Injust a split second, the lift of an unexpected gust ended 47 unbroken years ofdamage-free flying for Bill Weiss — and simultaneously shattered the prop ofhis vintage de Havilland 82A Tiger Moth. "Hard to believe," Weiss saida few minutes after the incident Tuesday morning. "All the way from NewJersey, eight landings — and then this," he lamented, waving his hand atthe wrinkled cowling. And on the Moth’s first visit to AirVenture.

Making the cowling airworthy, even replacing a broken bracket, could berelatively simple compared to finding a suitable wood prop for the antique Gypsyengine, with its left-hand rotation. Getting back to Paramus by Tiger Moth facessome barriers.

Enter AirVenture’s own airplane ER: EAA Chapter 75’s Emergency AircraftRepair shop. The make and model may be rare, even at a show the size and scopeof AirVenture ’99; the situation, however, is not. With more than 10,000aircraft traversing Wittman Regional each year during the EAA convention, it’sinevitable that a few will break.

Each year, on average, the 40 or so chapter volunteers help about 200stricken airplane owners, pilots whose prize birds suffered someflight-threatening problem, something that could make the trip home somethingless than a warm, post-Oshkosh memory.

The most common problem the repair crew faced in its 36 years of service:"What we see most here is pilots with a problem," said Cy Galley,chairman of the shop, which is open each year during the EAA’s AirVenturefly-in.

"It’s what we do: help pilots with a problem so they can safely fly homeagain," said Galley, a member of EAA Chapter 75, based in the Quad Citiesarea of Illinois and Iowa.

Aglance outside the shop already made Galley point: In one corner, the crew of aT-8F liaison Luscombe worked to pull the cylinder from a 90 hp Continental; inanother, the owner got a spark out of a faltering mag in his short-wing Piper;planes came, got fixed, and went. Well, several of them, at least. We can’tforget our friend, Bill Weiss, and his wounded Tiger Moth.

And Opening Day for AirVenture ’99 was still a day away.

The air-repair volunteers hail from all around the country; all aredues-paying members of Chapter 75. Skill levels vary from unskilled-but-eagerhands, to veteran A&Ps, AIs, DERs, and specialists skilled in a particulartype or model airplane.

Chapter 75 started the emergency-repair service in 1963, when the EAAconvention was still in Rockford, Ill. A tent served as the shop facility andstorage space for the few tools available. Thirty-six years later, the repairbarn is a spanking-new building erected in the past few months to help house agrowing collection of tools. And the EAA Museum holds in trust a growingcollection of repair manuals and technical publications for use by the repaircrew.

But despite its "get-em-flying" mission, Chapter 75’s EmergencyAircraft Repair service isn’t your typical maintenance shop. Insurancerestrictions often banish owners to the lounge of many shops, but at the EAAconvention air-repair facility, the owner is the chief mechanic and finaldecisionmaker.

"We work with the owners, who do or supervise the repairs," Galleysaid, nodding his head toward the duo pulling a cylinder off the Luscombe’sailing Continental. "If they can’t do the work themselves, we work withthem to get the job done."

With the varietyof aircraft that attends the EAA convention each year, it would be impracticalfor Chapter 75 to stock much in the way of spare parts. But that doesn’t mean anowner is stuck with traveling home by human mailing tube.

Galley’s garrison of veterans knows where to go, who to call, for as wide avariety of parts as there are planes on the field — if it’s available locally,they can find it. For harder-to-find hardware, they can grease the skids to getparts to the needy owner.

The services of the Chapter 75 volunteers are free to those in need, but it’sthe donations of the needy that stocks the tool boxes, replenishes the smallcache of machinery, and helps defray the expense of equipping the new shop.

If AirVenture ’99 is typical of past EAA conventions, Chapter 75 will serveabout 200 clients and their aircraft before the show sunsets Tuesday evening.Most of them will fly home as comfortably as they flew in.

A few may need tomake other arrangements, sending their plane to one of the licensed repairstations on Wittman Regional ?- or back home on a trailer. "We’ve had tobreak down and crate up a few over the years," Galley said.

"But for the most part, we get most of the people homeward bound safelyby the end of the show. We’ve never lost one going back after they came throughhere."

The attitude of Galley and the other Chapter 75 volunteers is typical ofthousands of other volunteers up and down the field, whether they’re parkingplanes, doling out sunscreen or helping a forlorn flyer through a wrenchingexperience. But it’s something that must be seen to be appreciated.

And with a little luck and a few spare parts, Bill Weiss will have a newhangar tale to tell when he lands his Moth back in Paramus.