Here are photos and the award winners from the Potomac Aero Squadron's 2008 Horn Point Fly-In.

Grand Champion Antique - Piper J3

It seems that every day brings more bad news about the state of our economy, especially about gas and food prices continually on the rise.

Photo by Gilles Auilard

Around local aerodromes pilots still gather, but have been curtailing their flying while grumbling about how they cannot afford to get out and go flying just for the fun of it, too expensive they say.

The crew of the 2008 ABT - Photo by Gilles Auilard

At the same time everyone seems to be wrapped up in the news of our upcoming landmark presidential election and the latest natural disaster, whether floods in the Midwest, fires on the West coast, or drought on the East coast. 2008 you say? Well yes, but it could just as well describe the early 1930's.

So it seems appropriate that Clay Adams and his American Barnstormers Tour is making it's way throughout Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri in 16-18 (depending on reports) gas guzzling, round engine antique airplanes from the 20's and 30's.

Tour organizer Clay Adams about to give another load of passengers a taste of open cockpit flying - Photo by Fred Larson

This years tour started on June 15th, though the first stop, Iowa City, had to be cancelled due to the floods here in Iowa. However the intrepid group moved operations to the next stop, Ames, Iowa, where they set up shop for four days of operations instead of two.

Hank Galpin and Ray Sanders came all the way from Kalispell, MT to fly in the ABT

Of the aircraft and pilots participating in the tour most are AAA members and include among others:

We find it very encouraging that this intrepid group has defied the pessimists in the sport aviation community and appear to be having a grand time traversing the country flying their antique airplanes.

Just as in the 1920's & 30's it was down to the wire for Ted Davis (Brodhead, WI) and crew to complete the restoration of their New Standard D-25 in time to participate in the American Barnstormers Tour. Here is what Ted had to say about the first flight on June 10th.

Photo by Ted Davis

I flew the D-25 last night about 7:00 P.M. off my strip and landed at Brodhead. What a great airplane and a beautiful night for a test flight. Everything worked fine and the D-25 is rigged perfect. Hands off and very stable. The tailwheel lock was the only thing that we had a problem with after hopping 18 passengers that were watching at the airport. Chris then flew it and was thrilled also with its performance and flight characteristics. Take care and there will be a video on YouTube later of the first takeoff from my strip. Now we have to get things together for the American Barnstormers Tour... Thanks for all of your help and providing me with a few parts at very reasonable costs.

Photo by Gilles Auilard

The New Standard has been reported to be very popular on the ABT with Ted being kept busy hauling up to four passengers at a time. We look forward to the possibility of seeing the New Standard on the grass here at Antique Airfield for the annual AAA/APM Fly-in (Aug 27th - Sep 1st).

At long last the FAA has finally released a draft of AC 23-27 "Parts & Materials for Vintage Airplanes" for review. This AC was originally drafted early in 2004 (as I recall) by the FAA Ad Hoc Comittee on Aging Aircraft of which the AAA is a member.

Use the following link http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/draft_docs/media/DraftAC23-27.pdf to view the AC. Please look it over and submit any comments (good or bad) to Mark James at the FAA (his email address is on the document). Please copy me on those comments as well here at AntiqueAirfield@sirisonline.com.

Thanks go out to Mike Lossner and John Reed for notifying us that this draft AC is now available for review.

Brent Taylor

Here's the Casa Grande 2008 Cactus Fly-In Report by Paul Berge, along with photos of Award Winners. As you may recall the Cactus Fly-in marked the first public announcement of the APM revitalization and endowment project.

Member Dennis Hall's Corben Baby Ace, the winner of the National AAA Headquarters Award.
(Apologies to Paul and Brent for posting this so late, it is entirely the webmaster's fault!)

Terry Brandt and the crew at the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum in Hood River, Oregon have been working on a Jenny. Terry called up early one Saturday morning a few weeks ago and said "I'm flying it". Here's the result:

Jim Booth of Bozeman, Montana flies a unique antique homebuilt, the Faust. The Faust is an amalgamation of a Fairchild 24 and a Piper PA-12, originally built in Alaska. It is Warner 165 powered, and Jim has built a set of Montana floats for it. He recently put a Prince carbon-fiber prop on the engine and got significantly improved performance vs. a Sensenich wooden prop. An advantage of being an experimental!

Jim likes the Faust so much he's building a new version, this time with a 4-place PA-14 fuselage design that retains the Fairchild-style outrigger gear. The BA-14 (Booth Aircraft 14) will be powered by a new Rotec R3600 radial engine, and eventually will be on floats too. Here's Jim's engine mount trial fit on his Piper PA-14.

Louis Laurich sent us a photo of the Ohio Chapter of the AAA at the 1978 Blakesburg Fly-In. Recognize anyone?

The recently published article on the History of the U.S. Air Mail Service has now been augmented with the photos from the original Skyways article.

Addison Pemberton sent us this beautiful shot of his Boeing Model 40 at sunset near Spokane, Washington. As he said, is it 1928 or 2008?