John Williamson

Our 2012 season-opening event, the Massey Annual Chili Festival (April 28th), started a good year for the Massey Air Museum. With approximately 130 aircraft arrivals and as many cars in the parking lot, over 500 people enjoyed the many tempting pots of chili and enjoyed spending time with old friends. We were kept busy with requests for stamping visitors' Passports, as part of Maryland's "Explore Maryland by Air" program General Aviation News. What a display the wonderful variety of aircraft made on the field. Our photography enthusiast, Bill Dougherty, took almost 100 pictures of these planes! Check out the Museum website to view them and the new items we've added, including a sales table for models.

As usual, a great group of volunteers turned out to help with the very important job of carefully parking all the planes as they arrived. Bill Dilling and Tony Saienni from Massey, Bill Lee and others from Dover's Air Mobility Command Museum. The "Dover Guys", as we call them, have been working in our shop on components of their CG-4A, a WW11 Glider on display at their Museum www.amcmuseum.org . They are always willing to help us clean the facilities for our events, as well as park airplanes. This help is very much appreciated by everyone at Massey.

On August 25th, Massey Air Museum played host to over twenty five eager youngsters who discovered the joys of flying -»

during our Young Eagles Day. On this occasion EAA Chapter 571 from Annapolis, MD, provided a wonderful variety of aircraft for the Young Eagles to experience - and judging by their smiles, it was a good experience. Flying also seemed to give the young folks an appetite, as the line for hot dogs stayed quite busy. Many thanks to EAA Chapter 571 for a job well done.

This year the Museum has had the good fortune to add ?Mike Young" to our roster of active volunteers. Mike has taken on the daunting task of attempting to properly organize our ever-growing Library using the Dewey Decimal System. Welcome aboard Mike.

Work continues on the replica 1911 Wright Brothers glider given to us by the family of Jimmy Dayton in 2011. Don Hooker has been hard at work building the tail section of this beautiful replica to the finest level of detail. The top of the upper wing will be covered to show how it looked, but the rest of the wings will be left open to show the beautiful woodwork that Jimmy Dayton did constructing this reproduction. We hope to have the tail section assembled and the whole glider displayed early in 2013 in the main section of our museum.

Work also continues on the aforementioned WWII Waco CG4A troop glider. It's being restored by a very dedicated group from the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base. The fuselage has been completed and returned to Dover, where it's already on display. In addition to a -»

great amount of intricate woodwork, the fuselage also required a large fabric covering. Renate Brown, who works for ILC in Frederica, DE (they have made space suits for our astronauts for decades) took on the challenge and completed it in only two days. In the past year the fabric work on the horizontal stabilizers, elevators, vertical stabilizer, rudder, and aft part of the fuselage was completed at Massey. The group is now building a partial wing to be added to the display. Lots of detailed woodwork is involved in order to make the wing as close to original as possible. They're getting guidance from places like the National Museum of the United States Air Force (used to be the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB), the Smithsonian Museum, and various other museums. Their finely detailed restoration has been painted to display Invasion Day stripes used during the Normandy invasion of Europe. Those who have viewed the display at the AMC Museum have been very impressed with the outcome of their work. The group includes Gary Burris, Rich Dorre, Dick Marks, Ron Bauer, Bill Lee, Mike Phillips, Les Potter, Marty Martell, Larry Phillips, and Larry Wright. Our own Jim Douglass, Tony Saienni and John Williamson have also contributed their assistance.

On another front, the R-680 Lycoming radial engine that will power Jim Douglass' Stinson Reliant project has been completely rebuilt and has been successfully "run in" on a test stand at Bill Bohannon's engine shop in Ohio. The engine was set up with a wooden club for a propeller and run for seven hours with no problems. Jim was able to ...

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be there for the final high speed test and really enjoyed hearing the engine he had flown as a boy, with his father. This was a wonderful culmination of quite a bit of work in tearing down the radial engine, shuttling the assorted parts to and from the shop in Ohio, having the parts evaluated, and restored where necessary, and then returning them to Massey with the final reassembly -- which you may have seen as you toured the Museum in early 2012.

You'll notice that the DC-3 looks quite spiffy with new window glass and a new coat of olive drab urethane finish on the fuselage. We owe thanks to painters Tyler Cohen, Bill Dougherty, John Williamson, Earl McMullen, and others. The remainder of the aircraft will be covered as time and weather allow. The efforts of Ron Bauer and Bill Lee to bird-proof the plane have kept the birds at bay. This volunteer effort will help keep the old ship looking new for many years to come.

The first J3 Cub project, completed by Ralph DeGroodt and Tony Saienni, has now been flying for 15 hours. That's after a two and one half year restoration, including a trip back to Lock Haven, PA for a sentimental journey in June. Ralph and Tony enjoyed the flight back to the factory with the restored (better than new) Cub. Work has begun on a second 1940 J3 Cub belonging to Jim Douglass. This Cub was rescued a few years ago and stored at Massey until Ralph's Cub was finished. A lot of detail work has been done on the project by Jim Douglass, Ralph, Tony, Larry Tasker, and John Williamson, in order to bring the old bird back to original. New windows have been installed, upgraded brakes installed, and a new panel has been -»

prepared with rebuilt (very original) instruments. All the controls for the rudder and elevators are completed, and it is now waiting for the wings to be installed, and the engine to be test-run. After appropriate testing, another J3 Cub restoration will fly, helping to keep "Grass Roots" aviation alive at Massey Air Museum.

In October, another milestone was reached when the totally refurbished 1955 Schweizer SG-2-22 glider was flown during the Vintage sailplane weekend. Rusty Lowery, a Navy test pilot from PAX River, flew the glider and gave it a complete checkout. Needless to say this was a very exciting event for John Williamson, Larry Tasker, Tony Saienni, and others who worked on the rebuilding of this aircraft. The Museum recently received three Czech made Blanick gliders and a Cessna 182 tow plane. All were donated to Massey Air Museum by "Midshipmen Aviation Inc", a foundation formed by a group from the Naval Academy. These gliders were being used in an aviation training program for the Midshipmen but the program was cut short due to some technical airworthiness details with the gliders. We hope to have at least one of the gliders flying again sometime this summer.

The "Open Hanger Party" on December 2nd was a big success, even though morning fog made it a late start for many visiting aircraft. Even with the fog over sixty planes flew in to enjoy the varied and plentiful holiday fare as well as many more drive in visitors. Use of runway 20 brought our new taxiway into service for the first time. It was barely ready, but having it operational kept traffic flowing smoothly. New markings are being considered for the runways, as the cones proved -»

difficult to see with low winter sun. Once again the volunteers proved they were up to the job of handling many planes in a very short time frame. Thanks again to Ron Bauer, Gary Burris, and Bill Lee from Dover, and Tony Saienni, Bill Dilling and others I may have missed. Our friends from the Porsche Club of Delaware were there in force with 13 cars for a great display, along with various other interesting cars. Altogether another fine afternoon event.

Our annual appeal for your continued support is certainly not new, but continues to be a most important part of our yearly plan. As you are aware, we continue to provide a great venue for many people who have an interest in preserving Grass Roots Aviation. This does not come without a cost, and we need your support to continue our efforts. We hope you are also aware, as we have said before, we remain good guardians of your funds, and they do help to bring lots of joy to lots of folks. Our membership rolls continue to increase each year as do the number of volunteers we have, but there is always a need for volunteers, they are the heart of the Museum.

You may have noticed that this year's Museum Chatter is not up to its usual standards. Jim Douglass has been under the weather lately and was not fully able to participate in the production of this letter. John Williamson and many dedicated volunteers have done our best to get you the news. Get well soon Jim!