CLAREMORE (OK) — Almost 50 years after the last Funk Aircraft came off the line — and many years after buying a Funk — Don Scott of Coffeyville (Kansas) is still cruising the skies in a plane manufactured in his hometown.
Scott, a regular at the annual Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In, will drop down Sunday, Aug. 12, on the 2,000 foot grass strip adjacent to the house where Will Rogers was born Nov. 4, 1879. The Fly-in is a day of remembrance of Will and Wiley, aviation’s biggest boosters as the time of their death in an Alaskan plane crash Aug. 15, 1935.
Pilots in aircraft ranging from antique and homemade to late model, helicopters and ultra lights return each year for the fly-in to showcase their planes, reminisce their flying days and renew friendships.
Scott has been coming to the birthplace ranch fly-in the past half dozen years.
A resident of Coffeyville almost 60 years, he hasn’t strayed far from his birthplace. A native of South Coffeyville, after working as a machinist, he left to return to his roots as a cattleman on a spread south of the Kansas-Oklahoma border.
When he’s not at the ranch, he’s in the air or at the Coffeyville Airport, where he keeps his 1947 Funk and a 1947 Luscombe. Many weekends are spent at fly-ins; the most recent the Bi-Plane Exposition in Bartlesville and a fly-in at Independence (Kansas), home of the new Cessna Aircraft plant.
Scott actually learned to fly on a grass strip at South Coffeyville (later hard surfaced), a student of the late Ray Sage.
He bought his Funk plane several years ago after it had been wrecked.
“I spent about two years restoring it and have been flying it for several years since,” he said. “It goes to a lot of fly-ins in this area. My son, Mike learned to fly in it a few years ago.”
Accompanied by his wife, Rita, he has piloted the Funk two-placer to fly-ins in New Orleans (his longest trip), Nebraska and Illinois as well as those in a four-state surrounding area.
“I usually don’t go too far. It doesn’t go real fast, about 100 miles an hour,” he said with a laugh.
He takes great pride in both his planes. The Luscombe is all-metal. The Funk is fabric covered.
Twins, Joe and Howard Funk born in Ohio, excelled in mechanical abilities. Born in the heart of America’s air industry, they developed an interest in flying. They turned their retail grocery business into the vehicle to support their flying dreams and in 1934 flew their first Funk aircraft. After many modifications, they moved production from the back room of a poultry store to a plant at the Akron airport.
They labored under woes of a design flaw in an engine, which forced them into bankruptcy until rescue by Coffeyville oilfield suppliers Bill and Raymond Jensen. A condition of the Jensen buyout was to relocate to Coffeyville. The revived firm began production as Funk Aircraft in 1941.
The company was again forced into a slump with the halting of private aircraft construction during the war years. After the war when many wartime pilots bought their own planes, the Funks resumed production in Coffeyville — at one time employing more than 200 people on the production line. In 1946 they manufactured 178 planes.
With release of postwar surplus military aircraft and a glut of new civilian aircraft, production at the Coffeyville plant fell. A few planes were produced in 1947. At the end of 1948 Funk Aircraft ceased production.
Although there are no reliable records, it is believed 337 planes were produced. About 200 Funk planes are believed to be flying, according to a Funk Aircraft Owners website. “This is testimony as to the safety, quality, durability, strength and enduring worth of the Funk brothers’ work,” according to the website
Will Rogers was a Cherokee Indian boy who turned his rope spinning talent into world-wide reputation as a cowboy humorist, trick roper, star of stage and screen, daily newspaper columnist, author and radio commentator. He never piloted a plane, but flew at every opportunity and was a recognized aviation expert.
He was often a passenger with Wiley, a fellow Oklahoman, who flew around the world twice — one of them alone — and was inventor of the first space suit.
Will had just finished filming “Steamboat Round the Bend,” when he and Wiley flew to Alaska. Wiley was looking for a mail and passenger air route between the United States and Russia with the destination across Siberia. It was in the takeoff from a little river near Barrow, Alaska, the plane went down and the two were killed.
Will is buried in Claremore on the grounds of Will Rogers Museum, opened three years after his death. The museum and birthplace ranch are open 365 days a year from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is by donation.
Anniversary of Will Rogers-Wiley Post Death Sunday, Aug. 12
Wednesday, Aug. 15
(Call 918-341-0719 for information) |