Legacy:  White, Gray, and Red

Standing at the counter at the auto-parts store, I started chuckling. Ed Ullrich’s legacy still has a grip on me.

I met Ed in the early ’80s, when I started at Boeing. He was my first lead engineer. We handled the instrumentation for a major test group, and I worked with him on several major programs.

Ed was a peppery little white-haired guy, within five years of his own retirement. I was happy to learn he was a pilot. And flabbergasted when he pulled out a photo that showed a neat-looking single-seat open-cockpit homebuilt. Ed was a member of the “Second Story” club, flying Story Special Serial Number 2. Pete Bowers had been a founding member, and had been flying it while designing the Fly Baby.

I remember thinking that that was the kind of plane I’d like to fly for the rest of my life.

He was also an A&P and talked about getting his start working on the big radial-engine airliners like Constellations and DC-6s. Ed was proud of his German heritage and told me about his uncle who was a fighter pilot in WW-II.

For the Luftwaffe.

Even after he retired, we stayed in pretty constant touch. I was writing by then and needed to take pictures to illustrate the articles. The little Instamatic I owned wouldn’t do; Ed sold me my first SLR camera, a Pentax K1000. The K1000 was dead-manual; nothing automatic, the user had to set the F-stop and shutter speed, manually focus, and manually advance the film after each shot. I learned a heck of a lot about photography from shooting that camera.

Didn’t cost much to shoot, either. One of Ed’s hobbies was photography, and he not only had his own darkroom, he bought film in bulk. He’d wind a little off into the film cartridges and give me some. Then he’d develop and print the pictures I’d taken and tell me what I’d done wrong. All the photos in my first book, Kitplane Construction, were developed and printed by Ed. For free.

As an A&P, Ed was performing the condition inspections for the Story club. Pete Bowers loaned the prototype Fly Baby (N500F) to our EAA Chapter, and we set up a flying club based on the airplane. Ed did the condition inspections for the Fly Baby, too.

He wouldn’t take payment. I’d buy him a nice present every Christmas.

I got the impression he really didn’t like N500F. Ed was always a bit crabby when he worked on it. “OK, we’ll get this thing legal for ONE more year …”, that sort of thing.

Once he showed up at the hangar to start the inspection. He paused by the wingtip and moved the aileron up and down. “There’s something wrong here,” he said.

Turns out there’d been a broken weld at the bottom of the control stick, 10 feet away. That’s the instinct that decades of aircraft maintenance will do for you. He also re-welded the broken fitting.

Eventually, of course, Pete sold N500F and I was without an airplane. About two years later, I called Ed. “Don Bell has his Fly Baby for sale,” I said. “He says you’ve been doing the annuals. What kind of condition is that plane in?”

The phone was silent for a moment. Then, “You buy that airplane, Ron.”

A week later, I slid a cream-and-green airplane into the same hangar where I used to keep N500F. I had continued to pay the hangar rent for two years after Pete sold N500F … kind of like an old maid’s hope chest.

I’ve owned Fly Baby N45848 since 1996. Maintenance issues have been light. Ed had given me a good steer.

He continued the inspections on my new Fly Baby (for free). By that time, he was out of the Story Club, flying a dark blue T-18 he’d bought. The T-18 had “Blue Max” in Germanic script across the cowl.

Eventually, though, time caught up with him. A series of health crises stopped his flying, cut back his mobility, and didn’t leave him with much.

The last time I saw Ed was as a gray streak above the central Washington sky.

He’d finally passed on, and his daughter contacted me. Her father’s wish was to have his ashes spread in the air over Okanogan, Washington, where he’d learned to fly. I ran a few trap lines through EAA, found a guy actually based at Okanogan who provided this sort of service.

So … several months later, my wife and I stood with Ed’s family, watching a stream of gray ashes as the Cessna did a low pass to the runway.

Skip ahead to the present day, back to where I was at the auto-parts store. I was there for just one thing.

There’s a lot of controversy about oil additives, for both auto as well as aircraft engines. One, in particular, has a lot of “old wives’ tales” about it—with somewhat vehement reactions: “Don’t use it!” all the modern engine experts say. “It doesn’t do a damn thing for you!”

But … Ed Ullrich used to talk about it. He used it in the radial engines of Northwest Airlines. He used it in the A65 in the Story Special, and the Lycoming in his T-18. And he told me to use it on my C-85, as well.

So on one side, there’s logic, chemistry, and a whole lot of experts with furrowed brows, saying, “Forget it!”

On the other side, there’s Ed: “It’ll help prevent valve problems, Ron.” I think of him perched on a rain-swept Seattle ramp, getting the corn-cob engines of a Constellation ready to carry passengers to Japan. I think of him at his uncle’s knee, laughing when the instructor urinated on the tailwheel of his uncle’s Jungmann to indicate he was ready to solo. I think of him scowling at Fly Baby N500F, keeping a historic aircraft in the air for ONE more year.

So I marched out of the auto-parts store with a big ol’ red jug of Marvel Mystery Oil. Four ounces into the fuel tank at every fill, with an occasional ounce or two into the oil.

The airplane had a valve issue right after I bought it, but not a speck of problems since. Is it the magic red oil? Maybe. Haven’t had any elephants infesting the hangar, either, so I guess it works as a pachyderm repellent, too.

I’m under no illusions.

But Ed said to use it, and that’s a legacy I’ll follow.