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You don't see this much any more - 1979

I use to go to the Reno Air Races in Howard Pardue's Hawker Fury with Nelson Ezell at the controls. Baron Hilton was a fan and would comp our rooms for the week and we would park the Bearcat, Fury and a Mustang in his hotel parking lot the weekend before the race. We always got some interesting looks tugging the airplanes down the streets to the hotel and back to the airport. Lots of signs to move and negotiate around. I don't have any good stories about the taxi like the author above but getting into the Bearcat's prop wash in a formation take off and going around the Gold course in the back seat of the Fury was pretty memorable along with the trip down the middle of the Grand Canyon on the wing of Howard's Bearcat. makes me laugh remembering several other funny stories from those trips.
 
Awesome find SJ. And cool that it was nearby.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org
 
Ok, I know some of you will say “No pictures, it didn’t happen” and that’s fine. Believe what you want. Maybe there’s someone around that was there that will corroborate my story. In any case here’s a story that didn’t garner the big eyes and all but it’s still pretty special.

Its springtime, May 1977 in Fairbanks, Alaska. I had been in A&P school here since the previous June. We were just about finished and ready to test etc. That part doesn’t matter as much as the fact that we got to do what in this day would be impossibly unheard of.
Back in those days, the instructors and students would bring in their airplane projects to overhaul or recover or whatever else they needed and we students would get in-class hands on real world experience. The instructors...in this case, Powerplant instructor Bob Richardson....brought in a slightly bent 1961 C-210 he had bought. One student left over from the previous years class was overhauling his PA-12. Another student hauled in a very used 7AC Champ. The fourth project was an O-320 overhaul for a local trapper and hunter. He brought the engine and parts, we overhauled the engine, took it out to his plane, reinstalled it, got it running, and yours truly went for the test flight. CAN YOU IMAGINE, THE ATTORNEYS NIGHTMARE THESE DAYS? THE LIABILITY ISSUES?! Sheesh ��
Anyway, As a class we were spread around on the various projects. I got the Cub engine to do along with one other guy.
Happy camper, perfect.
Projects had progressed and now all were finished. Paperwork complete. Annuals signed off.
At the time, Geist Road which runs right past where the school was then at the now renamed Hutchison High School, had been widened, repaved, and lengthened to connect with other construction. It had opened the previous fall as I remember.
Lines had been painted on the brand new blacktop but there were no power lines or overhead obstructions of any kind...yet.
0500 show at the school. Planes are lined up, pilots ready. Engines started, taxi out through the parking lot from back in the corner where the school “hangar” is.
Alaska State Troopers are in attendance, both ends of Geist Road are blocked by two Trooper cruisers at each end.
Coordination with Fairbanks ATC has been taken care of so they’re ready for the clearance calls.

Pull out onto Geist road, run ups ensue, everyone is ready. Blue skies, sunshine (remember, it’s late May, plenty of sun),
and one by one, as clearance is received, the A&P Class of 1977s project airplanes push throttles up and take to the air.
Satisfaction for a bunch of students? You’d better believe it. Will that ever happen again? Sadly, no, that morning a bunch of us witnessed the passing of an era of even Alaskan aviation that will never return. Humble I feel to have been a small part of something so unique and so uniquely gratifying. Most of those instructors have gone West since then, clear skies and smooth running engines to them.
Perhaps the best take away from this and A&P school in particular? Don Berry, who was the A&P program administrator at the time, had a daughter that hung around the school from time to time. We’ll have been married for 41 years next month. ��

Thanks SJ for a great read!
Steve, thanks to you as well for the warbird story! That’s good stuff and fantasy material for many.

Oz
 
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Oz, that is a fantastic story!

And congratulations!

sj
 
Thanks Steve, and all the “likes” posters as well, appreciate that! It’s been a fabulous life thus far. No complaints! Now if I can just get this PA-12 out of my garage and in the air....
 
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