Paul Cullman in his 1931 Curtiss-Wright Junior CW-1S

Well as promised, Paul Cullman visited again, this time with his beautiful Curtiss-Wright Junior CW-1S. As much as we liked the L-5 visit (more pictures from that visit below), seeing the Junior was a real treat. This airplane was built in 1931 and was Curtiss’ answer to an affordable airplane during the depression. It was sort of the LSA of its time and was designed to cost about the same as a ‘medium class’ automobile. Unfortunately, today’s LSAs don’t quite even come in at the expensive class of cars.

The small, two seat pusher design looks rather unusual and apparently the airplane’s were teased a bit during the 1930s for looking like a bathtub. But it looks like a lot of fun to fly and is so simple. Originally the airplanes came with a tiny Szekely 45 hp three cylinder radial. Paul’s Junior is a CW-1S and has the 40 hp, nine cylinder Salmson radial on it. The engine is great and looks just like a miniature version of a bigger radial.

Nine cylinder 40 hp Salmson Radial Engine

A few more pictures of Paul’s Stinson L-5 that he flew in the other week.

Ambulance Door Open on the Stinson L-5

Stinson L-5 Cockpit

Stinson L-5 from the apartment

Paul Cullman is a somewhat regular visitor to Concrete. He stopped by with his Grob motorglider a few times over the summer, but today he flew in with his Stinson L-5B. We’ve heard stories of the airplane, and it was great to see it up close. Paul has been flying for a long time, and was entertaining us with stories from his early days when he says he was much less responsible.

Stories of landing a Champ on one wheel and taxiing to the parking space without letting the other wheel touch sounds like an amazing demonstration of skill more than anything else. He says it was the local flight school who called it irresponsible because the students were trying to emulate the maneuver!

Paul’s L-5 is an ambulance version from 1944. He has promised to fly some of his other interesting airplanes to Concrete in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and who knows what might show up!