Racer X 69
Member
I rode on an old prop plane, very loud and bouncy.
They are indeed noisy.
I rode on an old prop plane, very loud and bouncy.
I got a ride in this thing several weeks before this fly-in breakfast when he was charging $100.
This was Gene Littlefield's Stearman. I was only about 14 at the time so I don't remember the exact specs but I do remember this was no ordinary Stearman. The Pratt & Whitney radial engine would put out (I think) 1100 horses and swing that 10 foot prop. He was an airshow pilot. It said "Gene Littlefield" upside down on the fuselage. His wife was his wing-walker.
He told me a story about an incident when his engine lost power while flying upside down, 50 feet above the runway during a show, with his wife on the top wing. He was able to nose-up, roll it over right-side up and land it.
Gene sold that Stearman a few years ago and retired (he's extremely old, probably in his 90's) and today he owns a repair shop at the airport in Morris, IL (exit 112, about a mile north of I-80).
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I like small planes. The smaller the better, .... unless I have to go somewhere really far.
My mom owned one of these for about 10 years, from the late 1970's to the late 1980's.
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It was fun, but felt like riding around in a Volkswagen Beetle. Two seats. Cruise around 110 to 120. She took me up a lot, and right from the start I was taking the controls. Even though I never logged any time, or had a formal lesson, I could take off, trim the plane for straight and level flight, and land it.
Lotsa fun.
She flew it to Oshkosh for the EAA fly in a few times. By herself most of those times. Usually there were other pilots who had the same model plane that flew along.
It is like 1,600 miles, and about 14 or 15 hours flight time. I don't know if I could have done it. It would have been tough to do and going over the Cascade and Rock Pile mountains would be a chore.
I have been thinking about getting one of these ZODIAC CH 650 - The NEW sport pilot-ready kit airplane from Zenith Aircraft Company but probably get shot down by that drone plane that flies over the border up here.
Price of the factory-built 650 is just under $100,000.