Well after a long delay, we’re finally getting around to putting up the Piper Clipper photos we took earlier in the fall. It was another one of those beautiful evenings with great light and a great looking airplane. This is the airplane that won Grand Champion for classic aircraft this year at the Arlington Fly In (the museum’s Ryan ST-A and Mooney Mite also won awards).

We’ve also added a page in the aircraft section for the Clipper. We still have lots of airplanes to add, including the rest of our short wing Piper collection. Once the Vagabond is finished, we’ll have an incredible collection of all the short wing Pipers looking better than they did coming out of the factory.

Our goal is to one day have part of one of our display hangars looking like a Piper showroom with our Colt, Vagabond, Clipper, Pacer and Tri-Pacer all displayed proudly. In the meantime, we’ll have to settle for just flying them in the nice evening light.

Below are just a few more of the photos from the Clipper page.

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!

We had another good evening photo shoot, this time with the Fairchild F24G. This time we were up a bit later in the evening so we managed to get some sunset shots. And we decided to climb a bit higher out of the valley which gave us a great view of Mt. Baker which provided a stunning backdrop to some of the pictures.

It’s nice to have the Fairchild up and flying again after the engine vibration prevented us from flying to Blakesburg earlier in the month. Turns out it was the engine mounts that were causing the vibration issue. We had used a different kind of rubber on the engine mounts than was on the airplane before (likely tire sidewall). Turns out it was a simple matter of tightening down the bolts a bit with the new rubber and the vibration was gone. She flies like a smooth, luxury plane from the 1930s now.

In addition to the new photos in the gallery, you can see some older pictures we have found of our F24G from previous owners. It’s fun to see the airplane during its previous lives.

Again, just a sample of the photos. For a complete look at the Fairchild’s pictures, look at the F24G page in the aircraft section.

Summer shows no sign of ending, so with some beautiful evening light the other day we decided to take the Champ up to get some new photos for its page in the airplane section. Jim is flying the Champ and Herb is piloting his Tri Pacer as the photo plane.

Here’s just a sample of some of the photos, check out Champ’s page to see all of them. We plan to get some of the other planes up for photo shoots in the near future, so keep coming back for more vintage airplane pictures!

Well this isn’t what we were hoping for, but after working non-stop for the past few weeks, we have a vibration that looks like it’s going to prevent us from flying the Fairchild to Blakesburg. After getting the cowling on Thursday and tending to a final few details, we started up the engine and began the break in process. There wasn’t anything too noticeable at first, but during the higher rpm run-up there was a pronounced vibration.

Don’t quite yet know the exact cause, but probably is the engine mounts. Will start looking for the problem and hopefully get the F24 flying soon. Below you can see the decal we put on the airplane just as it had when it was new and part of the CAA fleet. Even though it won’t make it to the Corporate Wings event this year, it’s nice to have it dressed up.

The Fairchild and the Ford.

Well after a whirlwind of the Vintage Fly-In and Oshkosh and a week to recover, we’re finally back to update the blog. Sorry about the delay.

The fly-in here in Concrete was a great success again this year. Despite some weather woes with IMC mornings and thunderstorms in the evening, there were plenty of airplanes flying in old and new. It was one of the better years for antique airplanes and it was also a better than normal year for non flying visitors.

We have plenty of notes on improvements for next year, especially for parking of antique, vintage and classic planes, and we hope to have a few new things for the fly in next year as well.

There were some some great aircraft on display and the awards handed out by the Concrete Vintage Fly-In are listed below.

Grand Champion – Howard DGA 15P – Fred Lundeen – Olympia, WA

Reserve Grand Champion – Stinson SM-8A – Greg Larson – Snohomish, WA

Champion Warbird – Sterman N2S4 – Kent Johnson – Auburn, WA

Champion Antique – Lockheed 12A – Jim Perry – Monroe, WA

Champion Classic – Cessna 195 – Bob Juranich – Des Moines, WA

Champion Contemporary Classic – Bellanca 14-9-2 Cruisemaster – Rock Snodgrass – Lake Tapps, WA

Champion Experimental – Van’s RV8 – Marc Drake – Arlington, TX

Best Short Wing Piper – PA-22 150 – Herb Huesitis – Point Roberts, WA

Antique Airplane Association Choice – Stinson SM-8A – Greg Larson – Snohomish, WA

After last night’s rain we were a little nervous about the weather. Waking up to IMC it didn’t look good, but as airplanes circled overhead we knew it was thin. About 10am the clouds opened up a bit and the dam broke on the airplanes flooding in. Dozens arrived one after the other making it a busy morning for the parking crew.

The day turned out to be a beautiful one with the temperatures staying a bit cooler. We had a great turnout of antiques and vintage airplanes and a lot of people driving in.

Here are a few pictures from today, more on the way including some of our award winners…

Well after a lot of work all week (and for the past few weeks), the fly in is finally here. The weather forecast for the weekend has been nothing but CAVU and warm temperatures. Even this morning was forecast clear skies all weekend. But by afternoon it was apparent that was going to change. Eventually a monster thunderstorm developed over the North Cascades and flowed west over Concrete. The result was torrential rain for about 15 minutes with thunder and lightening as people scrambled to cover open cockpits and run for cover. Eventually the rain subsided, but everything was quite wet. The upside is the grass should be a bit greener in the near future and the fire danger is down.

Hopefully the weather will look better tomorrow for the busiest day of the fly in. There should be some great planes flying in and scroll down a post to see the schedule for the weekend. Hope to see you up here!

The weather is looking good, the grass is mowed and the planes are arriving. Tonight there will be a movie at the museum’s hangar and tomorrow is the big day with lots to see and do. For a complete schedule of events check out the image below. We hope to see you here and look forward to a great weekend.