I never saw Dads AT 6. According to Mom he bought this WW II high horsepower trainer, read the manual, climbed in and took off. He only had a few flying lessons before his first fligh in it. He told me about loosing the engine once and landing in a corn field.
from his very few stores and him taking me to see The Mc Connell Story, I began to dream about flying. I built model airplanes in the barn and crashed many of them. I didn't get to live my dream until I was in my 30s. Now at 63 I am still in the air.
The song in the Mc Connell story " off we go into the wild blue yonder" rings through my ears. I often sing it before going off to the airport.
Dad would tell me what it was like to climb up several thousand feet, throw open the canope and listen to the wind in the very clear sky. You do feel like you are close to heaven doing this. I have felt the experience and done similar things dancing just over the clouds. This is heaven for me and I now know Dad is there. I will be thinking of him every time I am allowed to dance with the clouds.
I took dad to Oshkosh, the largest experimental fly in in the world. We saw an old AT 6 on display and chated with the owner. I could not believe how much dat knew about the plane. The flight manual was committed to his memory. As we talked, the owner told us that he had trouble fretting tires for the old bird. He mentioned the cost of a single tire. One tire cost today more then dad paid for the plane.
p
Chuck