Cole Palen's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome

[tazbat]

What I would like you to do is go to this photo first. Notice the large open slot in front of the tail and rudder.

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Here is where the horizontal stabilizer sits, of course. But the slot is much deeper than the thickness of the stabilizer. The reason for this is to allow the stabilizer, which is hinged on the front to the fuselage, to move up and down at the rear. This was the way Don Hall designed the trim control.

In the next photo you see the mechanism beneath the horizontal stabilizers position that controlled its position.

click me! click me!

Notice the tall control handle in the center of the inset. That is the trim control lever. It has a perforated arc to lock it in position. Two cables go aft from the trim control to the two pulleys in the tail of the fuselage. After going around each pulley the individual cables meet and attach to the sliding yoke. The yoke has a diagonal tube on each side that goes up and connects to the horizontal stabilizer.

When in flight, moving the control lever forward raises the yoke and stabilizer, consequently dropping the tail of the aircraft and vice versa.

The two parallel cables, between the trim cables, are what control the rudder.

Again, we are looking at work that was done skilfully by Ken Cassen, right at the shop Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. Each time I visited Ken in the winter, I would always be amazed by the exacting quality of workmanship he and the volunteers produced. I have extensive skills in fabrication and tig welding and when I would see the progress made in between my visits, I marveled at the amount of work that had been accomplished. The work you have seen in my photos, so far, are representations of thousands of hours of labor.

Salute!

[tazbat]

This is the last photo I will be showing of the aft section of the fuselage. I realize they are boring to most, but there is always someone in the crowd who can stare at a photo until they have figured out what everything is. They are kind of like me.

The tail skid is on the ORA Spirit is one item that is not built as original. The original was a fixed skid in that it only pivoted up and down under the tension of the bungees. ORA's Spirit has a steerable skid which of course swings in unison with the rudder. Ken Cassen opted for this extra feature for better control during taxiing.

Notice the double springs on each control cable for absorbing the jarring caused by taxiing on grass. Also, there is a replaceable foot on the bottom of the skid held tight by the shiny bolt in the pic.

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Salute!

[tazbat]

In the Winter of 2001, the fusealge was put back into the shop after returning from the paint shop. The paint is a powder coat that will last for many decades. It required disassembling the entire fuselage so it could be oven baked after the coating process. Naturally, this is a process that hadn't even been conceived in Lindbergh's day. The precess is a bit more time consuming and expensive than conventional paint but it is far more durable.

As you see, the suspension has been built and installed along with the wheels and the streamlining balsa components. Take note of the suspension shape. Do you recognize it? One night during the designing process of the Spirit, Don Hall the designer, sneaked into a hangar housing a Fokker Tri-Motor. Yep, it is copied from Anthony Fokker's design. Lindbergh asked for a wide, rugged and stable landing gear and Don used the best for the times. The tremendous fuel load demanded an extra heavy duty suspension. The air fields then were not smooth concrete. They were grass strips which included the natural bumps, dips and slopes.

The cardboard in the front of the fuselage is a pattern for the mock main fuel tank. With three wing tanks and the main tank, the original Spirit would start the flight carrying 400 gallons of fuel. ORA's Spirit only has a 40 gallon tank. Since it will never have to make the same long journey as the original, there was no need to waste time and money with the spare tanks.

If you look to the right background of the picture, you see the left side of the Spirit's wing sticking through a hole fabricated in the wall. Above the fuselage is part of another Spirit wing, started many years before by Cole. It was determined later that it was too heavily constructed and would limit the performance of the plane.

To view the picture of the fuselage in the shop click the icon below

click me! click me!

Salute!

[John Masters]

What a wonderful place Rhinebeck is! I was there just last fall after being away for years and the show really hasn't changed all that much. The obvious lack of both Cole and Dick King made for bittersweet memories. But the planes were great, the show was fun and corny, plus, there was an RC fly-in all wekend before the show. A lot of WW1 stuff (1/4 scale RC is pretty cool) as well as golden age.
As`a child I was introduced to Rhinebeck by my father, Hilary Masters, an avid air enthuisiastist. To this day we both share our love for the old machines, and I think it's due primarily to actually watching the real thing fly around. I live very close to Rhinebeck (25 minutes) so I'll be going back soon. I would love to see them restore the Seimens-Schukert they have in the museum. TTFN Johno

[tazbat]

Welcome aboard JDCMasters. I live in Vermont, two hours away and try to visit three or four times a year. We will have to meet.

Check out the Upcoming Events Forum for information on forum members meeting at 2005 Dawn Patrol Rendezvous in Dayton, Ohio. It promises to be a great opportunity to see some great WW1 aircraft, and airshow recreations, and to meet the many members of this Forum.

Salute!

Taz,

You may be interested to know that a flaw in the wingstrut-landing gear design was discovered by Ken Cassens (Another replica Spirit crashed on landing due to a fracture in the complicated steel fitting where all of the struts attach)-something about the angles at which they met. I had a good friend of mine, Bob Kress (Cheif design engineer for both the F-14 Tomcat and the Lunar Landing Module for NASA and of course Grumman). Bob discovered the design flaw, but to be safe he had another well known Grumman engineer come up and verify his findings. A change was made to insure the same thing didn't happen to ORA's Spirit. Dick King

[tazbat]

Thanks Mr. King for that interesting tidbit. It will be additional information which I can use in my website article. I will add your name to the bibliography.

If anyone else has any tasty tidbits of info about the building of the Spirit, be sure to contact me. It would be especially nice to hear from Ken and Scott.

Salute!

[Wind In The Wires]

The ORA's Curtiss Pusher in August 1982. Note the seat belt hanging down from the sides of the simple seat.


I spent two days there, arriving early Friday afternoon. Free to walk about I soon ran into a man repairing the rudder linkage of a Moraine fighter. I stood around, handing up tools, holding nuts and washers and listening. The man was Cole Palen and the conversation was about the most practical way to get the tapered pin in the rudder post to fit better into the slot it had worn in the rudder tube.

I treasure that brief experience today.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by Wind In The Wires

I treasure that brief experience today.

And now we can, too. Thanks WITW!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Just picked up this carefully-packaged treasure at the post office today, a gift from a dear life-long friend whose parents had it hanging on their kitchen wall. Does anyone know any details as to the artist or the year?

on the back of the plate: