A Crowded House for the Widow of Reading

"It's not good when the mechanic says 'hmmm'," said the mechanic.

Dealing with the Unexpected

While trying to start Warrior Eight One Six that morning, a strange chirping sound rang out across the ramp from the engine compartment. "Boop, BOOP, BOOP!" Not able to see anything wrong from my vantage point outside the plane, I gestured to Scott to cut the engine and he pulled the mixture to idle.

"BOOP, BOOP, boop," said the airplane as the propeller came to a stop. After inspecting the starter for a Bendix drive that failed to retract properly, I shrugged. I had never heard a sound like that before. Though we did not know what it was, we knew that it wasn't normal and went to find Ray.

Scott started the airplane again for Ray. "Boop, BOOP, BOOP!" said the airplane again.

Ray rubbed his jawline. "Hmmm...." Then signaled for Scott to shut the engine down while glancing over at me. "It's not good when the mechanic says 'hmmm'."

Finding nothing out of place after opening the starboard side of the cowling, he opened the other side and peered within a few moments before jerking his head back in surprise. "Oh, you're not going anywhere today in this plane."

When I asked what the problem was, Ray stepped aside and gestured to the exposed engine. I saw it immediately, a circular component peering out of the open cowling at me. Whatever it was, it did not belong in that spot. After a beat, I recognized it as one half of an engine mount that had fallen out of place, one of four securing the engine to the airframe. It was undamaged, it just came apart. The chirping we heard was due to excess torque-related motion of the powerplant in the engine compartment. Ray later found that the nuts securing the remaining three mounts were insufficiently torqued by whomever mounted that engine before the Williamson Flying Club bought the airplane in 2021. Mike, the club's chief instructor, also noted that Nyloc locking nuts were used on the mounts and speculated that someone had reused them. This is not recommended for critical applications. In the combined experience of the entire group, no one had ever seen or heard of such a failure before.

N32816 photographed May 22, 2022. I have 4.1 oblivious hours in this airplane, completely unaware of the flaw lurking under the cowling.

We originally planned a flight to Vermont for lunch at the Red Mill Restaurant located alongside the magnificent grass runway at Basin Harbor (B06). Softened by excessive rain, the runway was NOTAMed closed. I proposed a Plan B of visiting the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, PA and all participants agreed.

But now we were seven people down from three airplanes to two and were forced to leave someone behind. Unfortunately it was Eric, a relatively new student pilot who was looking forward to riding along on a club adventure. Scott joined Dan and his friend in Eight Five X-Ray and Kim joined me and Mark in Warrior 481 for the trip south.

El Mariachi

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
16 Sep 2023	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - RDG (Reading, PA) - SDC	3.9	2725.3

We had an easy flight southbound to Reading. Our first goal was lunch at Klinger's at the Airport in the terminal building. Tower directed us to park wherever we wanted in front of the terminal. This surprised me as there is a red box painted on the ramp reserving space for commercial flights. We learned later in the day that Reading no longer hosts commercial traffic, which explained Tower's ambivalence about where we parked.

Warrior 481 and 85X in front of the terminal building at Reading.

Scott can never resist these things!

Inside the terminal, we encountered this kindly mariachi who greeted us warmly and played songs for us from his homeland. To our surprise, the musician bore a strong resemblance to an A-10 Warthog pilot we met at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island and a speed skater we once saw in Lake Placid.

Lunch at Klinger's was very satisfactory, but the main attraction was the museum across the field. 

Mural near the bar in Klinger's at the Airport.

Outside on the ramp, Mark watched me pull the chocks from Warrior 481's nosewheel. "Do you ever forget about those and start up while they're still in place?" 

I laughed in spite of myself. "Only once. It was at the West Wind restaurant in St Marys, PA several years ago. I started up while still chocked in front of a full lunchtime crowd. It was super embarrassing." Fortunately, another pilot saw my predicament, ran over, avoided the spinning propeller, and pulled the chocks so that I did not have to shut down again. Mere recollection of the incident was enough to make me blush.

Beating the Odds

I called for and received taxi clearance to the museum and started rolling. Dan received the same clearance. We had already taxied Warrior 481 off the ramp when Dan called Ground again.

"Uh, Eight Five X-Ray needs to shut down for a moment. I pulled a stupid."

Mark, Kim, and I exchanged glances, decided that it did not sound serious, and proceeded along our approved taxi route. Eight Five X-Ray was back on the radio a few minutes later.

Dan received his taxi clearance, then offered that the whole process works better when the chocks are removed before engine start. Mark and I looked at each other in surprise. "We were just talking about that! What are the odds?"

Don't worry, Dan. We've all done it.

Yes, MAAM

We parked side by side on the museum ramp under the massive wing of a Flying Boxcar. Before long, we were connected with a docent who gave us a great tour.

I like the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum. The airworthy aircraft are in excellent condition and obviously lovingly maintained. But space in the main hangar is incredibly limited and that relegates several other aircraft to sitting out in the weather. As is the case for this glorious ruin of a Piacecki H-21 "Flying Banana" helicopter, exposure to the elements is not doing them any good. 

This Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter is derived from the infamous B-29 Superfortress of World War II. These airplanes were also the basis for the Super Guppy, the beluga whale looking freighter big enough to haul portions of the Saturn V rocket by air.

This 2/3 scale homebuilt Mustang featured a 600 horsepower engine. According to our docent, going full throttle packed quite a punch of torque for such a small airplane.

"An Airplane in Every Garage"

One of the unique aircraft in the MAAM collection is the Zuck Plane-Mobile 1, a 1946 creation of Lockheed Skunk Works Engineer Daniel Zuck. It was one of a few mid-twentieth century attempts at a practical "roadable airplane" alongside Molt Taylor's Aerocar and Fulton's Airphibian.

Ready for first test flight, Rosamond Dry Lake, California 1947. Photo from Plane-Mobile.com.

In 2012, Plane-Mobile 1 was given to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum for restoration and display.

Unfortunately, the close confines of the MAAM hangar made getting a good photo of the unique artifact quite challenging.

Famous Warbirds

Briefing Time is a B-25 Mitchell bomber that is well-known on the airshow circuit in the northeast. The airplane was also featured in the film Catch 22.

Standing aft of the museum's SNJ (Naval version of the T-6 Texan), a World War II era advanced trainer.

The fuselage of this beautiful Ryan PT-22 Recruit primary military trainer positively gleamed as though it made light of its own.

This odd looking flivver is a 1964 homebuilt Flying Flea. Originally designed by Henri Mignet, this version was built by Louis Dagne Sr in the United States. Short-coupled with a large horizontal stabilizer, the aircraft was practically a staggered biplane. Pitch was controlled by varying the angle of incidence of the upper wing (forward and aft motions of the stick) and roll was initiated by the oversize rudder (left-right motion of the stick). The two cycle 28 horsepower engine could propel this Flying Flea through the air to a maximum of 86 mph.

Originally a Vultee BT-13 Valiant, this replica of a World War II Japanese "Val" bomber (Aichi D3A) starred in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) before being donated to the museum in 2023.

The Black Widow of Reading

The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's claim to fame and reason for existence is the restoration of this rare World War II era Northrup P-61 Black Widow. One of only four remaining worldwide, this one was rescued by museum staff from a mountainside in New Guinea where it crashed in 1945.

Black Widow in 2023.

I have been following the painstaking restoration of this aircraft since my first visit to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in 2009. While progress has been slow, it is definitively moving forward.

Black Widow in 2023.

Aft fuselage of the Black Widow in 2023.

Black Widow as it appeared in 2018.

By way of comparison, this is how the Black Widow appeared during my visit in 2018. 

The Black Widow in 2009.

Going back to 2009, this was all of the airplane that had been reassembled (view from aft of the fuselage). The twin tail booms, vertical stabilizers, engines, and forward fuselage were years away from being mounted. Progress is measurable and I look forward to the day that the aircraft is fully restored.

Unfortunately, the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum has a space problem that goes beyond the weathered artifacts already decaying outside on the ramp. There is no room in the hangar to attach the Black Widow's wings outboard of the tail booms. As the Black Widow took shape over the years, the museum added more aircraft to the main hangar; space became tighter while the airplane grew larger. What is the museum to do? Our docent had no idea what the path forward would be, but the technical challenges of restoration may be outdone by a simple lack of space.

Our group of intrepid Mid-Atlantic Aviation Museum visitors, photo courtesy of our docent.

After an informative tour, we migrated back to the airplanes for an easy flight home. Everyone remembered to remove their chocks this time. Kim actually dozed off in the back seat on the way. I take her trust in me to get her home safely as a tremendous compliment.

It will be interesting to see what the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum is able to do with their Black Widow in the next few years.