We trailer weenies will do just about
anything to make our planes easier to
work with. So, off to the Airdrome
Aeroplanes plant in Holden, Missouri,
we went. We dropped the plane off
at Robert’s plant when we took the
engine down to the Smith boys at
Valley Engineering in Rolla, Missouri.
Robert had also mumbled
something about shortening the
gear legs, redesigning the struts,
and lowering the wing a little to
improve the aesthetic balance. We
didn’t mind; we needed to solve the
temperature problem first before any
more flying would be done. Adding
J- 3 style eyebrows and some other
baffling solved the heating problems.
We started flying it every chance we
got to get the 40 hours flown off.
We finished just in time. We
trailered the Morane and one of
Robert’s Airdrome Aeroplanes Bleriot
XI replicas to Canada where they were
both used in the movie Amelia, about
legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
Dick created this illustration to show all of the range and safety marks that had to be in
place before the inspection.
For more information, visit Airdrome
Aeroplanes at www.AirdromeAeroplanes.com
and the Dawn Patrol of Kansas City at
www.KCDawnPatrol.org.
For FAA documents 43.13-1A and 43.13-1B
visit www.Amazon.com.
USEFUL WEBSITES ;
Harvey Cleveland
makes a pass down
the runway with the
newly modified plane
with V-struts instead
of parallel struts and
shortened gear legs.
Almost ready for a takeoff. The Morane sits on the runway of a small,
private grass strip just north of Montreal, Canada. All the flying scenes
for the “young Amelia” part of the movie Amelia were shot here. All the
painted surfaces of the plane were covered to “ugly it up” for the movie.
