May 10, 2025 - Massey Chili Fest Fly-In
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| The annual Massey Chili Fest Fly-In was this Saturday, so Friday I went out to the Skypark to clean up the RV-7 and get it pretty for the fly-in. I have been in Greece for the last 17 days, and I couldn't believe how much dirt -- and sawdust -- my plane collected while I was away. I had foolishly left it uncovered. Carpenter Bees have been busy gnawing holes in my hangar roof joists, with the sawdust landing on my plane, as you can see. But I washed the plane, and checked it over, and now it's looking good for Massey. |
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On the ramp at the Skypark, ready to go to Massey. Also with me this morning is JJ in his Redline RV-8.
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| And Chuck -- here demonstrating his "Selfie Drone" -- in his RV-7A. As you can see, the weather is excellent. But what you can't see is that it was a little windy. Forecast was for 12 knots gusting to 22, at 290 degrees which unfortunately is a crosswind to Massey runway 02, and to a lesser extent Essex, which is 340. |
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Regardless of the winds, we arrived at Massey Aerodrome after a short, albeit somewhat bumpy, flight.
Here's a nice photo taking of our landing by photographer Dennis Maroulis.
We arrived right at 10AM and there weren't too many planes. The winds must have scared pilots away because not that many planes arrived after us. They ended up with 35 plans flying in.
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My co-pilot today is grandson Griffin. This is his sixth flight in the RV I think.
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| The Essex Skypark RVs are in the house! |
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| Another Essex Skyparkian, who you may call Mr. Paul, is here with his Stealth Supercub, which he built. He has seen the light and recently started building a RV-14. |
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| A big, beautiful T-28 arrived just after us, pictured taxiing in. |
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Lynnette made a batch of her delicious White Bean Chicken Chili, pictured here among other types of chili. The White Bean Chicken Chili would be gone by the time we left.
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| The Massey fly-in is always very well organized and they have the food process down pat. They have a lot of volunteers who do a great job. |
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Even though there weren't that many planes that flew in -- say 30 or so -- compared to some Massey Fly-ins where they've had over 100, there was still no shortage of people to enjoy the food. A lot of people drive in.
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| The museum side was also full with hungary folks. |
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| In addition to wings, Massey always has some very nice looking wheels at the event. |
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I was immediately impressed with this car but didn't know what it was.
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| Griffin getting some stick time in the venerable DC-3. |
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Now Griffin is enjoying First Class seating.
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| Massey has a glider operation. This must be their tow plane. |
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| A vintage glider in great condition. |
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A Pietenpol Air Camper -- sans fabric -- out for display. The owner started up the engine; it sounded sweet. |
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| A nice little Wolf W-11 Boredom Fighter, a single-seat biplane designed to resemble a First World War SPAD S.XIII . The aircraft is constructed of wood, has fixed conventional landing gear with a tailskid, and the recommended powerplant is the 65 hp (48 kW) Continental A65 piston engine. You build it from plans. |
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Griffin hangs out by the big North American T-28. The Navy and Air Force used them for pilot training.
My Dad flew these and made five carrier landings in a T-28. The U.S. Navy had some specially modified T-28s designed for carrier takeoff and landings.
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The Stampe is back! I saw this 1958 STAMPE ET RENARD SV-4C here at Massey a year ago.
The Stampe is a Belgian two-seat trainer/tourer biplane developed in 1933. 1050 were built. This particular aircraft was built in 1949 in Algeria, North Africa and was a French military trainer until 1957. It flew around Europe as a civilian plane until arriving in the New Mexico in 1981. And now here it is at Massey in beautiful condition. It is home-based at Fallston Airport, Maryland.
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A beautiful Hammond Aircraft Corp Hammond 100. It is a Parks P-1H, powered by a 100hp Kinner K-5, received ATC on 23 November 1932. 7 aircraft modified as the Hammond 100 Sportster. |
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| A 1958 Aeronca Champion 7FC with a unique paintjob. |
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This very rare airplane is a Davis model D-1-K, S/N 508. It was manufactured in 1930 by the Davis Aircraft Corporation at Richmond, Indiana. I believed it belongs to the Western Antique Airplane & Automobile Museum in Hood River, Oregon collection. If so, it is a long way from home!
The D-1-K cost between $4,185 and $2,295, decreasing bit by bit as the Great Depression deepened. NC158Y was a two-place, open cockpit, high-wing, parasol monoplane powered by a 100HP Kinner K-5 engine. As such, it was the cheapest Kinner-powered airplane available.
The empty weight was 925 pounds. It had a useful load of 536 pounds and a range of 410 miles. This weight-to-power combination led Juptner to remark (v.3, p. 206), "...the pure flying pleasure built into and contained in this sport airplane was usually translated into an exhuberance that was a joy to experience or even to watch." According to Juptner, eleven examples were built, at least one of which, NC158Y, is still flying today.
The D-1 was used from 1929 by sporting pilots and by private pilot owners for leisure flying. In September 1930, Art Chester bought a Davis D-1-85 parasol, and flew it to victory in the 1930 National Air Races.
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| I talked with the pilot of this very cool motorglider; he's also the builder/pilot of a RV. |
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| A nice little RV-4 is at the end of "RV row". At left is Mugsy's familiar RV-8. |
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| Looking down RV row. I think we had seven RVs today. |
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Paul and I talked with the owner of this very nice RV-14 which he built. The workmanship was outstanding.
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I was in awe of how well the cowl fit on this airplane.
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JJ's Redline RV-8 deserves a picture all by itself.
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Griffin and I took off shortly thereafter. There were a lot of people on the grassy knoll watching flight operations so I thought they might like to see a low pass. With smoke. Felt like I owed it to them.
Photo by Dennis Maroulis.
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A rare look at the black underside of my RV-7.
Photo by Dennis Maroulis.
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| Once last look at Massey Aerodrome before Griffin and I headed east. |
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| Airborne! |
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| Griffin flew well today. He held a steady altitude -- not so easy in the RV -- and can steer the plane to wherever I tell him to. |
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| Leaving Massey, we headed over to Cedar Swamp, a scenic area on the western shore of the Delware Bay/River, for some funfly. |
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| I was surprised at how brown the swamp still is; I thought it would be green by now |
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But it's still pretty.
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Griffin flew the RV all the way from Cedar Swamp, across the Eastern Shore, across the Chesapeake Bay, to the mouth of the Patapsco River.
I spotted a ship coming in to the Patapsco and wondered if it might be the Liberty Ship John W. Brown which is homeported in Baltimore and gets underway occasionally.
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Sure enough, it is the John W. Brown.
The John W. Brown is one of only two operational Liberty Ships and one of three preserved as museum ships. The other surviving operational Liberty ship is SS Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco, California. A third Liberty ship, SS Hellas Liberty (ex-SS Arthur M. Huddell) is preserved as a static museum ship in Piraeus, Greece.
She operated as a merchant ship of the United States Merchant Marine during World War II and then was a vocational high school training ship in New York City for many years.
She was laid down at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland, on 28 July 1942 and was launched on 7 September 1942, the third of three Liberty ships launched at the yard that day. She completed fitting out on 19 September 1942, making her total construction time only 54 days. She required about 500,000 man-hours and cost $1,750,000 to build and was the 62nd of the 384 Liberty ships constructed at the Bethlehem-Fairfield yard.
Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.
The Liberty Ship was designed by William Gibbs, partner of Gibbs and Cox, the bigget naval architecture firm in America. Gibbs and Cox would design almost three-quarters of U.S. naval vessels during the war. Gibbs's Liberty ship was made with as many straight lines as posible, because it would be made from welding rather than rivets. Also to speed the construction, standard wooden interior decks were replaced with steel. From the beginning it was assumed the Liberty would be an expendable ship. Many would be sunk; many sailors would be lost. Partly for that reason, and because speed of construction was key, Gibbs's design made as few concessions as possible to comfort. There was no electricity or running water for the crew; their rooms and bunks were smaller than standard size. There was no mechanical ventilation for the engine and boiler rooms and crew's quarters. The galley was lit with oil lamps, and there was no fire detection system. These would not be comfortable trips, even by merchant seaman standards. Gibbs's ship was a seagoing boxcar, able to stow 8,000 tons of material in her hull. She would carry everything from tanks and bombers to copper wire and sugarcane. The first keel of a Liberty ship was laid at the Bethlehem yard in Baltimore in March 1941." -- Arthur Herman, "Freedom's Forge"
One Liberty Ship, the Robert E. Peary, was built and launched in less than five days! The Liberty Ship saga is really a fascinating story; read about it in Arthur Herman's excellent book "Freedom's Forge". Today China builds the majority of the world's ships, and the U.S. shipbuilding capacity has withered to a bare minumum; one wonders if the U.S. could even do something like the Liberty Ship building program of World War II anymore.
"The Foundation of all our hopes and schemes was the immense shipbuilding program of the United States." ... Winston Churchill, early 1942.
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Only this old graving dock remains from Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard which during World War II produced Liberty Ships and also constructed 21 Cimarron-class oilers from 1938 to 1946.
This waterfront area would be a good place to build a new shipyard.
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| Still no activity on rebuilding the Key Bridge. |
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Looking down at Esses Skypark. In the three weeks I was gone, the area in front of the maintenance hangar was paved, two handicapped parking spots were paved (we have a lot of senior citizens at Essex Skypark), a drainage ditch was dug (for some unknown reason), and the burnt out Chief was bought by a Essex Skypark hangar owner and moved into his hangar.
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