Sopwith Camel derails July 4th Parade

Where's the "like" button?

 

I would love to have been there to see your Sopwith flying overhead

BTW, your description of the parade reminded me of...
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Maybe they were looking for the Fokker Triplane that you were chasing!

 

THAT is a great story, Russ! ! How much fun is that? That is the essence of of what we do. And I say "we" because I was part of something similar when we were flying down to Merced Antique Fly-in in 1969. The three of us had to refuel and stop at Redding, Ca. We arrived at 1800 and over- flew the town and circled the airport in a three plane vic and then changed to a lose trailing formation, the Pietenpol, L-3 , and Bowers little biplane. We didn't realize it but we passed over the baseball stadium twice while a semi-pro game was going on. After we landed a crowd of cars and people showed up to see the airplanes and we got chewed out by a guy because we almost emptied out the stadium. Not as nice as your show but it is really fun that you had a positive and enjoyable experience with the Camel. WRONG TOWN. It wasn't Redding. It was Red Bluff, Ca. Comical incident when Charlie and the Aircamper taxied in to the ramp. He had a brisk tailwind and no brakes on the wire wheels so he had to go into a never-ending ground loop when he reached the gas pumps. As he was going round and round one guy in the crowd said, " Maybe I should go home and get the shotgun and shoot the damn thing!"

 

Funny Story..

 

I don't want to steal any of Russ's glory but I thought about that arrival at Red Bluff and remembered Charlie's approach to the ramp at a brisk clip and the line boy in his best behavior rushed out to guide the Aircamper to the pumps. Charlie bearing down on the kid screamed , " NO BRAKES !" The kid caught on late and broke to his right just as Charlie broke to his left and was chasing down the hapless line boy again. The kid broke to his right again and watched in utter confusion as the Aircamper went round and round. After we were able to grab a strut and tether the wayward machine the kid looked the airplane over , still not sure what he was looking at, pointed at the radiator and asked Charlie, " Is that a bug screen?" " Well, yeah, among other things," Charlie answered. Then Charlie asked if there was water at the pumps and of course the kid said no. Then Charlie asked if they had a coffee maker in the office. A guarded yes came from a now totally confused kid. Charlie sauntered into the office and returned with a Silex full of water and climbed up on the Pietenpol and filled the radiator. The dumfounded kid stood there in silence and walked over to the pumps and handed the hose to Charlie, " If this thing takes gas, I'm gonna' let you do it." Our stop there at Red Bluff was at the end of the leg from Dunsmuir where there was no FBO on site. We were carrying five gallon cans of fuel with us so that we could fill up with enough fuel to make to Red Bluff and when we landed there at Dunsmuir there were were cars roaring up to the airport to look at the planes. Of all the flying that I did, this was the most fun and memorable. None of the airplanes were designed for mountain flying, especially the L-3 because it was heavy and a bit under-powered, so we had to use everything we could think of to get over some of the big rocks, slope soaring the weather side of a ridge and thermals over hot rocks became routine.
Flying home in some of the crud north of Portland over the Columbia I was flying on Charlie's right wing and he kept pointing at me . I finally figured out that I should take a look to my right and lo and behold, there was an Army Beaver next to me , flaps down and nose up a bit to stay with us. The two pilots were looking at the L-3 in all its WW2 Army Air Corps markings and doing a book search trying to figure out what the hell they were looking at. Finally they waved, lowered the nose, and bored a hole in the murk. The joy of flight! If I was French how would I say that? JOY DE AVION?
Great envy for Russ!

 

Russ, you have a PM.

 

I think that a Camel fly-over on any Armed Forces Day parade would be a darn good idea especially if some F-16's came raoring over at the same time.

 

May I tell another story? I hang out at Kenmore Air occasionally to watch them restoring their famous DeHavilland Beavers. I examined one that was being fitted with new radios. It had a beautiful new paint job and what appeared to be a pristine engine and prop. The array of radios was absolutely EVERYTHING NEW THAT COULD BE PUT IN AN AIRPLANE. Looking at the engine it was obvious that the cylinders were zero time. The prop was brand new also and the rest of the engine appeared to be right out of the box. It was. After searching the entire country all the jugs were unused as was the prop.This simply doesn't happen with R985's nowadays. I asked the mechanic who in the world could afford all the stuff that I was looking at. Answer." Harrison Ford."

 

My CFI told me a story he heard from a buddy who worked KBGM approach. 3am one Sunday morning, he gets a call from a Bell JetRanger looking to hit the FBO for fuel. He vectors it in, but tells the pilot the FBO won't open for another three hours. Tells him he can come get a coffee at the tower if he wants to wait. When he answers the door, he finds...Harrison Ford