The first "Songbird" was a T-50, like DD's avatar, the second, "Songbird II" was a Cessna 310 (the 320 is a bit longer in the fuselage), otherwise looks pretty much the same. Just in the past few days I read an article on the Sky King TV show. The first of the 310's was crashed while doing some filming for "stock footage", and a second was quickly reregistered/renumbered and painted like the first. Great entertainment for us youngsters at the time! Ray
I did a couple deployments with the Army flying them. Taught soldiers how to fly them for 3 years and taught soldiers and contractors how to be UAV instructors before deploying as a contractor as of late. I kind of wish I stayed with teaching, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. If you want to get into them and you are a manned pilot there are plenty of companies out there that are hiring. The only problem is many of them are traveling jobs or they want you to relocate.
Sky King....."From out of the Blue of the Western Sky comes Sky King". Brought to you by Nabisco. Yes the Sky King first shows were of Kirby Grant aka Sky King flying a UC-78. That plane didn't last but one year, It couldn't pass it's annual inspection. Wood rot. So they got another one, the one that we are most familar with, with the Sky King...Flying Crown ranch logo on the side. AND on the side of the 56 Chrysler station wagon...... In 1959, the series got the first of the 310's they used. The production company never owned those. They were on loan from various Cessna dealers at the time. So if you look at them, you'll notice some differences in them. Some more trivia....The series was filmed in and around Apply Valley, California. But they made believe that you were near Wickenburg, Arizona. If you look at some of the old movie series, there actually wasn't very much flying going on. Many of the so called "Action shots" were used over and over. I never could figure out why, the bad guys were always getting away on horseback. The sheriff was always in his office to receive a radio call from Sky King in the airplane????? Didn't the bad guys drive hot rods back then?????? It wasn't too awfully long ago, or it seems like not too long ago anyway, that Kirby Grant died. He looked just like he did when he was making the movies when he did pass on. Penny???? Clipper???? I don't know what happened to them. Maybe they went on to make porno movies out there in Calif, I don't know. That show Sky King sure did get a lot of kids interested in flying back in the 50's though. HellRaiser
Stinson 108-2 station wagon 165 Franklin engine fresh overhaul still in crate, fabric tired like me !! Just another project on my bucket list !!!!
I flew with my dad since I was old enough to see over the instrument panel sitting on a stack of phone books. He was a retired USAF, Cal National Guard, Western and Delta Airlines Captain and a life long Hotrodder. Lost him last year, I sure miss my hero!! Here are a few photos. Our T-34 Mentor " sold last year" F-86-F Sabre " Worlds fastest Sabre" #24608 Then 24608 now sitting in the back of my shop, some assembly required. <O</O
After reading just a few posts wonder how many of you guys got your flight training courtesy of Uncle Sam ? And how many then became commercial pilots. Been led to believe that the airlines love to hire ex-military pilots especially cargo haulers. i know a couple of crop dusters that got their training courtesy of the US Army and had a lot of practice time flying at tree top level in SE Asia back in the 60s. Years ago met one of my wifes' second cousin at a family funeral. He had been a Navy fighter pilot with over a hundred combat missions over Korea and Viet Nam. He said that he failed to turn in paperwork with the FAA while still in active service so when he got out he had to apply for a civilian pilot license. So off he went to a small airport and signed up for lessons and said nothing about his Navy time. Did the normal thing walked around pre-flight checks etc... and then hopped in with the instructor. And the guy started to comment that he must have been a natural as never had a first time student had done so well on take-off. After flying around for awhile he finally mentioned his Navy flying and soon it was discovered he had more combat fight hours than his instructor had flight hours. And an incredible number of carrier takeoffs and landings. After the initial flight the guy pulled all the needed forms for him and signed him off.
I'll close my ramblings with the subject of "Any Pilot Hambers here". I was the guy you all loved to hate and fear. I ended my flying career as a Inspector with the FAA. I was the guy who would give the check rides, bust you or pass you. Screw up and yep, there I was. One of the areas I did like doing was investigating aircraft accidents. Because...before I was a Inspector for the FAA, once upon a time I was a cop with one of the major cities. (Been shot and my back broken up making an arrest, so I'm retired from there too) I did a lot of car crash accident investigations. So doing aircraft accidents came easy to me.. I think I got hired because I knew where to look for skeletons. It was probably easier to keep an eye on me that way. When it all ended I was doing checks on the big boys, 121 air carriers, and for the smaller ones, 135's. Plus everything in between. He's a question for you. The plane crashed on a hill top at night. There was no radio contact. Was there a electrical failure that may have caused the accident or not? How do you know? So with a SEL. MEL. SES,... CFI/SEL,SES and MEL.. and CFII in any of them. So....Well..... I've been to more than one goat roping and county fair in my life time. I'm still interested in flying, and of course the hot rods here. The 40 is gone, The 29 RPU is gone, The 30 roadster is gone. The 32 coupe is gone now, John has it. Plus quite a few others that I was able to get in and out of when I was younger. So I'm down to just the Olds's and my little putt putt fliver I go up and check the corn fields with from time to time around here. Kind of funny, but I started out with Oldsmobiles when I was younger and here I am, back finishing up with Oldsmobiles. Started out with a Luscombe, and 10 airplanes later, I'm right back where I started....Low and Slow.... There's a couple of other people I know here on the HAMB that has also been a FED. Not as a Inspector, but as Air Traffic Controllers, One his wife is a controller. HellRaiser
Currently flying Hawker 400xp, aka Beechjet, aka Mistubishi DiamondJet for a fractional carrier. Haven't really flown a recip in almost 10 years. I need to get back into that, I miss it. Lots more work to fly a 172 than a Beechjunk. If money were no object, I'd build a Van's RV-7. Got a chance to fly the factory demo plane when they first came out - talk about a hot rod!
^^^^^^^^^^ Love Low and Slow^^^^^^^^^^^ I wish I had a Luscombe... Piper Cub... or an Aeronca... right now! This is my most favorite Youtube... <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bPSElw8qEsI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I flew the handsome, high-performance C-130 Hercules for most of my career in the World's Finest Air Force. Been put out to pasture for quite some time, but still miss it. Used to love flying with my Dad, but Mom made him sell the airplane a few years ago. Can't understand, he was only 86 at the time.....
I've owned my '29 Stearman for over 35 years. Too damn old to fly it any more, too many health quirks. (sigh) but I'm gonna keep it to look at until I die.
OK, Hellraiser...you're pretty well up to "snuff" on the facts of the Sky King series. One trivia question for ya...what was the "N" number on the UC-78 Songbird? By the way, the hull is still in existence, in pieces, in Missouri if I remember correctly, and the registration is STILL current in OKC after all these years. Who woulda' thunk? I'm an ex-FED, too. Retired from ZHU. DD
DD, you still up? Lippy (sitting here with Dads eaglet leather flyers helmet on reading the posts) LOL.
Great question, I'll take a stab at it... Wreckage not consumed by post-accident fire right? I guess I would look at these: Light bulb filaments for shape/condition/color... Electrically power gauge faces for paint transfer from pointers... Evidence of arcing on electrical cables/wires, bus bar/breaker/contactors, & alternator/regulator...
Not a pilot, Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (Canadian equivalent to A&P) I've done a fair bit of unofficial right seat time in Beavers, Otters, Twin Otters on floats years ago. These days I fly the simulator (CRJ 900 and Boeing 757) when we do recurrent taxi and run up training. The instructors are always good for a circuit or two after the official session. Takeoffs are easy, landings not so much.....
I'm a 747 Captain for Connie Kalitta. I have flown DC8's and 727's for Connie also. Been a professional pilot since '83. Flew 757/767's for a pax airline for 8 years but the majority of my time has been as a cargo pilot. I make it to the middle east every month, been to all the garden spots, Khandahar, Kabul, Bagram air base just to name the ones in february. Love getting back to the shop and beating metal into submission. Lot more HAMB pilots than I realized, that's cool. Also have my Dad's Aeronca 7AC he bought in 1963.
Wrong......Trick question. Why not ask the pilot what went wrong. I didn't say the pilot was killed Duh...I learned the answer the hard way too, by not reading the question. And reading into the question what I thought were some of the facts. HellRaiser
Kind of like firefighter training regarding breaching doors, "Try before you pry". I learned to fly in Santa Paula California, each check ride I took was with Jim Dewey, the examiner. I learned so much from him on each check flight, I already knew how to pilot an airplane, but he taught me how to fly it.
I'm also retired FAA (27 years). I was a maintenance Inspector but started flying in A&P school back in the early 70's in tail wheel airplanes. To me, flying was just a faster way to travel home to visit family during the holidays as the wife and I lived in OKC and family was in Florida and Alabama. Owned a Luscombe 8A and Cessna 182 for years, then moved up to a 206, which I sold at retirement to fund cars and a shop. I don't miss flyinng at all. Its a lot more fun building and driving cars and not having to deal with some of the individuals that are employed by the government that are "here to help"!
My fantasy question from Penny, "OOOH, Uncle Sky, can I get a little stick time?" Did I say I was Ex-Navy?
Hey Lippy...Sorry I "bailed-out" on ya. You obviously "dress" for the occasion, gettin' into the full, traditional head gear for the subject at hand. I have to thank the mods for allowing this airplane-equivalent (traditional old airplane-talk) to carry-on among some of us OLD airplane-heads that frequent the HAMB every day...and thanks RYAN, too, for everything about this great place. DD
I don't hold any pilot certificate, but I work for a large flight school at Deer Valley Airport in north Phoenix. Occasionally I manage to wrangle some time behind the yolk. Our fleet consits of Cessna 172s, Piper Arrows and Piper Seminoles (twin engine). Go to work and play with airplanes, come home and play with cars.
But traditional hot rods and old airplanes do go hand in hand. After all, look back at how many of the cars of the fifty's had some of their styling related to airplanes. More than one were based on the P-38 twin booms. There was the "Jet Sweep" of some of the car's fins. Anyone remember the new car advertising of the 1963 Advanti out on the flight line, driven by the fighter jock? Some ideas and construction today of cars are based around some knowledge of either construction of aircraft, or parts that can be modified to be used in the construction of a rod today. Hmmm...another HAMB'er here is in the process of making a trailer out of a hunk of a old PV2 Hudson. Some folks look for the old control wheels to be used as steering wheels on cars back then, and even now. Some have tried to see if some of the airplane instruments would be compatible to something in their car. Switching to A N fittings. Making a dragster aero-dynamic, Nose art.. Everyone wants some old "Bomber" seats for their ride. The list could go on and on. So to me vintage airplanes, vintage cars, and even vintage drivers like me sort of fit in as to being somewhat traditional of the era prior to 1964. I even like driving with my Olds "Rocket" engine!!! Personally, I even like my traditional women with large drop tanks HellRaiser
Mike, Ask Vula or Manny, who was that crazy HellRaiser that drove his car into the restaurant and bar years back....Hee Hee Also loved his Kessler whiskey HellRaiser I might add, I was the founding member of the North 40 Outcasts, some of us that were in the first batch of hangars on the north side. (I can only think of about three members who are still alive)
Got my private ticket in '81. Flew 150/152's, 172's 177's and a piper p38. Quit flying a couple of years later for various reasons. Six years ago for my 50th birthday my wife paid for me to get reinstated. Flew a few time over the next couple of years but got to expensive with fuel costs going up and up. A buddy of mine owns a Cessna 205, so I have been in the right seat a few times in that one. Been itching to get back up, but of course fuel is going up again.
The Jalopy Journal
