Air Force 1

Occasionally you have a friend that is just as crazy as you are and you seem to have some great times together. Charlie was that kind of friend for me. I met him about the time I was rebuilding my Cessna 120 and he was my primary helper through the whole process. Charlie had a private pilot’s license (no tail dragger experience) and was always hanging around the shop where I did most of the rebuild. After I got my plane flying again we decided we needed to find a plane for Charlie. You always hear stories about finding an airplane or old car in a barn; well that’s exactly where we found Charlie’s 1940’s Aeronca Chief. It was disassembled and covered with chicken crap. It looked like all the pieces where there and the engine wasn’t frozen (rusted solid) so he picked it up pretty cheap. I promised to help him get it back together using my FAA Airframe & Powerplant license in payment for all the time he helped me.

We hauled the pieces to the hanger and started cleaning and reassembling. Luck was with us and we found all the hardware required to reassemble the airplane. The engine was also in pretty good shape with good compression. Several of the pictures show us starting the engine (hand propping as usual) and doing other tasks. There is also a picture of our two planes together. I won’t go into detail about the reassembly except for one item. After we had the wings attached we started noticing that the right wing was closer to the ground than the left wing. We checked the landing gear and it all seem ok so finally started taking measurements of all the key attachment points to each other; i.e. distance between wing attachment points to the landing gear attachment points. What we found was a big surprise. The distance between these critical points was about 2 inches shorter on the right side than the left. Evidently this plane had been wrecked and when it was rebuilt they didn’t take the time or effort to true up the fuselage. After much discussion we finally decided the only way to get back to true was to cut the main vertical fuselage frame just behind the engine mount and put in a 2” longer splice. So here is Charlie watching me cut his airplane with a hacksaw then use a car’s bumper jack to push the parts apart so I could weld in a 2” metal tube splice. His job was to made sure I didn’t catch his wood and fabric airplane on fire with the acetylene torch while I did the welding. We made the repair, re-measured the airframe and the wings were now level to the ground.

This is when we really got dangerous (to us the fun just began). Charlie had never flown a taildragger airplane. Lots of pilots now days have not but they land and take-off totally different than a tri-cycle type landing gear airplane. In fact they are significantly harder and the term ground loop came from the tendency of the tail flipping around to the front on taildragger type airplanes. It is pretty common to drag a wing during this flip and do significant damage to the airplane. The scientific reason is because the center of gravity is behind the main gear and wants to get in front of the main gear where it is on a tri-cycle gear airplane (you will have to research the rest yourself). As we got close to first flight for the Chief I started giving Charlie lessons in my airplane to get him some taildragger experience. He was terrible and would continually land 10 ft in the air and fall the rest of the way to the ground. My airplane was taking a beating with these rough landings and I finally told him I would teach him in his plane once we got it flying. As a result, I totally expected that I would take his Chief up for the first flight.

The day finally came for first flight. We were at the hanger and Charlie said he was going to do some taxi practice and he got in the Chief and disappeared around the corner towards the runway. Nothing unusual about this because he had been doing this same thing for several days. Suddenly we see Charlie’s airplane taking off and entering the traffic pattern. We all ran to the end of the hanger so we could see the runway because we knew Charlie was going to put on a show when he tried to land this thing. Remember this is the first flight for the Chief and Charlie has proven he can’t land a taildragger worth a da…. The runway he was using was actually on the parallel taxiway for the big 13,000 ft main runway. Smaller airplanes would use this so they didn’t have to taxi so far to the ramp area. It just so happened that on the ramp only about 100 ft from the taxiway/runway was a business jet and an army UH-1 helicopter both of which had recently landed and the aircrew and passengers were still standing by these aircraft. They didn’t take notice of the Chief as it made its final approach only a short distance away. Charlie made a perfect approach and touched down just like you would expect then he immediately ground looped in a big circle on the runway. One wing was close to the ground and almost hit but he managed to get it back on both main gear and stopped. The folks on the ramp then took notice. We all expected Charlie would taxi back to the hanger but no way. Charlie aligned the Chief with the runway and took off again. We all watched in disbelief. The folks next to the jet and helicopter watched also as Charlie circled in the pattern and made his second approach. Once again a perfect touchdown followed immediately by another ground loop. Not as severe as the first so Charlie must be getting the hang of it after all. Another takeoff and another approach to the runway for landing number 3. This time the jet and helicopter folks had moved to the rear of their aircraft thinking this would give them some protection if Charlie’s airplane suddenly decided to head their way. Good approach, perfect touchdown and a perfect ground loop followed. At least he was consistent. Charlie had had enough and taxied back to where we at the hanger had been watching his air show.

I had to ask what in the world he was thinking taking off when he didn’t know how to land the thing. He only smiled and said there was no way he was letting someone else make the first flight in his airplane. I finally got Charlie where he could land this thing reasonably well but Charlie would ground loop occasionally and would always say he did it on purpose; liar. I have to admit the Chief had terrible brakes compared to my C-120 and brakes would be the only thing you had to stop the turn which preceded a ground loop.

Neither of our planes had a radio so we practiced formation flying (non-radio). One of the pictures of my C-120 was made by Charlie as he tucked into the wingman position. This is important for what comes next.

One day shortly after Jimmie Carter became President he flew into our airfield (closed Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base located a Burns Flat, OK) to visit several close towns to fulfill some campaign promise. Here is Air Force One on our ramp plus a C-141 carrying his bullet proof limousine. In addition, a charted 727 carrying the entire press core. We had a secret service sharp shooter in the control tower and all the entrances to the air field had secret service guards. There were also lots of people walking around Air Force One with M-16s. I got off work and went home and called Charlie asking if he wanted to go flying so we could get some pictures of Air Force One. Of course he said yes so we drove back to the airfield in my car. We were stopped at the gate to the hanger by a secret service guy with an M-16 and he said the airfield was closed. I knew the airfield was NOT closed because I worked in the tower and told him so. He was not going to let us in so I said he better call the airport manager to get this straight. The airport manager came up (remember he and I didn’t get along after my airplane was smashed in his hanger) and he tried to talk me out of flying while Air Force One was on the field. It didn’t work and they finally let us pass.

Charlie and I decided we would taxi out in formation, take-off together and do three touch and go’s then land and taxi back in. We got in our planes and taxied out. As soon as we came around the corner of the hanger and in sight of the guards around Air Force One all eyes were on us. Remember the small runway was on the parallel taxiway so we were very close to AF-1 as we taxied down for take-off. We took off as planned and had a great view of AF-1 as we passed in formation. We did our 3 T&G’s and I landed and taxied back to the hanger. As I pulled into parking Charlie was no longer behind me. Since I was in the lead all the time I never really did see Charlie too much during the flight. I got out of my plane and started walking back to the corner of the hanger so I could look down to the runway. That is when I hear a terrible racket heading towards me. Here came Charlie in his Chief but it was swaying back and forth while it taxied and sounded like it was dragging across the ramp. That is exactly what was happening, his tail wheel and spring had come completely off his airplane on his last landing and he was dragging the tail on the ground and trying to taxi back to the hanger. When he finally stopped I asked him what happen and he said that it broke off at touch down but he was not about to stop out next to AF-1 with all those guns pointing at him. Only after AF-1 took off later that day did we go look for his tail wheel and found it in the grass next to the runway.