William Hung wrote in
:

On Feb 10, 10:27*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote
innews:evydnYBenbEiMTLanZ2dnUV
:







Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in news:jPSdnQVqtcu-
:
You knew Dick Schramm? Cool!

Most of the time I did this I was flying barefoot anyway....

Bertie

Knew both Sr. and Jr. Both were great guys. Dick Jr. was on the
mike
narrating for Dick when he was killed.
He was probably one of the finest sticks ever with a light
plane. It was a freak accident, and I used it in my "Importance
of Preflight Inspections" safety talks for many years.

I don't know how it happened, in fact. My father saw it and came
home
talking a buch of BS about how it was a result of that fake
stick thing he used to do, and in fact I heard that story from
the usual suspects for years afterwards, but I alwyas thought it
sounded like BS.

Bertie

The way we got it was that Dick used to "borrow" a J3 from Red
Bank when he was doing the clown act at Reading. I believe it was
their airplane that day that he was using.
Apparently they had used it the day before for a photo shoot and
had taken the rear stick out of the airplane to accommodate that
mission.
When the stick was put back into the airplane after the photo
shoot, whoever put it back apparently forgot to replace the lower
cotter
pin
that safties it in the bracket.
Dick was doing one of his low altitude loops and had just gone
through
the upper energy gate and was starting down the back side when
the stick came out of the bracket. He had 0 control at that
point. I
swear
I saw him trying to put it back in the bracket (of course we had
no way of knowing this was what he was doing at the time).
He went straight in. Never had a chance. Dick Jr. was on the mike
and
I don't know how in hell he got through it but he kept his cool
and tried to quiet everyone down. We both knew it was bad.
Anyway, that's what happened.

Oh. OK. That's what I heard, in fact.
Dick is remembered fondly in the aerobatic and demonstration
community. There is an award in his name and he is probably the
only person ever to be made an honorary Naval Aviator without
going
through
Naval Flight training. A wonderful guy, and a great pilot. Never
had
a
bad word for anyone about anyone.
The cotter pin should have been checked secured before the
display
but
for some unknown reason it was missed.

Jesus.
I don't think the rear stick on a J-3 comes out. Maybe they do but
I'm
guessing the airplane was modded. Some of the tugs I flew had no
rear stick and no rear rudder pedals, but they were heavily
modified.

Bertie

I've never actually seen the lower attach bracket on that stick.
This plane might very well have been modified because it was our
understanding that they used it for aerial photography in normal
operation. I would imagine that would be a 337 if so.

Can't really see why piper would have made it removable.

Bertie- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I know that the left seat controls for the Robinson R22 helicopters
are removable with a button not unlike a button on an umbrella.

Yeah, a lot of airplanes have easily removeable sticks. Ordinarialy
they're removable with a bolt through a sleeve, but I can't remember the
cub having one. I did fly one with no rear stick but it had been
modified for towing and had no rear seat and no rear rudder pedals
either. The nub of th erear stick was there since that's where all the
cetral parts of the control system were. The bottom part of the stick
was also the aileron horn, for instance.



Bertie