With the days getting a bit longer, and a bit warmer, we are starting to see more visitors to 3W5. Earlier this month a group of pilots from the EAA chapter in Bellingham flew in (and drove in) for a visit. Chapter 404 member Kerry Sim sent in some photos from the visit, which he says was thoroughly enjoyed by all those who attended, especially the ones who got to go for a ride in the Fairchild 24.
Below are the pictures and some notes from Kerry about the visit.
Anybody who has spent any time visiting with Steve Bolan here at the airport should not be surprised with the latest addition to his hangar. Steve has an amazing history of building and collecting interesting machines during his time living in southern California. But when he pulled up to his hangar a few weeks back, even we were surprised with what he had with him.
Steve had spent the past several days towing the forward section of an old Navy C-54 from Arizona to Concrete. And that was after spending the better part of a week wearing out sawzall blades with his son Preston cutting the section off of the original airplane.
He plans to fix up the C-54 and install it as a guest room attached to the wall inside of his hangar. Needless to say, it will be the coolest place to stay in Concrete. We’ll be sure to post more pictures as he works on it. More photos below, and be sure to check out his new hot rod at the bottom of the page…
In the more than 15 years that Jim has been working on and researching the Bulldog project, he’s found some great photos of the original. After posting a few of them on the Bulldog page a few weeks back, we managed to scan several more and have added them to the ‘photos’ section on the Bulldog page.
One of the best shots includes Bob Hall himself (above photo). With the engine running, Bob Hall can be seen sitting in the cockpit behind a person we think is Russell Thaw.
Another is a great shot of the Bulldog with the cowling off, giving a great view of the Pratt & Whitney engine. Also included is a picture that is a nice view of the Bulldog on what looks like a grass field either during take off or landing. It’s not a real clear image, but it really gives a great view of how the air racers of the 1930s were all about big engines and small airframes.
Speaking of engines, we have found an engine for our Bulldog!! Everybody involved is very excited as the Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp we found is the same type of engine used in the original Bulldog. We’ll have a new post up soon with pictures of the motor and more about the power behind the Bulldog.
The rest of the new images can be found under the ‘photos’ tab here.
We thought we should show some more pictures of the Bulldog as it waits patiently in the hangar. It’s been sharing floor space with our Waco QCF-2, but we recently moved it to the other end of the shop so it has more room to breath. We’ll be posting more info regularly during the build process including pictures of the work being done as well as historical information and pictures.
As you can see in the pictures, we have the frame together with the tail vertical tail feathers right now. This is basically how Jim left the project back in the 1990s and since then it has made several moves including one across the country. After so much time staring at the frame hanging from the rafters, the Bulldog looks much better on the ground ready for work.
We’re working on getting the next big pieces including the engine and the propeller. And of course there are a lot of smaller items we still have to track down as well to make this recreation as authentic as possible.
Everybody here at the museum is excited to have this amazing project on the floor and moving forward. The Bulldog is one of those airplanes that has generated a lot of interest over the years despite its very short time in existence. There have been numerous models of the Bulldog built over the years, including some amazing large scale R/C airplanes. We’ll have more on some of the smaller Bulldogs in the coming months.
For many people throughout the antique restoration community, our latest project is no longer a secret. When the first hints were dropped in our blog over the winter, the word spread fast that Jim’s long dormant air racer recreation was back on the workshop floor. So it is with great pleasure that we make it official and announce that work has begun on our 1932 Hall Springfield Bulldog recreation.
It’s been a while since the airplane was pulled down from the rafters, and we have handed out a few hints here and there, but work has finally started in earnest and we could not be more excited to see this one of a kind racer once again getting the attention it deserves.
An incredible amount of work has already taken place just to get the project restarted, never mind the initial work that Jim put into the Bulldog when he started building it more than 15 years ago. Today we have the generous support of museum founder Harold Hansen as well as support from the Hall family, descendants of the Bulldog’s original designer Bob Hall. It has been incredible to have the support of the Hall family, and their involvement makes the project even more special that we could have imagined. Local aviation aficionado Griggs Irving has been instrumental in helping get all of the pieces of this project together and on the same page so that work can again get started on the project. And of course Jim Jenkins original dream of recreating this historical airplane is the seed that started it all.
We are still in need of more support to help finish the Bulldog project and the many other ongoing projects here at the museum. For those interested in supporting the Bulldog or the museum’s other projects, please contact us on how to contribute to the recreation of this unique air racer and the ongoing work here at the Skagit Aero Education Museum.
We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to recreate such a beautiful airplane and we know there are many others out there who share our enthusiasm about the project. The frame is currently sitting in the shop, and we can’t wait to keep everybody up to date regarding the progress of this one of a kind airplane.
Keep checking back here for more updates including lots of images of the recreation of the Bulldog. And be sure to check out our new Bulldog page for more information and vintage photos of the original Bulldog.