Russell Williams' Ryan SC-W is getting new wheel pants. The old wheel pants were falling apart, and these new construction wheel pants will be more solidly mounted and won't have been patched 25 times!

The wheel pants were started by Ron Englund and are being finished by Norm Archer at Schellville Airport, near Sonoma CA. Doing this kind of sheet metal forming is hard when the part is painted, doing it to polish-ready grade requires amazing skill.

Charlie Brown of Bonners Ferry ID prepares and watches the first flight of his Stearman C3B after a 5 year restoration. The aircraft is powered by Wright J5 engine. The pilot is Addison Pemberton.

There's another antique-friendly IA out there - Ryan Pemberton passed his IA test and even beat his Dad's score. Congratulations Ryan!

APM Volunteer Rex Yoakam, with help from Cliff Hatz, is making rapid progress on his original design called simply, the "Racer".

It is a single place low wing monoplane that is powered by a Ranger V-12 engine. It definitely has the look of a 1930's style pylon polisher and with the V-12 should be an impressive performer.

Rex and Cliff are currently finishing up the extensive amount of sheet metal work on the fuselage.

AAA Member Jack McGee sent in some photos of his J-4 which has recently been put back in the air:

Thought you would like to see some pictures of my 1939 Piper Cub Coupe that was recently restored by Pete Yarbrough. Pete is a good friend of mine and took over and redid the whole project after I suffered a back injury. I had replaced the engine with an 85 Cont. Then he took over and put in new ribs from Dakota Cub new spars, new sealed struts new wiring (it had no electrical system), new Univair metal fuselage stringers, new leading edges, a new strobe on top of the rudder, rebuilt the landing gear shock struts, made an new instument panel, and redid the whole interior. Recovered the plane with Stits Poly fiber then repainted it.

I had John Kerr make a new cowling for the bird because when I bought the plane it had suffered a crankshaft failure and went over on its back in an off airport landing. It sure is a great airplane to fly.

Over the July 4th Weekend the 4th Annaul Antique Homebuilt Fly-In was held at Antique Airfield. Several local airplanes were in attendance as well as visitors from as far away as WI, MN and the Kansas City area were tied down under starry skies Friday night.

All those in attendance this evening helped celebrate AAA/APM founder Robert Taylor's 86th birthday with cake and ice cream.

Rex Yokam's Spacewalker

The Applegate's newest addition to their growing fleet, a Piper Vagabond

APM Director Mark Robotti was down from Lindstrom, MN in his ragwing Cessna 170

Norman Skinner's Stit's Playmate is a new addition to the neighborhood.

RLT's birthday cake.

Jim Clark's Waco EGC-8 is now back in the air after restoration. We look forward to seeing it at Blakesburg this summer!

Addison Pemberton, in Spokane, WA, writes: Our EQC-6 project is rolling around again and getting ready for fuse fabric in a few weeks. Jon Nace rebuild our gear and made provisions to allow for perfect alignment by adding weld on small plates so that the retaining screws that hold the internal spline into the oleo could be set perfectly. This baby should track the runway like a Indy car on a straight away. Yea man.

Gas tanks are now repaired. This really turned into quick sand. We cut into them and found most of the internal baffles broken and we founds rocks in the tanks? We have long range 47 gallon tanks which are going to be great for long legs. We now have them right as rain with new necks, sumps, 1/2 inch fuel line provisions, and capacitive fuel gauges. We have also modified the upper wings to incorporate felt padded retaining straps and metal gas tank covers. The original washer retention design had really done alot of damage to the tanks and caused many leaks.

Lower wings and tail group are now nearly ready for the spray booth. Next the fuse then the upper wings which are now epoxy varnished and ready for new leading edges. It looks like we will meet our summer goal of getting the airplane through color in prep for full assembly this winter. Should fly in a year with the plan of making Blacksburg 2011 with the airplane all shook down and happy.

Addison

Here are Chapter Newsletters from June and July.

• Florida Cub Flyers June 2010: Mountain Flying in Idaho
• Texas Chapter July 2010: Fall Fly-In Announcement
• Colorado Chapter July 2010: Sentimental Journey
• Oklahoma Chapter June 2010: Chapter Fly-In Report

See all of the chapter newsletters.

Heading to Sentimental Journey, by Richard Hawley

While we focus on the "real thing" of antique aircraft, there's a vibrant community of people who focus on flight simulations with photo realistic scenery and aircraft rendering. The folks at Golden Age Simulations have built a Stinson simulation with scenery set at Antique Airfield.