Flymall Wheels & Wings March 2019 Newsletter

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

Earlier in March, the Flymall team attended their annual FAA FAAST Team Rep training at the College Park Airport.  Afterwards they spent some time in the College Park Aviation Museum.  Great place, with lots of aviation history.  Click here for some pictures of their visit to the museum.

The Flymall is your one stop source for pilot supplies, automotive parts, appraisals, real estate, aircraft sales, and more. We have a limited supply of used headsets for sale. For details click here. We also have an older STS handheld transceiver for sale. We’re selling the transceiver for half of what they go for on ebay.

In late February Harry visited his hometown of Dundalk Maryland and stopped in the famous Herman’s Bakery for a few of their famous strawberry shortcakes.  A few (he purchased 6 of them)!!!

This month we’re introducing a new section to our newsletter, History Trivia.  We’ll have something new each month.  We also have a “Today in Aviation History” fact at the bottom of our webpages each day. 

History Trivia: Does the name John Coffey ring a bell?  John Coffey was a crew member on the Titanic.  He snuck off in Queenstown Ireland.  Some reports say that he had a bad feeling about the trip, possibility a disaster was going to happen.  Father Francis Browne was another passenger that got off of Titanic in Queenstown Ireland.  Browne is best known for his pictures he took of the Titanic and the crew before he disembarked. 

Earlier in March we remembered George Martin, The Beatles producer.  He passed away on March 8 2016.  Many do not know that George Martin played on many Beatles songs.  You can visit March 8 in our Events Calendar to see the list of songs George Martin played on.  This date along with many other Beatles dates are listed in our Events Calendar.

Achievements & Special Recognition:  Earlier in March we helped another aircraft broker sell this fine looking Socata TB20.  There’re usually very hard to sell since there is not a big market for them.  We sold the aircraft is less then a month to one of our repeat customers.  Like most of our aircraft sales, this was purchased sight unseen based on our good reputation.

It has taken years to build up an excellent sales reputation and to be able to sell aircraft sight unseen.  We’re proud of that! 

Aviation/Aviators in the news:  Chances are that if you go to an airshow this season, you will see a jet powered aircraft fly.  Are you familiar with the dawn of the jet age?  The jet engine had a slow start with numerous setbacks.  The jet engine wasn’t always smooth sailing. Frank Whittle is credited with inventing the turbojet engine.  Whittle started tinkering with engine design in the 1920s.  He first started with a motorjet design. He soon discovered that a motorjet would weigh as much as a conventional piston engine of the day, so the motorjet idea was scrapped.  That is when he switched to the turbine idea.  Whittle has numerous setbacks and delays, some due to financial reasons.  Meanwhile in Germany, Hans von Ohain had started work on a prototype in 1935, and had by this point passed the prototype stage and was building the world’s first flyable Jet aircraft, the Heinkel HeS 3. Whittle did not have a jet aircraft flying until 1941 while Hans von Ohain had a jet flying by 1939.  Both Whittle and von Ohain had setbacks and numerous other issues, however, they started the jet age of flight.

Ira Walker of Walker Aviation is the shop for restoration of your fabric wing aircraft.  Ira is a long time advertiser on the Flymall.  Ira also restores and builds Snow Cars.  Click on the image below to be redirected to Ira’s Facebook post about his Snow Cars.  You can also visit Ira’s Facebook page called Forgotten Transportation of America for more interesting videos on his snow cars.  You can access Ira’s page on the Flymall by clicking here.

Car/Motorcycle Show News:  Numerous air show and car show events have been added to our Events Calendar.  You can also visit the Day Tripper section of the Flymall for fun and unique places to visit, like Jules’ Undersea Lodge.  The Laytonsville Cruise In is 10 years old this year.  We have a lot of new special events for the cruise in this year.

Here are just a few of the surprises for the Laytonsville Cruise In this year:

We plan to have a sponsor for the opening cruise in (May 17). Free ice cream if you drive a classic vehicle. 

June, July, August, September – The TFR and Kraemer Aviation will sponsor awards for the 3rd Friday of each month for awards. We plan to mix it up as far as voting goes: Popular vote, Judges, Participant votes. 

We may also have various food trucks on Friday.

Barn Finds/Hangar Finds:  The Flymall Forum is a great resource for reports on various vehicles, motorcycles, aircraft, and more.  You can add a review or just see what others have written.  The forum is accessible from our home page Flymall.org.   The forum has a lot of other useful information such as a section on Home Improvement and a Pilots and Pets section. 

This month we have a hangar find.  Harry has located a Beechcraft Sundowner that has been sitting for a while in a hangar.  It does have some current damage and damage history.  This would be a great buy for someone just for the engine.  Click here for details. 

Our Market Watch is a valuable tool for researching prices for various vehicles, aircraft, collectibles, and more.  It is smart phone friendly and easy to use.  For many vehicles (aircraft, automobiles, motorcycles, etc) our Market Watch is the only database available to view price data.

CFI / DPE Notes:  Visit the new Practical Test page on the Flymall.  Harry has a Question & Answer database that references the Airman Certification Standards with the Knowledge Test Codes.  You can also look up a Knowledge Test Code and see the FAA questions for that code. Harry plans to have FAA test figures referenced as well as the FAA figures for all of the maneuvers required on a Practical Test.  You can search it by key words.  You can search it by the different Areas of Operation in the ACS or PTS.  It is a work in progress.  It will soon be available to the public for a small fee for a year access.   Click here for sample screenshots of the database.  We’re considering a $12 per year fee for access to the database.  If you interested you can leave some feedback in the comment section below.

Weather in the news:  March 3 2019 winter storm.

Here is a video showing some tornado damage at an airport.  This was from early in March.

March 9 2019 storm that stretched from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Three Wheel Association (TWA):  Morgan, Darmont, Sandford???  What is the connection?

About the time of WWI, a French gentleman named Robert Darmont started his business as a importer of the Morgan 3 wheeler from England.  After the war he obtained a license from Morgan to build the Morgan 3 wheeler in France.  The Darmont-Morgan was born.  The Morgan and Darmont-Morgan are basically identical, although one was built in France.  Pictured below is a 1926 Darmont Special.

Stewart Sandford, another French gentleman was selling the Morgan 3 wheeler in France. Stewart saw the need for a faster, more powerful 3 wheeler so he designed the Sandford 3 wheeler.  It had a 4 cylinder Ruby engine in it.  Very different from the Morgan. The Sandford is all steel with the engine fully enclosed.  The Morgan F series 3 wheeler did have an enclosed engine.  A Sandford is pictured below.

Both the Darmont and Sandford are often confused as Morgan Three Wheelers.

Prototypes:  This month we’re featuring some GM concept cars and prototypes. Here is an interesting GM concept car, the Corsair.

Here is an older post we did just on the Chevy Camaro and some of the Camaro concepts.  From his very early teens, Harry was a Camaro man.  His first car was a 1972 Camaro.  He soon added a second Camaro, because two are better than one.  Pictured below is Harry with his 1972 Camaro.

Animals in the headlines:  This month our own Jett is in the headlines.  She often accompanies Harry on aircraft sales trips and can often be found just hanging out at the airport.  Click here for her page on the Flymall.

We close this newsletter with these words:  Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.