Bill's Aviation Log

The weather was spectacular this Saturday so I took Russell up for an airplane ride.

I saw the Liberty Ship John W. Brown cruising out the Patapsco River. The John W. Brown gets underway only a couple times a year. In all my years of flying this area, I had never seen her underway but here in 2025 I've seen here twice! Go figure.

"The Test Pile Program for the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is expected to begin on or about September 27, weather permitting. Six test piles have arrived in Baltimore via barge. The test piles were fabricated with American-made steel, are eight feet in diameter and more than 220 feet in length.

“The Test Pile Program marks another major milestone in the Key Bridge Rebuild project,” said MDTA Executive Director Bruce Gartner. “Some of the test piles will be evaluated for the potential to be incorporated into the permanent foundations for the new bridge.”

The Test Pile Program Sequence

1. The piles will be lifted into position using a crane and tripping barge.

2. The piles will be placed in a template and stabilized with a vibratory hammer.

3. The piles will be driven into the riverbed with a hydraulic hammer.

4. The load frame will be placed on the six piles and exert vertical and horizontal pressure.

5. The equipment and piles are equipped with instruments which will report out data to ensure the design models are accurate.

Over the course of 6-8 weeks, twelve test piles will be driven into the riverbed. Two piles will be driven per week, each pile is expected to be hammered for approximately two hours, sounding similar to a large bell in the distance. Construction activity will typically occur Monday through Saturday during daylight hours within a 12-hour window. Noise and vibration monitors were installed around the project area and surrounding communities which have been collecting baseline data prior to the start of demolition, the test pile program and construction. The monitors will provide the team with real-time data which will be compared against the baseline data to ensure pre-construction and construction activities stay within acceptable limits.

September 13, 2025 - Funfly Eastern Shore with Russell
My RV-7 is out of action for awhile so I've been flying Nhu-An's 1977 Super Decathelon. I have a lot of time in a Citabria so this plane is very familiar to me. It has 180 horsepower compared to the old Citabria's 150 hp. The old Citabria had flaps, however, and the Super D does not. The Super D has a symmetrical wing, fuel injections and an inverted oil system; in fact, it is an excellent aerobatic trainer.

The weather was spectacular this Saturday so I took Russell up for an airplane ride.

We were headed over to the see the Key Bridge when ...

I saw the Liberty Ship John W. Brown cruising out the Patapsco River. The John W. Brown gets underway only a couple times a year. In all my years of flying this area, I had never seen her underway but here in 2025 I've seen here twice! Go figure.

The John W. Brown was decked out with signal flags and many passengers could be seen on the upper deck.

What I wrote in May when I saw the John W. Brown for the first time: 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.

Wow, there is actually some activity at the Key Bridge site. As you know, or perhaps you have forgotten since it was so long ago, the Key Bridge was hit by a ship and collapsed on March 26, 2024, a year and a half ago. Now they are driving "test" steel piles. Why in the year 2025 they don't know everything there is to know about piles, and have to test them, I have no idea.

"The Test Pile Program for the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is expected to begin on or about September 27, weather permitting. Six test piles have arrived in Baltimore via barge. The test piles were fabricated with American-made steel, are eight feet in diameter and more than 220 feet in length. “The Test Pile Program marks another major milestone in the Key Bridge Rebuild project,” said MDTA Executive Director Bruce Gartner. “Some of the test piles will be evaluated for the potential to be incorporated into the permanent foundations for the new bridge.” The Test Pile Program Sequence 1. The piles will be lifted into position using a crane and tripping barge. 2. The piles will be placed in a template and stabilized with a vibratory hammer. 3. The piles will be driven into the riverbed with a hydraulic hammer. 4. The load frame will be placed on the six piles and exert vertical and horizontal pressure. 5. The equipment and piles are equipped with instruments which will report out data to ensure the design models are accurate. Over the course of 6-8 weeks, twelve test piles will be driven into the riverbed. Two piles will be driven per week, each pile is expected to be hammered for approximately two hours, sounding similar to a large bell in the distance. Construction activity will typically occur Monday through Saturday during daylight hours within a 12-hour window. Noise and vibration monitors were installed around the project area and surrounding communities which have been collecting baseline data prior to the start of demolition, the test pile program and construction. The monitors will provide the team with real-time data which will be compared against the baseline data to ensure pre-construction and construction activities stay within acceptable limits.

Boats headed to Tiki Lee's marina bar on this beautiful fall day. Russell and I did a nice funfly over the Eastern Shore.

Back at Essex Skypark, Amy arrived back after successfully passing her Instrument Rating checkride! She was presented with a bouquet of flowers; unfortunately Gunnar the airport dog tried to nibble on the stems.


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September 13, 2025 - Funfly Eastern Shore with Russell