Flymall.org June 2022 Wheels & Wings Newsletter

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Welcome to the Kraemer Aviation/Flymall.org Wheels & Wings Newsletter. This month “The Great Escape”. The theme is all about get away vehicles and/or vehicles used in great escapes.

You can view past newsletters here.


Interested in living at an airport?  Visit our Aviation Real Estate page here. You can view price data for airport property in our Market Watch section of the Flymall. Here is the data for all airport property. You can refine the search by “state” simply by searching for the desired state under “Model”. We have a nice airport and home for sale in Carroll County Maryland with a 1900 foot grass strip. Click here for details.

Want to have your business highlighted on the Flymall???  We offer inexpensive rates to have your business featured on our Wheels & Wings page.  Contact us for more info.

On June 26, Jett celebrated her 9th birthday. She was treated to some banana cream pie.

History Trivia: Have you heard of the Colditz Cock. The Colditz Cock was a glider built by British prisoners of war for an escape attempt from Oflag IV-C (Colditz Castle) in Germany.

After the execution of 50 prisoners who had taken part in the “Great Escape” from Luft Stalag III, the Allied High Command had discouraged escape attempts, though the plan to build a glider was encouraged in order to divert the energies of the prisoners from descending into boredom and tedium. The idea for the glider came from Lieutenant Tony Rolt. Rolt, who was not even an airman, had noticed the chapel roof line was completely obscured from German view. He realized that the roof would make a perfect launching point from which the glider could fly across the River Mulde, which was about 60 metres below.

Below is the only know photo of the “Cock” as it was called. This was taken on April 15 1945 by Lee Carson, one of two American newspaper correspondents assigned to the task force which captured the castle.

In the movie “The Great Escape”, Steve McQueen rode a 1962 650cc Triumph TR6R modified to look like a WWII-era side-valve BMW with an olive paint job. In the movie McQueen was a better driver than many of the stuntmen playing Germans, so McQueen put on an SS uniform for some of these scenes and chased himself. While McQueen is famous for The Great Escape’s most famous stunt (jumping the fence), it was Bud Ekins who performed it. When you watch the motorcycle chase scenes, you can clearly see the riding style is exactly the same. Click here to research Steve McQueen vehicle values from the Flymall Market Watch.

The Bonnie and Clyde get-away car of choice was a Ford. They didn’t buy them, they stole them! Did you know that the papers to incorporate Ford were signed on June 16 1903. Here’s the Bonnie and Clyde “death car” is on display under glass.

If you enjoy history we have a new aviation history fact each day at the bottom of our webpages.  Some days there may be more than one, just refresh the page.  And if you like Beatles history, checkout our Events Calendar and select the Beatles category.  This is a work in progress, we’re building the most comprehensive calendar of important dates in Beatle history.  For those that like to stick with current news, we have an aviation news ticker on our home page.  This is updated daily to show the current aviation news.

Achievements & Special Recognition: Earlier this month, Rowena passed her instrument checkride with Harry. She plans to purchase a single engine turboprop to be able to visit family in her home country of Jamaica. Congratulations!

Instructors, what to highlight your students first solo or other achievement here?  Just send us a short write-up and a picture or two and we’ll post it here for you.  Click here for our contact info.

Aviation/Aviators in the news: Larry Murphy was the Chinook helicopter pilot who’s iconic landing during Operation Mountain Resolve was captured on film. Operation Mountain Resolve was launched by a coalition led by the United States on 7 November 2003 in the Nuristan province and Kunar province in Afghanistan. It involved an airdrop into the Hindu Kush mountains by the U.S. 10th Mountain Division . Not many helicopter pilots could perform a maneuver like this.

The aviation section of the Flymall is full of aviation news, training info, and much more for the aviator.

Air show season is always just around the corner.  Want to travel to air shows in your own aircraft?  Visit our used aircraft page on the Flymall to view our inventory.

On June 11, the Flymall Team attended the AirPower Tour at the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. Click here for more pictures from the event. One of the highlights was getting to climb in the cockpit of Harry’s friend’s DC-3.

The DC-3 first flew in 1935. Over 16,000 were produced. There are still some in airline service to this day. The C-47 (Military version of the DC3) was one of the most vital pieces of equipment that helped win WWII. The aircraft is also acclaimed for its role in the Berlin Airlift.

Car/Motorcycle Show News: Earlier this month the Flymall Team attended the Original British Car Day in MT. Airy Maryland. They had the Lomax entered in the show and it earned a First Place Award in it’s class. Click here for more pictures from this great British Car Show. Click on the image below for a larger view.

The Laytonsville Cruise In is the place to be on a Friday night in Montgomery County.  The Laytonsville Cruise In was started by Harry in 2010. It has become one of the most popular cruise ins in the area. You can follow Harry on Facebook for daily updates during the many shows and events he attends.

New awards for Award Night

Harry’s friend Bingo has sponsored these very cool awards for July, August, September, and October. Checkout his cool shop on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/BingosSwapMeetGarage

June 18 2022, Harry, Pat, and Mel Short attended the District Harley Davidson Bikini Bike Wash & Cookout. It was a great day with good food, cool bikes, live music, and more. Click here for more pictures from the event. They had an axe throwing contest/event that day. Pat got 3 in a row. Click here for the YouTube video showing Pat’s performance.

June 10th was an awesome night at the Laytonsville Cruise In. We had a large variety of vehicles including; a military truck, a golf cart, a go cart, vintage cars, motorcycles, bicycles, race cars, modern performance cars, a firetruck, vintage ramp body truck, a dirt bike, and more. Click here for pictures from June 10th.

Click on the picture below for highlights from June 10th.

Laytonsville 06-10-2022 Highlights

On June 9, Harry attended the District Harley Davidson Bike Night. The weather was perfect. Mild temperatures and low humidity. Harry rode the 1974 Indian MX74 to the event. Click here for more pictures. Checkout their Facebook page for all of their events. Their Bike Night usually has a free live band.

Our Events Calendar has the most current info regarding local and national car shows, air shows, and more.  With nearly 30 categories, there is something for everyone.  The Day Tripper section of the Flymall has dozens of day trip ideals and interesting places to visit.  Check it out here.

Barn Finds/Hangar Finds:  In the 1967 film, The Dirty Dozen” there is a German half-track vehicle used in an escape scene. This vehicle was pulled from a barn located in the Salisbury Plain (south western part of central southern England) in the early 1960s. It was purchased by a farmer who bought it as workhorse. It stayed there in that person’s barn until another gentleman purchased it and restored it. The gentleman that restored it was also an extra in the 1967 film and in addition, he taught Lee Marvin on how to double clutch. An iconic escape scene from the film has Lee Marvin driving the vehicle over the Chateaux Bridge. If fact, resources say the the gentleman that restored it, was crouched under the dash telling Lee Marvin how to drive the vehicle during that scene while they were escaping over the Chateaux Bridge.

Need an appraisal on your barn find?  Visit our Appraisal Page for information on our appraisals. 

Visit our online store to search for hard to find car parts, aircraft parts, and much more.  You can pay online in our secure store, just click on the Store button on our home page.

Visit the Test Drive section of the Flymall for reviews on automobiles, aircraft, motorcycles, and more. Read about it before you buy it.  You can also research price info on a wide variety of vehicles, collectibles, and more in the Market Watch section of the Flymall. 

If you’re restoring a fabric aircraft, Ira Walker of Walker Aviation is your resource.  Visit his page on the Flymall by clicking here

CFI / DPE Notes:  On June 12 2019, Harry passed the final checkride to become a DPE and was issued his Certificate of Designation.

And on July 1 2019, Harry gave his first checkride. He is pictured here with the applicant after the checkride.

Rachel did her 1st solo earlier this month and then on June 30 2022, she passed her Private Pilot Checkride with Harry. Here are some pictures from her 1st solo.

The first solo is always a big accomplishment in the path to earning your private pilot certificate. Click here for a video on the water bucket tradition. Click here for Harry’s slides on the “Clipping of the Shirt Tail” tradition (shirttail).

Here’s Rachel on her checkride day after passing the test. She did a great job. Harry gave her numerous failures to deal with. She had an engine failure at 200 feet AGL on the soft field takeoff, a flap failure on the soft filed landing, and a landing with no airspeed indicator, all were handled perfectly. Rachel is an outstanding young woman with goals to be an airline pilot back in her home country of Israel or somewhere in Europe. In Israel she works as a medic and a firefighter. Click on the image below for a larger view.

Visit Harry’s Practical Test page for information on his checkrides.  You will also find useful information there to help you prepare for your checkride.  You can also visit Harry’s Lesson Plan section of the Flymall for other flight training information.  Visit our Flight Training page for information on our aviation training classes.

Always check NOTAMs, look especially for TFRs. This was for Santa Monica, California earlier this month. If you’re in this area, there is no escaping a TFR. Watch out.

Weather in the news: The weather was certainly in the news for the maiden voyage of the Titanic. The Titanic did not have enough life boats for all of the passengers to escape the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

Titanic had 20 lifeboats of three different types:

  • 14 clinker-built wooden lifeboats, measuring 30 feet (9.1 m) long by 9 feet 1 inch (2.77 m) wide by 4 feet (1.2 m) deep.
  • 2 wooden cutters intended to be used as emergency boats.
  • 4 “collapsible” Engelhardt lifeboats.

June 8th brought the mid-Atlantic region numerous lines of heavy thunderstorms. Here’s a few snapshots of the radar from that day.

Storms are something pilots need to avoid always. How far is far enough to avoid storms? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Three Wheel Association (TWA):  Here is a cool 3 wheel bicycle that is used by police in areas with large public beaches. There is no escaping the police here with these very cool electric assist 3 wheel pedal bicycles.

Harry started the Three Wheel Association in 2013 to promote/support the industry of three wheel vehicles of all types. Visit the Three Wheel Association page on the Flymall for more info on the association.

Want a reproduction vintage 3 wheeler.  Walker Aviation can scratch built from pictures or drawings.  Visit his page on the Flymall.  

Prototypes: The ejection seat, an escape vehicle. In 1916, Everard Calthrop, an early inventor of parachutes, patented an ejector seat using compressed air. By World War II both Heinkel and SAAB had developed ejection seats.

The enclosed ejection seat concept has also been looked at and taken a step further by using the entire fuselage and the escape pod.

The Kamov Ka-50, which entered limited service with Russian forces in 1995, was the first production helicopter with an ejection seat. The system is similar to that of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft; however the main rotors are equipped with explosive bolts to jettison the blades moments before the seat is fired.

The only commercial jetliner ever fitted with ejection seats was the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144. However, the seats were present in the prototype only, and were only available for the crew and not the passengers. The Tu-144 that crashed at the Paris Air Show in 1973 was a production model, and did not have ejection seats.

The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, (LLRV) and its successor Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), used ejection seats. Neil Armstrong ejected on 6 May 1968.

The only spacecraft ever flown with installed ejection seats were VostokGemini, and the Space Shuttle.

Early flights of the Space Shuttle, which used Columbia, were with a crew of two, both provided with ejector seats (STS-1 to STS-4), but the seats were disabled and then removed as the crew size was increased.

Nautical Notes: Here’s an escape vehicle of a different nature. This is an offshore oil rig escape pod. Online, you can find numerous locations around the globe where these have been turned in to floating motel rooms that you can stay in. Originally designed to save lives, now used as floating motel rooms. How cool is that?

The Autocanoe by John Montgomery. a Pedal Powered Amphibious Recumbent Tricycle and a Road-able Pedal Canoe! The configuration is that of a Recumbent Tricycle with the two forward wheels driving and the single rear wheel steering both on land and in the water. It can travel over the road and through the water with comfort and grace. Not designed as an escape vehicle, however it could certainly be used as one. Just paddle the canoe of out the flooded area and then pedal on.

Riding The Rails: There are lots of stories regarding German prisoner’s being rescued during WWII via trains. One of them was the Kastner Train. The Kastner train consisted of 35 cattle wagons that left Budapest on 30 June 1944, during the German occupation of Hungary, carrying over 1,600 Jews to safety in Switzerland.

Here’s another story regarding a train leaving Nazi Germany, however this train took about 2,500 Jews to freedom. This story starts in early April 1945, just a few days before the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. The Nazis were in a hurry to get rid of the inmates. Three different trains left Bergen-Belsen between April 6 and April 11. Each train had about 2,500 prisoners. Their destination was the Theresienstadt concentration camp, in German occupied Czechoslovakia. Ultimately only one train reached the camp, after a few dozen of its passengers were killed in an aerial bombing by Allied forces. A second, later known as the “lost train,” traveled for two weeks back and forth between the lines of combatants, was caught in Russian-German crossfire, and finally came to a halt near the town of Troebitz, in eastern Germany, where the prisoners were liberated by the Red Army. the third train, which was actually the first of the three to leave Bergen-Belsen, is the train that carried the Jews to freedom. This train is pictured below. This train left Bergen-Belsen on April 7 1945. Many of the prisoners on this train were were “privileged” prisoners who had previously been in the “special camp” at Bergen-Belsen. They had been selected by the Germans for future prisoner exchanges with the Allies. One report says that the S.S. personnel escorting this train had orders to drown the prisoners if they came under Allied fire. After a six day journey, the train came to a stop with Allied and German fire in the not so far distance. The Germans fled the train under the cover of night via the trains locomotive, however they returned the next day. By April 13th, American soldiers had reached the train with no German resistance. And all on the train were eventually freed. Click here for the full story on this train and how this picture was discovered.

Von Ryan’s Express is a 1965 film (not based on a true story). While not a true story, the film is very interesting and exciting. The film depicts a group of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who conduct a daring escape by hijacking the freight train carrying the POWs and fleeing through German-occupied Italy to Switzerland.

Animals in the headlines: Did you know that turtles are escape artist? They don’t need a vehicle to escape. In fact, turtles are good climbers. Checkout this picture of a snapping turtle climbing a fence.

There are times when animals need our help to escape, to escape extinction that is. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has helped numerous species of animals escape extinction. AZA accredited zoos and aquariums have collaborated on breeding and reintroduction programs that have helped save at least nine species like California condors, black-footed ferrets, Przewalski’s horse, golden lion tamarins, American red wolves, and more from the brink of extinction. Great job.

We close this newsletter with these words: Compliment at least three people every day.

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