May 6, 2023 - Smoketown Pancake Breakfast
EAA Chapter 540 was having a pancake breakfast at Smoketown Airport today. A bunch of us decided to go. Smoketown is near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Chuck and I took off around 8:30 AM. Takeoff was interesting because there was a fog-bank just off the end of runway 16. We had to turn to the crosswind fairly quickly to avoid the fog.
The air was clear until we reached the Smoketown area. But we could hear planes landing at Smoketown so we knew it was clear.
Chuck just put a new three-bladed Catto prop on his RV-7A. His cruise speed has noticably improved, maybe as much as 10-15 mph. Of course, in aviation there are always trade-offs. His takeoff roll is a little longer now.
The prop came with that beautiful carbon-fiber spinner. All he had to do was screw it on. Nice!
It's great to see vintage planes like this still flying.
Bearhawk Light sport aircraft.
The Bearhawk LSA is a "clean sheet design" inspired by the larger Barrows Bearhawk. The aircraft is supplied in the form of plans or a kit for amateur construction. The aircraft was introduced to the public at AirVenture 2012.
A nice-looking Bunker Jungmann taxiied by. At least I thought it was a Bunker Jungmann. The Bunker Bu 131 Jungmann, of course, was the primary basic trainer for the World War II German Luftwaffe,and it served with nearly all of the Luftwaffe's primary flying schools during the war, as well as with night harassment units. Sturdy and agile, it had two open cockpits in tandem and fixed landing gear. The fuselage was steel tube, covered in fabric and metal, the wings wood and fabric.
It was such a good plane that production licenses were granted to Spain where about 530 were built in Spain with production continuing at CASA until the early 1960s, and they remained in service as the Spanish Air Force's primary basic trainer until 1968.
This particular aircraft is a 1951 CASA 1.131. It's based in Santa Monica, California. I wonder what its doing way out here?
Big 1948 Ryan Navion.
The Navion was originally designed at the end of World War II by North American Aviation. Ryan Aeronautical Company acquired the design in the summer of 1947, launching production at its San Diego factory in 1948. Ryan built 1,240 Navions (powered by 205 hp Continental O-470 engines or 250 hp Lycoming O-435 engines), including 163 aircraft for the US armed forces, before production ended in 1951, with Ryan wanting to concentrate on defense production. The Navion was of the same era as the Beechcraft Bonanza, the Cessna 195 and the Republic Seabee. All of these aircraft, including the Navion were significantly more advanced than prewar civilian aircraft and they set the stage for aircraft built from aluminum sheets riveted to aluminum formers
