The International Cessna 170 Association

If any of you guys are familiar with the book "Flight of Passage", I just found out that a man and his wife are recreating that trip with the same airplane right now. Bruce may know about this since I think they made a stop at Sentimental Journey this year. Check them out. I think this is the COOLEST thing ever. I wish I could do it for sure.

http://www.supercub.org/cms/

And for those of you who haven't read the book, please do so. It's an incredible read, and to this day is my favorite book.

Aryana wrote:I cracked up reading about the brothers laying on the grass staring at the sky after spraying butyrate dope in the enclosed barn, LOL!

Their oldest sister got in on the act a few times, if I recall. I can only imagine what it must have been like back then. I feel old saying it, but the world I grew up in is vastly different than the one today...and I just now turned 28.

If one has an iPad, they can make that same trip today in a Cub with few issues. The Buck brothers were ballsy kids. I can't imagine anyone their age doing the same thing, the same way today.

Ryan Smith wrote:

Aryana wrote:... If one has an iPad, they can make that same trip today in a Cub with few issues. The Buck brothers were ballsy kids. I can't imagine anyone their age doing the same thing, the same way today.

An iPad would be cheating! You'd be surprised how well a line on a map and a compass with a good calibration card will work if you pay enough attention to them. One of my more satisfying flights was one from Tullahoma to Lexington (Tennessee) in my sans electrical system, pre-GPS T-craft with only a compass and a map. Nailed it!

These kinds of threads always remind me of a story, probably apocryphal (look it up ), where a "child of the magenta line" was on a cross country from Denver to St. Louis when ATC advised him that radar contact had been lost and requested his position. The best answer he could come up with was "500 miles west of St. Louis"....

Great book and an easy, entertaining read. I've bought a bunch just to give out. I will be interesting to follow this reenactment. FYI, Rinker and his brother Nick last year completed a trip along the Oregon Trail with a team of mules. They had quite a time. That book should be coming out later this summer and I'm sure will be another fun read. The Bucks are an interesting group. Brian flys his J-3 here at KIWI and Nick does the horse drawn carriage thing, Rinker stops by occassionally. If anyone gets to Maine, stop in KIWI. Lot of taildraggers and gas is relatively inexpensive, too.

I love that book and I actually got my wife to read it too. I dream of the day when I send my two boys cross country in the 120. I will check their pockets and the aircraft for any technology devices before they leave.

Thanks for posting the link to the blog. I hadn't heard about it yet. I also thought there was going to be a movie based on the book, but I could be wrong...

Lindbergh found Paris with a compass and a clock and a maritime chart with a line drawn on what mostly represented water.

DR works! (as does that thing we all claim to do.......... pilotage.)

I have fond memories of flying my newly-purchased Aeronca Champ from Bend, Oregon to Louisiana. GPS had not been invented and all I had were a shaky wet compass, a sectional, and a Texaco road atlas. Did really well except for a few times over Death Valley and and the Arizona desert where there were absolutely no recognizable roads or other features for pilotage. With a wildly bouncing compass in the summer turbulence, dead reconing was difficult too. Had to take an "average" on headings. I made it just fine, although there were times when I wasn't absolutely sure of where I was. I'd love to recreate that trip. Reading Flight of Passage really reminded me of my flight.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s I flew several planes from Texas to Alaska with nothing but a com radio. Some of the best trips and flying memories I have.

hilltop170 wrote:Back in the 1980s and 1990s I flew several planes from Texas to Alaska with nothing but a com radio. Some of the best trips and flying memories I have.

In the 50's and 60's, you didn't need no stinking radio...just used sectionals that cost .50 (or sometimes given to you free by the FBO ). Those charts were only printed on one side with the topography. The back side had so much information on it that if you studied it enough, you could pass the private written test