First off let me apologize for the poor pictures, I know what to do next time, and for the poor verbiage. Sandy will help me out but with her not being on this trip she won't be able to help as much as usual. Sandy is the one who makes the blog readable, believe me.
My friend and business partner, Dale, had to take his motorhome back to Nappanee, IN to have some work done. So back last winter he called and said since it was going to take about a week to get the work done would I like to come along and we could drive the motorcycles to New York State for the week. Of course I said YES right away, then I said let me check with Sandy. Being the nice gal that Sandy is, she said sure go ahead. So the trip was set. We left Dale’s place about 6:00 AM on June 1st and hit the road for about a 600 mile drive. Dale even let me drive for about 300 miles. He has a 40 foot Newmar with a tag axel. It sure is a smooth ride. But no, I’m sticking with the Lazy Daze. Once we got to the Newmar factory we unloaded the motorcycles, went into town for supper, then we got settled into the motorhome for the night as they said they would be around about 6:15 AM to get Dale checked in.
On the 2nd after Dale checked in with the service department we left Nappanee around 8:30 and hit the road. We followed US 6 east to Fremont, Ohio where we picked up I 80. We continued on through Youngstown, Ohio to Clarion, PA on I-80 where we got off the freeway and picked up NY 66 that took us north to the Allegheny National Forest. Now we are some nice riding roads.
In Kane, PA we connected with US 6 East and rode to Coudersport, PA where we stopped for the night. We asked why this town was called a port and they said it was because it was the start of the shipping on the Allegheny River down to Pittsburgh, PA.
From Coudersport we headed north to Hammondsport, NY. And did we ever get on some back roads. But then, that’s part of the fun.
We wanted to stop in Hammondsport at the Glen Curtiss Museum. In the 80’s and 90’s Dale’s and my company built a lot of metal stamping dies for a company in Hammondsport called Mercury Aircraft. They were no longer in the aircraft business at that time but were making parts for IBM main frame and personal computers. The museum is about both Glen Curtiss and the surrounding area.
This gives a short synopsis of Glen Curtiss’s life. It goes from bicycles to motorcycles to engines for dirigibles to airplanes. He accomplished a lot in his short 52 years. http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/museum/glenncurtiss.html
The museum has displays of bicycles, motorcycles, planes, boats, home furnishings, cars, etc..
This is for our brother-in-law, John. Is this the plane you took flying lessons in? Just kidding.
They had a short video of this reproduction plane taking off and landing on Lake Keuka in Hammondsport.
This potato digger’s blade would bring the spuds near the surface, and then the rotating arms would kick them to the side.
There are also displays of home furnishing in the museum.
Penn Yan is a boat builder on the north end of Lake Keuka.
From back in WWII. It must have been tough flying that 10,000th built P-40 missing it’s rudder.
This was an interesting tidbit of information.
The America was built by Curtiss to compete for the $50,000 prize to be the first heavier-than-air aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But by the time the plane was ready in 1914 the British pilot was called back to duty in England because of the start of WWI. It was then sold to England as a anti-submarine reconnaissance patrol aircraft. This full scale replica was constructed by volunteers of the Glen Curtiss Museum restoration shop and was first flown in 2008.
As interesting as all this has been, the best for Dale and I was yet to come. As we passed a door we saw a sign that said “restoration shop” visitors welcome, so we went inside. This airplane was sitting inside and there was a gentleman in the room, but he was working on some shelving, probably for the gift shop. Anyway, in talking with him he said follow me, this might interest you. So we followed him out a back door to another building where they were reconstructing a P-40.
They had the parts of two P-40’s that had collided over a Florida swamp back in 1944. One of the pilots was killed and one survived.
This is how they hauled the parts out of the swamp in 1986.
Although the Museum has a P-40 on display, it is a 3/4 scale model, so they were excited to get these two aircraft. Because of all the damage over the years parts from both planes will be used to build one aircraft. They said the left over parts would be sold or bartered in the future. The P-40 will be for display only and not flyable.
Dale and I spent a lot of time back there visiting with the guys working on the plane. This takes a lot of dedication. We talked with one guy who was drilling out rivets and he said he must have drilled out a thousand rivets the day before and he was still drilling as we were talking to him. There are a lot of parts that have to be built from scratch but it helps that they were able to acquire a full set of blue prints.
Dale, we need to go back in a couple years to see how much they have accomplished.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
