What an amazing fly-in this year! With great weather and an impressive group of airplanes that made the trip to 3W5, this year’s fly-in exceeded everybody’s expectations. We had a feeling things were going to be busy today after we had a large number of airplanes arrive yesterday. A huge thanks to all of the pilots and visitors who spent the time to come and visit the airport this weekend!
Our official count today was 168 airplanes flew in for the 2010 North Cascades Vintage Fly-In, and that’s a minimum number since there were airplanes that came and went without checking in. Not sure if that’s a record, but the airport was filled to the brim.
Included in that number were a number of amazing airplanes including Addison Pemberton’s Boeing Model 40C that we’ve been talking about all week. The plane was a big attraction and Addison was generous enough to give rides to more than a dozen people. We managed to get some pictures from a beautiful evening flight on board the Boeing. Truly an amazing airplane to ride in.
We also saw the return of the Student Prince that appeared in our 1988 video we posted earlier in the month. There were a pair of Howards, a Spartan Executive, Wacos, a Laird, Bellanca Cruisemasters, a line of Luscombes, Piper Cubs…the list goes on and on.
We’ll post more stories and pictures in the coming week from the fly-in. We just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to everybody who helped make the fly-in such a huge success.
With a week to go until the 2010 fly-in here in Concrete, we thought it was a great time to look back 22 years. We found this great video from the 1988 Concrete Fly-In on YouTube. There are lots of great airplanes in the video, many of them don’t seem to be around any more (or at least we don’t see them at the fly-in anymore).
We’re curious how many people recognize some of the vintage airplanes in the video. It would be great if somebody knew the current whereabouts of some of the airplanes and if we could get them to visit us once again, assuming their still in the area.
Also made us realize we should get out the video camera for this year’s fly-in, especially with some of the amazing airplanes we have flying in this year. Hopefully in 2032 we will still be seeing some of the airplanes flying in to 3W5 that we will see there this year!
Enjoy the video, and let us know in the comments if you recognize any of the airplanes/pilots from 1988.
We look forward to seeing everybody up here in Concrete next Saturday. Breakfast is served at the high school just a few hundred yards from the airport until 11am. Aircraft judging will take place all day, and Addison Pemberton will be speaking about his Boeing Model 40C in the afternoon. Come visit for an easy going, old-fashioned fly-in!
Thursday 1 July, 2010 9:20 am | Airport,Flying | admin
Over the weekend the NW Super Cub Fly-In was held here at the airport in Concrete. It was the first time they have held the event here and it was a lot of fun. There were around 15 airplanes that flew in on Friday and spent the night camping on the field.
Saturday morning a group of the bush wheel equipped planes headed out on the Skagit River and found some off airport places to practice their STOL skills. By lunch time the weather had cleared up and airplanes kept arriving all afternoon.
The take-off and landing competition was held on the grass runway parallel to the main runway here at 3W5. The organizers set up a orange stripe about a third of the way down the runway to give them plenty of room to slow down for their ultra short landings and keeping things as safe as possible.
By the time the competition was underway there were around 40 airplanes that had flown in for the event. We had more than a dozen Super Cubs, most with giant bush wheels. There were a handful of Cub Crafters Top Cubs and Sport Cubs as well as the company’s amazing Carbon Cub. A few Aviat Huskies showed up, including one on amphib floats. At the bigger end of the bush plane scale were six Cessna 180s and a 170. There were also quite a few spectators who flew in for the event in a random assortment of airplanes.
Watching the STOL competition was quite amazing. A few of the airplanes were able to get off the ground in under 100 feet and stopping in well under 150 feet. The shortest take off of the day was just 55 feet in a Cub Crafters Sport Cub, a stock version! The overall competition was won by Jason Gerard in his Piper L-21B Super Cub. Painted in Italian livery (it was one of the many L-21s that served in the Italian military), Jason managed a best take off of just 91 feet and a landing of 107 feet!
It was also fun watching some of the competitors in the “light touring” category. There was a 150 pilot and a 172 pilot both showing off their STOL skills in the airplanes most of us are familiar with. Results from the event can be seen here near the bottom of the page.
We have a bunch of video as well, should get those on the computer in the next few days. in the meantime enjoy a bunch of the photos below from many of the competitors.
A bit of a last minute notice, but the 2010 NW Super Cub Fly-In will be held here in Concrete this weekend. The annual event has been held down near Snohomish east of Harvey Field for the past several years, but the grass field isn’t available there this year, so the organizers have worked with the town of Concrete to hold the event at 3W5.
The highlight of the fly-in is the STOL competition which will be held Saturday afternoon. Super Cubs and other aircraft from around the region look forward to this fly-in every year to test their ultra short field take off and landing skills. In past years everything from stock PA-18s to nitrous powered Super Cubs as well as a wide range of other aircraft have competed in the STOL competition.
They will be using the grass strip which is parallel to our paved strip here. It can just be seen above, to the right of the airplanes in the picture from our fly-in from a few weeks ago.
There are four categories for the competition to accommodate everything from small LSAs, through the bush planes and on up to the heavier touring class of airplanes. It should be a great day for anybody who enjoys flying!
We recently received a bunch of pictures and a great story from one of our most active volunteers here at the museum. Kerry Sim is a veteran pilot who has been helping out here in Concrete for a while now, and last fall he started bringing his 15 year old son Cameron along.
Cameron is a great help whenever he’s here and doesn’t just sit around looking at the airplanes. Every time he is at the airport he’s hard at work helping with the basic maintenance and learning about the airplanes. He’s worked on a lot of the planes here, but he’s really getting to know the PT-19. It’s really great to see a teenager changing the oil in a World War II trainer, and even better to see him going for a flight in one!
Last October Paul Cullman stopped by the museum with his Curtis Wright Junior. At the time we were marveling over the little plane with its incredibly simple cockpit and rather complex little engine. Turns out Paul needed some work done on the Junior and ended up leaving it here for the winter. It’s been great having such a rare little plane sitting in the hangar.
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.
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!
Monday 21 September, 2009 9:15 am | Flying,Museum | admin
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.
