Cessna AW - The Oldest Cessna

Andrew King, antique airplane restorer and pilot, recently flew the rare 1928 Cessna AW to its new home at the Eagles Mere Air Museum in Pennsylvania.  This extremely rare airplane is the oldest flying Cessna and was restored by Gar Williams back in the late 1970s, early 1980s.  Andrew posted pictures of the the Cessna on a few internet forums so I thought it was worth a re-post here on the blog.  Below are a few notes from Andrew about the trip from Illinois to Pennsylvania.  Thanks to Andrew for allowing me to re-post.  An amazing airplane at the age of 83!  I bet Cessna never imagined an AW flying the skies 80 years after it was built!

The AW flies quite well for a 1928 aircraft. It has frise type ailerons which are quite effective and not as heavy as the ailerons on a lot of the aircraft of that era. The rudder is too small but the 'plane is reasonably stable directionally, and you get used to it. Elevator is pretty normal, not too heavy, and effective. I ran the 110 Warner at 1675 rpm, which produced a cruise of about 90 mph-- when they raced them back in 1928 they got 125 mph out of them, probably at full power. It would out-climb the 2000 C-172 with 160 hp fuel injected Lycoming and two people on board. Stall was about 45 mph, and one of the surprises was the sharp break and wing drop. A base-to-final stall would be a bad event. It was about 9 flying hours over two days from Poplar Grove to Eagles Mere, the longest leg was from Mt. Vernon, OH to Somerset, PA, 2:25, and after being jammed into that small cockpit for that long I had to walk around the ramp for a while to straighten out my legs. There are two 22 gallon wing tanks, and fuel burn was about 7 gph.

It was quite an amazing experience, and thanks to Gar Williams and George Jenkins for making it possible.

Take a few minutes and watch the video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2j4qsCV_24

Links - Eagles Mere Air Museum - Poplar Grove

Oshkosh 2011 Pictures

Well, another year gone by and another Oshkosh AirVenture passed.  We did not attend this year but I wanted to post a link to the outstanding pictures that were posted on the WIX forum.  One great shot is the one above of Ed Vesely flying lead in the CAF Helldiver with an F-18 Hornet on his wing.  The F-18 is wearing a historic Navy paint scheme in honor of the Navy's 100th Anniversary.  Thanks to Chris Garber for allowing me to post his photo.

Oshkosh is THE aviation event to make so if you haven't been you need to plan to make the event at any cost.  It is worth it.  It is like an aviation family reunion!  So many airplanes and so many friends all in one place.

Take a few minutes to look thru all the pictures by following this link to the 2011 Oshkosh Photo Thread.

Links - CAF Helldiver - AirVenture Oshkosh - Warbird Information Exchange

Oklahoma Weekend Trip

Oklahoma Sunrise

My wife and I took our 170 up to Oklahoma last weekend for a family reunion and to try to avoid the Texas heat we flew up on Saturday morning.  It was an easy flight up with a flying time of only 1.7 hours. The town closest to the reunion with an airport was Sallisaw.  Nice little airport with a courtesy car.  The car was a retired police cruiser but much to our disappointment it had the police gear removed.  We could have made quite the entrance at the family reunion with lights flashing!
The reunion was my wife's side of the family and we enjoyed the whole day visiting with all of them.  I met some family members that were pilots so we swapped flying stories for a few hours.
Sunday morning we made the return flight with a flying time right at 2 hours.  We found 75 degree temperatures at 4500 feet.  Nice way to beat the heat!  It felt good to land back at our home airport by 9am.  By 10am we were home and enjoyed a brunch with Mom Linn.  Full family weekend with transportation provided by Cessna and a sunrise provided by God.