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!

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One of our side projects requires some engine work, so when it was time to go looking for Continental parts, we decided to do an inventory of C-85 parts on hand. Turns out we have quite a bit more than we thought.

We’re going through everything and deciding what to send out to have cleaned up and fixed and what will just stay here for future parts needs.

More photos after the jump.

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One of the airplanes that’s been begging for some attention in the hangar has been our L-4 Cubby. It’s a Wag Aero Cubby that was built in 1993 and has flown much lately. After towing it over to the maintenance hangar we discovered low compression in they cylinders and decided it was time for a top overhaul. All the cylinders are back and we’ve spent the past few days getting the engine back together.

Andy busy pulling cylinders on the Cubby. This plane was painted with Canadian livery to resemble the Flitfire Cubs that were built and sold to customers to support Commonwealth nations before the U.S. entered World War II.

The new top end awaiting assembly and a return to the sky.

Engine reassembly almost finished. We should do an engine start in the next day or two and have the Cubby back in the air soon.

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.

Departure day is just around the corner for Blakesburg, and the Fairchild is getting very close to flying. The leather baffles that fit between the engine and cowling are on. Tomorrow we expect to put everything back together and do an engine run up, then the test flight. If everything goes well we should fly the next few days to break in the engine and depart for Iowa on Sunday.

Jim getting his hands on some of the more difficult bolts in an attempt to install the collector ring.

Leather baffles in place, putting the finishing touches on the collector ring which can be a difficult exercise in things fitting at one end of the circle and not at the other. You can feel like a cat chasing its tail.

Collector ring in place, ready for the cowling and engine start!

Harold Hanson the founder of the museum paid us a visit this weekend. Here is Harold standing by the Fairchild 24G that is almost complete for our trip to Blakesburg. The engine top over haul is just about done.

New inter-cylinder baffles being fit to the new cylinders.

We’ve taken another step towards getting the Fairchild 24G back in the air. Below you can see the last cylinder #7 on the 145 Warner Scarab being installed, completing an extensive top overhaul at 300 hours. During the cylinder top overhaul we found we had three cracked cylinder heads, two in the exhaust port to valve guide area and one completely cracked from spark plug hole to spark plug hole. Due to our lack of machining capabilities here are the Museum, we sent all 7 cylinders down to Alan Holloway in Quincy, CA for inspection and rework. They replaced one cylinder head and welded the cracks in the remaining two cylinders. We also installed new intake valves and piston rings in all 7 cylinders, our exhaust valves were all well with-in servicable limits. Allan Holloway’s services are highly recommended and they are good people to work with.

An A&P’s view of installing the intake tube on cylinder #6.

The 145 Warner Scarab is finally complete. It awaits vavle adjustment, spark plugs, harnes installtion, NACA cowl brackets, and run-in time. Next we’ll be completing the annual inspection and reassembly of the rest of the aircraft for test flight.

Last week we finally received the cylinders for our Fairchild F-24. The airplane has been sitting in the restoration hangar for quite a few months now without much more than a crankcase in front of the firewall.

The cylinders look great, and they’re all laid out in the shop waiting to be reassembled. Of course just as we were getting ready to put everything back together we thought it a good time to give the Flitfire Cub an annual. That turned into a bit more than anticipated and a few cylinders had to be pulled off the Continental as well. So now it’s getting crowded in the hangar with several airplanes awaiting cylinders.

The Fairchild should be back together soon and after some local exercise we hope to fly it out to Blakesburg for the annual Antique Airfield Fly-In. This year’s theme is Corporate Wings and there will be a number of antique corporate aircraft flying in from around the country. The Fairchild was bought new from the factory by the Civil Aeronautics Administration and served the agency as their corporate aircraft.

In the meantime, we’re trying to finalize the date for our annual corn roast fly-in next month and should have the date up on the website soon.