Thx guys,
The story that was related to me was that this bird was purchased for a young man returning from the war to fly. He was killed on the way home and the bird subsequently had it's wings pulled and was mothballed in the garage.
Apparently the groundsman or landscaper had a lot of interest in the little plane, but the family would not let it go (we've all seen this before). Eventually the widow passed and the landscaper bought it from the estate and had it refurbished. After learning to fly in it and earning his PPL he eventually moved down to a Bonanza.
Any truth to the romantic story? who knows? When I saw it advertised a few years back I figured the times were a typo, or lie and ignored it. After a few months of looking at a ton of JUNK (albeit cheaper junk) I decided to go have a look. Still don't know if I buy the story, but I did end up buying the airplane
A funny side story;
At the time we were plane shopping our son was incredibly sky struck. He would watch all big rocks long props, all the educational aviation stuff and once a week or so the nostalgic 16R.
This airplane was located at KVNY (home of 16R), which is an hour and change flying time from me, so much to Josh's dismay I went out to look at it (he really wanted a cub, and all the local Tcarts were flying nightmares)
I knew I was coming back for it the moment I saw it, and so the next weekend Mom, Josh and I drove out. After seeing it Josh was still not sold on Tcarts, but I could tell he was softening up some, so we kicked the tires some, handed the guy a bag of cash and sent mom on her way. The Tcart was on the east side of the field and although Josh mumbled something about trying to get 16R, I pretended I did't hear him. No way was I going to try and make special requests in the big city, at an airport I was totally unfamiliar with, while trying to communicate on a handheld.
After firing the old girl up and taxing out to the ramp we called up ground and tried to communicate our intentions. Things got off to a rather confusing start because unbeknownst to us at the time, We had the mic portions of our headsets switched around in the little portable intercom box I had brought along. So there we sat, them barely hearing us, us barely hearing them when all of a sudden a giant whine appeared to consume the little airplane. I knew that sound, and knew something had to happen quickly, and all at once everyone started speaking;
Josh: What's that terrible noise
G5 Captain: Ground, 515PL, any idea what this little red thing in front of me intends to do?
Rob: That is a giant, getting ready to step on us
Lighting the fire under the old girl I taxi'd up a tad and spun around to realize just how tiny a Tcart really looks under the nose of a G550
So around the big airplane we started, to try and get the radio thing sorted out when the controller came back on;
Controller; Taylorcraft 19461, If you read, taxi across runway 16L to runway 16R (Josh's face lit up like a Christmas tree!). Upon reaching 16R we were cleared for an immediate departure (actually asked to expedite the departure, right turn out, and clearing of the airspace) I think he even mumbled something along the lines of hoping we never return to congest his air).
Now here we started to lose Josh again, because he had really been spoiled up to this point having the luxury of a fairly decent bush beater supercub to fly in. Pouring the coal to the mighty A-65 resulted in a fair bark, (not much movement, but a fair bark.....) and pretty soon we began to roll.... and roll...and roll
Josh: Think it'll fly?
Rob: Sure it will, I think?
And sure enough, as soon as the wind in the little sliding window equated to a light breeze, the little girl levitated. Not knowing the airplane real well we flew down the valley (Josh was astonished the we were flying a 1946 vintage airplane right over what amounted to East LA) and landed at French Valley for fuel and a second look. Here we learned a few new things;
Most importantly, never stop at the base of the mountains you will need to fly over if you already have gas and altitude
.
On the other hand we learned what the mighty A-65 couldn't do to get us over the mountains, the wing could certainly make up for
And lastly, propping the warmed up A-65 would take a finesse and patience rivaling that of finding thermals to get the magic carpet ride up to the 7500' place we needed to be.
All in all, by the time we got the old girl home Josh was mostly sold on the Tcart, so into his room he went to watch 16R and reminisce on our journey. A short while later a huge whoop came from his room followed by laughter and more commotion. Peaking in I could see he had paused the movie. And there on the screen was N19461 tucked away behind the gentleman relating the story. In her own cameo appearance
And so she won a place in his heart. As an honorary cub, 461 taught Josh a ton. Flies like a magic carpet ride, spins honest. ground handles as good as anything that light can be expected to.
I hope the next caretaker learns as much from this old girl as
I did.
Take care, Rob
and then there would be one less pristine example of what was....
