An Interesting Piece of Aviation History

[Bob Womack]

I grew up in a rather unusual home. Very loving, but unusual. My father was a scientist, a professor a the state land grant university. In those times, the Federal Government had a fantastic recycling program going. Participating universities were shipped pallets of surplus... well... everything. If it had any hope of being used or stripped for parts, it went on the bicycle from university to university, each picking through the stuff and passing it on to the next. Our state university just happened to be at the end of one of the the distribution lists. They were given the instructions, "Use it or dispose of it." My father kept an eye on the dumpster outside his office. You can't imagine the stuff we had in the basement. We were the only family I knew who owned a jet engine. We had the Range Safety Officer's control panel from the NASA Mercury Program. If the rocket malfunctioned, it was the job of the Range Safety Officer to uncap a switch, arm the abort button, and then punch it causing the rocket to self-destruct. We had functioning control panels from a Navy nuclear submarine trainer. And we had the subject of this post.

This is a classroom aircraft control systems demonstration device from Chicago Apparatus Company. It has, accurately reproduced, the control functions of an early, basic tandem trainer aircraft, right down to the horizontal trim function. They are properly reproduced with bellcranks to change the direction of force. Instead of cables they used rigid wires to transfer the actions of the controls to the control surfaces. The stubby wing is carved from light wood and exhibits a reasonable facsimile of an airfoil.

I have no information on date but it has a WWII or earlier feel to it and it does demonstrate a high-wing monoplane. Who knows whether this was intended to instruct pilots or ground crew. My father rescued it in the 1960s and it was a tad worse for wear. My son located some all-thread and nuts and got the tail working again. I've adjusted and lubricated everything so that it all works again. I still need to do a couple of tweaks so that the elevators are horizontal when the stick is vertical.

I can imagine this being up at the instructor's desk at ground school while hundreds of air cadets were winnowed down to tens and the remainder earned their wings. But anyway, for your enjoyment, The Chicago Apparatus Company Aircraft Control Systems Demonstrator.









Bob

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.