Congrats on the new toy! Be sure to join the National WACO club and get on the forum. There's lots of good advise on the care and feeding of your new toy!

I know it's another long flight, but the NWC flyin is the last week in June in mid Ohio - it's always a blast! There's also the flyin at the WACO Museum in Troy Ohio the second weekend in September.

Tony: Way to go...livin the dream

We maintain Joe Dobranski's YMF-5 and just love having it around when its here.
Mark has the same engine on his C-195. Good ole Shaky Jake is a relaible engine.
Got to let me see it some time.

Watch for cracks in that wood spar! Ask me how I know! Course, you won't be doing alot of outside loops....and snap rolls.....yet.

Beautiful. Congrats.

Paul

I used to work as a line guy at the Waco factory in Battle Creek, MI (Centennial Aviation). They are gorgeous planes, and I spent my fair share of time polishing them!

Enjoy her!

Wacos are being made new correct (thought I saw a story in one of the magazines within the last couple of years)? I assume those are Jacobs engine equipped. Guess that means Jacobs is making new engines. Is that correct?

As I understand it, Air Repair owns the Jake type certificate (http://www.airrepairinc.com/jacobs-engines.html), and new WACOs go out the door with factory remans.

Very cool Tony, one sharp looking Waco,

I know that airplane. It's (was) based at my homefield. Enjoy P19 while you're there.

LUCKY!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/K78LbC2vSGo[/youtube]

Pics? Trip report?

After a careful preflight following the completion of the Annual the day before my Waco Classic Factory ferry pilot and I departed P19 at about 11:30 on April 5th and headed for KELP. We had an uneventful and pleasant flight over the desert and mountains and arrived KELP around 3 pm. We were given runway 26R and an 8 knot crosswind was advertised. Landing on the upwind wheel and settling to the runway the landing was going well until the tail began to settle as we slowed and we began to lose rudder authority.

As we headed toward the weeds with all the right rudder she had we discovered we had no brakes. It's pretty damned hard, no really not possible, to steer a big ol' taildragger with no brakes. So, the inevitable happened and we groundlooped.

After that adrenaline inspiring event we managed to taxi to the FBO by using the throttle to push a little wind over the rudder. As we taxied in I thought I saw a black piece of fabric or paper blow by the airplane on the left side.

When we shut down and got out to look at the wing which we scraped on the runway the gas truck pulled up. We asked for a mechanic which they radio'd for. Then the lineman said "do you know about your prop"?

We looked at each other in disbelief because we had not struck the prop, just the wing. But there was a large 7-8 inch jagged piece ripped out of the prop near the hub. Then we noticed the air filter. The bracket which is on the front of the large air filter located at the bottom of the engine was bent and leaning forward. Apparently, the black fabric I saw was the air filter blowing out of the engine compartment. It became obvious that the bracket was not properly installed and had fallen toward the prop due to the centrifugal force in the ground loop striking the propeller.

When the mechanic showed up we opened up the hydraulic resevoir to discover it "bone dry". Apparently we had used the last of the brakes to taxi out and run up in Chandler. After filling the resevoir and bleeding the brakes we hangared the plane overnight and checked that there were no leaks.

After notifying the insurance company we have finally gotten the adjustment done and work can now start on repairing the wing tip, ailerons, wheel pant and doing the engine teardown and prop replacement.

The Waco Classic folks including the company owner, chief of maintenance and my ferry pilot and instructor have all been terrific to work with during this time. As has my fantastic insurance agent Alejandro Galioto and claims adjuster Chris Klein. El Paso Aero, the shop that is doing the repair work gets high marks from me.

I have other opinions about others involved in this incident which I cannot publish.

Hopefully, in a month or so we'll get to go back to El Paso and try again. I'll be sure and post photos then.

Open mouth.....insert foot.


Sorry buddy!

Tony, that hurts just reading your story, sure hope it all gets repaired to like new again.

Day-uhm!!!

Well, gee... sorry and glad nothing worse happened. Those are such awesome airplanes, I'm sure she will be worth the wait.

That just hurts, I'm so sorry.

Well, there are the tail-draggers that have been ground-looped and then there are the ones that will. Glad nobody got hurt and that the insurance policy was active when you got into the plane.

Awwww Man...

That is a BUMMER!

Sounds like you are on the right track to getting it put back together.

Good luck.

-MO