Where have you been? What have you seen?
User avatar
By Rob L
#1760650
This is a report from a trip in September 2019
Training in America, Or "In the foothills of the Rockies"



After flying across the pond (again), I & my flying buddy Mike took our two little Taylorcraft from our base just west of Chicago on a five-hour flight to north-west Iowa to meet up with Jim at his home field close to Sioux Falls, South Dakota (although Jim is actually in Iowa). 5011M is mine and Mike is in 29624.

We had arranged to meet up to go to Colorado to the "Front Range", i.e. just before you get to the really high bits! (Actually we had been planing to land at Leadville, at just shy of 10,000 msl and the highest public-use airport in the US, but it was closed for runway resurfacing. [Edit July 2020: Runway at Leadville is now available again! Leadville reopens July 2020]

10,000 msl airport in a non-mixture 65hp Taylorcraft?; that would be a challenge for another day, although Jim did it once.)

Anyway:

The three of us were delayed departing Jim's airpark due to low fog
Image

but we were ready to go by 1pm
Image

And we got 3 miles before turning back! Beware sucker's gap! (I daren't say how low we got). The three of us have thousands of hours on type, and are familiar with flying in very poor weather, but it was dreadful!
Later that day the weather improved properly.

Approaching the Mississippi, we saw lots of flooded farms and roads. Many were cut off completely.
Image

Image

Further on, aiming for the Black Hills of South Dakota, we crossed the Badlands of South Dakota
Image

I have been to the Black Hills before in 2015, but we chose a different airport base this time...Custer KCUT, where we landed in a hooley-howley crosswind. We made sure we were tied down good & proper!
Image

Image

Image

We were welcomed with open arms, and offerred the use of the pilot's lounge as a place to stay for however long we needed. The Black Hills is a wonderful place to be stranded, and stranded we were due to the winds. Fortunately for us, the airport car was available for us to use as we wished!

But we had planned to be here anyway, for the coal-fired Black Hills Central Railroad, upon which we rode from Hill City to Keystone.

Image

Image

Image

The Black Hills is a lovely area to visit. It's in the middle of nowhere, and if you stay away from Mount Rushmore (but please see the film "North by Northwest"), it's as quiet as a mouse. It's a volcanic anomoly in the middle of the praries. But despite ourselves, we did do the touristy thing again!

Image

We did have dinner one evening in Rapid City (about an hour's drive north) and took the opportunity to visit the South Dakota Air & Space Museum at Ellsworth AFB. The whole museum is constructed from cold-war fast-response jet aircraft blast shelters relocated from elsewhere.
Outside:
Image

Inside:
Image


They have a B52 parked outside, with the classic skin "wrinkles"; compare them with the one at Duxford and you will see the similarity. It's just how they were made, apparently

Image


When the winds subsided in the wonderful Black Hills, we headed south. We had a destination (and a Training purpose) in mind. We knew about Big Boy 4014. And we knew it was being restored in Cheyenne Wyoming. And we weren't very far away. We also knew that they didn't entertain visitors, certainly unannounced ones. At all.

More to follow.
Last edited by Rob L on Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
G-BLEW, mick w, Rich V and 10 others liked this
User avatar
By Rob L
#1761596
(September 2019 continuation)

Heading south from the Black Hills towards Cheyenne, the three of us in very loose formation crossed some quite desolate areas (Wyoming has the second smallest population per square mile by State, after Alaska).

Image

Wyoming is quite high above sea level; it's easy to forget that when you're there. My Ts & Ps were OK for the moment; some readers may recall on a previous trip report when I had some high readings that led to an engine rebuild. The altimeter gives away the altitude, but we're only about 1000 ft agl.

Image

Upon arrival at Cheyenne, we had arranged to meet Vern (another of our Oshkosh camping buddies) who lives in Cheyenne. Before lunch, we went to see one of the Big Boys that is in a Cheyenne public park. They had to put a fence around it to prevent vandalism; such a pity.

In order: Mike, Vern, Jim in front of Big Boy 4004

Image


The Big Boy was the largest coal-fired steam locomotive ever made; 4-8-8-4 in configuration, and articulated in the middle. It was designed in the 1940s to haul long and heavy trains across the Wasatch mountains between Wyoming and Utah as part of the trans-America railroad, and thus to save the use of two, less powerful and smaller locomotives, being used for the uphill climb. Only 25 were ever built. The locomotive itself weighs about 350 tons and the fully-loaded tender about 200 tons.

On the way to our hopeful destination of seeing 4014 being restored, we paused at the original Cheyenne railway station, which has been beautifully maintained and is now a museum.

Image




So we presented ourselves, unannounced, at the workshop pedestrian door of the big workshop that held Big Boy 4014, hoping (at at the most) to get a peek through the door. They don't allow visitors, but what the heck!

By pure chance, there was also at the door a small group of retired Union Pacific (UP) dignitaries who had, through Company contacts and over many weeks, made arrangements for a brief 1/2-hour tour of the workshop. The Project Manager of the Big Boy restoration took pity on us, and allowed us to tag along with the "dignitary" visit. They were not amused.

Our first view:
Image

Inside the specialised machine shop:
Image

On the test rail:
Image

This is a huge train...25 thousand gallons of water. They installed a 250 ton crane (at some 1/4 million dollars) just for this project.

Image

Image

We got to chat with some of the members of the very small team restoring the Big Boy

Image

Then the Project Manager lent us the key to the roundhouse (or what's left of it) which is again off-limits to the general public. But therein lies lots of other historical UP locomotives:

Image

Including some of the other Big Boy engines from which they scavenged parts to get 4014 rolling again.

Image



The 1/2-hour tour ended up being over three times as long! And we ended up being firm friends with the retired dignitaries from the UP company who initially took slight umbridge at our interloping. We felt very priviledged to have been shown around it (and lucky to have been in the right place at the right time!).

There's a lovely apocryphal and rather anecdotal story about the Big Boy that was restored, C/No 4014. The story goes like this:

About 30 years ago, some rich billionaire asked the Union Pacific Railroad (UP, owners of the railroad) if they would re-commission a Big Boy at his expense.
They laughed and said "sure give us $10 million ha ha ha". To which he said OK.
They gulped, but nothing happened for another decade.
Years (ten at least) later, Union Pacific had a change of senior management, and the billionaire re-asked the question. UP said sure, but it's 20 Million now. To which the billionaire said "OK".



The rest is history. UP purchased 4014 from its then owners in California, got it running and steamed to Cheyenne and started the restoration.

I personally doubt some of the above story, but certainly the 150th anniversary of the completion on the trans-continental railroad at the "Golden Spike" in Utah was a tremendous influence. Without doubt, the restoration of a Big Boy was a monumental (and expensive) task.

Taking off from Cheyenne airport, we flew over the Big Boy restoration workshop and the old roundhouse. This perspective gives an idea of what those old roundhouses must have looked like in their prime.

Image

The stepped white-roofed building is in which 4014 was restored

Image

More training later.
Rob
mick w, G-BLEW, Paul_Sengupta and 7 others liked this
User avatar
By Rob L
#1762075
(More from a September 2019 trip)


So we left Cheyenne and Wyoming and continued south, where we had previously arranged to stay with a friend-of-a-friend, Jon, at an airpark in Colorado just north of Denver.

Joining jeft crosswind, with Jim in his red Taylorcraft ahead:

Image

There's something appealing about parking on the front lawn! (grass a bit dry; this is east of the Rockies so in the rain shadow)

Image

When I mentioned the "Front Range" at the start of this blog, I also mentioned the foothills of the Rockies. This airpark is at 5500 msl (hence Denver being named "Mile High City") and even in September there is still some snow from last winter on the high stuff in the background. It will now not melt.

(Jim's red wing in the lower foreground):

Image

Jon was kind enough to allow us to stay for several days (and he lent us his car!). We took the opportunity to visit Denver, which I used to know quite well, having lived there on an exchange scheme for six months in the mid eighties. I lived at (and managed) the Denver Youth Hostel. It hadn't changed a bit, although it has reverted to being a private residence. In hindsight, I should have knocked on the door.

Stapleton was the Denver airport back then!

Image

But we went to the nearby Lowry Air Force Base museum. When I lived in Denver in the mid eighties, this was still an active AFB, but now it's been decommissioned and is a combination of housing and industrial units. Two large hangars are all that remain to form the museum.

Image

Their "gate guardian" is a B52

Image

Just for fun, name this aircraft (1):

Image

Image

They also had an interesting radial engine: six banks of two cylinders each:

Image

Again just for fun, name this aircraft (2):

Image

...and this one under restoration (3):

Image


Our third "Training" trip was the rather touristy Georgetown Loop Railroad (ironically following the same valley up the Rockies had we been able to fly up to land at Leadville). Again a steam train, but the history was interesting:

In 1872, gold and silver miners in this very small and narrow valley needed a way to get their mined ore down the valley where it could be refined. But the ground was too steep for a "normal" railway, so a series of hairpins were developed to reduce the gradient from 6% to 3%

Image

The hairpins included a bridge high over the river, but this was abandoned in the late 1930s & 40s. When tourism took over, it was rebuilt in 1982 at a cost of $1M





More to follow, but see if you can answer the three aviation trivia questions above.

Rob
mick w, Miscellaneous, PeteSpencer and 4 others liked this
User avatar
By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1762190
Great write-ups, @Rob L Do you own or rent the US Taylorcraft?

More please: Brings back memories of my West Coast trips touring with Keef (RIP) and our two weeks FAA/IR training in Naples Fl. in the early noughties.

BTW The skin of that BUFF is far less 'wrinkly' than the one at Duxford; P'raps it shrinks and tightens in the rain. :lol:

Peter :D :thumleft:
User avatar
By Rob L
#1762236
PeteSpencer wrote:Great write-ups, @Rob L Do you own or rent the US Taylorcraft?

My buddy Mike is the legal owner on paper, because you have to be a US citizen or permanent resident to own one. But I pay all the bills.

Rob
PeteSpencer liked this
User avatar
By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1762430
1 - Jetwing 1 - Experimental blown wing aircraft, cant remember who made it though...
2 - its a biplane... :wink:
3 - Republic RF-84 Thunderflash

Regards, SD..
User avatar
By Rob L
#1762663
skydriller wrote:1 - Jetwing 1 - Experimental blown wing aircraft, cant remember who made it though...
2 - its a biplane... :wink:
3 - Republic RF-84 Thunderflash

Regards, SD..


1 Correct :thumleft: : The Ball-Bartoe Jetwing, NX27BB of the 1970s. It could fly very slow. I have a video of it being overtaken in flight by a J3 Cub...I'll have dig it out.



2. Any takers?

3 RF-84K to be precise, but close enough, Skydriller

User avatar
By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1762688
Rob L wrote:3 RF-84K to be precise, but close enough, Skydriller


Darn...missed the hook on the top of the nose, thought it was part of the hangar/restoration structure!!

Im a big fan of the experimental stuff they did from the 50s-80s...still no idea about the biplane though..

Regards, SD..
Rob L liked this
User avatar
By Rob L
#1762943
Rob L wrote:1 Correct :thumleft: : The Ball-Bartoe Jetwing, NX27BB of the 1970s. It could fly very slow. I have a video of it being overtaken in flight by a J3 Cub...I'll have dig it out.


Here it is. The footage is from the Wings over the Rockies Museum. The video is just over a minute long; my friends Jim & Mike commenting!
And to think that the nose of an F4U Corsair is long! Open cockpit, single-engine taildragger jet...what could possibly go wrong?

User avatar
By TheKentishFledgling
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1763077
Rob L wrote:
Rob L wrote:1 Correct :thumleft: : The Ball-Bartoe Jetwing, NX27BB of the 1970s. It could fly very slow. I have a video of it being overtaken in flight by a J3 Cub...I'll have dig it out.


Here it is. The footage is from the Wings over the Rockies Museum. The video is just over a minute long; my friends Jim & Mike commenting!
And to think that the nose of an F4U Corsair is long! Open cockpit, single-engine taildragger jet...what could possibly go wrong?



That Jetwing looks like it's straight from a cartoon or a sci-fi comic - very, very cool looking.

Great write up, thanks @Rob L.
User avatar
By Rob L
#1763556
(September 2019 continuation)

After we said our fond farewells to Jon north of Denver, our continuing trip south took us directly over Denver city. Although perfectly legal, my backside was twitching somewhat, even though we were 3000 feet above it!








We were headed towards Pueblo Colorado, and thePueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum which although being a modest museum, has some surprising exhibits.

We were made very welcome.

For some fun name the aircraft type upon which this engine hangs (Q4):



They have some big hardware squeezed into their small hangars:





And they were building a Spitfire replica to airworthy status:



Another quiz just for fun: Name the aircraft with the big nacelle and the exhaust on the top:



The next day, we drove to Canon City (pronounced Canyon...the Spanish influence progressed this far north) to take a ride on the Royal Gorge Route; another rather touristy route but through some stunning canyon territory.

This is now diesel-electric, was was steam back in the day.





You can get outside on to the flatbed cars for the trip through the narrow bits, which was a pleasant surprise, given the US general aversion to puting paying punters at risk.





..and pass under the bridge where BASE jumpers seem to like.





More in a bit.
Rob
mick w, Moli liked this
User avatar
By skydriller
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1763938
Q4 : could that be a B29 ?
Q5: F4D Skyray center stage, but you mean the aeroplane wing in the foreground dont you... US Navy twin trainer? Not my forte...

Regards, SD..
User avatar
By Rob L
#1764127
skydriller wrote:Q4 : could that be a B29 ?
Q5: F4D Skyray center stage, but you mean the aeroplane wing in the foreground dont you... US Navy twin trainer? Not my forte...

Regards, SD..

Q4: It is indeed a B29 :D Such a big aeroplane for a very modest museum.

Q5: Yes, the one in the foreground.
Rob