DRUMANDSTAGE FORUM

So Jules...tell me/us about your time building aircraft. I have a bunch of stories I could tell myself, so it might be fun to hear about the work you did.

I worked for an interesting company, Ayres Corporation. The owner, Fred Ayres would take Rockwell Thrushes and retrofit them with Turboprop engines. Rockwell always built them with the old radials, not realizing there was a market for ag planes with turboprops. Overtime, the chemical hoppers got larger and larger, allowing for less downtime.

Fred was a visionary and over time we built the fuselages for the MD500/MD600 (formerly Hughes 500 helicopters), DC9 hush kits (engine cowling extensions to reduce noise), lots of parts for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas as well. I shifted around from a union inspection job to a position in planning/production control. We couldn't get raises in the office, so I would bounce back to the floor to get my raise and make a lateral transfer back to the office.

Fred negotiated a 3.3 (I think) Billion dollar contact to build smaller cargo planes for FedEx. That ultimately sunk the company. Over investing in unnecessary labor, wasteful spending in general and outsourcing design to a Texas company that took all the monies and used them to fund their own business. It all eventually imploded.

I think it would hostly make a great TV movie. The conclusion would be that despite his business ultimately folding after about 20 successful years, he was inducted into the National Agricultural Aviation Hall of Fame of the National Agricultural Aviation Association in 1997. He died in 2023.

There were lots of stories out there, including a drug plane that went down in 1983 in Arlington Georgia carrying cocaine from Colombia. They never tied it to Fred or the company directly, but one Ayres employee turned state's evidence against the cartel, was put into the witness relocation program and then eventually returned to work at Ayres under his new name. There were other stories that came from what I would consider reliable sources but I would most certainly include the word "allegedly" when telling them.

One such story is that he allegedly had a gambling problem and lost payroll at the craps table in Los Vegas or Atlantic City. All the employees had to be sent home without pay. That was also before my time, but the story came from a long time employee and someone I would consider reputable. There are so many facets to that job and company. We will have that phone call soon.

https://www.gaaviationhalloffame.com/ha ... 557aa6a87a

Wow--quite the story!

Don't forget that back in those days, there were TONS of those radial engines around, new in the crates, military surplus. So buying them was dirt cheap...especially compared to the (then) new technology turbine engines. So the old proven radial engines were very popular back in those days, and for good reason. Pretty much ALL the US Navy aircraft back in the WWII days were powered by radial engines. There were only a few Army Air Corps aircraft without radials: P-51, P-38 (twin), P-39 and P-40. I think that's about it. That says a lot about how reliable those engines were/are, as many of those aviators flew hundreds of hours over the open ocean...in a single-engine airframe.