December 12, 2023 The Colditz Glider

The Liberty Gazette

December 12, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Not long after Nazi Germany executed 50 prisoners who had escaped from Stalag Luft III, which had caused the Allied High Command to discourage such attempts, a captured British Lieutenant had a brilliant idea.

Lt. Tony Rolt, one of several prisoners being held in the old castle at Colditz, Germany, not far from Leipzig, noticed when he went into the castle’s chapel that the guards couldn’t see the roofline from their look-out. The Germans were watching for signs of digging, but they were apparently oblivious to the opportunities for escape from on high. The chapel roof seemed a right good spot to launch a glider if his fellow prisoners could build one that would make it across the River Mulde about 200 feet below. Lt. Rolt wasn’t an airman, but there were plenty of them at Colditz. Fortunately, the castle’s library was maintained, and in it was a two-volume set of books called Aircraft Design, by fellow Brit and aviation inventor, Cecil Hugh Latimer-Needham.

Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best studied the physics and engineering explained in the books. There was even a detailed diagram of the wing section, which was a huge help to their lofty plans.

Goldfinch and Best selected 12 men to assist in building the glider. They called them their 12 apostles, and they worked in secret in the attic above the chapel. Bed slats became ribs, floor boards became wing spars; old electrical wire found in unused places of the castle served as control wires. The prisoners gave up their cotton sleeping bags to make the aircraft’s skin, and set aside some of their rationed millet, which, after boiling, would seal the pores in the fabric.

In addition to building the glider, they needed some kind of surface from which to launch it. Using tables carefully collected from around the castle, the men constructed a 60’ long runway. Since they didn’t have access to a tow plane (not to mention that would be a dead give-away of their escape), they’d have to catapult the engineless aircraft. For this, they filled a metal bathtub with concrete, linked it to a pulley system, and when the tub was dropped, the glider would bolt out.

The finished vehicle would weigh just 240 lbs., and only two men would be picked to fly out in it. They were planning to make their escape in the Spring of 1945 when they heard Allied guns. They knew the war would soon be over, and the Nazis would be defeated. While they waited, they agreed to keep the glider available for use in case the Nazis ordered a massacre. It was nearly completed when the American Army liberated the prisoners on 16 April 1945.

The Soviets got a hold of the glider, so there’s no telling where it ended up. But Goldfinch kept his drawings, and one single photo was discovered, so a few replicas have been built, some even tested – and they launched successfully in the field across the river, all according to plan.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 5, 2023 Brittany and the Blue Angels

The Liberty Gazette

December 5, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

“I still can’t believe it happened,” says 6th grade schoolteacher Brittany Moon of her ride with the Blue Angels. The second-generation pilot earned her private pilot certificate and tailwheel and high-performance endorsements this year. 

The young wife and mom to two little boys grew up around airplanes and now flys a blue and white 1946 Aeronca Champ she named Betty. When Brittany was small, her dad bought a 1929 Waco (named Cream Soda) and rebuilt it. He re-built it again when her kids were born. She loves the photos of her at age two, standing on one of the Waco’s tires, and a photo of her oldest son (now eight) in the same pose. 

But getting to fly with the Blue Angels has long been a dream. In December 2021, they posted their two-year schedule. After a 10-year hiatus, the air show was returning to her hometown, Indianapolis. Brittany called the Navy to inquire about a flight. “Watch for social media posts,” they advised. Finally, in August this year, the application was opened for the October 25 ride-along opportunity. Two lucky people would be selected. 

On October 10, as she was teaching both her own students and those of another teacher who was out that day, Brittany got a call from Pensacola, Florida, with the news that she was a finalist. She’d have to pass a medical exam (even though she already had her aviation medical certificate). No problem. The day of the flight, she and about a dozen friends and family came to the Indianapolis Regional Airport. Her entourage witnessed her pre-flight discussion with Commander Thomas Zimmerman, Blue Angel #7. Instructions included how to breathe during maneuvers (they don’t wear G-suits) and how to eject in case of emergency (you go out with the seat). She climbed in the F/A-18 Super Hornet, and they strapped her down good – ankles, thighs, hips, chest.

They flew to southern Indiana and did some G-warm-ups, up to 4 G’s: a loop, a maximum radius turn, a sneak pass, aileron rolls, a carrier break. They flew inverted, too, but she’s not a big fan of hanging upside down (she lasted 12 seconds, not the full 30). Then, traveling at 700 mph (Mach 0.95), at 500’, they went straight up like a corkscrew, pulling 7.6 G’s. That’s when she grayed out. “It was exhausting, a total body workout, focusing on squeezing glutes, breathing, to counter the effects of G-forces. I loved it!” 

It's been a great year for Brittany. She’s a new pilot, took her son to Oshkosh, and flew with the Blue Angels. She has four goals for 2024. In April, attend the annual WASP reunion in Sweetwater, become a certified flight instructor in the Light Sport category (her Champ is in that category) – she’ll have to take spin training as part of that goal, and fly her Champ to Oshkosh with her son and land on a dot. 

Ambitious and exciting goals, and we bet Brittany will meet each one with gusto.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 28, 2023 Stories, Stories, Everywhere!

The Liberty Gazette

November 28, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

A pilot’s logbook is full of stories of adventure, of amazing views and exciting journeys. Aircraft, too, have tales to tell. Lean in and hear them whisper, and they’ll tell you what it’s like to be lifted by the wind beneath their wings, from stories of practice flights around the patch to far-off jaunts, some civil, some not so. Aviation museums are a great place to indulge your imagination and hear the machines relive their stories. 

East Fortune, a village in East Lothian (near Edinburgh), Scotland, is home to an airfield built in 1915 to help protect Britain from the Germans during World War I. Since 1975, the National Museum of Flight has been opening its civil and military hangar doors to the curious and interested, to those who want to see a Spitfire, a Red Arrow, the Concorde, and the record-breaking airship, R34. 

The morning of July 2, 1919, eight officers, twenty-two men from England’s Army, Navy, and Air Corps, and two pigeons, to be used in case of emergency, took off from the East Fortune airfield on a mission. If successful, they would hold the record for the first direct flight between Great Britain and the U.S., the first east-to-west Atlantic crossing (nothing but headwinds all the way), and the first return flight across that same ocean (hooray for tailwinds). Mind you, this is a blimp, and it was equipped with only rudimentary instruments. 

Now, Billy Ballantyne was a rigger. He had been forced to give up his spot on the R34 for an American, but he didn’t want to miss out on these important, once-in-history flights, so he stowed away with the ship’s mascot, a tabby kitten named Wopsie. Twelve hours into the flight, crews discovered Ballantyne, overcome by leaking hydrogen. Since they couldn’t throw him overboard, not even with a parachute, into the churning waves below, the Air Commodore, Edward Maitland, put him to work cooking and pumping gas into the bags that fed the engines. 

At one point, they found a leak in one of the gas bags. The quick-thinking crews gathered their whole supply of gum, chewed it up nice and soft, and plugged the leak. But approaching the east coast of North America, they were dangerously low on fuel. They considered their options. If they ended up in the ocean, they could be refueled by a destroyer or be pulled onto land by some other capable ship. Or they could try to make it to Boston. Eyes on the prize, they went for Boston. As they got closer, they realized they could get to New York. Landing at Long Island 108 hours and 12 minutes after take-off from Scotland left them with one hour’s worth of fuel in the bags.

Remember they wouldn’t drop the stow-away into the drink by parachute? Well, crewmember Major John Pritchard had to help the ground crew, so he actually did parachute into the U.S., becoming the first person to come to America by air. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 21, 2023 A War Against Ice

The Liberty Gazette

November 21, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: My first cross country air race was nearly 16 years ago. The four-day race began in Bozeman, Montana, and ended in Mansfield, Massachusetts, with seven mandatory check-ins in between. Our first timed fly-by after launching out of Bozeman was Miles City, Montana. After fueling, we took off, crossing over the Yellowstone River, which flows between the airport and the town, and raced toward Aberdeen, South Dakota, the next checkpoint. It was that very river that, 64 years before, had drawn a different kind of race – a race against time.

The 1943-44 Montana winter was about average, and the weekend of March 17-18 was normal, untilSunday evening, March 19, when Spring’s thaw came out of the gate like a triple crown champion. The quick heating caused ice to break up, sending chunks careening down Yellowstone River. Ice jams began to form, increasing as they collided with ice from a tributary, the Tongue River. The five-mile-long jam caused severe flash flooding and hasty evacuations. Between the time evacuations began and when first responders were on the move, the river rose to 19.3 feet, 15 feet higher than normal. There were many boat rescues as an entire square mile of Miles City, population 7,300, was completely flooded. 

On Monday, Mayor Layton Key called local pilots, who, with permission from the feds and explosives from a coal mining company tossed 12 homemade bombs out of a Piper Cub. But they only dislodged a small amount of ice. They’d have to step up their defense with bigger bombs and bigger planes. The mayor called the governor and asked him to contact the Army. 

Blizzard conditions and low clouds prevented use of a dive bomber. Their last hope lay in the high-altitude crews training at the Rapid City air base. On Tuesday, ten Army volunteers fused and loaded 250-pound bombs onto a B17 and took off into instrument conditions. The weather was so bad, they couldn’t see out of the airplane. Picking up a local pilot in Miles City, they took off again around 5:30 pm, ready for war against the ice. 

The first bomb, a test, seemed to go in the right direction, but they couldn’t tell whether it broke up the ice dam. The bombs had a delayed fuse; they would explode under water. The B17 crew made a few more passes, dropping six more bombs each time. Finally, a 150-foot plume of ice, mud, and water exploded from Yellowstone River. Within an hour, the water was draining, leaving shard-peppered ice along its banks. The operation was a success! 

By midnight, the river had dropped three feet. Mayor Key put the bomber crews up at his hotel and fed them steak dinners in gratitude. By Wednesday morning, the Yellowstone was back within its banks, and the crew of the B17 wagged their wings on a low pass over the town as they headed back to Rapid City in the only U.S. bomber asked to bomb a U.S. city during the Second World War. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 14, 2023 Good for a Laugh

The Liberty Gazette

November 14, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Every once in a while, usually at the busiest airports in the world, where time is of the essence, a pilot forgets to change frequency and inadvertently gives the passenger briefing over an airport’s ground or tower radio. This faux pas is met with teasing by controllers and fellow pilots who had to wait to get a word in. 

After a combined 70 years of flying, we’ve heard a few comical things over the airwaves. We thought we’d compile some for you. Not that we personally heard all of these live at the time they were spoken, but they have been preserved for the audio pleasure of us all.

Coming in at number 4, a pilot in Toronto, after being given a frequency for Toronto Radio from air traffic control, questioned why he was being given that frequency. “Alright, do you wanna talk to a Center controller, or do you wanna talk to the radio? The radio people give you weather and stuff. The Center people keep you away from other airplanes.” Good call by the pilot: “I wanna be kept away from other airplanes!”

Amusing transmission number 3 goes a little retro. Taxing out for departure from JFK Airport, a pilot reports something on the runway that “looks like a beanbag chair.” This controller can’t help but laugh, adding, “Is there a lava lamp and a six pack out there too?” What could the pilot do but answer? “Absolutely. A disco ball as well.” The controller has the best answer: “Alright, let me get the Port Authority out there to party with it.”

At number 2, one can only imagine… “We’re picking up eh… some pretty heavy interference on the Tower frequency, sounds like a small child singing … Justin Bieber.” After the tower controller gives the pilot a heading for the approach, the pilot obviously felt the need to set the record straight. “Just like to point out that I’m not the one who identified the singer!” This controller had a sense of humor. “That’s your story? Are you gonna stick with it? Okay, I’ll try not to sing next time.” 

And in this batch of pilot-controller exchanges that elicit a chuckle, number one has to do with the word, “awesome,” these days, an overused response. Apparently, there’s at least one air traffic controller who agrees. After approving the request from a pilot who wanted to land on the left runway instead of the parallel runway to the right at the Bedford, Massachusetts airport, the pilot giving that popular response, the controller had to ask. “Is it really that wonderful, ma’am?” Of course, the left runway was closer to where she was going to park the Airbus A320, but we’d have to side with the controller on this one. However, her gentle reminder to him to “Be happy,” seems to have warmed him at least a little. “You sound like you’re gonna make some guy very happy.” She didn’t miss a beat. “That’s why I’m tryin’ to get home!”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

November 7, 2023 Silent Wings

The Liberty Gazette

November 7, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

You might have known that balloons have been used in military operations since the earliest days of flight, but did you know gliders have been enlisted as well? The non-motorized aircraft are quiet, so they could sneak in behind enemy lines without being heard. If they came in at night, which they frequently did, all the better, as they often landed undetected. They brought in men, weapons, food, and other supplies, and even vehicles. 

Since our annual birthday hike in Palo Duro Canyon was shortened to just one day due to inclement weather, we took a trip down to Lubbock for indoor activities. The Silent Wings Museum honors veterans who flew gliders during WWII and is dedicated to the memory of all who received advanced glider training and earned Silver ‘G’ Wings at this airfield. While the ‘G’ was officially for Glider, it was said that it really stood for Guts, because these men were flying a one-way trip. There was no turning around. They flew fragile, unarmed gliders on eight major airborne invasions of Europe and Southeast Asia, including Market Garden (invasion of The Netherlands), Varsity (invasion of Germany), and Overlord (the D-Day allied invasion of Normandy, France). Many paid the supreme sacrifice for their country.

The museum also does a tremendous job of educating the public on these heroes and this facet of war.

There were nine preliminary and advanced military glider pilot training fields in Texas. The one in Lubbock was one of the most prominent, The U.S. Army Air Force leased the airport from the city, and from October 1942 to April 1, 1945. This was where about 80% of the combat glider pilots who served in the major operations were trained to fly the 15-man Waco CG-4A glider. 

Did you know that Steinway and Sons piano craftsmen in Long Island, New York built many of the wooden components for the Waco CG-4A glider, including wings and tail assemblies, benches, floors, and cockpit frameworks? It was a time when our country was more cohesive, and the infiltration of commies hadn’t exploded to the level it is today. Businesses and individuals proudly sacrificed to do what was needed to help defend and preserve freedom.

A short documentary film with interviews of some of the pilots, fascinating artifacts, and impactful reenactment scene displays make this museum a must-see. They even have one of these huge CG-4A gliders on display in the hangar, and one of its tow planes, a DC-3, greeting visitors at the entrance.

We were surprised, however, to see how long ago air combat was discussed. Here’s a quote from lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose house we happened to visit while in London this summer: “What would be the security of the good, if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds, neither walls, nor mountains, nor seas, could afford any security.” Dr. Johnson realized the possibilities of aerial attacks in 1759. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

October 31, 2023 We'll Take the Treats

The Liberty Gazette

October 31, 2023

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

The wind played trick-or-treat on our last trip to Amarillo. We slugged our way head-first into it. Twenty knots, on the nose, at 3,000 feet, the altitude with the least amount of headwind. A few thousand feet higher, winds were racing across the sky at over 70 knots. We were attending a couple of social events, but not spending the night. You can bet we collected what was due us on the way back. Coming home, altitude was our friend, where screaming tail winds chopped off an hour and a half flight time – no need for a fuel stop. 

Sometimes, it can be difficult to find the sweet spot, where winds are favorable but turbulence minimal. That sweet spot can change over the miles. It might be 2,900 feet for a while, then 3,200 feet later. Sure, it was a tricky wind heading northwest, but a real zippy treat and smooth sailing at 9,500 feet in the evening. 

Speaking of treating ourselves to good things, we’ve been binging on a few video channels lately, and one of them is Dave Hadfield’s YouTube channel. We happened upon Part One of his half-hour documentary of a test flight in a 1928 Moth with a Gipsy II engine, at a grass airfield in Southern Ontario, Canada. 

Dave is from a family of pilots. His wife, Robin, is an air racer and president of the Ninety-Nines. His brother, Chris, is an astronaut. Numerous other relatives are pilots as well. 

Recently, Dave was asked to fly the DH60, DeHavilland Gipsy Moth, across Southern Ontario to its new owner in Quebec. This was the oldest plane Dave had ever flown and the oldest aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force that’s still flying. It’s a rare biplane with folding wings. 

In Dave’s video, he shows viewers what he does when he test-flies an aircraft. This one had been flown from New York for considerable maintenance and repair, so his first job was to check all the maintenance paperwork. After he reviewed the documents, he carried the camera while explaining his detailed examination. They removed a bit of water and rust in the fuel tanks, and once it passed his critical eye, we got to ride along atop his helmet.

He talks through every maneuver, commenting on how the airplane feels. Climbs, descents, turns. Then a little more aggressive, with wing-overs and stalls. Dave is licensed by the Canadian authority to perform low-level aerobatics (he performs in air shows), and as a former Canadian Air Force pilot, he is well-acquainted with proper testing procedures. He discovered an issue on landing when the Gipsy Moth swerved right. He put in full left rudder, but it wasn’t enough. He went around the patch to try once more, ready for the right swerve. Something was wrong. But then the rain came, so he left it with the experts. He’ll be back. We can’t wait for Part Two, the delivery flight to Quebec! It’s a must-watch on www.hadfield.ca.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com