Tag Archives: vintage

Airmotive Specialties Visit

The Society of Aviation History organized a visit to Salinas to the facility of Airmotive Specialties. Owned and run by Dave Teeters, Aviation Specialties provides a number of services but the thing that brings them most attention is the restoration of warbirds with a strong focus on P-51 Mustangs. During our visit, there were seven Mustangs in the hangar in various states of restoration. There were some other types too as well as some more commonplace types undergoing maintenance.

Dave has spent his life in this business having started working for his Dad before setting up on his own. He supplies parts to his Dad’s business and vice versa as they both operate in the same field. Dave has really committed to the processes and capabilities needed to restore these vintage aircraft. His team is one that he has trained and many of his staff have been with him for years. He has also invested in technology. So many parts for these aircraft are hand crafted but Dave has acquired numerically controlled machines to assist in producing a large number of components. These machines are also capable of digitizing the outline of existing components to allow him to reproduce them as needed.

The investment in these machines is substantial but the pay off comes in how quickly he can produce replacement parts once the process is done. Hand crafting these parts is an intensive business and, when sufficient are needed, the business case is straightforward. Even so, there are still many pieces that require the hand skills that are in short supply and are becoming rarer. Dave maintains capabilities with many old tools and techniques in order to make sure that they can always provide what the customers need.

The hangar was full of interesting projects in various states. Some were disassembled completely with rework on fuselages and wings plus various subassemblies. Others were fully complete and were just in for ongoing maintenance. A great looking Beech 18 was at the front of the hangar along with a P-51 due to be picked up by its owner. A couple of Robinson R44s were also parked in with a JetRanger – one of the R44s flew off later in the day.

Dave provided great access to our visit and was exceedingly generous with his time. He explained exactly how they work and answered any questions the group had for him. The hangar has some nice facilities for customers but, while they were very comfortable, the contents of the working area were of most interest to us and Dave gave us freedom to wander as we wished. It was a great time. Many thanks Dave.

Mean and Moody Sky

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It’s always a nice combination when you can get some light on the foreground subject of the photo and have a really dark and menacing cloud structure in the background. The brightness of the foreground exposure is much higher than the background so it makes the clouds look even more dramatic when exposing for the subject. Having a play with post processing will also help to make things look more dramatic. This Wildcat was parked on the flightline at Chino for Planes of Fame just as the lighting worked to my advantage. I may not have been happy about the weather conditions but this was one of the upsides to a cloudy sky.

Proud Bird At Last

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One of the icons of the aviation scene around LAX is the Proud Bird restaurant. Located under the approach to the 25 complex, it is a restaurant with an aviation theme. Inside there is plenty of memorabilia. Outside there are vintage aircraft (including some replicas) mainly of a Second World War vintage but some others too. Despite its fame, I had never been there other than a brief visit to the parking lot early one morning many years ago.

Pete was keen to check it out too so we headed there for an early lunch. It was the last week that the restaurant would be open prior to a ten month refurbishment program so our timing was fortuitous. The place turned out to be a lot more than either of us had anticipated. The space was very large, the patio (where we ate of course – a sunny day with planes flying by) was very comfortable and the lunch menu, while straightforward, was really nice. Besides, you could walk among the planes while waiting for your food.

I am not sure what the restoration will bring. It will be interesting to see when things reopen. Meanwhile the staff will have to find other jobs which is probably not making them so enthusiastic. I hope they do well. They certainly treated us nicely.

Wall of Fire Take Two

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While I was walking around the display line of the Airshow of the Cascades during the evening show, the Erickson collection’s P-38 was carrying out its display. I was in amongst a lot of people when the announcer told everyone to be ready for a special pass. My location was not great but I got ready as the P-38 ran in for a topside pass expecting the detonation of some pyrotechnics behind it. Nothing happened. The P-38 flew by and no explosions.

A short while later, the announcer had a second crack at getting us ready for the pass. Obviously the first pass had not worked as planned. This time the P-38 was coming in from the opposite direction. I also had a few moments to try and reposition myself to get a better view. This shot was the result. Some of my friends were further up the display line and got a different angle on the shot which was cool. Even so, I am pretty happy with this.

Erickson Aircraft Collection

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I attended a course recently that was held in Madras OR at the home of the Erickson Air Museum. This museum is a fantastic collection of vintage aircraft, some of which were used for the course, more of which will appear on this blog in due course. At various times while we were there, I had the opportunity to wander around the museum and see the collection. This included during the evening when a party was underway but which also meant they had some interesting illumination.

The majority of the aircraft are warbirds but not all of them. A Bellanca was present which is, to be generous, a most unusual looking aircraft. I would certainly have liked to have seen it outside had the opportunity arisen but that wasn’t to be. There was also a Martin Mauler which is an aircraft I had never heard of previously. It looks like a Skyraider but you could tell it was different. It was just hard to know what it was without checking the information on the display.

Madras is not on the trail for most people so I imagine the museum does not have a lot of people happening upon it. However, it is a nice facility with a great collection and a super bunch of people working there. If you like warbirds and vintage aircraft, it should definitely be visited at some point.

DC-3 City of Tillamook

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The Erickson collection did not used to be based in Madras. For many years the aircraft were part of the museum at Tillamook. The old airship hangars at Tillamook were their home. While most of the planes have now moved, one of them still bears a name indicative of its past. This is the Douglas DC-3 named City of Tillamook.

The aircraft sat on the ramp outside the museum hangar for the duration of my visit. The first evening we were there we had time to stroll around the ramp as the sun set. This resulted in some lovely lighting conditions. It was fun to see the DC-3 in close proximity to some later Douglas products. They shall be the subject of a later post.

A2AX Workshop

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About a year ago I saw a ton of cracking images showing up online from friends of mine that had attended the Madras A2AX workshop. At the time I figured I needed to start panning on being there for the next edition of the workshop. It is run by Scott Slocum and Lyle Jansma at the Erickson Air Museum’s facility and their aircraft provided the subjects for the photo flights. Scott and Lyle were joined by Paul Bowen. Paul was not instructing but he did provide his own perspective and guidance on what we were working on and also could be relied on to show up with his camera whenever you were looking at your goofiest and to tell some hilarious tales of his various exploits.

I met some familiar faces and made a whole bunch of new friends. Various hurdles were thrown in the way of the team due to weather and serviceability issues but they adapted well and the team were intent on having a good time whatever was going on. It was a fantastic weekend with some great learning opportunities and some beautiful aircraft to photograph. Here are a couple of samples of what we had to play with.

More Cars and Coffee

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Other than the stuff that has got its own post, there were a bunch of other cool looking cars at Cars and Coffee. Here are some of the others. Hard to believe that some of these are also ran subjects! Normally they would get more attention!

GT40

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Original Ford GT40s are not something that you see parked on every street corner. Cars and Coffee is not a typical street corner though. Find at GT40 is not, therefore, such a huge surprise. This one showed up at my last visit. It garnered a fair bit of attention and discussion as to whether it was a legitimate example or not. It appears to have been from the time although it may not have been an original racer. I am not an expert on such matters so anyone who knows enough to correct any mis-statements here, please feel free to comment below.

Whatever the heritage, it is a fine looking vehicle. It has old style British license plates which really took me back to childhood. There have been several styles of license plate in my lifetime but the majority of plates have been black digits on a white background for the front and a yellow background for the rear. The old white digits on a black background were still quite common when I was very young but now are a distant memory. Seeing it on this GT40 certainly took me back (although my childhood was not filled with GT40s!).

WACO and Stearman

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Vintage types are always nice to see out and about rather than in a museum. When they are active and in fantastic condition, things are even better. One evening at Boeing Field, I was treated to a pair of great looking planes. A Cabin WACO was one of them. It landed and taxied back in past where I was standing. Having had a fun time at the WACO Reunion a few years ago (more of which you can read about here), I am now more aware of them as a type than I once was.

The other visitor was a Stearman. Again, looking great in the evening light, it taxied out and departed away from me. The problem with planes like these at a location like Boeing Field is that they tend to fly quite a distance from you and, since they are a lot smaller than some of the other planes there, you don’t get such good photo opportunities. Heat haze can also make things tricky. Despite that, there were a few shots to be had and some time to just enjoy watching them.