Memories and Old Airplanes

Santa Paula has a small private airport  with a wonderful history, it opened in 1928. (https://www.santapaulaairport.com/history/airport-history) It's home to just over 300 aircraft, many of them historic, some military, some private, it's a busy little place with almost 100,000 take offs and landings yearly. Every Sunday the airport  has an open house and the public can wander around the airport, the little museum, talk to the aircraft owners and watch the plans take off and land. Santa Paula Airport brought back memories for both Cakes and I. 

My father was a WWII pilot, he fell in love with flying when he was a young farm boy,when he flew with a barnstormer in an old Jenny. Dad was hooked for life. He joined the Army Air Corps cadet program when WWII broke out. After the war my dad taught flying in a Army surplus J3 Piper Cub. One of his students was a local car dealer, he convinced Dad he shouldn't be a school teacher and the rest is history.

The first plane I can remember flying in was a Stinson Station Wagon. We flew it to Iowa to see one of Dad's WWII pilot buddies, Mom was right seat and my Cocker spaniel, Dusty  and I were the passengers. mom brought a potty chair along "just in case"

Here's another "station wagon" we saw yesterday, a late 40's Chevy Suburban

I flew with my Dad in a Stearman biplane, I could barely see out of the cockpit..we saw this beautiful restoration yesterday. Helmet and googles required.

I flew with dad in Er Coupes and Naviatons...the Naviaon was built on the WWII T-10 airframe, tough as nails. Yes, the seats got wet when it rained or snowed.

We flew in every Cessna made including the light twins. Dad's all time favorite single engine  aircraft to fly was the V Tail Beech Bonanza, the Bonanza was the first high performance single available to the public. Beech is still building them. The Bonanza will cruise at 160 knots for almost 600 miles,, we could fly the 2100 miles from ND to Florida in 11 hours of flight time, we'd stop 4 times for food and bathroom breaks, we could have made it with 3 stops, but Dad would never push the margins.

Beech doesn't build the V Tail anymore, it's hard to fly since it was quirky for inexperienced pilots. My dad had in addition to his Private pilot's license, he had his instrument, mult-engine ( up to 4) he was an instructor, he could do acrobatics and sky writing.dad was licensed to fly float planes and ski planes too.

His dream and mine was to get me licensed by age 14, I was well on my way when he had his first heart attack the summer I turned 14.The FAA grounded him for several years. I took some lessons later in my early 30's and soloed in 5 hours, Dad's teachings came rushing back and flying seemed so natural and easy., Soloing was enough for me. I still think about flying though.

I would have loved to have the old man with us yesterday at Santa Paula, the hours we spent there with the old airplanes were bittersweet.

One last plane, this is a restored 1936 Howard, 19,000 hours of restoration, the owner still flies the old Howard a lot, it's leaving soon for a trip to Idaho Falls. It's got a hopped up Pratt and Whitney rotary engine giving it about 150 more horse power than stock, it performs as well as any modern single but uses much more fuel. The plane is flawless. The owner's father had one when he was a boy.