| Date |
Aircraft |
From / To |
Time |
| 4-14-29 |
Curtiss JN-4D |
Local, Little Rock |
0:20 |
SOLO. 3 takeoffs & landings. Wind calm. Sign-off by J. Eslick in margin.
Jack Eslick's initials are in the margin in green ink. Granddad had a little under eight hours of dual by then, which was about normal for a Jenny. He said he wasn't scared until he was back on the ground and his knees quit. |
| 6-2-29 |
Curtiss JN-4D |
Local |
0:45 |
Spins w/ J.E. 4 left, 3 right. Did not care for them.
He never did care for them. He made every student he ever had do them anyway, me included, and he'd tell you he didn't like it either while you were upside down. |
| 10-5-30 |
Curtiss JN-4D |
Little Rock – Stuttgart – Little Rock |
2:10 |
First cross country. Followed the railroad both ways.
No radio, no instruments to speak of, so you followed the tracks and read the names on the water towers. Sixteen years later he'd move to the town at the other end of this flight and stay fifty. |
| 5-9-31 |
Waco 10 |
Pasture, Faulkner Co. |
4:30 |
Hopped 38 passengers @ $1. F.K. sold tickets, I flew. Rain after 4 P.M.
F.K. is Fletcher Kinslow, his barnstorming partner. They bought the Waco together that spring for less than the price of a new Ford, and it took them two years to pay it off at a dollar a ride. |
| 9-24-32 |
Waco 10 |
County fair, Pope Co. |
6:10 |
61 passengers. 2 sick. 1 proposal (not mine).
A young man paid for both front seats and asked Granddad to circle low over the fairgrounds while he proposed to his girl. She said yes. They sent him a Christmas card every year for forty years. |
| 3-17-33 |
Waco 10 |
Memphis |
1:00 |
Transport license check ride. PASSED. Inspector says my landings are agricultural.
I believe that's what you call prophecy. |
| 7-4-34 |
Travel Air 2000 |
Fairgrounds, Garland Co. |
5:40 |
Waco down for a cylinder. Borrowed F.K.'s cousin's Travel Air. 70 passengers on the 4th.
Seventy rides is the most in any one day in all seven books. He wrote "tired" in the margin and underlined it. |
| 6-20-36 |
Waco 10 |
Local |
0:30 |
Took Gertrude up. Asked her on the ground afterward. She said yes.
Grandma says he asked her before they took off, and she told him to wait and see how he flew. She says this whole entry is out of order. They were married that September. |
| 6-12-38 |
Waco 10 |
Local |
0:15 |
Frank's first ride. 5 months old. Slept the whole time.
That's my dad. He's sixty-one and he still sleeps every time he gets on an airplane, including mine. The Waco was sold that fall. |
| 10-16-39 |
Piper J-3 Cub |
Local |
1:00 |
CPTP. First student, C. Camacho. Good hands. Talks too much.
Charlie Camacho flew P-47s in Italy during the war and wrote Granddad every Christmas for over fifty years. He's seventy-nine now. When Granddad died, Charlie sent me a four-page letter about him that I keep in the first logbook. |
| 12-7-41 |
Piper J-3 Cub |
Local |
3:20 |
Dual, 4 students. Came in about 2 P.M. and heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio in the office.
It was a Sunday. He said by spring half of that class had enlisted, and most of the rest were in the Army's flight program within the year. |
| 8-9-43 |
Stearman PT-17 |
Auxiliary field, Texas |
4:50 |
5 cadets. 3 good, 1 fair, 1 washed out. Hate that part.
Every instructor had to wash cadets out, and he hated it. He told this one he'd make a better navigator than a pilot. The boy went to navigator school and wrote him later from England to say he'd been right. |
| 8-15-45 |
Stearman PT-17 |
Local |
2:10 |
| War's over, they said on the radio last night. Cadets flew like it. |
| 3-28-46 |
Stearman (surplus) |
Ferry, Texas – Stuttgart |
6:40 |
Bought 2 surplus Stearmans, $875 each. Flew No. 1 home. Gert followed in the truck.
No. 2 came home the next week. Within a month both of them had their front cockpits out, hoppers in, and bigger engines on the nose. |
| 5-6-46 |
Stearman (ag) |
Quiros farm |
3:15 |
First paying job. Seeded 220 acres of rice for Allen Quiros. Paid cash.
Mr. Quiros was a customer for thirty-two years. His son had Granddad's very last job, below. |
| 6-1-51 |
Stearman (ag) |
Home strip |
0:30 |
Test hop after engine change. J. Beeson's work. Perfect. Hired him on permanent.
Julius Beeson was his mechanic from 1951 to 1978. Mr. Beeson is seventy-five, still lives in Stuttgart, and still says Granddad was the only pilot he ever worked for who said thank you every single time. |
| 7-18-57 |
Stearman (ag) |
Leyba farm |
0:50 |
Engine quit on the pull-up, 2nd load. Put her down in Roy Leyba's soybeans right side up. Me OK, airplane OK. Beans not OK. Paid Roy for the beans.
The only forced landing in sixty-six years. A cracked fuel line. Mr. Leyba tried to turn down the money for the beans and Granddad left it in his mailbox. Mr. Leyba still sends Grandma a sack of pecans every Christmas. |
| 3-30-62 |
Grumman Ag-Cat |
Elmira, N.Y. – Stuttgart (4 days) |
14:30 |
New Ag-Cat from the factory. Snow in Pennsylvania. Sunshine at home.
The Ag-Cat was a Grumman design, but they were built under contract at the Schweizer plant in Elmira, New York, so that's where you went to pick yours up. Fourteen and a half hours in an open cockpit in March. He said it was worth it. |
| 6-24-63 |
Grumman Ag-Cat |
Morrow farm |
5:20 |
11 loads fertilizer on rice. New flagman, J. Waymire, 18. Runs when he should walk. He'll learn.
An ag pilot in those days had a flagman standing at the end of the field with a flag on a pole, pacing over one swath width after every pass so the pilot could line up the next one. Jack Waymire flagged for Granddad for five summers, then learned to fly ag himself. He's still at it. |
| 7-20-69 |
Grumman Ag-Cat |
Morrow farm |
3:00 |
Quit at 3 P.M. to go home and watch them land on the moon.
He told me once he'd seen a man fly a Jenny off a cow pasture and a man land on the moon, and he didn't know which one surprised him more. |
| 4-12-71 |
Piper PA-25 Pawnee |
Home strip |
1:00 |
| New (used) Pawnee. Sold the Cat. Climbs like a pig. Easier on the back. |
| 8-22-78 |
Piper PA-25 Pawnee |
Quiros farm |
2:10 |
Last ag job. Last load for Allen's boy. 32 seasons. Parked her.
Under this one he drew a line all the way across the page with a ruler. That's the only ruled line in all seven books. |
| 5-12-79 |
Piper J-3 Cub |
Home strip |
0:40 |
Bought a '46 Cub. Yellow. First flight just for fun since 1929.
He meant it. Fifty years of flying for a living, and this was the first time he went up with no passengers, no students and no hopper, just to look around. |
| 6-3-87 |
Piper J-3 Cub |
Home strip |
0:20 |
Walter soloed. 16 today. 3 landings, 3rd one good. Signed him off myself.
That's me. It's in my logbook, too, with his signature. The second landing was not good. He doesn't mention that, and I appreciate it. |
| 10-21-95 |
Piper J-3 Cub |
Home strip, local |
1:10 |
W.S. flying, me riding. Harvest. Ducks coming in over the reservoir. Perfect.
The last line in the seventh book. He doesn't mention that he flew us home and made the landing. He didn't have to. I was there. |
GeoCities.us
» CapeCanaveral » Hangar
