There are many bridges which a person might use to cross from the past to the future. This bridge might be named "Present," or perhaps it crosses a flowing river known locally as "River Present "

We are more familiar with the bridge that advances us in time; but occasionally such bridges can be traveled the other direction. We are not likely to travel that reversed direction by our own volition. When we have traveled that bridge going back, we have more often been taken back, and we were not aware of it as we were traveling.

This little aviation story is about such a bridge – a bridge made from one-inch-square steel tubing – and the story is about an amazing man and an equally amazing aircraft.

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I met Louie because his wife had told someone that local modelers could fly our radio-controlled sailplanes on their private airstrip. These models made no noise and were winched into the air on about 900' of nylon line. The winch was an electric motor powered by a car battery.

The only real condition was that we were to not interfere with private aircraft landing on his strip. We understood how to enjoy our aviation hobby without disrupting someone else’s.

When I first saw Louie, he was in his garage sorting square steel tubing. The floor was covered with this tubing, leaning on the walls were a few sheets of aluminum, and in a corner was a big roll of heavy Kraft paper as that used to make templates. In the middle of the floor was one work bench made from heavy iron. A large gas welding rig was standing at the end of the bench.

Louie wanted to show me his drawings and his engineering notes for the plane he was building. It, too, was a model...or more exact...it was a replica in a large scale. We understood each other because of aircraft design, with which I am familiar.

I looked at all his drawings and photographs. He had gone six states away to photograph a disassembled WWII German dive bomber, a Junkers Ju-87B Stuka. I had often seen this Stuka hanging from the ceiling of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. I had taken a very good photograph of it which I later enlarged, matted, and framed for Louie as a gift.

The museum was going to lower it to clean it but it was dropped and damaged. Another aviation museum said that they would rebuild it. This took place and the Stuka was re-installed in the museum.

While the plane was apart Louie photographed each detail of it. There were many photographs of aircraft parts that I could not identify, but Louie thoroughly knew the plane inside and out.

We went over his math and the notes of his engineering decisions. He was happy to explain all the details to someone who understood and someone who asked lots of questions. I thought that for a retired mechanical designer, he really knew what he was doing and in a lot of scientific and engineering disciplines.

Like me, he had only a high school education and a little technical schooling, but he had been interested in process control and he had patented some of his designs for machines to extract oil from various seeds and nuts.

A large industrial company was paying him for the rights to manufacture some of his machine and between his consulting and royalties, he had steady, profitable work, with few money problems.

He showed me the landing gear that he had just received. It was from a WWII U.S. military training plane; a PT-19.

He pointed to a crate with the rebuilt and licensed engine. It was one like two used on a large executive aircraft.

He would build the aircraft at 70% scale and he would use just hand tools. I had no reason to doubt that he would do this. He was good, and in tremendous detail he thought everything through to completion.

I later saw the fuselage frame he had welded together...all the sawing of tubing was by hand...his drill press was made from an electric hand drill mounted in a vertical press.

As the fuselage was going together, he was fashioning the aluminum bulkheads, and these were many shapes and sizes, and all pieces were cut by hand with snips and then formed with a mallet over the corner of his work bench. This corner had a varying radius so he could use parts of it to bend almost any radius.

I was seeing the progress of his work nearly every weekend. I once asked if he needed help and I told him that I could do a lot of the things he was doing. He declined my offer because he said that though he had drawings and it was going together how he had envisioned, there were just too many pieces that had to be adjusted to the plane after being made according to the plans.

I understood this...besides, I am sure that the quality of my hand work would not match his.

I was there when he had the fuselage frame propped at an angle and was pouring heated linseed oil into the hollow tubing of the completed fuselage frame and turning and tilting it so the oil would coat all the inside surfaces of the tubing. This, he explained, was just a good procedure to inhibit, unseen internal rusting.

He had fabricated the fuselage frame so the oil could coat all inside surfaces and then turn the fuselage frame until it had been emptied. He had measured the amount of the oil going in and then coming out so he would know when it had been fully drained.

The Stuka has gull wings and the landing gear was secured at the bend just outside of the fuselage. It looked good once it was on its landing gear, though the fuselage had yet to get its aluminum skin.

The wings were not needed yet and were still just steel tubing and aluminum sheets.

Then the engine was on and he was installing its wiring.

He was installing the many cranks and wheels in the rigging. The control was not totally by cables but it had many push rods. He had a good design reason for everything he did.

He had built his hangar by the time the internal structure of the wings were needed to be welded together. Again, this covering was aluminum sheets.

The real Stuka was built on jigs so that the outer skin was the structure. This is known as monocoque construction. This is best for mass production, but impractical for one-of-a-kind units.

Still, a 70% Stuka was a large airplane.

Dimensions for the original were 45' wingspan; 13' high; empty weight 6000 pounds; and it could take off weighing 9560 pounds. The Stuka flew combat missions every place Germany was fighting in WWII, and occasionally, this included at sea.

Louie’s Stuka had over a 32' wingspan; over 7' high; weighed 1680 pounds; and could take off weighing 2275. The original Stuka cruised at 130 mph; Louie’s cruised at 120 mph.

As the wing structure was taking shape, he was receiving more and more fly-in visitors. We modelers were moving our planes and gear more often to let them land and takeoff. We did not mind doing this because we like aviation and his was a beautiful place to fly our sailplanes.

Private pilots need someplace to fly to on the weekends, and Louie’s airstrip was a perfect place to go. Landing full-size aircraft on his strip was a little challenging and the pilots enjoyed signing his log book both for landing and for "inspecting" his Stuka.

The Stuka had a distinctively shaped prop and landing gear fairings. With much effort Louie stayed true to shape and function.

The landing gear wheel covers were unique to the Stuka and were necessary on any Stuka replica. Louie cut cross-sections from ply, assembled these pieces and then covered that wooden structure with screen wire to simulate the proper compound shapes. Then he slathered plaster all over the screen wire.

When the plaster was hard, he smoothed it to the proper form and finish. This was his male mold for covering with fiberglass. After the fiberglass had cured, he finished it to ready-to-prime condition. Then he used a power wheel saw to separate the fiberglass into two pieces. This was easily lifted off the mold and only a minor amount of trim work was needed to add the most distinctive thing about this realistic, ugly airplane.

Each time I saw the plane, there would be some other complicated technique that Louie had to either learn or newly demonstrate.

There was nothing on the plane that he did not fabricate, save the landing gear, engine, and prop plus a few minor pieces. The big 3-bladed wooden prop (by his design and dimensions) was carved by a master prop maker. It was not cheap.

He let an old flying friend taxi the Stuka and the friend put it on its nose, breaking the prop. It took eight months for a new prop to be carved and delivered.

There was a time when weather and business travel kept me away from his hangar, and he, being a very fast worker, I would be surprised with how much he had accomplished in such a short time. Though, in all he would spend over 8,000 hours on it and that doesn’t seem very short.

He had sprayed proper paint on it and it was detailed as the Stuka which Hans-Ulrich Rudel flew on the Eastern Front in WWII. Rudel was the most highly decorated German serviceman in WWII. He was in service from 1936 until 1945 and he flew over 2,530 combat missions. During that time he destroyed 11 aircraft, one battleship, one cruiser, 70 landing craft, 150 artillery emplacements, and 800 vehicles. However, it was his destruction of 519 Soviet tanks that got him most of his deserved fame. Many of these targets were exposed on the huge, open, flat Russian steppes, and making them inviting targets.

The only marking and color on Louie’s Stuka that was not on Rudel’s Stuka was Louie’s required ID...N87LL. This was on the vertical fin as small as regulations permitted.

Finally, the Stuka was ready for its first flight.

Only Louie and his wife knew when he would do this and it was accomplished in about an hour. He told me that he was pleased with it but it naturally needed some trim adjustments.

After these were done, he made another flight and this one was more involved. He said that it flew like the real ones – according to the many written accounts by the Stuka pilots in WWII. He had been corresponding with Rudel, who was in business in Argentina, where he was living.

The Stuka was finished with one, center fuselage "bomb" that could be opened to transport luggage. He had four "bombs" under the wings, as well.

The back seat faced aft and there was a single machine gun mount to try to protect the Stuka’s tail. His model machine gun looked real...even to the operation of the breech to charge the gun. I think he had made three of these guns.

He was flying it more and his wife had become his "gunner."

Then it was ready for its public unveiling.

He made arrangements with the press and flew to a nice local field to display the plane. His arrival was filmed for TV. Many photos were taken and he was interviewed by an unknowing but impressed media.

Though Louie was no longer a young man, many men much his junior would be worked to their knees trying to keep up with him. He was in superb physical condition but, alas, age alone can (and did) disqualify the renewal of his flight status.

He let an old military pilot friend demonstrate his Stuka with fly-bys at a few fly-ins. He confessed to me that he and his friend looked the same in flight gear and sunglasses and he was still flying it some though sans license.

Surprisingly, Hans-Ulrich Rudel and wife, Ursula, visited with Louie and took a ride in the plane as the gunner. Rudel had lost a leg late in WWII but continued flying combat missions in his Stuka until the war ended. He and several others flew their aircraft into an American-controlled area, landed, and surrendered. Of the pilots who landed, only Rudel deliberately ground-looped his Stuka to tear up the landing gear. German military personnel were supposed to destroy all equipment when retreating or surrendering. Rudel’s last act as an active German soldier was to tear up his Stuka.

In time Rudel had to give up flying after he had started living in Argentina.

Louie put out a very good, thorough publication of his Stuka’s construction and stated that there would be no plans available. This was in keeping with his recurring answer to a most obvious question; "How in the world did you decide to build a version of the ugliest and most difficult plane you could think of?"

His answer was, "I liked the history of the plane and pilots, but mostly, I didn’t want to build a plane that every shade-tree mechanic would try to copy."

There have been few Stuka replicas, but none could match Louie’s for authenticity.

In time, as is the case, Louie continued to age and when he had done every test that could be done to show that he was still fit enough to fly, he could not get his pilot’s license renewed.

He put the Stuka up for sale in Trade-A-Plane. He was asking $125,000.

He thought he had a buyer and after a lot of correspondence and phone calls, the money was moved from West Germany to the U.S. and the plane was going to be licensed in West Germany – he and the new owner were discussing the best shipping method.

Then the deal fell apart.

The airplane was a Stuka and civil laws prohibited a Stuka from flying in West Germany. The plane had caused that much hysteria during WWII.

Though it was 70% the size of the original, from a short distance this could not be determined. It would be a spooky thing to see in the air over Europe.

The Stuka had made war from Western Britain to Moscow, from Finland down to Romania and the length of Italy, including crossing the Mediterranean to Cyprus and Sicily and into North Africa. It was used extensively in Greece and Crete and the Aegean Sea.

When the prospective owner was wanting to fly the Stuka in Europe, there were still a lot of people who had cringed in basements and bomb shelters when Stukas were overhead.

It was a true terror weapon. Besides the natural devastation from accurately placed bombs, there were sirens mounted to the Stuka landing gear. These would scream as the Stuka made its dive before bomb release. The sirens would be heard all during the dive bombing raid. Its pitch and volume would change with the Stuka’s airspeed.

And again, there was no grace about the appearance of the Stuka. It was indeed an ugly, mean-looking aircraft.

Louie and a friend flew it from South Mississippi to San Diego, CA, where the wings were removed and it was all trucked to the San Diego Aerospace Museum. There it was reassembled and put on display for 12 years.

At some point afterwards, the Stuka was sold to a Mississippi business man and the flight west was reversed and the Stuka was back flying in Mississippi. It was seen in several airport fly-ins and the new owner always put on a good show.

I saw it during one of these flight demonstrations, but I didn’t care for the inaccuracies in the PA announcer’s comments so I wrote up a short, accurate script and gave it to him. He was convinced that he had been mis-informed and he stuck to my script after that and I think the crowd was then more impressed with the aircraft and its designer/builder.

In time Louie’s family became fewer and he ended up in the Midwest living in an apartment near a relative. We chatted a few times on the phone. He was pleased when I related that the Stuka was flying in airshows and fly-ins. I told him how it was being flown and he said, with a laugh, "Well, he has more nerve than I would have!"

Louie lived there until he passed away in 1995. He was 88.

*****

I lost track of the Stuka for a few years and one day decided to see if I could locate it. I found it based in a cold, northern state, and I spoke with and corresponded with the new owner. He was flying it and was impressed with the workmanship and aircraft longevity. He sent me a few pictures of it, and in one, it was sitting outside in snow. The color of the photo was a little faded and the photo looked a lot older than it was. Indeed, the Stuka now looked weathered and used – even battle worn. It looked like Rudel might have been flying it all day all year on missions off the Russian steppes.

It is my favorite picture of Louie’s Stuka because the photo could have been taken in the winter of 1942 – somewhere in Russia – near the Volga. Stukas had many dive bombing sorties on Stalingrad and Moscow.

*****

One of my stranger contacts with the Stuka story occurred when I received a phone call from a lady wanting to know what I knew about Rudel, Louie, and the Stuka. She had gotten my name from someone who had read something I had written. She was Rudel’s daughter and was trying to get all the information she could about him.

Hers is another intriguing and utterly amazing story about Rudel and Stukas – but it is hers to tell; not mine.

*****

The latest information on the Stuka is that it is back in the warm south and within 60 miles of its birthplace in Mississippi. It is on display at the Big Easy Wing of the Commemorative Air Force at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. It was donated to them by its northern owner.

Back when Louie had been flying the Stuka awhile and I was still seeing it in his hangar, I was out flying my sailplanes and Louie surprised me with a question that I have never even hinted at.

He asked if I would "like a ride in the Stuka one of these days."

The answer was "Yes...very much so!"

But that is not what I said.

I heard these words come out of my mouth; "Louie, I appreciate the offer. I have flown in all sorts of planes and I am still flying for NASA, but ‘EXPERIMENTAL’ is on the Stuka’s instrument panel. I would have no insurance should anything happen. I just have too many family responsibilities to take that sort of risk."

He understood and nothing more was ever said about it.

But I thought about my answer for a long time. And I thought about some of the other aircraft I had happily flown in. His was most likely the safest flight I could have had outside of commercial air travel, yet I turned the ride down.

I decided that somewhere after wallowing a Taylorcraft around the sky, riding in a maltreated Ercoupe, and being party to breaking a wing on an expensive executive aircraft – sometime between the early 1950s that then in the mid-1970s, I had ceased being a "sky whore."

The End.