Piper Cub 50 HP
1942 I was a 19-year-old kid with his first real job in a defense plant .A year before I enlisted in the Army Air Corp I received my pilot’s license. First you have to find some-one to turn the prop. so you can start the engine , then you taxi to the take off run way. Before take off you would turn 90 degrees, put on brakes and rev the engine full throttle and if it sounded ok you turn back 90 degrees and take off. You had to layout a triangle cross country course, I did that and with the instructor I completed the flight. Now I had to do it solo. I was to fly to Saginaw Michigan to Flint Michigan and back home. I took off headed to Saginaw, singing and eating a Powerhouse candy bar. I would look down and that would look like the RR track, and that would look like the little town. After about half an hour I was to be at Saginaw. Looking around all I saw was farmland. I climbed a few thousand feet, made a big circle and saw an airfield in the distance. I landed at the airfield and was ready to taxi to the tower. Now remember this, it was my first cross country and the wind was high and every time I took my feet off the brake I was blown to-ward the edge of the run-way. All I had to do was rev the engine and taxi to the tower, but I was not singing and eating a candy bar. I was worried about being blown off the runway.
Well you guessed it. I shut off the engine, got out, picked up the tail and pushed back to the tower and found that this was Flint tower. I now changed my flight Detroit to Flint to Saginaw back to Detroit. Year later I was an Army Cadet flying the PT-17 Stearman and the AT-6 Texan, I often wondered, could I pick up the tail of an AT-6 Texan?
Art a long ago airman?