Porterville, CAL

By 1979 I had relocated my business (from Compton, CA) and home (from Lakewood, CA) to Fallbrook, CA. 1980 saw us off to Porterville, CA.

My airplane, #32 Mong, in black & white as purchase/traded from Don Perri, had a cooling problem. Testing of the pressures surrounding the cowling disclosed that there was insufficient low pressure area into which one could extract the 'hot' air. I decided to move the top wing down to much nearer the fuselage and use the upper surface of the top wing into which to dump the 'hot' air thus using the low pressure area located there to good advantage. To some degree this worked well. One problem related to cooling still remained and would take two more years for me to find.

The 1980 annual June Moonlight Fly-in at Porterville, CA had a demo race scheduled, featuring biplanes. I couldn't wait. I flew up with several crew & friends. The weather was HOT! I still had an oil temp problem. Danny Mortensen recommended that I purchase some synthetic oil which he said could help. He was an AmsOil dealer but he did not have sufficient oil with him so he introduced me to the local dealer and I coughed up the exorbitant expense for two gallons. A test flight showed that the money was well spent and that Danny was correct in that the oil temp went down noticeably and the pressure remained higher even at elevated temps.

The race course was situated on airport property for the most part, utilizing two hay piles for two of the pylons. The race participants included aircraft sufficiently faster than my #32 such that our finish was 1st in the Silver. There was no purse to speak of and everone received a small trophy.

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