{"id":756,"date":"2010-09-15T20:01:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T01:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fitzvideo.com\/sky_surfing\/?p=756"},"modified":"2010-09-15T20:06:35","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T01:06:35","slug":"interview-with-jerry-may-about-his-1936-rearwin-sportster-%e2%80%a2-11sept10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/2010\/09\/15\/interview-with-jerry-may-about-his-1936-rearwin-sportster-%e2%80%a2-11sept10\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Jerry May about his 1936 Rearwin Sportster \u2022 11Sept10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, which was the anniversary of the World Trade Center Attack, I had the opportunity to drive up to Axtell, Nebraska to talk to Jerry May. I had met Jerry and his son Mike at the recent annual Antique Airplane Association<\/a> Fly-in at Blakesburg, Iowa. His plane really caught my eye and has what I call a “tuxedo” paint job that is stunning.<\/p>\n

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A vertical rainbow connecting the cloud bank to the ground.<\/p><\/div>\n

Just after sunrise and north of Newton, Kansas I saw this interesting cloud bank with what appeared to be a “stick” rainbow coming out of it.<\/p>\n

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High Bank Museum - Photo Courtesy of the Museum<\/p><\/div>\n

I stopped at the Kansas Tourist center in Belleville, Kansas<\/a>. It is near the border with Nebraska. Right next door to it is the Midget Racing Museum<\/a>. It was too early to enter it so I took a few pictures. The one above I got from their website. It looks like an interesting museum but since I was on a mission and also because it was closed I had to pass on by.<\/p>\n

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Memorial Benches on the checkerboard plain<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Great Platte River Road Archway<\/p><\/div>\n

I had never traveled on Highway 80 before and saw this interesting crossing ahead. I fumbled around to pull my camera out of my pocket and snapped this shot out of my windshield. It is called The Great Platte River Road Archway<\/a>. Maybe some day I will get a chance to stop here but like I said before… I was on a mission.<\/p>\n

About 15 minutes after taking the picture above I realized I had missed my turnoff. Apparently my desire to get the Archway picture had overridden my observation of the pertinent road sign. Suffice to say I finally figured this out in a construction zone where there were no places to turn around for miles. In desperation I confess that I pulled a “U” turn in a forbidden turnaround because I was already late for my interview.<\/p>\n

When I finally got there (about an hour late) I was dismayed to learn that Jerry had hit a deer with his pickup and his whole grille was messed up pretty bad. I thought about taking a picture of it to put on this blog but decided it might be “bad form”.<\/p>\n

Before they pulled the Rearwin out of the hangar, I took a few snapshots in and around their hangar.<\/p>\n

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Jerry's Luscombe<\/p><\/div>\n

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The 1936 Rearwin nested down in the hangar<\/p><\/div>\n

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A collection of rare engine parts<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another table of rare parts<\/p><\/div>\n

Jerry and his son Mike have a business restoring airplanes. In the course of restoring various aircraft over the years they have come into possession of a variety of parts for some of the older engines used in these aircraft.<\/p>\n

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Mike May puts his Robinson in the hangar<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to working on fixed wing aircraft, Jerry and Mike maintain, restore and repair helicopters. Mike owns this Robinson that he is making improvement modifications to. Jerry also has designed a very interesting helicopter that utilizes jet turbine exhaust routed through the rotor to power it. They are working on a prototype that should be airborne before too long.<\/p>\n

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Jerry May and his 1936 Rearwin Sportster<\/p><\/div>\n

I love this setting because their airfield is right in the middle of a cornfield. You couldn’t get more Nebraska authentic than that.<\/p>\n

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This sun is setting as I leave the May's hacienda and airfield<\/p><\/div>\n

After a long but fruitful day I snapped this photo of the May farmstead as I headed down a country road on my way back to Wichita.<\/p>\n

Blue Skies & Tailwinds!<\/p>\n

Brian FitzGerald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, which was the anniversary of the World Trade Center Attack, I had the opportunity to drive up to Axtell, Nebraska to talk to Jerry May. I had met Jerry and his son Mike at the recent annual Antique Airplane Association Fly-in at Blakesburg, Iowa. His plane really caught my eye and has what I […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antique-or-classic","category-show-an-airplane","category-uncategorized","category-9-id","category-5-id","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}