What finally prompted you to take flying lessons?

That's it, John! All these years I had been wondering what kind of bird she
was. The roll down windows and wooden wheel with chain drive stuck out in
my mind as "really neat". I can attest that this plane resulted in the
creation of at least one pilot.

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Brad Z" wrote in message news:VnhXb.307548

A 15 minute ride in an old radial engined airplane on Cape Cod on my
16th
birthday back in 1990. I loved every single second of it.

Excellent! The bright yellow one, right? That aircraft is a 1931 Stinson
Detroiter, with a Lycoming engine. Owned (when I flew her) by PBA.
Affectionately known by all who flew her then as Willie. A real wooden
steering wheel (yes, not a yoke), leather seats, and crank-down windows,
just like in your car. A marvelous plane, and great fun, although by the
time you've finished your 30th trip around Ptown on a hot August day, it's
Miller Time. I've got several hundred hours in Willie, and wouldn't trade
one of them.

Willie was purchased some years ago by a former PBA pilot (current shuttle
pilot, I think -- who owns the BOS-NYC shuttle these days?) and moved to
the
Marstons Mills airport. As of a few years ago, she was back in Ptown,
back
doing the sightseeing flights. I'm not sure of the exact chronology. I
think it is coming up on about forty years that that craft has been
gracing
the skies of the outer Cape.

Thanks for the memories.

"Brad Z" wrote in message news:doyYb.340879

That's it, John! All these years I had been wondering what kind of bird
she
was. The roll down windows and wooden wheel with chain drive stuck out in
my mind as "really neat". I can attest that this plane resulted in the
creation of at least one pilot.

That's neat -- I suspect the list of pilots created by those sightseeing
flights is long and distinguished! Our conversation got my interest going,
and I had to dig out the logbook from the attic. We used to run Willie and
a Cherokee Six, and there would be literally hundreds of folks in line.
That Cherokee Six was a sweetheart, but when you'd get down to the last
couple of rounds in the tank, Tony (the guy running the booth), would always
find someone weighing about 325 to go in the third row seat, and your CG
would be somewhere out on the elevator! When it got untenable, we'd grab a
Douglas between flights, and do a couple of rounds with that, knocking off
32 pax at a whack. Helped keep the lines cut down. But having said all
that, I now have to offer a couple of corrections. Turns out Willie was a
model SM-8A, [which is not the same as a Detroiter], with a Lycoming R-680
engine. All my time is logged as an SM-8A, but I recall a lot of
discussions about that back then. Some folks said she was a Detroiter but
SM-8A was just the model number, others said different things, but the basic
problem was that no one really knew, and back then there was no internet to
quick check the info [Al hadn't thought it up yet!! :-)] The current
registration database for N205W lists the type as SM-8A, and also lists the
year of manufacture as 1930.

JG