Monday, June 18, 2012

Mooresville, North Carolina: Brothers plan historic flight this week - They’ll fly vintage planes to Piper Cub event in Pennsylvania

Howard Miller (left) and his sons Joe (center), Perry (right) and Tom (not pictured) will fly vintage planes from their home near Mooresville to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Story and photo:   http://www2.hickoryrecord.com


By: Jim Mcnally | Hickory Daily Record 
Published: June 18, 2012

MOORESVILLE NC -- The story of the flying Miller family is one that dates back to the 1940s, when Howard Miller, the father, was a lad growing up in western Rowan County, about a mile or so over the Iredell line.

As teens, Miller and his twin brother Harold somehow both got the sense that the ground was too confining and the real action was up in the sky somewhere.

When the boys were 17 they signed up for the U.S. Army with the aim of becoming pilots in its flight wing, known as the Air Corps.

"But before we ever made it to flight school, the war had ended," recalled Howard Miller, now 86. "So we used our G.I. Bill to learn how to fly."

And learn they did.

The brothers returned from flight school in Tulsa, Okla., and wanted to get airborne as often as possible.

"So we pooled our money, which was about $600, and headed to an Army surplus store," Miller said. "And we looked for the cheapest airplane they had left over from the training done during the war."

What they found allowed the twins to walk away with a few hundred dollars still in their pockets.

"We paid $382," Howard said. "But we had to replace a lot of fabric on that plane."

Miller was not talking about patching up the seats or the side walls of the cockpit but rather the wings and fuselage and other vital parts of the airplane itself.

"We got it flying, though," he added, and showed a piece of material, Ceconite, that could seemingly be used to make a shower curtain.

"And this is lot stronger than what we used back then," he said. "But really, if you dope up any kind of fabric enough, it’s going to be pretty tough."

Miller, who took his first solo flight at the Statesville Airport, has been flying ever since, and a good part of that airtime has been spent in planes from the same era or even older than the one he and his brother nursed back to shape in the days not long after World War II.

Three of those aircraft — a 1947 Cessna; 1946 Piper J-3 Cub; and the crown jewel of the fleet, a vintage 1934 Taylor E-2 Cub — will be used by Howard and his three sons to fly to Lock Haven, Pa., for the 75th anniversary of the Piper Cub in a gathering called the "Sentimental Journey Fly-In."

Like Miller himself — who was a pilot for Piedmont Air for more than 30 years, and also helped his older brother Jimmy manage the Statesville Airport for three decades ending in the mid-1970s — his sons have all made comfortable livings in aviation.

The Millers will make the journey Wednesday and Thursday.

Joe, 59, and Tom, 58, are both captains with U.S. Airways. Perry, 52, is a mechanic with the airline.

But the men all have to step back in time when working on or flying the planes that are parked in hangar-barns at the family’s airpark on U.S. Highway 150, just east of Mooresville.

The 1934 Cub (which, having been built by its predecessor, is actually older than Piper Company) is one of only eight still in existence and five of them are in museums, Perry said.

The instrument panel in the plane’s cockpit would be envious of what might be found on a motorcycle of today. It has only four gauges: those for oil pressure and temperature; a tachometer for the engine; and an altimeter.

The plane is powered by a 40-horsepower engine. (By comparison, there are riding lawnmowers with upward of 30-horsepower.) Shocks in the landing gear are absorbed by bungee chords and air speed is measured by a gadget attached to the starboard wing whose lever is depressed by the pressure it faces that corresponds to numbers written along the side of it.

"But you don’t really need it," Howard said. "You can just tell how fast you’re going."

And there isn’t a lot of figuring out to do. The plane maxes out at 60 mph and if it’s flying too much slower than that, it’s barely airborne. And if it’s flying faster than that, gravity has taken over command of the operation.

The plane’s "fuel gauge" is a kind of dipstick that juts out of the cowling in front of the cockpit. The submerged end of the stick is attached to a cork and as the fuel runs out the cork follows its surface to the bottom.

"That’s all you need," said Joe Miller. "As long as cork floats on gasoline, this mechanism will work."

The plane’s wooden propeller cost $40 when the plane was new. A replacement now is $1,000, which would go a long way toward purchasing the entire aircraft when it left the Bradford, Pa., shop in the first few years of the Franklin Roosevelt administration.

With almost no fancy equipment to get them there, the men will actually fly by comparing a map (made of real paper) to landmarks they can literally see below them.

"It’s low-tech," said Joe. "But it works."

All the Millers are looking forward to the trip in the old airplanes.

"This is fantastic," said Perry.

"This is the first time we’ve done a trip like this with dad.

And, with him being 86, it could be the last one. But you never know. That guy refuses to get old."

Added Joe, "It really is a journey. It’s a chance to spend quality time together and also to get out in these planes, which really are our family’s heirlooms. And not only with dad, but as brothers, it gives us a chance to rekindle our friendship. It’s something we’ll be able to talk about for awhile." 

Story and photo:   http://www2.hickoryrecord.com

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