Hi Netters.
Would you like a bit of history ? Emile Meneke was a German fighter pilot in
World War 1. He fought in Turkey and became an ace. After the war he worked as
test pilot for Focker Aircraft in Holland until he retired in 1945 as chief
test pilot. He immigrated to Canada . I met this pilot in 1961. He was full of
stories of aviation from all ages. One story came about as he and I were
looking at a swaged nicropress connection on an aircraft cable. I had suggested
that the nicropress fitting was the weak link in the connection. He said no. We
used to join two control cables when necessary by taking a piece of copper
tubing just large enough to run both cables through it, the end of the cables
stuck out the opposite ends. The copper tube was about 10 inches long.You
then took two vise grips, one on each end of the copper tube and twisted it up
like a rope for about 5 turns. He said that it would never pull apart. I still
like the three squeezes on the present nicro[press system. Emile Meneke died of
natural causes at age 85. His son Hans, also a pilot and homebuilder, built a
Stits Flutter bug which he was testing around 1970. He had to take care to keep
an eye on his father, who would have loved to climb in and go, poor eye sight
and all.
Regards,
Harold Woods
Orillia,ON. Canada.
haroldwo...@rogers.com
Regards.
