It’s happened to me three times. The first time happened about a year after I earned my Private Pilot certificate. About a week before my Practical Test I accepted delivery of NC89954, a 1946 Cessna 120. The 120 is a side-by-side two-seat tailwheel airplane with fabric-covered wings and an 85 horsepower engine. It’s the airplane that eventually evolved into the Cessna 150 and 152.
With about a year’s experience in type, I launched on my first epic aerial journey, from my home in central Missouri to Detroit to visit family. My dad, a Honolulu-based airline mechanic and one-time lightplane pilot himself, flew in to Kansas City to join me on this odyssey. Our first leg stopped in Hannibal, Missouri, just short of the Missouri River.
