Dream Wacos Collection

In case you ever get the crazy idea to show your airplane at Sun N Fun or Airventure I thought I’d post a little bit about my experiences as a neophyte show plane pilot. As I write this I’m sitting under the wing enjoying a rare cool breeze and chatting with passersby. My friend and I got out here about eight a.m. to spend an hour and a half in the futile attempt to clean the plane in the hopes we’ll get lucky, and the judges will come early.

But how did this insanity get its start?

I bought an airplane a couple of years ago and realized it was a diamond. As we polished it up, I decided to bring it the few miles from the restoration shop to Sun N Fun last year where it won an award. I brought my Waco UMF 3 too but as an experimental category airplane it wasn’t eligible. We got it moved to standard category airplane with a conformity inspection in advance of OSH last year and it won a Bronze Lindy while the UBF 2 won a Silver Age Champion. I was hooked!

Back at Sun N Fun this year to try again with the UMF 3 we replaced all the screws with proper slotted ones over the winter and did some other minor tweaking. Arriving in Winter Haven Sunday we spent the entire day cleaning, polishing, and attending to squawks. Exhausted, I fell into bed at 9 so I could wake up at 3 a.m. Monday worrying about flying the arrival among other things.

Monday was beautiful and the arrival turned out to be a piece of cake. It is much, much less stressful than OSH. They gave me the big runway and after a 15-minute taxi we arrived at Vintage parking and settled into row three. After greeting some friends, we got to work tying down and setting up. I hustled over to registration hoping to be toward the front of the line. Strong winds and rain are forecast for Thursday and I’m hoping to get out of here and into a hangar before that.

There are always a lot of beautiful planes to see. A PT 19 parked near us is in an immaculate state I don’t think I can achieve. A work of real craftsmanship and for sale! But there is never ending – until the judges come – work to do. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. And answering questions for nice folks who stop by.

I’ve been thinking attendance might be down this year with all the bad weather but this morning, just after we got the airplane prepped, they started parking planes with tails between wings to pack them in as tightly as possible. Good for the show! Bad for me though as everyone that taxied by blew grass and sand dust all over my plane. I decided it was hopeless and quit trying. That’s really frustrating as it’s a lot of work to clean and prep a plane, clean it again, and have hours of work destroyed all over again.

One of the things you do to get ready to show your plane is put together a book about its history, restoration (lots of photos), build sheet and so forth. That helps the judges apparently decide the level of effort and difficulty that went into the restoration. I’ve never done one myself. My joke is that I have no other talents other than writing checks and cleaning. I asked judges before if it wouldn’t be more useful just to have photos of the cancelled checks?

Anyway, after watching these exalted personages scrutinizing other planes, I just kept hoping they’d get to me today so I could relax on the wiping and buffing front. At last, they came about 2:30.  The folks that volunteer their time to judge airplanes are deserving of a lot of credit.  Both here and at Airventure they spend most of their time at the show working (as volunteers) to make sure everyone has a chance to compete and receive recognition for years of work and effort.  They’re antique airplane experts, passionate about aviation and selfless in their dedication.  Win, lose or draw I’m grateful for them!

At OSH you get judged by three teams of three judges. So, it can take a few days, but you do get to rehearse the dog and pony show. At SNF it’s more casual. There is no carefully written rule book you must follow, and even the classifications are a bit looser. The judges come in a great gaggle of blue hatted teamwork all at once. They politely agree to hear an oral history of your magnificent plane and its painstaking restoration. They carefully peruse the book you’ve prepared. They look the plane over. Some, more carefully than others, though all decline to crawl under the wings to admire the work of art inside the wing fabric. I don’t blame them. It’s dirty down there in the sand and if they did that for everyone they’d look like a group of escapees from a “Little Rascals set.

Today I was asked some questions on originality of a couple things. I was ready with the build sheet and even resorted to showing factory delivery pictures on the National Waco Club website. One man commented that I sure knew a lot about Waco’s. I replied that I’m a Waco nerd. This isn’t my first rodeo.

 As when you get a traffic ticket (and it seems like I’ve had more than my share of practice with those!) it’s useful to be polite and remember to call everyone sir. Except for the one lady judge who I referred to as ma’am, this being the south and all.

Judges are nice people who love airplanes. They love them enough to spend days looking at them and being nice to folks who don’t even have a prayer. You just pray you do. And when they finally finish their note taking and photo recording it’s time to relax, laugh and visit again with all the folks who keep wandering by. And it’s time to think about enjoying the show yourself and ambling off to see other neat airplanes. I’m going to do that tomorrow.

Last year I was showing two planes and never got a break. This year with one it seems more fun. No reason to be an overachiever – life’s too short. Judging is over Friday at noon. The award ps banquet is Saturday night. I’ll be home by then but a friend is going and will let me know if I win anything. They say the road to senility is paved with plaques. I’m in no hurry so whatever they decide will be ok with me.

Yesterday was my birthday and was the day before the big storm was supposed to hit. This is when it’s great to have local friends. With the crosswind runway at KGIF closed (because two runways is too much to manage for a couple of temporary controllers apparently) I wanted to hangar my plane here just in case.

So, Rob Lock called Jack McCloy who called Bob LeBlanc with My Jet Manager who said he’d be happy to put me up. Then Jack, who is a Safety Vice Chair for SNF walked me through the bureaucracy of SNF to get me able to taxi through the show to Bob’s hangar. We pulled out of the parking slot, said goodbye to everyone, fired up and scooted across the airport to share space with a MIG 23 and a couple of other GA birds for a night or two.

Back to the show and wandering around we stopped in at Waco Classic to say hello and made some more new friends who were interested in learning about the ancestry of their new planes. Waco Classic and SNF was where my addiction, as Budd Davisson calls it, all started 15 years ago when I saw my first one. I was gobsmacked and told my friend Les Banta (who is here with me this year) “I’m gonna buy one of those” never realizing at the time that that would be the beginning of a decades long love affair, six airplanes so far and countless Waco and antique friends. I got invited to use a private airport down here for flight testing when we get the Travel Air done and an invitation for a beautiful place to stay. Biplane people are special and awesome!

Bob LeBlanc is a fascinating guy with a long aviation career, a great south Louisiana accent and gracious southern hospitality. After the afternoon noise blast (aka airshow) we hung out at Bob’s making new friends, eating incredible shrimp boil, drinking a few beers and watching my friend Stan Musick’s airshow team perform until they “knocked it off” (glad to know everything and everyone are going to be ok Stan!).

I don’t think I could have planned a better birthday if I’d tried. At dinner a couple nights ago Jim Busha gave me another early birthday present – my UBF 2 and UMF 3 are going to be on the cover of EAA’s “Vintage Magazine” (you can see that HERE). What a great day and a wonderful week!