Here's a nice old 1936 Aeronca C3 "Master". It has a 40-horsepower 2-cylinder engine, and amazingly will haul two adults into the air. This machine was actually used in an airshow act in the 30s where it was landed on a ramp on top of an Oldsmobile...!!
A rare Culver Cadet, designed by Al Mooney before he started his own company. This design came out just before WWII, and with a 75-horse engine, it would make 140 mph or so with a 600-mile range on 20-gallon tanks. Yes, that's 30 mpg at about 140 mph!!! Not many planes today, even 2-place experimentals, can make the same claim. Service ceiling is supposedly 17,500 feet. Get up there with the wind behind you in this thing, and you'd be traveling! Stall speed is below 40 mph, so you could land it anywhere.
A little cramped, but... I'd love to have one of these. Did I mention that it has retractable gear, a lovely elliptical wing similar to a certain British warbird, and is aerobatic?!
We'll have a look inside this one in the next installment.
The nicest Link trainer I've seen... it is semi-functional, but they're having trouble with some of the bellows-actuated mechanisms. They have the plotter table and everything. We'll also see inside this thing later; there's something very interesting about this trainer that you might be able to see in this photo.
There are quite a few skeletal fuselages and things literally hanging around here, and as funky as they appear, it's a jaw-dropping collection: this here is the remains of a Monocoupe, which will liekly someday be rejoined with the wing shown earlier.
And how about this glorious C195? Still flying, and still lookin' good.
A 1926 one-off, the Winstead Special. It was in storage for almost 60 years before being restored to flying condition about 10 years ago. That custom cowling over the OX-5 is a thing of beauty in itself!! Wow!!
Next: part 5
