EAA Chapter 25

You know Bert Sisler as one of our active chapter members. You may not know that Bert was our first chapter president. Jon Cumpton interviewed Bert this month to learn more about his extensive experience in aviation.

How did you first get interested in flying?
That would have been as a kid in the early 1930’s in Grand Rapids. They didn’t have an airport then, but every year or so these barnstormers would fly in and as they flew over we would run out and catch the adver- tising bills they dropped. A group of us started building airplane models in grade school. We had no guidance, so they were pretty crude, and we never had much luck flying them – it was more like we would go out and practice breaking them! My dad said I had an obsession with airplanes, and I suppose he was right. But we were pretty much on our own, and there was really no competition and not much to focus our interest on. Later they built an airport (grass field in those days) in Grand Rapids, and that was a great help.

Do you remember your first airplane ride?
My first ride was probably in a Travel Air, in one of the barnstorming events. We would spend a couple days wiping oil off the belly of the Travel Air in return for a ride. While they were giving rides, I remember they would hold a contest. A couple of guys flying biplanes would load up a couple passengers, fly a circuit and land, take off their pants, and fly another circuit in their shorts. Whichever pilot finished first would win the prize.

What was your early flight training like?
I got a couple rides in a Cub where I got to hold the stick, but it really wasn’t flight training. The first flight was with a pilot from Hibbing. I remember my dad wanted to meet him first, so he came by the house before taking me up. Another fellow, Babe Alsworth, flew in from Waseca and landed his Cub on the ice near our house one winter. I received another ride from him.

The real flight instruction began when I was a junior in high school, working at the airport in the summer, gassing up planes and changing oil. For working six long (10-12 hour) days I would receive $6 a week and 11â?„2 hours of flight training. The mosquitoes at the airport were so bad that we would tie down one Cub and leave the engine running while we worked on an- other Cub behind it. The propeller blast would keep the mos- quitoes away! It was fun to taxi the Cubs back and forth to the hangars. During the war years they started up the CPT (Civilian Pilot Training) program, and that provided a lot more work at the airport.

Did you fly in the military?
I joined the Army during WWII and was assigned to basic training in the regular Army Air Corp. They had an evaluation process to slot the recruits into various specialties, and I had my choice of navigator, bombardier, or pilot. Of course I se- lected pilot and went through several levels of training. I trained in PT 22’s, PT 13’s, and earned my AT6 wings at Wil- liams Field near Phoenix. This was followed by gunnery train- ing. I was selected for night training in B25’s at Douglas, Ari- zona. I was then transferred to Fresno, California where I was trained in P61’s. During that period I was also renting aircraft at civilian airports, and picked up my commercial instructor rating that way. I finished my training in P61’s just as the war ended.

They kept many units active for a time after the war as they demobilized, and many pilots moved on to other assignments. I was assigned to the flight line where we supported training of the GCI (Ground Control Intercept) radar crews. They had ra- dar on the ground for initial tracking, and radar in the intercept aircraft for closing in on the target. We would fly at night, and the unit on the ground would vector us to intercept the aircraft being tracked. We would approach the target via vectors until we could spot it on our own radar. As we closed on the target at night from below, the first visual indication was always the exhaust rings from the engines.

What did you do after the war?
After the war I returned to college at the University of Minnesota. I started out in aeronautical engineering, but that field was pretty crowded and I switched to mechanical engineering. While in college, I was still in the Air Corp Reserve, and would fly AT6’s, AT11’s, and P51’s. During the summer, I instructed at Grand Rapids. After graduation, I took an engineering job with Kimberly Clark in Neenah, Wisconsin. During that time I rented aircraft out of Timmerman Field north of Milwaukee and earned my commercial instrument rating.

How did you begin flying with Northwest?
There was a lot of competition for airline jobs in those days. The airlines preferred pilots with four-engine bomber experience. I was selected for ground training by Northwest Airlines, but you had to take the training on your own time; you were not placed on the payroll. I returned to Minneapolis for the ground training and took various assignments from an engineering job shop to make ends meet. Near the end of the Korean War I finally got on the Northwest payroll for training flights in the DC3, and was placed on reserve status. When Northwest called, I would drop my pencil and take the flight. This continued for three or four months until I was laid off with the end of the war, when Northwest lost their flight contracts for Korea. I was on lay-off for two or three years – at that time I set a national record as the pilot with the longest lay-off from Northwest Airlines.

When I finally got back on reserve status with Northwest, I spent a year flying DC3’s, then DC4’s. I was then assigned to their Test Ops section for three years, where we conducted test flights on aircraft being returned to service after repairs and the like. I flew for a year in Lockheed Electras and Boeing jets, finally checking out as captain on the 727. After a few years I went on to flying 707’s, and then to DC10’s. I spent my last five years at Northwest flying 747’s with flights to Europe and the Orient.

When did you build your first airplane?
Throughout college, I was always sketching designs for air- planes. While working for Northwest in the 50’s, I spent many Saturdays at Southport with others who shared a strong interest in building airplanes. Southport was a grass field at the southeast corner of Cedar and Co. Rd. 42. Of course it is now a shopping center. One member of our group, Fritz Davis, was finishing up a Pietenpol at the time. He was a very strong influence and a great inspiration for all of us. It was around that same time, probably ’54 or ’55, that five of us decided we wanted to build an airplane. So we went together and started building a Stits Playboy. We did this with sawhorses, a hacksaw and files – that was our big investment in tooling! These were low-dollar projects, as nobody had any money then. But the support from everyone in the group in those days was just wonderful. George Jenson and I finished the Playboy around 1961.

The EAA fly-in had moved to Rockford by that time, and we flew the Playboy down there a number of years. We would fly down and camp in the woods, and we always had a lot of fun. We did a lot of flying, and the emphasis in those days was on homebuilts. Eventually George bought my share and later sold it. I last saw it down at Jenson airport about ten years ago. Chuck Doyle had it at that time; I’m not sure where it is now.

What other projects have you built?
My next project was a low-wing two-place that I designed. I named it the Pipet. It was an original design – I didn’t have any particular airplane in mind when I designed it. But in designing you use what you have learned from other air- planes. So there are similarities to the Playboy and others, but many differences also. I completed the Pipit in 1970. We flew the Pipit around to many fly-ins and had a lot of fun with it.

The Whistler was my next homebuilt. I wanted to make some improvements on the Pipet design to make it easier to fly. These included a longer wing and a longer tail to give it a little more stability. My son Eric learned to fly in the Whistler, and he really liked the way it flew. The Whistler was kind of a predecessor to the Cygnet.

The Cygnet is the latest design I’ve built. I originally completed this one in 1977. You can see from the photos that it has a rather unique wing design and superb visibility. I eventually sold it, but a few years ago I found it was on the market again. My son wanted to restore it and get back into flying again, so we bought it. We completely recovered it and replaced the Volkswagen engine with a Jabiru. Eric flies it up to his cabin now.

You’ve also restored some factory built aircraft?
Yes, I restored a Culver Cadet and donated it to the Antique Aircraft Association in Ottumwa. I also restored a Piper Clipper with a 106 hp engine, and a Piper Pacer. I sold the Pacer to Mike Dolan at Sky Harbor, and he is still flying it.

Any plans for a new design?
I’ve been thinking about a three-engine design for some time, and I’ve done quite a bit of work on it. That is, I’ve worked out a lot of the numbers for dimensions, weight and balance, power, drag etc. I’ve done some work prototyping the cabin, and I have that in my garage. It would be a six place airplane, named the Six Pac. I think the Jabiru might be the right engine, with its high power to weight ratio. But it would take a major effort to complete this, and I haven’t committed to that yet. But, we’ll see.