A funny thing happened on our way to the North Pole or “how to change the right landing gear leg on a Maule MX7!”……Episode 2 (August 9, 2012)

(written in Seattle, Washington, USA)

Let’s see…where did I leave all my loyal followers? Oh, yes, I remember….you were sitting with me in a small airport in nowhere Oregon in an airplane with a bent landing gear and straddling the runway centerline, unable to move!

So as I told you, there we were when everything stopped…I tried to add power and the airplane would not even pretend to move. Now this is a small airport, but none the less, stranded in the middle of the runway and sitting at 90 degrees to the centerline was concerning, to say the least…even if my friend Craig was not about to arrive with his United 747!

Richard opened his door, as I explained last time, and found the landing gear and wheel not as they should be. Well, we were really concerned should another airplane try to land and not look carefully until it was too late….so, Richard was able to find his trusty I-phone and the number for the airport manager; he called and someone answered (unusual for small airports) and Richard explained what had happened and got the airport closed. Now Cottage Grove, Oregon was cut off from the rest of the world and all because of your faithful scribe and a less than perfect arrival!!

Finally, when we managed to slow our collective heart rate to a sensible rhythm, Richard and I started to walk towards the taxiway and down between the hangars. What do we find?....At the far end of a long row of hangars there was a 1930’s bi-plane sitting outside and what looked like the pilot was moving around clearing up tables and shade tents…..even stranger than the 1930’s bi-plane was the fact that the pilot was dressed like the Great Waldo Pepper, in 1930’s barnstorming pilot gear, high lace up boots and all! No ladies, it was not Robert Redford and a film crew remaking “Out of Africa”, but the bi-plane was approximately the right vintage…..Yes, we had found a wormhole and gone back in time…..!

We approached “Waldo” and explained our troubles; it turned out that the airport had just had a fly-in of antique Stearman bi-planes, but now everyone was gone. However, Waldo had the keys to the hangar he was parked next to with the bi-plane. This hangar turned out to be the Oregon Aviation History Society’s hangar. I told you that we had found a time warp! Around the corner of the hangar stood a perfectly restored 1939 Stinson monoplane!

Waldo let us in and we looked around inside amongst old engines and parts of airplanes for something that would lift our bird and roll; the best we could find was a dolly to move refrigerators .It had some extra wheels on it so that it could be laid flat as a rolling platform. Well, we thought that this might help…….no one was around in any of the other hangars or anywhere else on the airport. So now, I, Richard and Waldo Peppar trudged back to the poor Maule (our wounded eagle) and we tried everything we could do to lift the wheel onto the dolly, but to no avail.

Well, just next door to the airport turned out to be the headquarters of the local wrecking company and their employees who normally earn their living by hauling cars and trucks off the nearby interstate highway. Someone, (probably the airport manager) made a call to them and they arrived with one of their big trucks, Big Red I think they called it. Needless to say they were not sure what to do with an airplane….after some quick discussions it was decided that a low dolly, as they use to haul off improperly parked cars, might be slipped under the bent landing gear and wheel and allow us to pull the airplane to the parking. They ran “home” and came back 10 min. later with the “low boy” dolly. Then the problem was how to get the airplane up on the right side high enough to slip the dolly under the sick wheel. We tried using jacks, but to no avail….finally the two tallest (Richard and one of the wrecking yard boys) got a hold of the right wing tip and lifted madly, while short-sport Mark and the other wrecking company chap pushed and heaved to get the dolly under the bent wheel.

While we were trying to get the plane up onto the dolly, Waldo arrived at the runway intersection with his bi-plane. He had to leave…and so, on the remaining half of the runway that we had so improperly left him, he waved to us, lined up and gave gas to his old radial engine and off he went slowly climbing above the trees, almost hanging there, and on back into the history wormhole and his own time warp!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…..”mission accomplished” and the right wheel was perched on the dolly. Once the airplane was attached safely by straps to a pickup truck with a low trailer hitch, we were able to make our ignoble, and slow, way into the parking and a formal arrival, of sorts, at “Cottage Grove International Airport” (identifier 61S for those pilots reading this).

Earlier, while Richard and I were wandering down between the hangars looking for help and finding Waldo, his bi-plane, and the aviation museum hangar, we had spotted a hangar with a hand painted sign saying “D&D Aircraft: Repair and Inspections” and a phone number. So, we deposited Mr. Maule (our eagle with the broken leg) there in front of the hangar doors, hoping that this would be a good hospital.

Richard called the telephone number on the sign and managed to get Duane, the owner and sole employee of “D & D Aircraft Maintenance and Inspections”. In the two days that followed Duane and his two dogs became part of our family…or maybe we became part of his! Anyway, Duane said that he was up in Eugene, Oregon helping another sick airplane, but that as soon as he was finished he would come back to Cottage Grove and, yes, he had room in the hangar and we could get poor Mr. Maule under cover for the night. Eventually, Duane showed up and opened his hangar doors….and what did we see; A Super Cub with a new engine hanging on the nose and wings sitting beside it, in the process of being restored….we had come to the right hospital! The three of us pushed Mr. Maule inside and were even able to get the hangar doors closed again. It turned out that Duane had just finished repairing a larger engined Maule that had been badly damaged by a ground loop……while taxiing!

Perfect, we had a hangar and a mechanic with time available and some experience of Maule airplanes. We now decided to call it a night (what a Sunday!); we called the Village Green Resort Motel across the street from the airport and secured rooms and off we walked with our bags.

The Next Day

The next day, Monday, Richard and I left the warmth of our respective beds early to walk back across the street to meet up with Duane, the mechanic and airplane orthopedic surgeon. Together we got Mr. Maule jacked up off the ground and the left wing tied down to a big weight, and we began surgery and the evaluation; the right gear and wheel were removed, the brake caliper was examined, the damaged wheel was dismantled and a careful inventory was made of what we needed. The list was not as long as we had feared; one landing gear leg, wheel bearings, a new caliper torque plate, a new axle, a new tire and a new 6.00 – 6 Cleveland wheel…and we needed to get all this stuff overnight!

Richard got on the phone, internet, i-phone and everything but the radio, calling everyone he knew and searching parts suppliers and the factory for people who had these parts in stock. Our real fear was that we would not be able to find an MX7 Maule landing gear leg and that the factory would not have one in stock…..in the end we found the only one in North America and it was at the factory. The Maule factory is in Georgia and we were 2 or 3 hours behind them in Pacific Daylight Time. Richard persuaded them that they would ship us a complete landing gear leg by express; but they would only ship it out in a box, which of course, had to be built and so we could not receive it until Wednesday morning. Who were we to argue? Now that the gear leg was organized, with a lot of help from Richard’s friend, local Maule guru, ex-Alaskan bush pilot and Maule factory representative, Jeremy, we thought we had life under control and that obtaining the other parts would be easy……Wrong! We found most things either through Jeremy or spread out around the country in parts suppliers for everything except what should have been easy…….the wheel, bearings and grease seals! Oh shit!! Richard phoned everywhere and while Cleveland 6.00 – 6 wheels are used on all kinds of airplanes (I had even sold some to Charlie Roussouliere….another aviation experience in Montauban, France I will recount sometime) none of the correct model of wheel was available.

Duane’s library of parts catalogues came to the rescue! He had an official Cleveland Parts Catalog and so we discovered that our model of wheel used the same part number wheel halves as three other wheel assemblies from Cleveland, none of which could be legally fitted to Mr. Maule. The solution: Richard found one of these other 6.00 – 6 wheel assemblies in stock in California and had it shipped. The plan was now to disassemble that complete new wheel and use the wheel halves, bearings, grease seals and our old brake disk (the only part not destroyed on the right wheel) to build up a new Cleveland 6.00 – 6 wheel of the correct model ourselves….from Cleveland parts, of course! Whew!!

By the early afternoon, all the parts were on order and all we could do was wait and hope……parts were coming from Georgia, Oregon, California, and god only knows where else and being shipped express to Duane’s wheel barrow in front of his house in Cottage Grove, Oregon, which is where urgent parts were usually delivered! I am not kidding!!!....No delivery to his workshop, as Fedex, UPS and other shippers did not have the code to the gate in the TSA required safety fence around the airport…. in Cottage Grove, Oregon!

Well now we had to wait and our real adventure at Cottage Grove (61S) began! Richard and I had now begun to be greeted by some “old boys” all enquiring, as they walked past Duane’s open hangar door, about our pretzel shaped landing gear and how had we made it! They all offered to help if they could and we began to get to know everyone, who collectively and for ease of reference, I will refer to as “Wilbur’s crew”. OK, you may ask, but who is Wilbur?!

Wilbur is an “older” airplane enthusiast, crane company operator for the logging industry around Cottage Grove, former logger and....President of the Oregon Aviation Historical Society, headquartered at Cottage Grove airport with their hangar and beautiful 1939 Stinson. He is also your quintessential aviation enthusiast and pilot having a big, old, restored, orange and black airplane which he referred to as “the Sedan”. Wilbur must be 75 +, and the rest of the crew ranged between an estimated 65 and even older than Wilbur…all of them had hangars full of Model A Ford pickup trucks, a 1929 Model A sedan and airplanes of all sorts; float planes, home builts, restored antique airplanes and just plain nicely restored toys like little Luscomb 8A’s These wonderful people took Richard and I under their collective wings, soothed our ruffled feathers, gave us rides in their 1929 Model A out to look at our skid marks left on the runway…for “forensic” evaluation as to what had gone wrong, and even fed us lunch. In return, Richard and I helped clean up the Aviation Museum hangar and participated in their impromptu sit down hangar flying sessions which occurred sporadically throughout any day. They even fed us lunch on Tuesday………we had arrived….!; Time Warp Central. Richard and I were the “young ones” (we are both 61 years old and as Richard says, we are two “half wits” looking for a full “wit”!) yet here we were the “young ones” who needed help. It was like being back in our school days. A truly amazing experience, complete with the best black berry brambles growing behind the rows of hangars and having the best black berries I have ever tasted when one needed a snack during “hangar flying” sessions with Wilbur’s Crew. We are even now (I write the end of this episode from Prince George, BC, Canada) plotting as to whether we can drop in to our favorite Time Warp airport on our return trip south.

Tuesday and Wednesday were like Xmas; parts really started turning up and by Wednesday at around 11:30 we had everything and we started to re-assemble Mr. Maule. Duane, of course was the lead surgeon, and we the willing apprentice helpers. The landing gear went back in, the wheel was assembled, the floor boards went back in and…well, we ended up with only one screw left over……and that was quickly buried! Now it was time for Richard to make a “return to service” flight….he took off about 14:30 and made a quick trip around the pattern and landed without event. Mr. Maule was now officially back in service…we loaded up our gear, said our goodbyes to all at the airport and headed for a short leg to Seattle, Washington State, where we arrived without drama………….

To be continued Later