of these films.

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  The 1940 Howard DGA-15  above was the only plane in the film. In the 1990s I did a lot of work on two magnificent Howard restorations, and a bit of flying in them. As great as they were, I am drawn much more to the plane in the film, with it chipped paint and worn condition. In 1969 no one had given much thought to creating an industry around competitively restoring old aircraft and handing out trophies and awards, and writing articles about them for spectators to admire. In 1969, a DGA-15 was not an investment nor anyone’s personal trophy, it was just a big old workhorse, a plane valued for it flying abilities only.   The particular Howard from the film is still on the FAA roles, it lives in Temecula California. There is a part of me that really hopes it looks exactly as it did in the film, and if it doesn’t, I would actually prefer not to know that.

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Most people think of The Gypsy Moths as a film centered on skydiving.  To Paraphrase Gene Shalit, A Streetcar Named Desire was not a film about public transportation, nor is The Gypsy Moths a film about skydiving. The film is a harsh examination of the differences between people who discard “normal” lives in pursuit of feeling alive, and those that watch this from the outside, knowing that the security they got in trade for their own dreams may not have been such a good deal. When you tell people you are building your own plane, and they have an emotional negative reaction, you are looking at the exact same human terrain that is covered in this film.

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  The most poignant moment in the film happens when Burt Lancaster asks Debora Kerr, the secure but anguished housewife to leave with him, and experience life. As desperately as she wants release from her middle-aged life in small town America, she is terrified of change and will not go. She is the horse who will not leave the burning barn. There is a part of her that just wants to be abducted to a new life, but Lancaster softly explains that being alive is something you have to want for yourself.

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It isn’t a “nice” film, and frankly, almost none of the films that mean something to me are “nice” the same way that don’t need paintings or photos to be “pretty.” I have people I care about, who spend their lives in pursuit of “happiness” as a goal to give meaning to their lives. Such people would find this film distasteful because it highlights conflicting lives and evolves as an unresolved tragedy, there is precious little happiness to be found in it, however, it is filled with awareness and understanding, which happen to be the things I have pursued to give meaning to my life.

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-ww.

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