Search Results for: DC-3

It was late March, when Midwestern flatlanders flying over the Appalachians to Florida for spring breaks or a week at Sun ‘n Fun have so often found that Old Man Winter is still very much around. A kind of permanent “front” that hangs around London, Kentucky, especially after a cold frontal passage, has scared the […]

Easter Sunday had begun as just another holiday to spend relaxing. Connecticut was finally beginning to show consistent signs that spring would actually occur. With the encouragement of more pleasant weather, Kari Sorenson started the Model A. He and his girlfriend, Ashley, climbed into the antique car and went for a drive. Neither one of […]

Looks like you guys will just have to put those type rating dreams on hold for a while. My “sure-thing” deal to buy the DC-3 from a museum imploding with internal conflicts, unpayable bills and looming bankruptcy kind of evaporated. Maybe they found an angel to pay off the loan or maybe somebody made a […]

You may remember last month we left off in a brand-new TBM 850 halfway between Scotland and Iceland at Flight Level 280 with both a master caution and a master warning light flashing and a horn blaring. That we were a long way from any land much less any runway required no emphasis. A fuel […]

There is frost accumulating inside the windows of my cockpit. I reach a gloved hand up and scrape a clear opening in the ice. The long, graceful lines of the left wing extend almost 50 feet into the impossibly thin air surrounding us. Normally when I fly, I’m off the surface of the planet, but […]

“Okay, push her forward. That’s it, a little more forward pressure.” I do as instructed. The runway appears to be coming up at an alarming rate, filling the windshield inches from my eyes. Since this is a takeoff, shouldn’t the runway be disappearing? I feel as if I’m nosing her over onto the frantically oscillating […]

As I was hefting two humongous boxes of maintenance records into the 180, I found myself thinking about the draconian FAA rules for operating a DC-3, the outta-sight fuel prices, the cost of round engines, spare parts, insurance, a hangar and maintenance. And I said to myself, out loud, “Martha, do we really want to […]

That year winter arrived on the heels of a cold front that marked the end of an interminably long and hot Ohio Valley summer, one that lasted nearly to Thanksgiving. Arriving at the ‘drome for a flight check I got a brutal reminder that airports are the coldest places on the planet. Back to the […]

Every once in a while life intrudes on this love affair I have with airplanes, and I feel like that bewildered soldier at Little Big Horn: “Mr. Custer, what are we doing here?” How often did I gaze out the window of some FAA office (when they were still on airports), angry, frustrated or scared […]

I Shivered a little that September morning at Nashua Airport, on a ladder with my finger in the left tank of the Cessna 180 taildragger. Good, the 100LL was puddling over the flaps. Topping these tanks was kind of funky because the airplane had rubber bladders and stiffly hinged flappers under the caps … new […]