September 29, 2020 All-in, Always

The Liberty Gazette

September 29, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The water laps at their boat as one fisherman dozes and the other reels in his line, then recasts. The rugged cliffs behind them disappear when a large silhouette descends into view. A Consolidated PBY Catalina is landing on the lake and it heads straight for them. When the flying boat touches the water’s surface, its hull splashes, and the fisherman turns to look. Startled, he shakes his buddy awake, pulls on the outboard motor’s starter rope with no success. The dudes end up diving overboard as the Catalina becomes airborne again and flies over them. Such is the humorous opening to Steven Spielberg’s 1989 movie Always. 

In the movie, the PBY, a WWII patrol bomber, was scooping up water to dump on a forest fire, a scene that has become all too common in the western U.S. these past summers. The lakes present a quick turnaround close to fires. This means more water-dumps in a shorter time. More water faster means a better fighting chance to put out the fire and save property and lives. 

The forest service began using repurposed WWII bombers for aerial firefighting in the 1940s. Later, they added military transports and some old prop airliners. Turbulent conditions over the fires causes fatigue, for both man and machine. Crews sit on reserve and wait like their ground-bound firemen counterparts. When they are not flying, they need to find ways to rest because when they get a call, they are all-in. 

I once got a tour of an old C-119 Boxcar, a Korean War era transport, at Hemet-Ryan Airport with my college flying teammates. Ten of us piled into the monstrous cockpit as the pilot told us what many of the switches did, like the red button on the control wheel that jettisoned the load. He got worried when one young lady sitting in the captain’s seat took too much interest in the button, she could not keep her fingers away from it. Had she pushed it, 3,000 gallons of iron-red slurry would have dumped on the ramp—instantly. 

When the old bombers and military transports began to wear out, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and P-3 Orion submarine chaser got signed up. Some are still operating. With each new generation of aircraft came new tactics for fighting the blazes. Slurry bombers now carry even larger loads. They can turn on and off the flow, not just dump it. They can rain the retardant down over a long run. 

Today the slurry bombers include some of the largest transports in the world. A DC-10 was used to fight the fires we had here in Texas a few years ago. The biggest is a 747 that carries over 19,000 gallons of retardant. Watching that behemoth glide along only a couple hundred feet above a mountain ridge, a red trail streaming behind it, is both contrast and similarity in which this plane sneaks up on a fire the way the PBY did on the fishermen in the movie, Always. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 22, 2020 Repurposing

The Liberty Gazette

September 22, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: May I say, “Due to Covid19” we’re going to explore repurposing? Seems like the perfect time—nowhere to go, so we need things to do from home to keep us busy and productive. Expanding on the theme of a couple weeks ago, let’s take a look at some of the ways airplanes get repurposed. This just may give you an idea that will keep you occupied till the virus is gone.

We might as well start locally, too. Dr. Cody Abshier’s Twin Beech (with a colorful past), is being repurposed for “Tool School,” which is starting up soon. When he isn’t taking it for a spin around the block, it’s been tucked away, awaiting curious kids’ hands and minds to make it into something fun, like a fort. 

Maybe when one of those kids grows up, he or she will take what they learned in Tool School and snag a great deal on a retired airliner and turn it into a house. Or a hotel. Or a restaurant. Or a car. Or a camper. Or a boat. Or maybe an artist will get ahold of a sadly grounded plane and let it find new wings as a sculpture. All these things are possible.

The Vickers VC-10 was the last of the British-built jets. A Brit named Steve Jones, whose friends own a scrapyard, bought just one engine nacelle (that round, bullet-looking piece that hangs off the wing, or elsewhere on the plane and houses an engine) and converted it into a camper. 

In Suwon, South Korea, the second Boeing 747 ever made, but the first to be flown commercially, was converted to a restaurant. Unfortunately, the business didn’t survive long, but the same idea has worked out great in Taupo, New Zealand. 

A McDonald's restaurant there started out life as a fully functional C-47 (the military version of the Douglas DC-3, my favorite airplane). It was born in January 1943 and saw action in the Pacific theater during WWII. Life after the war brought it to Australia, where it hauled passengers for an airline for several years, then went to work for the Post Office. Coming out of a 24-year retirement in 2014, it can now fit up to 20 diners at 10 tables in the modified fuselage.

Probably one of the most famous aircraft morphological occurrences was a yacht, the conversion completed circa 1974. The 1939 Boeing 307 Stratoliner, one of only ten built, was first owned by Howard Hughes (who may or may not be buried in Houston) for his airline, TWA. The airplane changed hands a few times and was abandoned and sold at auction in 1969. Ken London’s winning bid of $62 left him enough change to chop off the wings and turn it into the luxurious floating “Cosmic Muffin.”

Cosmic Muffin

There are many more examples of creative thinking—and doing—which have given old airplane carcasses new life. So if you’re looking for a unique project, look no farther than your nearest aircraft boneyard.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 8, 2020 Changing Boxes

The Liberty Gazette

September 8, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: A week ago, I said goodbye to a piece of me. For over 12 years I have been teaching pilots to fly the Hawker 800XP, a twin-engine corporate jet. I teach in a simulator and a classroom, and I fly the jet for clients when they need a fill-in pilot. 

After 34 years, FlightSafety retired the Hawker simulator in its Houston Learning Center. As an instructor for FlightSafety, I have taught thousands of hours in this “box.” As an FAA authorized evaluator, I conducted between 300 and 400 tests and checks in it. I have taught in other jets but never so much time in one simulator. 

Fittingly, the last training event I performed was for Larry, a long-time customer who is celebrating 50 years of training with our company. The company’s other pilot with whom he has spent more than 25 years flying, was one of the original trainees in this very simulator back in 1986. Their training was to span four days, after which, the simulator would be dismantled. But Hurricane Laura’s impending arrival changed that. With a hard tear-down date of August 31st, the training schedule was reworked to do all simulator training in two days. The technicians were shutting down everything in hurricane preparation as the last simulator session ended.

With all that, we completed both pilots’ training with enough time left over to let them fly the approach that every pilot loves: the River Visual to Runway 19 at Ronald Reagan International in Washington, D.C. Because of restrictions around the nation’s capital since 9/11, doing this in a simulator is the closest many pilots will ever come to landing there. 

After the storm passed, I came back on Friday to fly the simulator myself one last time. I received an instrument proficiency check by my boss with another instructor as co-pilot. The yoke felt so natural nestled in my hands, and the aircraft responded as if part of me.

The check portion completed, we flew along and reminisced about people and events. Like the time the simulator collapsed while I was doing my required annual observation with an FAA inspector. When it is operating normally, it stands about ten feet tall on six stilts that push and pull the main housing,

making it feel like it’s climbing and turning. When the hydraulic system fails, the fluid generally bleeds off slowly and the simulator settles to the floor. But that time the two aft actuators lost all their fluid immediately, and the simulator crashed backwards, ending with all of us inside looking up at the ceiling—like sitting in a rocket on a launch pad. I crawled out the door at the back and stepped onto the floor. The others climbed out after me. Such memories.

I spent the last few minutes of the simulator’s last day snaking through the mountains of Colorado one more time. The technicians paced, antsy to start disassembly. Someone said I hijacked the sim. But fortunately, no one could shoot out the tires. Tomorrow, a new day, a new box.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com 

September 1, 2020 The People of Liberty versus Hurricanes

The Liberty Gazette 

September 1, 2020 

Ely Air Lines 

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Three years ago, our plans for Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia were thwarted by Hurricane Harvey’s invasion. Because we write this column the week before you read it here, we're writing as we prepare for Hurricane Laura and thinking of the great things that happened here three years ago.

Ten days of Vacation Croatia turned into four days of Vacation Rodeway Inn, Humble. Trapped on our way to the airport shortly before it closed, thinking we’d get out in the nick of time, there was no place to go but the next hotel parking lot. We had nothing to complain about. While so many lost so much in the floods, our house was untouched. That fact was due to the superheroes who saved Liberty from becoming part of an enlarged Trinity River bottom. 

Breaking from the world of aviation, we will always be thankful for those who spent days saving the levy around Travis Park, and ultimately the city. 

These are the people to whom we are grateful that we had a house to come home to when we could finally escape Humble:

Water Control and Improvement District (WCID) #5 members, James Poitevent, Skeet Raggio, and James Leonard. James Poitevent was at the levy from Sunday morning on through the week. He oversaw the entire operation like Mel Gibson in the middle of the firefight in “We Were Soldiers.” With his contacts in construction and the oilfield, he raised up a mighty army to face down Harvey’s attack. 

The other two WCID members, Walt Patterson and Victor Lemelle, held the fort in Ames, watching over ditches affecting Ames and the Liberty Municipal Airport.

Alton Fregia of Daisetta brought five tractors and numerous men who worked twelve-hour shifts. They made a formidable team.

We were in trouble, folks. Serious trouble. Had it not been for the community coming together, bringing equipment and manpower, most of the city would likely have been under water.

Arnold Smart, of Smart Oilfield Service, brought pumps, as did Curtis Hudnall of Curtis & Son Vacuum Service. Dwight Lumpkins, of Clay Mound Sporting Center, brought two pumps. Dwayne Johnson, of Johnson’s Trucking brought a track hoe and himself. John Hebert, lifetime superhero, supplied fuel for all these vehicles.

Oscar Cooper, of Cooper Electric, was there from Sunday morning on, trying to keep an ailing pump running, one of two owned by the city and the WCID.

David Chandler, of Oilfield Welding and Fabrication in Daisetta, brought his expertise and equipment, and we’d have been bad off if he hadn’t. David used a plasma cutter to cut steel plating to cover a grated hole so the water wouldn’t blow up through a drain.

Tim Killion, of Texas Armory, flew drone reconnaissance for an aerial view of water levels.

Gary Broz was the City Manager and Tom Warner was the City Engineer. They were just as dedicated to the safety of Liberty and stayed on the scene during the critical time.

Surely there were others unnamed, but no less heroic. Thanks are inadequate for what our neighbors have done to save our city. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com