In Aug. 1957 one of our pilots was landing at Allentown, PA, and thumped it on a bit hard. Ivan Bisel, a former Navy pilot, was taking his Chase type rating check ride with the CAA (now FAA) and probably his carrier-landing habits came into play more than was healthy for the Chase.

The Chase had a welded steel tubular fuselage with aluminum skin. There is a fair bit of tail hanging out there behind that small part of the fuselage, and the tubing simply crumpled and let the tail drop. Oops! Father thought it was going to be a big deal, but he called his old friend Thurman "TS" Alphin, in Hagerstown, MD, for advice. Thurman brought several of his old buddies from Fairchild and they had the fuselage jacked back up and repaired in no time flat.

My Uncle John Stoltzfus, "JP" to those who know him, and Bob "Pinky" Newman, went up to finish up the skins. Bob worked at Lukens Steel, in Coatesville, but was a real sheet metal guru. The left b&w photo shows him working on a skin; and then Uncle John in a relaxed mode (I don't think Father was on the scene right then); and Bob looking quite casual. You might notice in some of the subsequent photos that the zinc chromate primer didn't stick very well. Reason was - - the repair crew was a bit casual when they bought the sheet metal and they got anodized aluminum - - not meant to be used in this way!

These photos show the Curtiss Electric props, which were soon replaced by the Hamilton Standard 23E50's when we converted the Chases to R2600's. (next)

Spring of 1962 with the new control surfaces and the aft fuselage painted nicely. That's Lex DuPont's Ryan PT-22, N4708Z. Lex had a little fleet of his own and stopped up once in a while to chat with Father.

Probably 1962, from some negatives I bought. That's Piper J-3 N51533 in the background of the last photo. Karl and I owned it then, and it now belongs to my son Mark. It was just recently restored.

I know I'm posting a lot of similar photos here but there's not many shots of the Chases available so I'll just do most of the ones I have and you can skip over those that are too redundant for you!

1/67 Application for Airworthiness Certificate, “To support movie making”. Owner is Chartair, signed by W. Gilmore Simms, Agent, approved by Jaime D. Serra, MIA-GADO 7-3-05. Airframe total time now 1694-hours.

1/67 Certificate of Airworthiness for movie making in connection with Ivan Tors Studios, Inc. (scroll down)

3/67, Application for Airworthiness Certificate, “Transp. equipt. & Material for WS Cheek Mining Co.”, signed by Duane Egli, approved by William A. Allen, LIT GADO 2-1-06.

3/67 Operating Limitations. Note the definition of the operation including, “This aircraft operation is confined to the carriage of unique cargo into and out of the United States of America, that cannot be normally carried by commercial carriers due to the physical nature of that cargo.”

3/67 letter by Duane Egli, pilot, authorized agent for W. S. Cheek Mining Co., Guyana, South America, requesting an amendment of his Restricted Category Operating Limitations. Egli is apparently a colorful character, and when you google his name (middle initial A) you get some interesting results, including but not limited to this one on ruudleeuw.com and this one, both on arms running. (Scroll down, and/or Ctrl+F and search for Egli, on both)

Anyway - - after we sold N122S we were told that it was being used to smuggle vehicles into Brazil, duty free. They could get two cars into it by lifting the front of the first vehicle up over the step into the cockpit. We later heard that it had been landed on a sand bar in a river after one engine quit due to fuel mismanagement. The aircraft was undamaged but was covered by the rising river before it could be retrieved.