reasons left unexplained .
The retirees of my company are having a guest speaker at our dinner. He will be talking about Smith Field, a small airfield that has existed since before WWII. It's still active but is now surrounded by homes.
This talk reminded me of my younger motorcycling days so I dragged out a story about Smith Field.
Smith Field and War of the Giants (Motorcycle related)
Here in the Ft Wayne area there has been controversy about Smith Field, a flying Field for small
aircraft on the north side of Ft. Wayne. The land that Smith Field is composed of has a high
value. Many people want the county to sell it and plat it out for new homes. I wouldn't want to
see it go, too many fond memories. Today, Smith Field is completed surrounded by many
homes.
It wasn't like that in 1948. In fact Smith Field was out in the sticks then and my riding buddy,
Tom, worked there in the evening.
Tom's major duty was to turn on the runway lights if someone wanted to land there at night.
Since there was no two way radio, it was the practice to fly over the field twice. This would be
the signal for turning on the runway lights. Night landings at Smith were few and far between!
Enter a brilliant idea.
I would ride out there at night to keep Tom company. Of course the real reason was to drag race
our 1946 Matchlesses on the runways. Our Thumpers were exactly alike, both were '46 models,
500 cc singles, hard tails, and with the compression plates removed. The compression plates were installed at the Matchless factory for the use of the low octane gasoline (petrol) available in Britain. Removing the quarter inch thick plates from under the cylinder (jug) resulted in a higher compression and made better use of the higher octane gasoline in the US.
Needless to say, some nights I would win, some nights Tom would win. That became boring fast
I decided to make a change so I experimented shifting through the gears of the Flying M at
different speeds (our bikes had no tachs). It took awhile but I found that by using the "seat of the
pants" approach that I was revving the engine 'way past its torque curve in first, second, and
third gear. I finally ended up with shifting that high torque, low horsepower (22) engine out of 1st at
15mph, 2nd at 30mph, and 3rd at 45mph. Yeah!
The next night I thumped my way out to Smith field but I didn't tell Tom what I had found out.
We lined up on the runway, Tom blew his horn and we started out even. I short shifted through
the gears and left him behind all the way to 8Omph, which was close to the max top speed of
both bikes. We tried it twice more to allow for "missed shifts, late starts, etc" or whatever else
excuse that Tom could think of. Nothing worked for him. It was obvious that Tom thought I had
done something to my bike.
I let him stew for awhile and then I dropped the bombshell! I told him that since he thought my
bike had been "worked on" I would, in all fairness, swap bikes. He could ride mine and I would
ride his. Now we're getting somewhere!
It got him nowhere! I beat him again and again. I was really getting to him, I was driving him
nuts!— And then, since he was a good friend, I told him my secret, the early shift points..
The two Matchlesses were again equally matched and Tom and I had a big laugh over it
This story reminded me of a pic that I took in 1948 at Smith Field. The pic was taken with a Kodak Baby Brownie, .69 cents worth of camera, 127 size. It's kinda amzing that the negative has stood the test of time, printing and fixing by Photoshop.
