It is believed that the last of the old Cycleplanes flew out of the cow pasture known as Ardis Field Dec. 17, 1939. Ardis Field, old pros note, wasn’t actually in Downey but in a area then known as Clearwater.
This is not to be confused with the old Vultee Field, which was where Rockwell International now sits on Lakewood Boulevard.
The weekend operations at Ardis were simple. The cows were rounded up and herded into a fenced area before the planes took off. It was that simple. Almost part of the pre-flight check.
It is unknown whether the cows were grateful, but they should have been. The pilots and planes of the early 1930s were nothing to mess with.
The old Cycleplane was described as a single-seat glider-style craft, with a two-cylinder, two-cycle horizontally opposed engine rated at 27 hp. The ignition was by magneto, originally designed for a single cylinder engine. The single wire from the "mag" was split, with leads running to each sparkplug. Oldtimers say the mag was often so weak after a few hundred flights that one plug would have to be disconnected when starting the engine. This made for a hotter spark. But then when the engine was running on one cylinder, the pilot-mechanic would have to re-connect the second sparkplug wire as the whirling prop whizzed by inches from his hands.
The Cycleplane and the later Downey Champion were sold with an abbreviated or short set of wings. These were meant for pilots who taught themselves how to fly by running the plane about the flying field, hopping it into the air for abbreviated fights. After they built up confidence they applied for the real wings that got them off the ground for regular flights. It was sort of like training wheels on a bicycle.
This was not unusual in the early days of aviation. The French had trained their pilots on shortened wings that way in World War I.