A good friend and a good airplane!
I was introduced to the Bucker community by accident back in 1984. I was renting a hanger at the Avra Valley Airport which is about 10 miles NW of Tucson, AZ. A fellow behind my Tee hanger had a Super Decathalon and a funny looking fuselage of a plane in his hanger. We became acquainted and he told me it was a Bucker Jungman and the wings and tail were in his home shop.I had heard of that type of plane but had never actually seen one. Looked it over and was not impressed. Our friendship developed for a couple of years and we both bought hangers at Ryan Airfield, about 15 miles south of where we had met. His name was Maurice Davidson and he had bought the Bucker from Bill Barber out of Michigan and had it flown to Tucson by a ferry pilot. According to the log books Maurice flew the plane one time for a few minutes then disassembled the plane because the fabric would not pass inspection at Annual. Maurice had a lot of money but he was NOT mechanically inclined. He had contracted lung cancer when quite young and had only one lung and it wasn’t very good. He asked me if I would recover his plane and get it flying again.
My “hobby” is/was restoring antique and classic airplanes, I had already done four or five by this time, and I said sure! He also wanted me to install removable aluminum side panels from the firewall to the back of the rear seat so he could access the two cockpit areas more easily. Again I said, sure, because the plane was registered in the experimental category and FAA approval would not be required for the alterations. By the way, I had picked up an A&P certificate and IA some time prior.
My first discovery that the Bucker was “different” from American built airplanes was my welding a finger patch over a large dent in the main spar carry-through in the bottom of the fuselage. It is roughly a 1”X4” rectangular tube and as I discovered, very thin compared to what I was used to. I burned several holes in the thin wall before I learned the technique. One day as I was working on his plane he showed up with four sheets of engineering paper filled with very small calculations and equations. Now I have a degree in Civil Engineering and remembered enough to recognize diferential equations and calculations using the calculus. I asked him what in the world is this. He said it was a mathematical description of the compound curve of the fuselage between the firewall and to the rear of the back seat, needed for the removable side panel.
I need now to tell a little about Maurice. He is probably the only true genius I have ever met or worked with. He graduated from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in geophysical engineering from Columbia. He was also a veteran of the Korean War. He worked all his life for Neumont Mining searching all over the world for gold and diamonds. Sometime, I think it was in the late ‘60s, the CIA borrowed him from Neumont Mining to develop an airborne magnetometer to locate a sunken Soviet diesel powered submarine that carried the latest ICBMs somewhere about 700 miles NW of Hawaii. That along with Howard Hughe’s Glomer Explorer was at least partially successful. He was not only a genius, he was easy to be friends with.
I completed the removable side panels, didn’t (couldn’t) use his calculations, and was just about ready to start covering when he got sick and had to go into the hospital. My wife and I visited him in the hospital and on the way home my wife told me that Maurice was not going to make it. She was an RN working in Cardiac Critical Care and knew the signs. I didn’t believe it but she was right. I visited him often and have this amusing story of when he was in the hospital . One night for whatever reason, he pushed the call button for his nurse. No one came. He waited a few minutes and tried again. Same result. After a while he held it down for a full minute. Same thing. He dialed 911! You can bet his call button was answer after that!
Sometime prior to his hospitalization he asked me to be the executor of his “airplane things and tools”, not his financial estate thank goodness. I Agreed to do it. In his will he allowed me to buy the Bucker project at 20% below the market value. This put me in a difficult position because I had to determine the “market value”. There was a large pile of correspondence in the box of paperwork and I figured out that a man named Joe Krybus in Santa Paula, California was the man who might be able to help me. I sent him some pictures and a letter asking for his help. He had me send more pictures but declined to establish any value on the engine, avionics, or Propeller. No problem, the value of those things was easily determined from TRADE-A-Plane. I ended up buying the project for $19,000. Now you must understand I had absolutely no interest in owning an airplane that was cold to fly in the winter, hot in the summer, and to slow to travel anywhere. I speak from experience because I learned to fly in a Waco UPF-7 back in 1954. My plan was to complete the restoration and sell it. Toward that end I decided to haul the project about 700 miles to the Bucker Fly In in Santa Paula.
The plane at this point was ready for cover, center section mounted, engine and prop (Hartzell Constant Speed) mounted and all the tail section with controls hooked up. I borrowed a truck and trailer and away we went. My intent was to allow as many Bucker owners to see the quality of the restoration as possible. I let it be known that I would put it up for sale when it was completed and flown for 10 hours. At that time I did not place a price on it for the simple reason I didn’t know how much I would have in it when done. When I completed the covering I decided to finish it in bright colors (all biplanes should be yellow!) and a basic Czhekoslavokian Air Force scheme. The plane was actually a Czech built C-104. I had never flown a Bucker before but what the heck, it was a primary trainer and couldn’t be very hard! I climbed in and away I went. Flew it for about 30 minutes and all my thoughts about selling it vanished! As far as I am concerned it is indeed the finest flying airplane ever designed! I was hooked and still am. Even better than the flying qualities of the design is the people who make up the Bucker Community. There are none better!!! I flew N191X for 19 years and then in a moment of weakness sold it in January of ‘18.
Another Bucker!
My first epistle ended with my sale of Bucker Jungman, N191X in January of 2018.Sometime after I moved from Tucson to South Carolina to be near our grandchildren, I received a call from a man looking for a Bucker Jungman who lived in Charleston, about 2 hours south of me. His name was John Grinalds, a retired Major General, USMC. I invited him to meet me at a small airport called Dry Swamp and we would talk and he could look over the plane. I made certain he understood that mine was not for sale. We met as planned, got acquainted, and soon became friends. I invited him to taxi the plane around the field and just see how it felt. He did and the experience strengthened his desire to own one. A year or so later he found one, out in Southern California that was for sale from the estate of the late Myra Slovak. The deal was made and I agreed to go out and fly it back to SC.
Myra had planned on flying his Jungman to Germany and had added three fuel tanks for the required range. I don’t remember what the total fuel capacity was and during my trip East I never put fuel in the tank behind the rear seat but I know the duration was determined by my bladder, not the fuel. The plane was equipped with a 200hp Lycoming engine. Myra had installed an auto pilot but that had been removed prior to the sale to John. John Hickman very graciously met me at the San Diego airport and we flew in his Blue Jungman up to Falmouth to where the Slovak plane was located. We put enough fuel in the main (original) tank and I followed him back to San Diego. There we put about another 50 gallons or so in the auxiliary tanks and the next morning I headed East.
I made sure I was within gliding distance of an airport the first time I switched tanks! Everything went well and two days later I was home removing tanks. It was really nice having another Bucker in the area. A couple of times when John had other commitments and could not fly his Bucker to the East Coast Bucker fly in I called my friend Pat Quinn and he would come East and fly mine and I would fly John’s. But then, January 2018, I sold my plane. A couple of months later John sold his.
I’m sure John felt the same, I knew I had made a mistake. I am always involved in a restoration project and in the meantime had purchased a wrecked Cessna 140. I had been working on it for a month or so when a Bucker Jungman project was offered for sale on the Bucker forum. I called John and asked him if he would like to go 50-50 and we restore another Jungman. Is the Pope Catholic? John said YES. I think he actually mailed a “good faith” check that very day! In any case we bought N131DR, a souped up but disassembled Spanish built Jungman.
Another irrelevant but interesting fact is that when the airplane was imported to the US it was stored in PA, in or near a little town called Farmers Pride. Whatever, it was near where a young lad named Brian Karli, aged 12, lived. He told us he sat in our plane for hours dreaming of the day! The plane was eventually purchased by Dawson Ransom who had it restored by Woody Menear. It won some kind of award at Oshkosh in 1983. For some reason when the plane was restored, grade A cotton fabric was used instead of the more durable Stits or Ceconite. The plane went through a couple of owners and eventually ended up with the Martin family of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Dennis Martin told us he was out flying doing some aerobatic practice when a good portion of the fuselage fabric failed. The plane was barely controllable but he was able to land the plane without to much damage. He said he had to maintain at least 75mph to stay in control and it is a good thing they have a long beautiful green runway. Mr. Martin ordered a new landing gear including Cleveland wheels and brakes from Joe Krybus and started the restoration process. Unfortunately his health failed and Dennis and his mom put the plane up for sale. I have a trailer I bought just for hauling airplanes, borrowed my son’s diesel powered truck and John and a neighbor and I headed north to Green Bay to load our new project. This was July 29, 2018.
Structurally the plane was in pretty good condition but badly in need of a total restoration. I told John that with the two of us working it would take one year to have the plane flying. I was off by almost one month, we flew the plane all decked out in Swiss Air Force colors a little less than 13 months later. We noticed very early that the plane was more difficult to push around by hand than we remembered our first ones to be. In fact, it was nearly impossible for one person to move the plane when on grass. We keep the plane at the Holly Hill airport which is midway between us and both runways are grass. The only time we land on pavement is when we go somewhere. We both agreed that something was not right and needed to be fixed. To check the wheel alignment I clamped a couple of straight 1” X 4” X 6’ boards to the brake rotors and was appalled at what I found. The wheels were splayed out like a ruptured duck! Over the years the compression springs in each gear leg had relaxed to the point that only 1” of chromed gear leg was visible, plus, someone in the past had “extended” the spreader bars to 31” from the original designed 29.5”.
We decided to fix several problems, all in one work session. We agreed to shorten the spreader bars back to the original 29.5”, correct the wheel alignment to where the wheels were absolutely parallel with the centerline of the airframe when the tailwheel was 12” above the concrete, and install a “spacer” on the top of each gear leg spring to take up the void caused by their relaxation. All of this would bring the nose of the plane back to its regal attitude. I estimated this project would take about a week of concentrated effort and I was right on the money! I borrowed a set of jacks with a crossbar made to fit the jack points on the Bucker from Brian Karli, we live about a 4 hour drive from each other. Jacked the plane up to where the wheels were able to turn and set the tail of the plane on a stool to where the tail wheel was 12” above the concrete.
Two problems were very obvious. The jacks extended to that point were very “wobbly” and the plane tended to slide backwards because of the angle of the fuselage to the ground. I removed the spinner, prop, and ring gear and used a double wrapped 1/2” nylon rope around the crankshaft just aft of the prop flange and used my hydraulic engine hoist to assist and stabilize the jacks. Seemed to do the job very well and I felt much more comfortable with the “double” safety measure. The problem of the plane sliding backwards was solved by installing a 5/16” anchor bolt about 6’ forward of the tailwheel on the center line, using some scrap length of 1/4” chain and a cheap hardware store turnbuckle to attach to the tailwheel and the problem was solved. No more sliding backwards.
At this point a very careful measurement of the “slack” that had developed by the landing gear springs relaxation was measured. Both gear legs indicated a void of 1.00” as measured by allowing the axle to “bump” the bottom (leg fully extended) and lifting it to “bump” the spring against the top gear leg nut using all the muscle available to me, maybe 50 pounds. I found in my junk steel bin about 14” of 1.75” X 0.125” of 4130 chromoly bushing stock. I think it was left over from when I replaced the tailwheel mounting tube in the rebuild of my first Jungman. In any case it was exactly what I needed. I carefully polished the o/s of about 4” of the tube and then cut two spacers out on the lathe exactly 1.05” long. It was a good guess because when I reassembled the gear legs after all the work was complete I could just barely catch the first thread on the bottom gear leg nut.
Now the spreader bars and wheel alignment. The paint was removed from the lower end of each spreader bar and the cut marks carefully made. A 4” portable grinder with 1/16” cutoff wheels was used to “disassemble” the lower end of each bar. Exactly 1.5” of the lower end was removed from each bar and the “bevel” on the leg similar to the original configuration was made to each. The two sides with the bolt holes, the saddle strap, and end plug of each leg was cleaned up and made ready for re-welding. A jig was fabricated to hold the two axles exactly in alignment and perpendicular to the centerline of the fuselage.
I happened to have a 10’ piece of 1.5”X1.5” X 1/8” square steel tubing on hand so I didn’t even have to go to the store to buy any. Each gear leg was held in position so that “4 fingers” of chrome (3”) was allowed to show. Each leg was held in this position with wood blocks and a wedge to preclude the leg extending and a hose clamp was installed temporarily at the top of the visible chrome to preclude the gear from being inadvertently pushed up into the strut. It was now time to fabricate the jig. Two 4 1/2” pieces were cutoff of the 10’ stick of square tubing and clamped to the axles with a cardboard cushion between to protect the axle threads. The long piece was then clamped to the two pieces held against and parallel to the axles and all pieces carefully centered. The axles and gear legs were wrapped with wet towels and the two short pieces were tack welded to the long piece. The two short pieces are necessary to clear the flange welded onto the gear leg just inboard of the axle that the brake system is bolted to.
I was now ready to install the shortened spreader bars and tack weld all the pieces together. One spreader bar with the end plug welded back onto the lower end was mounted to the top fixture using the original bolt that has a grease fitting. The lower end assembly was installed using the original bolt that also has a grease fitting. The two fittings made for handy and accurate measurement.
The front plate, the saddle strap, and the rear plate were all clamped into position using a large spring clamp. The bottom bolt was tested using a wrench to insure everything was in position without any undue stress that would rear its ugly head after finish welding. The distance between the two grease fittings was checked and double checked to 29.5”. Everything was protected with wet towels and aluminum shields and then the lower assembly was tack welded together with four good welds, two on the top and two on the bottom, each side, a total of eight.
I use acetylene/oxygen for much of my welding for the simple reason I have much more experience and confidence in it. I have a top of the line Miller TIG system and use it for aluminum and stainless steel but prefer the former when I use mild or chromoly steel.
The spreader bars were then removed, taken into my shop, and welded to completion. When I reinstalled the bars after welding, a few minutes with a very fine round file was necessary for the two main bottom bolts to slide in and out with hand pressure. No hammer required or allowed!! All the paint was then removed from the bars using the grinder equipped with a twisted wire brush, primed with automotive epoxy primer, and finished with the Stits Federal Yellow urathane.
Everything went back together with no major problems. The plane rolls much easier on the concrete and the ground handling while landing or taking off is straight forward Bucker, in other words, perfect!