August 25, 2020 Humble Lemons

The Liberty Gazette

August 25, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Jeff Bloch, a/k/a Speedycop, is a Washington, D.C. police officer who, along with his wife, Jaime, and their “Gang of Outlaws,” have built 30 crazy race cars. Early in 2012, Jeff was at Hyde Field, now called Washington Executive Airport, when he noticed what appeared to be an abandoned 1956 Cessna 310. It had been robbed of its engines, fuel tanks, tail section, and “basically, everything it needed to fly,” says Jeff in his YouTube video. His plans for the airplane carcass? Direct to: 24 Hours of Lemons, or, the “Lemons Rally.” It’s supposed to be the polar opposite of the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans race, which attracts expensive cars. “Lemons,” is “an irreverent endurance racing series for $500 cars,” says an article by the group, 24hoursoflemons.com. 

The purpose of the rally is for owners of really ugly or unappreciated cars to take them on road trips and show them off. Just for fun. They report some interesting happenings, such as a 1962 Chevy Impala that had to undergo a heart transplant during the race (an engine change). In a parking lot. And they still won. Once even a 1989 Yugo won. Having been in Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia, we have heard every Yugo joke there is. 

Long story shortened for space here, the airplane had suffered a wheels-up landing in 1965 which the NTSB reported as resulting in major damage, but it was repaired and flew again, up until 1973, when it made its final flight home to Hyde Field. It had been a good workhorse all its life and was due a fun retirement. Under Jeff’s direction, both the airplane and a Toyota Van Wagon (the donor vehicle) underwent some pretty complex procedures to remove, add, and merge body parts. And voila! A car!

The Cessna-Toyota was even street legal, and Jeff drove it to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he shocked more than a few gamblers. It was so much fun, he did it again. After the 310, he converted a boat, a camping trailer, and a Bell OH-58 amphibious helicopter into road racers. The amphib helo had paid its dues in Vietnam, and later by a U.S. drug task force. It, too, was street legal, making it a rare vehicle to have navigated in the air, on land, and at sea.

Photo courtesy caranddriver.com

Racing is still going on, despite Covid, with “Lemons Rallies” September 12-13 in Kershaw, South Carolina and Deer Trail, Colorado.

For a good laugh, I recommend their videos, which you’ll find on their website, along with information on how to register your own $500 car in a race (it doesn’t have to have been an airplane). If you’d like to see Jeff’s video on transforming a Cessna into a Lemon, search on YouTube for “Spirit of Lemons – Donor Van.” Or visit his Facebook page, full of photos and stories, including the “TrippyTippyHippyVan,” a gutted Volkswagon Van which he tipped on its side and then married it to an old VW Rabbit.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 18, 2020 Little Stinker

The Liberty Gazette

August 18, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

The child knew at an early age that flying would be the thing. By age eight, this child had the parents convinced, and the house was soon filled with books on aviation. The bug caught on and the whole family took flying lessons. And the little stinker soloed an airplane for the first time at age 12. A natural pilot. The first legal solo came on the child’s 16th birthday, because that’s what the FAA says is the minimum age. There was no turning back, but there were roadblocks, because the child was a girl, and girls weren’t supposed to fly.

But she grew up to be National Aviation Hall of Famer Betty Skelton Frankman, known as “The First Lady of Firsts.” Before she passed in 2011 at the age of 85, Betty had grown from the small girl who hopped rides in Stearmans at the local airport to qualifying to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots at age 17. Unfortunately, the youngest age allowed in the WASP was eighteen and a half, and the organization disbanded before she reached that age. So, Betty went on to earn her commercial pilot certificate at age 18, and then became a flight instructor and added multi-engine ratings. Nothing stopping this woman! 

No doubt the limiting mindset of the day was a great frustration. But she never gave up. One day, her dad was planning an airshow as a fundraiser for their local Jaycees. Betty volunteered to learn aerobatics and be the show’s star performer. She learned loops and rolls in a Fairchild PT-19 and two weeks later borrowed the plane for the show.

She’d found her niche, and no one could tell her no, unlike the airlines and military. In 1946, she bought an aerobatic airplane to start her career in airshows and competition aerobatics, a Great Lakes biplane. In it, she gained her first title as International Feminine Aerobatic Champion in 1948. 

Then she discovered the sleek little Pitts. It took months of convincing to get the man-owner to sell it to her, but once she strapped that little single-seater on, she won herself two more championships, in 1949 and 1950. “Little Stinker” is now hanging upside-down from the ceiling of the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport.

Betty was the first to do a propeller-ribbon-cutting—from 10’ above the ground. Inverted. She subsequently set several land speed records and drove in a NASCAR race. Although her gender prohibited her from becoming an astronaut, she underwent the same physical and psychological tests as the original Mercury seven, who adopted her as one of their own, calling her “Seven and a half.”

She still holds more combined aircraft and automotive records than anyone in history (17) and was inducted into the International Aerobatic Hall of Fame, the International Council of Air Shows Hall of Fame, and the Corvette Hall of Fame. Each year the United States National Aerobatic Championships honors the highest placing female pilot with the “Betty Skelton First Lady of Aerobatics” award. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 11, 2020 Queen of the Skies

The Liberty Gazette

August 11, 2020 

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The last Boeing 747 flying in passenger service has been parked in the Mojave Desert. Qantas airlines delivered it there last week after drawing a kangaroo-patterned radar track before departing Australia. The remaining 747s will continue flying only as freighters. 

The prototype of the 747 first left the ground in late 1968 and was introduced to the world by Pan American Airways in January 1970. It ushered in the wide-body jet age. The competition then was McDonnell Douglas’ DC-10 and Lockheed’s L-1011. Airbus Industries had not been formed yet. Today, as she heads into retirement, the 747 remains regal. All new aircraft designs look as if they were created on the same drawing board. They are sterile with no uniqueness. But the 747 remains instantly recognizable. 

Just watching the Queen gracefully lift into the air is a wonder, and I often playfully remarked it was just smoke and mirrors; something that big could never fly. 

The first time I saw her, I was in awe. It was night-time and the lights inside the terminal building glared off the windows. I pressed my nose against the glass and cupped my hands around the edges of my eyes to get a good look. A monstrous nose was all I could see. I was fourteen, and we were at Los Angeles International to send my older brother off on a six-week sojourn through Germany. That was before the days of metal detectors, body scanners, and stupid people blowing up airplanes and airports. Families could venture out to the gate with loved ones to see them off. For the ten-hour jaunt to Munich, my brother was flying on an old and ordinary Douglas DC-8. While we waited for his boarding call, I crept back to the only gates with enough room for such an enormous and grand plane. 

I knew someday I would fly on one, but for years it eluded me. One landed behind me at Palm Springs when I was a new pilot. Asked by the controller to expedite off the runway, I was surprised such a behemoth would be flying in there. Years later, I parked next to the UPS 747s at Ontario International Airport. The scent of pineapple would fill my nostrils as the cargo door was opened on a plane that had just arrived from Hawaii. 

My friends who fly them for Atlas Airways and Nippon Cargo adore them. Having been invited aboard several times, I’ve climbed the stairs, strolled the aisles, and shouted in the cavernous cargo compartment just to listen for an echo. But last September was when I finally got to fly on one. We took a British Airways 747 to London Heathrow on our way to Scotland, the experience now bittersweet. 

For 50 years, the Queen of the Skies delivered people to far-off lands who otherwise might not have had such an opportunity. She opened the skies making air travel more affordable. While serving the masses she did so with grace and majesty.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 4, 2020 Peacemaker by Choice

The Liberty Gazette

August 4, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

This is a story of family and heritage, of choices and convictions. It’s the story of Black Beaver, Christian name, Lawrence Hart.

Afraid of Beavers and Walking Woman were survivors of the massacre of the village of the great Peace Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River in Oklahoma in 1868. Three years later, their son, Peak Heart, was born. Although taken from their home and forced to live in Pennsylvania, Peak Heart (whose name was changed to John P. Hart) returned to Oklahoma and became a leader in the Cheyenne nation, and a Christian pastor. 

Chief Peak Heart married Cornstalk and through their son, Homer Hart, and his wife, Jennie, became grandparents to Black Beaver. 

Black Beaver was close to his grandfather, who taught him the Cheyenne ways. They spent many summers together, traveling, as Peak Hart was a peacemaker between tribes and missionary of the Native American Church.

Black Beaver enrolled at Bethel College, but he had always dreamed of flying. With the Navy’s aviation cadet program, he could become a jet fighter pilot when jets were new. Lt. Lawrence Hart achieved his dream as a U.S. Marine fighter pilot, but when his grandfather died, he was called out of the military to become a Peace Chief of the Cheyenne, and a Mennonite pastor.

For years, Black Beaver struggled with the pacifist beliefs of the Mennonite. But the untimely death of his college friend and missionary to Congo, with whom he had many discussions on the subject, made him realize he would rather die as a peacemaker.

What brought it all home for him was a re-enactment on the 100th anniversary of the Washita massacre in 1868 which his great-grandparents survived. The Cheyenne would participate on the condition that they could remove Cheyenne remains from the local museum and return them to the earth in traditional burial. Museum officials agreed, but no one told them the Grandsons of General Custer’s Seventh Cavalry was also participating. Thundering hooves and gunshots frightened unexpecting children. When Custer’s battle tune, “Garry Owen” was played, it stung the hearts of the unprepared Cheyenne.

When it was over, the tribe headed to the museum to claim the remains. There would be traditional ceremonial songs and dignity in the burials. Just as a small casket was brought forth, in came the Seventh Cavalry, encroaching on sacred ground. But they had come to salute, not to scare. 

By Cheyenne tradition, the blanket over the casket must be given to someone significant in attendance before burial. Someone like the governor, who was present. But the old chiefs instructed young Black Beaver, that is, Chief Lawrence Hart, to hand the blanket to the commander of the Custer Grandsons. I can imagine the lump in every throat during the exchange. The commander took the “Garry Owen” pin from his uniform and handed it to Chief Hart to accept for his people, promising the Cheyenne people they would never hear the battle song again.

While Black Beaver loved flying, he loved peacemaking more.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com