![]() ![]() ![]() He flew the second one - which he's using now - for about 40 hours after completing it in September 2010. He figures he hauled 4,000 passengers before selling it. He traveled around the country's midsection, as far as Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, the Upper Peninsula and southern Ohio. He logged three hours testing it and then flew the plane to Mason City, Iowa, to participate in the American Barnstorming Tour. "Sometimes, if you have a headwind, cars down on the highway might be going faster."ĭavis finished the first biplane on June 15, 2008. "It's a workhorse and not a fast plane," he chuckled. Only 72 of the D-25 New Standards were made and only eight remain, Davis said. ![]() In addition to taking local residents for rides, pilots performed stunts such as spins, dives, loops and barrel rolls. They were designed in 1928 for Ivan Gates and his legendary Gates Flying Circus, the biggest flying circus in the country at that time. He finished the first one in 2008 and the second two years later. But for Davis, restoring them was a labor of love. Both had been converted into crop dusters and were in a dilapidated condition. One was parked at an airfield in the San Joaquin Valley town of Clovis, while the other was in New Hampshire. "But if you do eight hours of work as a mechanic, you get paid for eight."ĭavis found two 1929 D-25 New Standard biplanes in 2005. "You could spend 14 hours at the airport and only teach for three," he said. Though he loved teaching, it didn't pay the bills for a growing family. He earned his airframe and powerplant mechanics license from Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville. There were times in an aeroplane when it seemed I had escaped mortality to look down on earth like a God."ĭuring his aviation career of nearly 40 years, Davis has worked as an instructor, mechanic, inspector, welder, painter and airplane restorer. Mechanical engineers were fettered to factories and drafting boards while pilots have the freedom of wind with the expanse of sky. It made use of the latest developments of science. "The life of an aviator seemed to me ideal. He left to barnstorm and later joined the Army to become an Air Service Reserve pilot. Lindbergh, who grew up in Minnesota, attended UW for two years in the early 1920s. "This is a link to our aviation history and connects passengers to the likes of Charles Lindbergh, who was a mail pilot and barnstormer, flying surplus WWI 'Jenny' biplanes before he made his flight across the Atlantic in 1927." "Still, it's a wonderful thing to transport people back to the 1920s in a restored biplane and pass on an experience like this," he added, noting that the aircraft's engine was made in a factory started by Orville and Wilbur Wright. He also wears a Snoopy-like leather helmet and jacket. "I wish I'd been born about 50 years earlier, so I could have grown up with these aircraft," said Davis, who sports a black bow tie and suspenders - just like itinerant pilots wore eight decades ago. 5, when he will join the American Barnstormers Tour and perform at airfields around the Midwest with other pilots in restored biplanes. Starting May 1, he will offer flights daily from Middleton's Morey Field through Aug. Those words are music to the ears of 53-year-old Davis, a Brodhead resident who got his pilot's license at age 17 and first flew a home-built biplane in his 20s. "I especially liked being out over the water. "That was so cool," said Dylan as he removed his leather aviator's cap, goggles and leather jacket. In the distance, we could see Picnic Point on the UW-Madison campus, and farther east, the granite dome of the Capitol glistening in the sun.Īs we returned to the airport, Davis put the plane down on a grass runway, giving us a slightly bumpy feel of what it might have been like to land with the barnstorming pilots who covered the country 80-plus years ago offering flights from farm fields outside towns large and small. Below, the crew on a sailboat looked up and waved. Then we turned north and swung out over the rippling waters of Lake Mendota. In between, Dylan, his sister Abbie, Maddie Clark, this scribe and aviator Davis - who flew from a separate cockpit behind us - soared over freshly plowed farm fields, suburban subdivisions, busy highways and a quarry or two.Ĭruising at a leisurely pace of around 70 mph some 1,000 feet above the ground, we banked over the Blackhawk Ski club's three ski jumps southwest of Madison and some thick stands of forest. That smile didn't leave the third-grader's mug until we landed 20 minutes later. Then Dylan's grin got even bigger when veteran pilot Ted Davis revved the aircraft's engine, and the 1929 D-25 New Standard lifted into the air. The emerging smile on 8-year-old Dylan Maier's face erupted as our Kelly green, four-passenger, open-cockpit biplane taxied down the runway at Middleton's Municipal Airport. ![]()
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