Leading Welding company forms Partnership with Leading Aerobatic Flight Team
The Lincoln Electric Company is proud to be a new sponsor of the AeroShell Aerobatic Team, one of aviation’s finest four-plane precision formation aerobatic teams. The AeroShell Team has been performing at air shows since 1985, delighting audiences everywhere with its daring maneuvers and graceful loops and rolls. The team was recently honored with the coveted national Bill Barber Award for showmanship at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA) 50th Anniversary AirVenture OshKosh event.
The team takes to the skies in four World War II North American Advanced Trainer-6 (AT-6) aircraft, equipped with powerful, 2,400 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engines. The pilots face many challenges when flying an AT-6. The power-to-weight ration makes flying these planes much more challenging. According to AeroShell pilot Gene McNeely, it all boils down to energy management. “On a hot day, we don’t have the luxury of excess horsepower to compensate for high density altitude. The key is knowing when to make power changes and by how much.” The audience is oblivious to this as the four planes fly in perfect unison, as if they were attached to each other. Crowds around the country flock to see this talented team and its “old birds” perform
The AT-6
The AT-6 first appeared in 1938 as the NA-16, and eventually replaced the BC-1A basic-combat trainer that was originally designed by the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). The American Aviation Federation (AAF) uses the same AT-6 to train its flight school pilots. Canadians know it as the Harvard; the American Navy knows it as the SNJ, but it is best known as the beloved “Pilot Maker.” The AT-6 is remembered fondly by all AAF pilots as one of the aircraft in which they first learned to fly.
AeroShell History
The AeroShell Aerobatic Team was born of humble beginnings in 1985. Two friends, Alan Henley and Steve Gustafson, each owned an AT-6 and had been performing solo at air shows for some time. Gustafson’s father Merle, who performs an aerobatic duet with Bob Speed, gave Steve his AT-6 as a Christmas present. As they watched his father and Speed perform, Gustafson suggested that he and Henley give it a try. Henley agreed, and they took off right then and there to attempt a series of loops and rolls. So began their performing partnership. The duo was eventually joined by Alan’s twin brother, Mark Henley, serving alongside Gustafson as Right/Left Wing Pilot, and Gene McNeely as Right Wing/Slot Man.
Lincoln Equipment and Welding Consumables
The team utilizes the Pro-Cut® 25 for plasma cutting and an Invertec® V205-T for TIG welding, as well as SuperArc® Premium MIG wire for MIG welding. “The old war birds are required to perform the most daring aerobatic maneuvers in tight formation. We can’t leave anything to chance. The SuperArc MIG wire performs consistently for us, and we trust its performance,” McNeely says.
Lead Pilot Alan Henley heads up the front of the formation and serves as the team’s leader. “Trust me, when you’re flying eight feet apart, you want to know that your aircraft is solid,” remarked Henley.
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“We know Lincoln pretty well, so we’re excited about the partnership. Our welders stand by their Lincoln machines as the best out there – and we wouldn’t use anything but the best on these planes,” McNeely says.
Lincoln is committed to the AeroShell Aerobatic Team and the aviation industry through sponsorship and participation at aviation events, including EAA’s Air Venture, SportAir and Regional Fly-ins. Lincoln also leads EAA’s TIG welding workshops for attendees at EAA events. Lincoln’s aviation sponsorships also include the Exxon Flyin’ Tiger, which holds 25 altitude and time-to-climb records, and Dago Red, which holds five consecutive speed records at the Reno National Air Races.
“Lincoln understands how important welding is to the aviation industry,” says Scott Skrjanc, Aviation Sponsorship/Event Manager at Lincoln Electric. “That’s why we provide services, products and technical support to the aviation community.”
As an Official Sponsor of the 
The workshops offer the widest variety of aviation welding knowledge available in one place. For the hobbyist who may be more familiar with oxyacetylene, or oxy-fuel, techniques, this is a great opportunity to receive personalized instruction in TIG, which offers the cleanest, highest quality weld for this type of application. TIG welding has several other advantages for aircraft welding. It allows precise control of heat and has better penetration and fewer problems with cracking and stressing than MIG welding. Finally, TIG welding is especially well suited for welding on the light materials used on many aircraft frames. 
SportAir
The sculpture was specifically designed for installation on the fourth floor terrace of the neoclassical hotel building, overlooking the street below (Figure 2). Stutz points out that the figure, the gender of which is intentionally ambiguous, "could be going into a dream state, or arising from it" and that it illustrates "a very private moment in a very public space." In keeping with that idea, the piece is literally a woven shell, in which, Stutz says, "the inside is outside, and the outside is inside."
The Fabrication Process
Asked to describe the welding process itself, Matt Gil responds, "We used MIG and standard heliarc TIG welding with a serium electrode. I weld bronze using AC and continuous high frequency as I would do for aluminum, but the use of the serium electrode was unique." All of the smallest parts (the fingers, toes, and face) had to be TIG welded because that was the only tool that could be manipulated in such small spaces. The four mild steel structural columns that support the sculpture were shop-fabricated using Lincoln 7018 electrode.
Although the soft and tactile appearance of Pneumatic Dreamer fittingly echoes that of a sleeping human body, both Gil and Stutz were surprised at the strength and rigidity of the finished sculpture. When it was completed, Sheedy Crane & Rigging hoisted it out of the fabrication yard and it was trucked to the Third Street location of W San Francisco. Delighted pedestrians gawked as the sculpture was lifted into the air and set onto its supports on the fourth floor terrace above. Like a contented hotel guest, the slumbering figure never stirred, but nestled comfortably into place, dreaming all the while.