TAPE 19.·'

RESEARCH SPONSORED BY NACA

The first project of our Aircraft Research Center (it .

was called the Personal Aircraft Research Center until we got

into the agricultural aircraft work), the first project that

was sponsored and financed by the N.A.C.A. was entitled "An

Analytical Investigation of Effect of High-Lift Flaps on

Take-off of Light Airplanes". This was published by the

N.A.C.A .. in September 1951 as Technical Note #2404 by Fred E.

We i c k , L . E . F 1 an a g han , J r . and H . H . Cherry.. .

Three phases of the problem of improving take-off

performance by the use of flaps were considered. The optimum

lift coefficient for take-off was determined for airplanes

having loadings representative of light aircraft and flying

from field surfaces encountered in personal aircraft

operations. Power loading, span loading, aspect ratio and

drag coefficient were varied sufficiently to determine the

effect of these variables on take-off performance and for

each given set of conditions the lift coefficient and

velocity were determined for the minimum distance to take off

and climb to 50'. Existing high lift and control device data

were studied and compared to determine which combinations of

such devices appeared to offer the most suitable arrangements

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for light aircraft. Computations were made to verify that.

suitable stability, control and performance could be obtained

with the optimum devices selected when thej were applied to a

specific airplane. In addition, a typical mechanism to

provide for actuation of the movable surfaces for both high

lift and lateral control was presented. As a result of the

stud.Y, a single slotted, full-span flap was selected as the

high lift device best suited for a 4-place private owner-type

airplane. An optimum speed for take off was determined for

each combination of airplane span loading and power loading,

this speed being found to vary only slightly with changes in

drag and with changes in aspect ratio. For each combination

of aspect ratio, span loading and power loading, an optimum

lift coefficient for take off was determined. It was found

that the shortest take off distances are obtained with low

span loading, low power loadings, and low aspect ratios and

that air drag and ground friction are relatively unimportant

at these low loadings. Working charts were prepared for the

prediction of take-off distance and for the determination of

the take off speed and the resultant lift coefficient

desired. Calculations indicate that considerable improvement

in take off performance of light airplanes is possible by

the use of suitable high lift flaps. Reductions of

approximately 25% in the distance required to take off and

climb to 50' were found possible. As I state these results

now, in 1978, 27 years later, the general run of production

light airplanes now on the markets have made use of only a

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portion, usually a small portion, of this possible

improvement. The rest is still available to be taken by

designers if they want to take the trouble and if they find

it economically feasible.

MORE ERCOTTPE JiiLYJ:NG

In May 1952, Dorothy's mother had a severe heart attack

in the Aragon Hotel in Chicago, her home when she was in the

Chicago area. Dorothy took the airline to Chicago

immediately, as did her brother, Dr. John Church, from Fort

Worth. John, because he was a doctor, could claim immediate

priority and got there while their mother was still alive,

and he could talk with her and comfort her. Dorothy,

however, had to wait her turn for an opening, and got there

after her mother had died. I flew up to Chicago with Dick in

the Ercoupe (ringggggg, in the background)

Did you hear that telephone bell? That was Donald and Emily

calling us up regarding something we had sent them for their

25th wedding anniversary. The phone rang and registered as I

was talking into the recording. Incidentally, in the course

of the conversation, Donald mentioned that a friend of his in

Camden, South Carolina, has a cousin by the name of Hyers,

who lives in Oregon and has an Ercoupe that he has painted up

in Army colors. Don's friend invited his cousin to fly the

Ercoupe to Camden, South Carolina, and sell it to him. The

response he got was that he might sell his wife to him, but

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not his Ercoupe. The old Ercoupe spirit is still alive on

September 12, 1978.

As I was saying, Dick and I flew our Ercoupe up to

Chicago to attend Mother Church's funeral. Poor Dick had

always been subject to motion sickness. When he was a little

child and we were driving in the car, we always had to be

ready to pull over to the curb and stop and let him toss his

cookies. He wanted to go with me, however, and survived the

trip by taking dramamine and resting back in as horizontal a

position as possible in the plane. After the funeral,

Dorothy stayed to take care of her mother's things, and Dick

and I flew back again. Fortunately, the air was relatively

smooth both ways.

A couple of months later, I had to go to Austin to

attend a meeting of the Texas Aeronautics Commission and

decided to fly over and back in the Ercoupe. Dick was free

that day and thought he would like to fly over and back. with

me. It was a little less than an hour's flight and going

over in the morning was not too bad, although he was a little

woozy when we got there. On the way back, a little after mid

afternoon, however, cumulus clouds had formed and their tops

were in the neighborhood of 8,000' or so. We bumped up

through rather turbulent air until we got above the clouds

and I flew at an altitude of about 9,000' as long as we

could. It was not very long, however, before we had to go

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down through the rough air again and land at our home in

-College Station. Dick was very quiet, but it appeared that

he had survived the trip satisfactorily. As soon as I

stopped the plane, however, he jumped out and lost his lunch

on the ground.

During this general period, we had flown together a fair

amount and I had taught him to take off, land, handle the

airplane in the air and navigate satisfactorily. Under the

conditions, however, he understandably lost any desire to go

on with his flying and get a private pilot's license. We

were hoping that he might outgrow this condition in the

future.

BACK TO RESEARCH

The rest of the year 1952 was spent mostly making

investigations of spray systems on the new measuring station

with different airplanes and different arrangements of

nozzles. In addition, a new investigation sponsored by the

NACA was started on the investigation of lateral control near

the stall and this work at the beginning involved flight

investigation with a light high-wing monoplane tested with

various amounts of wash-out and various lengths of leading

edge slot. The aircraft was a Taylorcraft and the tests ran

on into 1953. We found that satisfactory lateral control

occurred consistently, even under conditions simulating

extremely gusty air.at angles of attack approximately 2°

below that for the maximum lift coefficient, or the stall of

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the wing as a whole. This 2° margin was substantially the

same both with full power and with the engine throttled and

throughout the range of center of gravity locations tested.

Supplementary tests were then made on the control at high

angles of attack under actual gusty air conditions on the

possibility of entering spins, and on the amount of elevator

control required for normal three-point landings.

We f o u n d t h a t w i t h t h e o r i g i n a 1 p 1 ain u n t w i s t e d w i n g ,

obtaining the constant 2° margin below the stall required

widely different elevator deflections for the range of power

and center of gravity locations tested. Also, none of these

settings was high enough to produce a three-point landing.

An attempt was then made to find a configuration that would

provide sufficient elevator control for a three-point landing

under the most critical condition, forward center of gravith

and that at the same time would have insufficient elevator

control to exceed the angle of attack at which reliable

lateral control was obtaine~ in flight under all of the

center of gravity and power conditions. The entire series of

4qf was_put 8 0 f tests was repeated with the wing twisted to .J\anu to o

washout, and with five different lengths of leading edge

slots covering the outer 30, 60, 70 and 90% of the wingspan.

With 8° of washout, the aileron control itself was

satisfactory under all conditions tested, even at angles of

attack well beyond that for the airplane maximum lift

coefficient. Longitudinal fluctuations occurred, however, at

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all angles of attack above that for the initial stalling of

the center of the wing. The results f"or the 30% slots were

tiL-the same,,for those without slots. With all of the other slot

configurations, lateral control was maintained at high angles

of attack, but severe longitudinal fluctuations occurred at

angles of attack above that for the stall of the plane

'Wing.'·.

We determined that the longitudinal fluctuations were

caused by burbling over the upper surface of the wing at the

center, where it is also the upper surface of the fuselage.

The fluctuations were eliminated by the use of a full span

slot. The slat was extended over the fuselage and modified

in cross section to adapt it to the fuselage contour. With

the full span slot, the angle for maximum lift coefficient

was increased 6°. The desired condition, that is, having

sufficient elevator control to accomplish three-point

landings, but insufficient to exceed the angle of attack for

satisfactory lateral control was attained under limited

conditions with both the case of the S 0 of washout and the

case of the full span slot. In both cases, the desired

condition was attained only with power off and with the

center of gravity forward. The S 0 of washout was included

for academic reasons only, of course, because the overall

airplane performance would be reduced very substantially and

for practical application, the arrangement would have to work

satisfactorily over a reasonably wide range of center of

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gravity positions.

SECOrD AGRJClTL'P.TffiAL AVIATION COJ\TF'EnF.:t.TCE

After receiving a good response from my questionnaire on

methods of improving the first agricultural aviation

conference, the second conference held in 1953 followed the

suggestions as far as feasible. The operators in the Rio

Grande valley had already started their spring work by the

time of the first conference around the first of April and

they preferred an earlier time. I ended up selecting the

last Monday and Tuesday in February for the 1953 conference

and this time was used then for all of the following ones. I

was the general chairman and had the job of arranging the

programs, getting the speakers, making arrangements for the

demonstrations, preparing for dinners and so forth throughout

the remaining time that I was at Texas A & M or through the

1957 conference. At the 1953 conference I gave a general

picture of the agricultural aviation activity and some of

these items may be of interest here. For example, during the

year 1951, one-sixth of the total land area of the United

States was under cultivation and about one-tenth of that, or

about 39,000,000 acres were recorded as having been treated

from aircraft. A much greater proportion is treated now.

The number of airplanes used in the distribution of

agricultural materials had increased from a few hundred in

1942 to about 6,500 in 1951. The large increase was made

possible partly by the surplus military training airplanes

that were available at very low cost following World War II,

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~ the supply of which appeared to be about exhausted in

1951. There wer.e 1725 aerial applicator: firms on record in

1951. These operators averaged between 3 and 4 airplanes

each, with only a few firms having over 20 each and one over

forty. At that time, about 30% of all the aerial applicator

work was done on cotton, about 15% on wheat, 6% on rice and

lesser amounts on tobacco, alfalfa, corn, tomatoes, peas, . 'R.

orchards and wheat-. The rest of our portion of the program

brought the measuring station work up to date, where we had

gone into some detail with regard to optimum nozzle

arrangements for both the AG-1 and Stearman airplanes. We

measured the spray distributions from one nozzle at a time

in various locations on these airplanes. Then we were able

to select optimum arrangements for the pattern desired. This

work was reported by George Roth and he also gaVe a paper on

the rice work that we had done at the rice pasture experiment

station over a period of about 3 years. It is interesting

that at that time there were as many as six different types

of aircraft applications that could be made effectively on a

single rice crop. These included: (1) sowing of the rice

seed, ( 2) app 1 ica tion of a chemica 1 f erti 1 izer, (3) spraying

of a herbicide for weed control, (4) application of an

insecticide, (4) a second application of fertilizer, and (6)

spraying of a desiccating agent for pre-harvest drying. Now

that I have mentioned these, I wonder if I have mentioned

them before. The biological papers from the School of

Agriculture brought last year's subjectS up to date, but :<

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included some others, such as grasshopper control on the

ranges and defoliation and pre-harvest-drying. Toxicological

hazards and care in the use of the chemicals was also covered

and there was a paper on the.maintenance of agricultural

airplanes.

The first installation of dust-dispersing equipment in

the Ag-1 was made in early 1953 and the program of

investigation and development of both spray equipment and

dust equipment was continued. At the same time, additional

tests on the airplane's performance and handling

characteristics were made as the program permitted. In this

connection, the distance required to take off and clear a SO'

obstacle was measured for various flight and load conditions.

As I remember it, the Ag-1 with its original gross weight of

3,000 lbs actually did take off and climb to 50, corrected to

still air at sea level in about 1150', well under the quarter

m i 1 e or 1 3 .·ro' t h a t we had or i g in a 11 y s p e c i f i e d . In addition,

I personally made a series of tests to find the roll·response

in lateral control. We did not have the NACA

instrumentation, so I rigged up a high-speed movie camera in

the airplane and had it pointing forward and taking a picture

of the horizon. In addition, it took pictures of a stopwatch

and some of the instruments, including the airspeed; also the

deflection of the lateral control. From these tests we found

that the airplane actually did have excellent lateral

control, far more than the ordinary run of airplanes. The

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ratio Pbi2V, which I have explained previously, was over 0.12 . ' .,,. in the critical low-speed portion of the operation. ·'As·

additional test information and experience were obtained,

minor improvements were made where possible. It was obvious

that if good __ short field performance were to be obtained with

the larger, 1200 lb load, instead of the original 800 lb load

of spray or dust equipment, greater power would be necessary.

The 'continental Motor Co. was developing a 300 hp flat 6

engine and as soon as it was sufficiently developed, model

arrangements were made to furnish us the 300 hp,A.for the Ae-1.

During the course of the 2 1/2 years that the Ag-1 had

been flying, it had been demonstrated at meetings held in

various p 1 aces. Most of these demonstrations had been made

by "The Admiral", as we called him, John Paul Jones of the

Fort Worth Region, who had also done much of the original

test flying on the airplane with Von Rosenberg. The Admiral

ordinarily flew the plane light and gave quite a

demonstration. In his own words: "Normally, when the

aircraft reached 50 mph indicated airspeed on the take off

run, the wing would be lowered until it almost touched the

ground, and at this moment as the airspeed passed 55, the

plane would be pulled into an abrupt, climbing turn. At the

top of this turn, about SO' high, and in a bank of

approximately 45°, the airspeed would be 45 mph and this

would fall off to 40 mph as the plane was held at the same

height and the turn tightened. Roll-out would be at the 180°

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point of the turn, unless crowd location, terrain or other

o b s t r u c t i o n s. d i c t a t e d o t h e r w i s e . " Most of these

demonstration flights had .been made near sea level. On June

26, 1953, he made a demonstration flight for the purpose of

showing the aircraft to members of the National Cotton

Congress at Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas.

The elevation there is about 3,200'. The density altitude

was probably between 5- and 6,000'. He made one of his

regular demonstrations there at the large, main Lubbock

airport, including several duster passes. In his own words,

"The only peculiarity noticeable was that power appeared low

on the sharp pull-ups and turns. This was normal and

expected due to the altitude." Later, he flew the plane to a

special strip which had been prepared on the experimental

farm at the west edge of the Texas Tech campus. From a

report that he prepared later, he appears to have thought

that the operating area was much larger than it actually was.

He stated in his report that "A strip about 100' wide and

1600' long had been smoothed off with a grader, making a very

good duster field. It lay north and south, with a power line

across the north end, but with a clear south approach 1500 or

more additional feet." I later went to Lubbock and measured which was c~libr~ted within a few percent,

these distances and from my pacing,Athe distance between the

power line on the north and the south end of the grading was

1000' instead of 1600' and from the end of the grading to

some buildings several stories high was a distance of only

300' more. In other words, the total distance from the start

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of the run to the buildings which could pot be cleared was

only 1300' and a turn would have to be completed within that

distance. Al§o, there was another 13,000 volt power line

which ran parallel to the strip and only 600' to the west of

i t , i n s t e a d o f a b o u t a q u a r t e r m i 1 e ,. a s h e s t a t e d i n h i s

report. On his demonstration there, he had about 100 1 bs of

maize seed in the hopper to demonstrate seeding and also

a little over 200 lbs of water in the spray tank to

demonstrate the spraying operation. In the Ag-1 these could

be operated independently. The load was still relatively

light, but it was a couple of hundred pounds more than he

usually had with his demonstrations.

This time he took off to the south, left the ground at

just about the point where his audience was standing, and

climbed satisfactorily to a height of about SO'. He then had

to make an unusually tight turn, even for his demonstrations,

in order to change his course by 180° and still be inside of

the power line that was only 600' from his take-off strip.

The airplane would not hold its altitude throughout this

sharp 180° turn. The pilot thought that the engine was

1 osing power, but it opera ted smooth 1 y without interruption

and later tests showed that the engine was still in good

operating condition. When the pilot saw that he could not

maintain altitude and that he was heading toward one of the

poles supporting the power line, he throttled the engine and

put his right wing down, so that the left wing hit the pole a

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TAPE 19

few feet outside of the fuselage. The left wing sheared off

at the point of contact. The right w~ng hit a fence post .. post ·

underneath the power line, which~was very heavy because it

supported a gate, and it was made of a railroad tie. The

plane, then, flipped over on its back and slid along to a

stop about 60' from the fence. The pilot was supported by

his seatbelt and shoulder harness and released himself and

got 'out of the plane immediately. He then waved to his

audience to show them that he was all right, for they were,

running towards the plane to help him if he needed it. ~

m a El e s o me-i'-e-ug h-.. c o-m-p-1:1-t-a-t -i-o.Jl-.S-.1 a-t e-t:---w-h i c-h .... showed- · t-h a- t;-i n--e F·d-EW=-

te eemplete •...

£.ide 2 ·

-J-l:J.NE 1953

Later on, I made some rough calculations which showed that in

order to make a 180° turn within the 600' allowable and have

a little to spare, an angle of bank of more than 45° would be

required and under those conditions, the airplane was flying

a little above its ceiling and could not be expected to hold

altitude. The condition was made even more difficult by the

fact that the last half of the turn was a downwind turn with

a wind of about 15 mph. This would naturally tend to make

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TAPE 19

the pilot tend to tighten the turn even more. So as I see

it, the pilot was merely trying to make the airplane do more

than it was capable of doing.

The next morning the Admiral gave a talk to the group

and started by saying that he was thankful to be alive that

morning. He also said "I am completely convinced that the

specially designed cockp~ t and· other safety features of this

plane were responsible for the fact that I lived through this

crash. It appears highly improbable that any other plane

used in agricultural work could have been crashed as this one

was without killing the pilot and it appears beyond reason

that such planes could have sustained this crash and left the

pilot unhurt." He was unharmed, except that he had a sore

thumb on the hand that was on the control stick.

I would have been delighted to have believed his

statement, but unfortunately I couldn't. The accident was

not of the type where the nose hits the ground at a steep

angle and the deceleration is very, very great. The type of

accident where the airplane flips over and slides to a stop

in some distance is not the type to give the highest

decelerations and not the type that is most likely to be

fatal. I would have preferred to have the pilot come out

unscathed from a severe nose-down accident, for then it would

have given better proof of the crashworthiness of the

airplane. The airplane gained a wonderful reputation this

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way, but unfortunately it was not founded on fact. On the

other hand, I believe it would have done well in a severe

nose-down accident also, especially at the speed at which it

was travelling.

One point of interest is that the seat belt of the Ag -1

was .supported by me an s of N a v y d y n am om e t e r rings which in a

crash would show how much load had been put on both the

right-hand and the left-hand attachments of the seat belt.

The dynamometer ring on one side showed no permanent

deflection at all, which means that the load on it was not

over about 500 lbs. The ring on the other side, however,

showed that it had sustained a load of 3,000 lbs in the

crash. The pilot was therefore thrown around in a very

unsymmetrical manner. He weighed 200 lbs and if the total

load had been taken in a symmetrical manner, it would have

represented a deceleration of over 15 R· So it appears to be

a good thing that he was well supported and that the cockpit

protected him satisfactorily.

S'PART OW 'l'HF. Ag-2

In 1952 after the A.~1 had been completed and tested to

a certain extent, the technical data regarding it were made

available to those who desired it for the cost of

reproduction, then $50. Included were about 50 blueprints,

specifications and technical reports covering the general

design information, the strength computations and the load

tests. As I remember it, about 25 sets were delivered to

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TAPE 19

various manufacturers and others, one to a Mr. George Wing in

the Los Angeles area. Previously, while a designer for North

American Aviation, George Wing had invented a new kind of

fastener, which he called a high-shear rivet. Ordinary bolts

are likely to be loaded in shear and in tension. Some bolts,

however, are required to take shear loads orily and for these,

the ordinary bolt head and nut are heavier than necessary.

The high-shear rivets were furnished with a strong steel body

but the head of the bolt was replaced by a small flange and

the nut end had swedged over it a light aluminum ring to hold

the fitting in place. This concept was immediately accepted

by the designers of sophisticated aircraft. George then made

suitable arrangements with North American and set up a small

plant for manufacturing not only the high-shear rivets, but

more particularly tools for making them, which he could lease

out to others on a royalty basis. His plant grew and his

income rose so rapidly that because of the tax situation, he

was soon able to do development work for what he called "11-

cent dollars". Under these conditions, he purchased the

Trans-Land Company, which was a small outfit making hoppers,

spray equipment, dust-distributing equipment, and other items

suitable for use on agricultural airplanes. He then desired

to expand this activity ·to include the production of the

agricultural airplanes themselves and he purchased the

blueprints and reports for the .AB'-1. After the Ag-1 crashed,

he desired to purchase the wreckage. It was therefore put up

for bids, which he won, and the wreckage was shipped to his

17

; .. TAPE J 9

p 1 ant in ·Torrance, Ca 1 if ornia, where he used it together with

the drawings and ... technica 1 information on the A · -1 as a guide ·

in designing a similar but more powerful agricultural

airplane. The wing, with its powerful flaps and its slot-lip

ailerons connected with the flaps for an unusually

effectively lateral control system, were essentially the same

as those of the original Ag-1, but strengthened to take care

of ihe heavier weight that the airplane carried. The new

machine was called the A·~2. The original design called for

a power plant consisting of a 450 hp Pratt and Whitney

engine, but by the time the development was completed, the

engine used was a 600 hp Pratt and Whitney R-1340 engine.

George Wing used me as a consultant on the project, and

in January 1954 I made a trip out to the Trans-Land operation

in Torance, California. We went over the entire project in

some detail with the staff and I stayed overnight at George

Wing's house. It was interesting that he had a drafting

table in one room and continued spending some time at nights

w h e n h e c o u 1 d n ' t s .1 e e p , h e s a i d , o n t h e d r a f t i n g b o a r d ,

musing over new designs. It was interesting that his wife's

maiden name was Cessna and that she was related in some way

to Clyde Cessna. George had a surplus military plane which

he kept for his own use. I forget whether it was PT-13 or an

AT-6. When our work was finished, he flew me over to an

airport near Arcadia where my brother Herb lived with his

family so that I could have a visit with them before going on

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TAPE 19

home on the airlines. The entire trip was over a solid built

up city area ahd I marvelled at how the private pilots around

. the Los Angeles area kept flying over that sort of thing at

relatively low altitudes with single-engine airplanes year

after year. I have also marvelled all these years how they

could do so much flying in the Los Angeles area through air

that they could hardly see through. It has been work for me

to ~avigate to the proper airport in that area ever since

1945, when the smog was much less dense than it is now. But

there is more flying in that area than almost any other, and

so they must find a way of doing it satisfactorily.

The development of the A ~2 went on in a moderate way

for a number of years. In 1955, I believe it was, the

prototype was flown to the Texas A & M agricultural aviation

conference and I had an opportunity to fly it. I made some

simulated duster runs with procedure turns and found that it

handled very nicely, even though it was much heavier and

larger than the other ag planes I had flown. The production

model, with the 600 hp engine, finally came out with a

nominal gross weight of 6000 lbs, but as used under Civil Air

regulations Part 8 for agricultural operation, it was

possible to use it with a gross weight as high as 7,700 lbs.

It had a hopper capacity of 53 cubic feet, and even with the

6000 lb gross weight, had a payload of 2GOO lbs. It would

have fit very well into the present use of ag planes, which gone

have grown larger as time has"-~ on. But 20 years ago, it

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TAPE 19

was well ahead of its time and only a few were sold and

production was discontinued. Too bad it is not in production

now in 1978.

CONSUJ,TJ:JITG FOR PIPER

In July of 1953 Pug Piper visited me and looked over our

operation at College Station. This was the beginning of an

enduring and a happy relationship between Pug Piper and me

and between the Piper Aircraft Corporation and me. Our first

project was for me as a consultant to design, build and test

a~ distributor for dust and seeds for the Piper~~~ Supercub airplane, which had been fitted with a hopper and in

that manner produced as an agricultural airplane. A good

number had been produced and were in service. The project

fitted in well with our general agricultural aviation program

and many variations were tested on our measuring station,

particularly for the distribution of rice seed. I presented

the results for anyone to use at our Third Annual Texas

Agricultural Aviation Conference in 1954. The Piper Company PA-18~

m a n u f a c t u r e d t h e m a n d s o 1 d m a n y o f t h e m w i t h t h e -P-.,A:A=t: e a-m=::::A--

agricultural airplane over the next few years.

ARTICLE BY LAJJGEWJESCHE

The Reader's Digest of June 1953 included an article by

Wolfgang Langewiesche on the skyrocketing cost of air power.

The following four paragraphs are quoted from this article:

"The nose wheel-type of landing gear now used on all

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TAPE 19

high-speed aircraft is one of the seven big improvements in

the airplane since the Wrights. It makes practicable much

higher landing speeds, which in turn mean very much higher

flying speeds.

"All right: the modern landing gear was developed by

Fred E. Weick, an NACA engineer back in 1935. But he was not

asking: 'How can we step up the spee~ of high-speed

airplanes?' He was asking: 'How can I make an airplane safe

and easy to fly for the general public?'

"And this was not an official project; Weick and some

fellow engineers built it as a spare-time hobby in his

garage.

"That is the stuff we need. We can't buy it, legislate

it, achieve it by making it a government function. To get

it, we must give free play to the inventive genius of just

people."

It sure gives me a rosy feeling to have our work

recognized in print in that forthright manner, rather than

just having to take satisfaction in seeing the items in

general use without any general knowledge regarding their

origin·' for my name has not been as~ociated with the tricycle gear by

the aviation public in general but by only those who know the ~tory.

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THIRD AllNUftL AGRICULTURAL AVJATJOJIT CONFERENCE

The Third Annual Texas Agricultural Aviation Conference

was held at CoLlege Station on February· 22nd and 23rd, 1954.

A great deal of work had b~en done on the measuring station

during the previous years and the results of this work were

given at the conference. This included recommended nozzle

locations for optimum patterns on high-wing, biplane and low-

wing airplanes. Also, the effects of wind, particularly

cross-winds, on rice seed distribution. The biological

subjects such as insect control, mesquite control, weed and

brush control and pathological subjects were brought up to

date from the previous year. I should have mentioned at the

time the First conference was brought up that the insect

control papers were given by Dr. J. C. Gaines, who was head

of the Department of Entomology at Texas A & M. Dr. Gaines

had been working on insect control by aircraft for a long

time and had done very notable work in the late 1920's. He

Coad worked mainly with Dr. ~' who was one of the founders of

Delta Aircraft and carrieq on the. d~.$ting and spraying .,.J.·

ro../.~ I .:' ,•. 'I . t.,. Q_ f.<' '·, ''r .. I I . ·.' :· '/t l~ •'· {.•1 '. t!f.'J:fr:r._./_.c"C')t. •

portion of the work.' Delta had for years carried on its main

operations in the summertime in the Brazos River valley near

College Station and Bryan and in the wintertime had carried

on its operations near Homestead, Florida. In addition the

1953 conference included items on aviation accidents and on

accounting as a tool of management for aerial applicators.

At that time, most of the aerial applicators had small

operations and had not yet learned to be good businessmen.

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TAPE 19

50th ANNIVERSARY OF FJRST FLTGBT

I should have mentioned a while back that I was

fortunate in. being able to help celebrate the 50th

anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight on December

17th, 1953 7 a.lso at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the

first flight occurred. The AOPA had invited me to attend the

celebration as a representative of the private flying

activity. Arrangements were made to fly me with a group of

others in an Air Force DC-3 from Washington, D.C. down to

Kitty Hawk and then back again. We arrived there early and

as I was standing at the foot of Kill Devil Hill, about to

take a picture of the impressive monument that had been

erected on top of it, I met another man who was doing the

same thing. He suggested that I take a picture of him in

front of the monument with his camera and that he take a

picture of me with my camera. Which we did. We introduced

ourselves and have been friends ever since, although we see

each other only occasionally. He is Alfred L. Wolf, a

Philadelphia attorney, who has been general counsel for the

AOPA ever since its inception. He was also a general in the

Air Corps in World War II. He is known to his friends as

Abby. At lunch in a hotel that day I met again Helen

M c C 1 o s key ~ and her h u s band How a r d I:M. At the De t r o i t

News contest for privately owned airplanes in 1935, Helen Rough'. -

McCloskey, then still not yet married to Howard ~' had Rowth

entered a monocoupe and Howard &u:a was the CAA inspector who

certified that all of the airplanes met the Civil Air

regu 1 a tions. Suitable ceremonies with speeches were held at

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TAPE 19

the base of the monument on the top of the hill, and a Marine

band furnished the music. One i~em which seemed

inappropriate to me was that a flight was made by a replica .

of a 1910 Curtiss pusher rather than an early Wright machine,

because none of those happened to be available. Having known

Orville Wright and having attended the 25th anniversary of

the flight at Kitty Hawk,and also the dedication ceremonies

for the return of the or:i,ginal Wright Flyer to this country

and establishment in the Smithsonian Institution on the 45th

anniversary on December 17, 1948, I felt honored and very

happy to be able to attend the 50th anniversary celebration.

At the moment that I am taping this on September 19th, 1978,

I am looking forward to the possibility of attending the 75th

anniversary celebration at Kitty Hawk on December 17th of

this year.

THE Ag-3

During Pug Piper's visit in College Station in July of

1953 I pointed out to him some of the results of my studies

of the accidents that had occurred in agricultural aviation

during the last few years. In general, there were two types

of airplanes that were used. Both were two-place, tandem

training planes, with one person in front of the other. One

type consisted of light, high-wing monoplanes in which the

pilot was put in the front seat so he could see ahead

reasonably well and the load was placed behind him in the

rear seat location. The other type was made up of open

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TAPE 19

cockpit biplanes and in this case the agricultural load was

p u t i n t h e f r o n t c o c k p i t , a h e a d o f t'·h e p i 1 o t . My count

showed that the proportion of accidents that were fatal was

more than twice as great for the airplanes having the load

back of the pilot and in a position to help crush him than

for the airplanes with the pilot located back of the load.

PA-18A This made a great impression on him, for the Piper PAh ~e&%-~

Sup~rcub used in agricultural work did have the load in back

of the pi 1 ot. It made him appreciate the extent to which we

had gone, in the case of the Ag-1 agricultural airplane, to

protect the pilot in a crash. In a couple of weeks he

telephoned me from the Piper plant in Lock Haven,

Pennsylvania to inquire whether I could make arrangements for

our aircraft research center to develop a new agricultural

airplane under Piper sponsorship. The new plane was to have

the special features of the A.g-1 so far as feasible, but it

was to be somewhat smaller and instead of the structure being

mainly made of aluminum alloys, it was to have a steel tube

fuselage and a fabric covering throughout. It was to have

the form of structure and PA-18A

Piper ~-t:::liil4i=l~ and the

some of the actual parts of the

Piper PA-22 Tripacer. I then

arranged for this project to be accomplished through our

Texas A & M Research Foundation, and in September 1953, after

I had attended an NACA Aerodynamics Committee meeting in

Washington, D.C., I borrowed an Ercoupe from the Sanders

brothers in Riverdale, Maryland, and flew the 150 miles north

to Lock Haven, where we arranged the details of the new

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project. When I got back home, I started in earnest on the

n e w d e s i g n , w h i c h I c a 1 1 e d t h e A g- 3 . Professor Ben Hamner, I

who taught the-structures courses in the Texas A & M

Aeronautical Engineering Department, helped me and we made

fair progress. Three months later, in December, I made

another visit to Lock Haven, and we ironed out further

details. On the way back, I got a ride in a Piper PA ·.-22

Tri-pacer with Pug which he was delivering to their dealer in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Two items of special interest were involved: one was a

direct comparison between the cruising performance of the

lightweight Tri-pacer with a fixed tricycle gear and the

experimental Piper Airsedan. The Airsedan was an all-metal,

low-wing airplane with a conventional retractable landing

gear. Both were four-place airplanes, but the Airsedan was a

little larger, and had a 150 hp Franklin engine as compared

with the 135 hp Lycoming in the Tri-pacer~ ~he airplanes

were flown together in loose formation. at . a cruising speed

of about 120 mph and at each stop their fuel consumption was

measured and compared. The Airsedan was flown by a pilot

named Stover and as he often flew with a cigar in his mouth,

he was generally referred to as "Smokey Stover". The

comparison showed that the Tri-pacer, even with its fixed

tricycle gear, used slightly less fuel for each trip than the

Airsedan, with its retractable gear. The Airsedan was never

put into production.

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'· The other interesting item on the trip was that we

stopped in Starkville, Mississippi, where we visited with Dr.

Gus Raspit head of the Aerophysics Department of

Mississippi State University. He was carrying out much

interesting and useful research, partly on boundary layer

control of the air flowing over a wing. He had a two-place

Schweitzer sail plane •..• END of Side 2

END OF TAPE 19

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