Article Number Five, of Five

By ANN Correspondent Tom Griffith

I was the sole passenger on a Stinson Trimotor, participating in the Tulsa (OK) to Ft. Worth (TX) leg of the National Air Tour, on September 14th.  On that date, there was no Head of State,  famous actor or musician, or head of a Fortune 500 company who was in a classier aircraft than I. 

There isn't a Lear, Gulfstream, Falcon, Citation, Boeing -- you name it, that could hold a candle to NC-11135, a priceless aircraft from the Golden Age of Aviation -- trust me!

I learned more about this superb airplane. I found out, that in 1983, this aircraft, the oldest surviving American Airlines airliner, was christened as Flagship Texas. Here are some official specifications for this aircraft (from Booklet "The Story of Stinson Tri-Motor NC-11153 - Celebrating Seventy Years of Service in 2001"):

Stinson SM-6000-B, "Model T"  NC-11153 (Original Specifications)

*Currently 300 HP R-680s w/ Constant-Speed Props

We finally crossed the Red River on our southbound trek to Ft. Worth. We had been aloft in the dark blue Stinson for nearly two hours at this point. The Lycoming R-680 radials were still singing their sweet trio and my pilot, John Mohr, and his wife, Lyn, were still flying the antique airliner as masterfully as they'd been doing up until that point. The big difference was that we were now over Texas, where (in case you'd never heard this) the Wright Brothers had originally wanted to make their first powered flight nearly 100 years earlier. They settled for North Carolina after Orville and Wilbur lost a bet to an Ohio riverboat gambler, but that's another story...
 
John and the other two trimotor pilots continued to make the number on the GPS receivers (these may be ancient aircraft, but they have modern avionics) that indicated our distance to Ft. Worth's Meacham Field, tick off the tenths of a mile that would indicate 0.0 when we arrived at Meacham.   The radio calls among the three pilots were not all serious; but make no mistake about it, whenever a pilot changed position in any way, he let the other two know that he was climbing, turning, banking away, etc. One of the other two pilots teased John about our Stinson's being the lead plane, at that particular time. Being the lowest-powered of the three trimotors, the other pilot said something like, "You're leading? I didn't know you could go over 100 mph!" [Must have been from that speedy Ford pilot, heh, heh --ed.]

At our leisurely pace of 100 mph and altitude of 1,000 AGL on average, we not only had a good view of the earth below us, but I pray to God that our passing overhead was noticed by the fine folks in Oklahoma and Texas. We must have been a glorious sight. I can imagine an old timer doing a double take and wondering if he or she needed to go in and take a pill or something -- there were planes flying over that looked like planes that he or she had seen back in the 20s and 30s. One must remember that over twenty other classic aircraft had passed over basically the same path prior to our passing, that should have make folks come running outside to see what the big, wonderful noise overhead was coming from. Aside from the modern support planes, and the turbine-conversion of a Bell 47 helicopter, I believe that all of the planes on the tour were radial powered. With the three trimotors and the twin-engine Sikorsky S-38 and DC3 on the Tour, there were over THIRTY radials rumbling at one time! [I love the big Vs like Merlins, Allisons and Griffons too, but there's something about a radial! --TG]

As we got nearer to the big DFW Class Bravo airspace, our formation of three climbed to 3,000 ft. MSL. As we climbed to the highest altitude of our journey, we could naturally see farther and all I can say is that north Texas is a beautiful place! I knew that before too long, my unforgettable ride back home to Ft. Worth would be over, but I was excited about getting to see my family see ME, getting out of the Stinson. I told my wife on my last cell phone call before we took off, that our plane was smaller than the other two trimotors, and that it was dark blue - some say "black" - (the other two planes were mostly natural-finish aluminum) and had a big "29" painted on the fuselage underneath the passenger windows. (By the way, all Tour aircraft had numbers other than their tail numbers. On our radio calls, we were "NAT Two Niner," the Ford was "NAT One Seven," and the Bushmaster was "NAT Tree Tree." The Bushmaster might have been "NAT Three Three" but the official phonetic language pronounces "three" as "tree.")

Regardless, all three of us were setting up to arrive at Meacham via a north approach. We flew over landmarks that serve as good checkpoints for VFR pilots in the DFW area: we flew over Texas Motor Speedway, about half a mile to the west of Roanoke's Northwest Regional Airport (my current "home" airport) and Alliance Airport, which sees tons of cargo and corporate traffic. The city of Ft. Worth (right) was spread out before us and the view from my vantage point was great!

It was a beautiful VFR day, that had started out in IMC when my commercial flight departed Dallas at 9:30AM. Speaking of Dallas, I could see Dallas, the biggest city in the Metroplex, about thirty miles to our east. I then heard John talking to one of the other pilots. By this time, the air was FULL of Tour planes - out our left windows I saw many of the smaller planes from the tour; they must have been flying around Ft. Worth waiting for us, and then they made their approaches ahead of us and landed. The sound of a swarm of rumbling, roaring radial engines, to say nothing of the sight of the parade of classic aircraft, must have been awe-inspiring to the crowd. [I missed getting to see it in Tulsa, but after it's all said and done, there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of people on the ground looking up and saying that THEY wished that THEY could be in one of those planes up there, and I was up in one of them! Sometimes you just get lucky! --TG]

Our flight was to fly a left pattern for the shorter of Meacham's two active runways, Runway 35.  We followed the trimotor in front of us, flying maybe 200 feet AGL. The crowd was about a quarter mile off to our right. Runway 34, the main runway for Meacham, is much closer to where the crowd was, but for some reason, we were directed by the controllers at Meacham's tower to overfly 35. [There was a bizjet on final for 34...]

Regardless, our flight climbed back to pattern altitude and continued a left pattern, but this time, we were cleared to land on 34, which gave the crowd a great view of our landing. We had one trimotor directly in front of us, and he made a decent landing and taxied off of the runway.  Since the landing speed of a Stinson Trimotor is around 60~65 mph, we were slowly getting closer to terra firma. This was like landing a big 150 or 172, except for the size and the three engines and the noise... OK, so maybe only the speed was like landing a Cessna. Three hours or so earlier, I'd been treated to taking off in a tail-dragger for the first time, and this time, I got to experience a landing in one. John masterfully brought us in, and from the attitude on landing, I'd say that we made a three point landing. The landing roll was longer than "book," but we had to taxi after landing, so maybe John didn't try to do a short-field landing. Never mind the length of our landing roll -- the landing was so smooth (it was like driving a car from asphalt onto concrete) -- the difference was imperceptible. That's what good landings feel like. [I should know -- I've made a bunch of the other kind.]

 
Like the big kid that I am, I waved to the crowd of people, who naturally waved back. We taxied into position on what was the row farthest away from the crowd, which was being held back to allow all planes to arrive, shut down and be refueled. John shut the three Lycomings down and we took off our headsets. I thanked him and Lyn, and told them that I had a wonderful experience. I asked John to enter the "demo" flight into my logbook and then had him and Lyn autograph the Air and Space magazine that was in my bag, the one with a photo of this very same aircraft on the cover.   While John wasn't the pilot in the photo, it made no difference - I had their autographs on the photo of MY Stinson!

I was the first person out of the plane -- the only door is near the tail on the right-hand side.  As I was affixing a bungee cord to hold the door open, a reporter came up to the plane and asked me if I was the pilot. I told him that I was a reporter, myself, and that the pilot was right behind me, and that was that. I gathered my bag and cameras together and made my way over to the crowd. Everyone was happy to see me. [Shameless doting: my darling little grand-daughter, six month old Irene Louise Foley, even had a big smile for her grandpa!] Life is good! We stood around, waiting for the crowd to be turned loose and when that happened, I went back to talk more with John, who was using a folding ladder to enable him to reach the oil tank on the left engine.  We talked about oil tank capacities (5 gallons per engine) and how much oil the engines used (about 1 gallon per hour) -- my son-in-law, Kenny, works for an oil company so I knew that he'd be interested in such things, too. I asked John about the cruise settings on the engines -- he said that he normally 23 inches of manifold pressure and 1,900 RPM -- that's a cruise of about 100 mph. He said that if you go with 25 inches and 2,000 RPM, you could get 120 mph or so. 

I introduced Lyn Mohr to everyone in my group -- she made a big fuss over Irene, who had been admiring the big Stinson. Sarah, my daughter, is also a photographer -- she took a number of interesting photos at Meacham (example, right). Of all of the planes that Irene looked at that Sunday, the only one that she paid more attention to than Grandpa's trimotor was the Sikorsky S-39, with its giraffe spots. She will grow up to love aviation, too, if I have anything to do with it. When her mom and dad give me permission, I'll take her up for a little hop around the patch. She's destined to be Grandpa's Co-Pilot -- I bought her a tee-shirt with this very phrase on it at Oshkosh in 2002, less than a week after we found out that we were going to be grandparents for the first time. The Tour was her first exposure to aircraft, as far as I know.  It won't be her last!

Sunday, September 14, 2003 had been a long day for all of us. I'd just participated in one leg of the National Air Tour of 2003. Nothing like the Tour has happened since 1931; nothing like it will probably happen again in my lifetime. I was back home with my wife and some of my kids, our grand-daughter -- did I mention her? (Our other two daughters and son-in-law would have to hear me talk about it and/or read about it on ANN.)

FMI: www.nationalairtour.org