idaho taildragger
Registered User
Its been a couple of years ago,but my wife and I flew to the fly-in in our 1953 Tri-Pacer, I was so excited because this was my first airplane, which I thought I would never have anyway, it took me several years to get my private lic., what with a big family (4 girls 2 boys) and fairly low income, extra money is always hard to come by....let me go back in time.
I always had a love of planes and flying but, it always seemed to be out of my reach...in the 70's I took up hang gliding, then in the 80's and 90's I found Ultra-lights very cool but so limited....So a couple of hours at a time, and hey 15 years later I got my ticket....now the plane...well i have always loved many things one of which was sailing....I got hurt at work once and got a small settlement, could'nt buy a plane, not enough money so, i found a sailboat, used it for a couple of years and put it for sale or trade on Craigs list, I traded my sailboat for a 1956 Buick convertible (in pieces)was putting it together and a guy traded me for a 1994 Harley, then a few months later I saw the old Tri-Pacer at the airport with a for sale sign....we traded...my first plane !!
I have always loved taildraggers, Super Cubs my favorite, old school i guess, so my first thought was to turn the Tri-Pacer into a Pacer...found out the price...NO WAY..
Now back to the fly-in, I was on the Super Cub web site and was reading about the fly-in and decided to go, what a great time and cool bunch of people, got there on friday left on Sunday.
We got there set up our tent then checked the gas situation out, I was concerned I wouldn't have enough gas to get back to Idaho Falls, so we counted our money and decided to fly to McCall and get fuel...that was an adventure all by itself,( a person flying a low horse power plane has to be on his toes) good thing I had a decent climb rate of 150 feet per min.
To make a long story short, we got back and I found out Sue was selling Raffle tickets...problem was we were about out of money....but my beautiful wife of 21 years said go ahead buy a ticket...I did...so i was sitting there watching all the prizes given away and the grand prize came up......i could not believe it !!!!! I WON.....more to this story coming.
I always had a love of planes and flying but, it always seemed to be out of my reach...in the 70's I took up hang gliding, then in the 80's and 90's I found Ultra-lights very cool but so limited....So a couple of hours at a time, and hey 15 years later I got my ticket....now the plane...well i have always loved many things one of which was sailing....I got hurt at work once and got a small settlement, could'nt buy a plane, not enough money so, i found a sailboat, used it for a couple of years and put it for sale or trade on Craigs list, I traded my sailboat for a 1956 Buick convertible (in pieces)was putting it together and a guy traded me for a 1994 Harley, then a few months later I saw the old Tri-Pacer at the airport with a for sale sign....we traded...my first plane !!
I have always loved taildraggers, Super Cubs my favorite, old school i guess, so my first thought was to turn the Tri-Pacer into a Pacer...found out the price...NO WAY..
Now back to the fly-in, I was on the Super Cub web site and was reading about the fly-in and decided to go, what a great time and cool bunch of people, got there on friday left on Sunday.
We got there set up our tent then checked the gas situation out, I was concerned I wouldn't have enough gas to get back to Idaho Falls, so we counted our money and decided to fly to McCall and get fuel...that was an adventure all by itself,( a person flying a low horse power plane has to be on his toes) good thing I had a decent climb rate of 150 feet per min.
To make a long story short, we got back and I found out Sue was selling Raffle tickets...problem was we were about out of money....but my beautiful wife of 21 years said go ahead buy a ticket...I did...so i was sitting there watching all the prizes given away and the grand prize came up......i could not believe it !!!!! I WON.....more to this story coming.