I flew the Waco for a couple of hours again this morning. This time I just went flying around looking at stuff, aimless wandering with no plan at all. I flew down on the deck on a couple of local rivers which are finally back in their banks. I flew over Ellis Harvey airport (0OK6) a private airport with a beautiful grass runway and watched a Cessa doing pattern work. I am buying a lot there and am going to build a hangar there so I can keep the Waco on grass where it belongs.

The thing I'd forgotten is how peaceful it is just flying along with a little breeze in the cockpit and the tick-tick-tick-tick of the motor for company.

Like all new planes there are things to get used to. The Waco Classic design, like I owned in the past, had main gear lowered by 4 inches compared to my current plane. Also, the newer planes have taller tail wheels. While you still can't see over the nose it does make it "easier" to see and possible to see in an S turn. In the original design the fuselage angle is much more pronounced and even in S turns it's difficult to see much up ahead. My gear is taller in the front and shorter in the back, supposedly tougher to land well, but I can't tell a difference.

What I can tell is how much lighter NC13571 is than N2269V. It rolls more easily, a bit less ponderously if that makes sense. What it doesn't do is taxi as well. The antique brakes are touchy and you have to tap them quickly to change direction without making the tail come off the ground. It flies the pattern slower, at 70 mph, than the newer plane so it doesn't need to roll on the ground as far. Which is good because using the brakes above walking speed is a recipe for disaster.

There is a bit more room in the cockpit in the older plane. It may just be no leather all over the place but it seems like more leg room as well. There is certainly no where to put anything much. Cup holders weren't a thing yet.

The panel is much simpler, nor IFR radios, as if anyone in their right mind would fly in the soup. I do have a JPI engine instrument which looks out of place. There is a VFR Garmin gps mounted below the panel which doesn't seem quite right either. But aside from that with the squelch turned down and head outside it almost seems like 1934...That was the year my mother was born. Technology has certainly advanced. And like her the era my plane was the sine qua non in is gone. "Ask any pilot". Time flies.

Does it have the single shoe brakes like a Stearman or BT-13? If so, that grabbing is super dangerous but can be fixed. Mine turned out to be bad drums. The chrome had flaked off in places and if a gnat landed on the top of the rudder pedal, the brakes would grab and lift the tailwheel. There are also colored springs in there that have to be in the right order. Finally, the brake shoes have to be fitted to their drums by sanding. Once everything is right, they are fine but if not, they are a recipe for a wrecked plane. It seems like I found out a lot about them over at the SRA website.

Glad to see you in another biplane Tony.

Craig makes a good point as I have flown Stearmans with the stock brakes set up properly and they are very predictable and reliable. I have Redlines in my Stearman and they work very well too.

Does your UMF3 have a W670 or has it been replaced with a Jacobs or? Hard to tell from the photo on an iPad.

I assume you have a castering/locking tailwheel since you have to use differential braking to turn. I always thought the Waco’s had steerable tailwheels but I don’t know very much about them. I have a locking tailwheel and I like it most of the time.

That is a really beautiful airplane. Enjoy every flight and every day.

My stearman had the original brakes that weren't set up properly when I bought it. The left brake grabbed and spun the plane around the first time I taxied it. Once they were setup correctly, they were fine. Still, I think the redlines are a better choice.

Best of luck Tony with the Waco. What a beautiful airplane!!!

Dave

Richard, it has a Continental W670. The “U” designation is for Continental. “Y” designates the Jacobs engine. It’s also a “3” not a “5” F model. Waco found though that the empennage wasn’t large enough to reliably get the plane out of spin so they developed the “5” with larger tail feathers and brought all
The 3’s back to the factory to convert them. The Continental is 220 hp compares to the 275 that the Jacobs RB 755 I had on my Classic. The weight differential makes the lower hp unnoticeable.

On the brakes - they have had the drums trued. The shoes weren’t properly adjusted which has been corrected. They are Hayes brakes not originally fitted until 1935 as I understand it. Brakes were intended for run up and taxi. They are too powerful for the plane and many Waco’s have gone on their backs from
Improper use. I’m looking into other brake options though. I could not taxi the plane until they were adjusted but now it’s easy. You just can’t be sloppy or careless.

Yesterday we had a 6-7 knot crosswind and landing is easy. Ailerons into the wind and hold the tail up until you can’t. By then you’re going slow enough to stop
With careful application. I’ll slowly bring up crosswind capability over the summer.

I’m unaware of any steerable tailwheels on Waco’s, at least on the F series. Some
Of the earlier F’s had skids.

Took my Skybolt out for a ride, here she is:

Stearman’s in annual. For kicks and giggles, I decided to price diamond tread tires...thought they might add a nice cosmetic touch. $1200+, including shipping!

It’ll keep the current tires. They’ll do just fine, thanks. Ha.

Ouch! Mine are showing wear due to all of the hard surface landings.

Have you researched retreads? I haven’t shopped yet, but seems that I may have seen something back in the dim past.

Tony-

Very glad to hear you are flying the Waco!!! Have fun!

gunny

Flew the Waco this morning. It's been about a month as I've been on vacation and the plane was in annual. It felt like wearing an old pair of comfortable shoes. Taxiing was absolutely no big deal. I seem to have made peace with the brakes! My first landing was so soft I almost didn't want to do another one for fear I had just made my best effort. I try to get out early on summer mornings before the day heats up and even at 7:30 a.m. I've worked up quite a bit of sweat by the time I get going. But a few minutes after take off you just turn the AC on and climb until the temperature is where you want it!

Tony, I flew the Stearman this morning and had exactly the same thoughts! What fun!

gunny

I didn't fly the Waco today as a friend who is a great stick and instructor was willing to show me what he'd learned about landing at Ellis Harvey airport in Guthrie where I've just bought a lot (to build a hangar on to house the Waco). Ellis is a nice (not perfect) 2,400 foot grass strip lined with oak trees, houses and hangars.

Today wasn’t optimal for short field work with a trifling 5 knot 90 degree crosswind which disappeared below the trees. Imagine my first landing, too high and too fast, careening down the runway with the trees at the end looming. I chickened out, pushed the throttle in and climbed up out of the valley, wings wobbling when we hit the tops of the trees and found some wind. Why are we climbing so slowly over the treetops? Only because yours truly had his head in his nether regions and had forgotten to push the heat back to cold! Well, that wasn’t the first pass actually. The first one found me wide of the runway, tempted to cheat back to the right and not quite transfixed by the 300 foot tower a quarter of the mile away from the approach. It won’t do to go in there wide! Go around!

So, the runway is 2,400 feet long and runs slightly downhill from south to north. The runway itself is about 60 feet wide with a bit of grass to either side before the trees and hangars start. It’s not wide - and lined the entire length with oak trees. Landing north as we did today, about where you’d like to touch down, the runway dips a fair amount. You can see that coming in but the spot where you’d next want to plant it drops yet again which was a surprise to me on each attempt.

My next try saw the wheels planted and the transition to three wheels as fast as I could do it. Careening along, those trees on the side of the runway are close enough that they are in my peripheral vision, but only a secondary concern as I am transfixed by the trees at the end of the runway - and the man in golf cart grading my effort - who are both coming up awfully fast. But the Decathlon has great, usable, brakes and it all worked out in the end. As I taxied back for the next attempt I felt just the least bit puckered.

The runway is short enough that when you look at it from the end before takeoff it feels like you don’t have very much room to climb out of the canyon and you hope you have led a good life before shoving the throttle in and releasing the brakes. Down the runway we bounce, recovering from the vertical slalom as the plane bobbles. Tail up finally and 45 mph on the clock – will it ever get to 60? No! but here come the trees! 50 will do and in ground effect we are accelerating. Vx and up we go wobbling as we hit the wind and clearing the trees by a lot. As we climb and I pitch for 80 mph I notice a Cessna on final for 34 at KGOK a few hundred feet and a half mile ahead of me. Where did he come? This is like dodging roller bladers in the bike lane. Fun!

Our next trip around we decided to try this using a bit more intelligence, or aeronautical knowledge, and experience. So my friend in the back will fly and show me. We take a slower circuit around with a longer approach on final. 10 MPH slower, using a bit of slip toward the end, we come to the threshold. I’m looking at the balls on the power lines, and the birds’ nests in the tree tops, imagining I could reach out and touch them if the window were open. My friend plants it just after the first dip and before the second, so we have a firm arrival but we’re down in short order stopped in just over half the runway.

Ok, if he can do it maybe I can too. We had a layer of clouds exactly at pattern level advancing slowing in the direction of the playground. They were just past my turning point for base so I knew this was probably my last try. Just over a mile at 500 feet AGL. Steep descent at roughly 1.3X stall speed more or less with a bit of a slip just over the wires and in like Flint! That’s blocking and tackling for you.

Now, I need to go somewhere else first in the Waco and do drills just like the boys do preseason and then give it a try back at the valley. After all, when game day arrives I’ll have no forward visibility, or useful brakes!

From Galesburg Stearman fly in today.
You get bonus points if you know what that blue light on top of the fuselage is for.

"You get bonus points if you know what that blue light on top of the fuselage is for."

Under the hood ops?

Nope.

I would have had no clue myself, probably wouldn’t have even noticed the light. Was just fortunate to have an amazing guide along who could explain all the otherwise hidden to me details.

Wish the light would have been better for the front side image.