August 20, 2009
Planes fly in to provide a show at Polson City Airport
By Berl Tiskus
Valley Journal
POLSON — Grey skies and occasional sprinkles did put a bit of a damper on the Polson Fly-In on Aug. 15, but lots of hardy pilots dropped out of the sky to visit the Polson City Airport from 8 a.m. until noon. Not only did they get a breakfast of ham, eggs, pancakes and coffee, but lots of community members trooped out to the airport to take a gander at their planes.
Mauri Morin, one of the committee members who put on the Fly-In, said approximately 40 airplanes flew in.
“Considering the weather, that was spectacular,” Morin said.
The storm was stacked up against the mountains to the east, Morin said, so most of the air traffic came from up the Bitterroot and down from Kalispell. Morin also said planes from Sandpoint, Idaho, were unable to get into Polson due to the storm.
Although all the planes at the Fly-In were interesting, one plane the Fly-In does not always attract was a de Havilland Beaver with a turbine conversion. Chuck Jarecki, a Polson Fly-In committee member, said the Beavers are the premier bush planes of Canada and were made in the early 1950’s. The planes are taken into a shop after about 15,000 flying hours, completely rebuilt and then hit the skies again.
Other unusual planes included a plane made in Czechoslovakia, a 1965 Delphin L29. The shiny black plane was a trainer for Russian pilots who went on to fly MiGs.
Bob Russell, Polson, owns the plane. Russell said he had been to Russia on a business trip in 1991 when he found the plane.
Russell said, “You could buy this kind of stuff (the L29) pretty cheap with U.S. dollars or any hard money.”
Russell and a friend from California bought three of the planes. They sent a pilot who spoke Russian to Russia. This man picked out three good planes, dismantled them, put the planes in containers and shipped them to Long Beach, Calif. Russell sent his plane on to Montana and hired a young Hungarian man, who had been in the Russian army and was trying to get his citizenship, to help him reassemble the aircraft. The refurbishment and assembly took about a year, Russell said. The plane had originally been painted with a paintbrush instead of a sprayer.
“We made it mechanically and cosmetically as nice as we could,” Russell explained. “It’s not fast like a fighter plane ‘cause it was a trainer.”
Russell said the plane cruises at 300 to 400 mph with 500 mph as its absolute maximum. Russell replaced the original engine, a 1947 copy of a Rolls Royce Spey engine with 1,800 pounds of thrust, because the plane could not get off the short runway at the Polson City Airport. Russell put in a Pratt Whitney JP 12 engine with 3,000 pounds of thrust.
“Now it does a wonderful job,” Russell said, smiling.
Another plane that does a wonderful job was the bright yellow 1946 North American AT6 owned by Ray Thompson from Semi-Tool.
Pilot Frank Hale, who flew the plane down from Kalispell, said the AT6 was a World War II and Korean War advanced trainer, the last trainer student pilots flew before they flew fighters.
The AT6 is rare because there are not a lot of them around, Hale said. The U.S. sold the planes cheaply after the Korean War, and then people could not afford to repair them.
Hale added that the Warbird movement in the 1970’s rescued a lot of the old planes. People realized they were valuable and started to restore them. Warbirds include planes from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War Hale explained.
Hale started flying when he was 15. Hale and two of his friends hung around their local airport so much the airport finally hired them at $1 an hour. Hale said it took 14 hours of work to buy an hour of flying time. All three of the kids, now men, are still flying, though.
Another pilot who learned to fly by taking lessons at the local airport was Kalispell pilot Hank Galpin. Galpin and three passengers flew his 1928 TravelAir 6000 to Polson.
“This was the model Delta Airplanes originally flew in 1929,” Galpin said.
Delta’s first route was from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson, Miss.
The TravelAir 6000 became obsolete in about two years, Galpin explained, and only about 150 were produced. Galpin bought his plane as a wreck in 1992 from Johnson Flying Service in Missoula and restored it. The TravelAir flew again in 2002, complete with its wicker seats and tiny sink and toilet with running water.
Community members enjoyed looking at all the cool planes, but the Polson Fly-In was actually started to show Polson how the Polson City Airport benefits the city. Besides bringing visitors to the city, the airport also serves as a fire fighting support facility, provides a base for search and rescue operations as well as charter operators, provides employment for 14 full-time employees. The Polson City Airport allows access to medivac flights, is the support base for fish and game management activities in our area, hosts such programs as the Polson Fly-In and Young Eagles, provides property tax revenues from privately owned hangars as well as income from hangar leases and rent and sells competitively priced aviation fuel among other functions.
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