The Travel Air plane was a open cockpit single-prop, radial-engine planes and it gives off a distinctive, percussive sound. Its a plane a spruce wood frame.Every time a cylinder fires, it pushes exhaust out in a series of rhythmic but controlled explosions. FAA registry, but only around 55 are flying, he said. Some of the planes reside in Europe.
On Saturday, the plane that seemed to draw the steadiest crowd was a six-passenger Travel Air 6000 built in Wichita in December 1928. That model was one of the first commercial airliners, but within just a few years, by the early 1930s, it was rendered obsolete as an airliner by faster, all-metal planes.
The owner of the 6000, Hank Galpin of Kalispell, Montana, learned that his plane was one of 10 Model 6000s operated by a Missoula, Montana, flying service from 1929 to 1969. The plane hauled freight and passengers to wilderness airstrips and dropped smoke-jumpers to battle forest fires. The plane crashed in 1964, and Galpin bought the wrecked aircraft in 1992 and finished the restoration in 2002.
Galpin restored the 6000 to its airliner configuration, complete with wicker seats and a simple lavatory and toilet in the back.
“All of these airplanes were built by craftsmen, and probably no two of them were alike,” he said. He figures that his plane, the 10th of 150 built, would have had a more basic interior.
It is the only 1928 Travel Air 6000 that still exists, Galpin said.
Reach Tim Potter at 316-268-6684 or [email protected].
The MacPhersons flew their open-cockpit plane across nine states, starting in Oregon. They had to stay a day at one spot in Wyoming because the wind was too high. There is one little seat for the pilot and one slightly larger space for two passengers directly in front of the pilot.
What is it like to fly from an open cockpit with only a small windshield?
“The bikers say it’s like riding a Harley through the sky – it’s got a very free feeling to it,” MacPherson said.
As a young man, MacPherson became enthralled with the idea and sensations of flying and skydiving from a little plane designed to lift up on a short takeoff. MacPherson is 69 now; when he was 24, he parachuted out of the plane at 2,500 feet. He has owned it for 40 years.
The plane, a Travel Air 4000, spent much of its life as a crop duster in Arizona. It has an interesting history, having been featured in the 1974 film “Nothing By Chance,” about a group of pilots barnstorming across the Midwest.
Many components of the plane are original, including some of the spruce framework for the wings. Spruce is an ideal wood for a flying machine, MacPherson explained, because of its relatively light weight and considerable strength.
The wings would have been originally covered with cotton or linen and coated with a lacquer called “dope.” The lacquer sealed the fabric so air would not go through.
But the problem with the original covering is that sunlight would cause it to deteriorate to the point you could poke your finger through it, MacPherson said. His plane now has a modern material covering the wings that doesn’t degrade like the original stuff.
“You really can’t fly an original, original airplane anymore because they aren’t airworthy,” he said.
