Com-Central.net

Being "that" time of year, my section of Engineering had a very rare (first time in 10 years) lunch get-together sponsored by the boss. I had the good fortune to sit across from a gent who is in our section but that I normally don't work with or see much of, but am on good terms with and we got to yakking. He told me this story over our meal, and said he'd send the link to me later. Well, here it is because it's a really good story....and there's more beyond what is in the article too that's pretty remarkable. Enjoy.....

http://www.landings.com/_landings/stories/stinson.html

That is a good story....like he said it was meant to be..

Yep! And like I said,there's even more...apparently while on another flight in it, "nature called" or maybe it was a weather thing (I forget because I sat down while he'd started the story but think it was "nature")....anyway on a cross-country with a couple of pax, he had good reason to look for an airfield in the immediate vicinity in order to set it down for a short spell.

They were flying over heavily-wooded country and lo and behold, there was a grass strip ahead of them. After checking it out it appeared quite landable and so he went for it.

After setting it down with no problems and rolling to a stop, this guy comes running out of the woods screaming "It works! It works!!! I can't believe it works!!!". He was accompanied by a couple guys wearing welding helmets and the poor pilot and his 2 passengers are wondering "WTF??!!"

There was a metal prefab building adjacent to the strip and it turned out to be a small company that made truck trailers, that's why the welding gear. And the guy who was all excited was the owner of the company, who owned a Cessna 172 parked at the municipal airfield "in town" and wanted to operate it out of his own airstrip. So He had the trees cleared and graded the strip and everything, but he simply hadn't worked up the nerve yet to try landing on it.

So that old Stinson was the very first aircraft to break it in. Can you imagine what it must have been like, to be in that shop, a rgular normal day of welding along, and then lo and behold, suddenly here's an airplane landing outside when you least expect it.

Talk about a classic case of "Build it, and they will come!"