Be wary of articles that start with "This is a true story." But this is true: in 1925, 21-year-old Rose Budine wanted to fly. Just like the opening scene of my forgotten novel, barnstormer Fred Kane arrived in Kansas City, Kansas for a parachuting demonstration. When his regular jumper Fallon Sashweight withdrew, Rose walked out of the crowd, Kansas sounded very clichéd, and he made a jumper. free.
A few minutes later—in her first flight in history—she climbed from the cockpit onto the lower wing of the biplane and buckled the parachute attached to the pillar. Then, like a scene deleted from Harold Lloyd's 1923 movie "The Last Safety", she jumped up. After surviving, Fred gave her $50 and she became a professional skydiver at Barnstorm Circuit. She did not land in the same plane she took off until the third flight.
Her career is thriving, because every aviation movie requires a love triangle, so please enter Charles Gatchett in Seneca, Kansas in 1927. Rose was scheduled to perform, but when her skydiving plane failed to start, she hired Gaget and his plane. They rushed forward, dazzling the crowd with the sound of the impact. Safe and sound, they teamed up to carry out a barnstorm in the Midwest and had a great time with Charles as a pilot. Ross jumped and walked on the wings, often carrying paying passengers on their standard LS-5 biplane. The regulations at that time were a bit unstable.
Charles and Rose married in 1928 and continued their aerial circus romance through a change. Wedding vows include the usual model promises of love, as well as anything that requires Rose to promise to stop jumping. Take the wings, of course, but don't jump. Again, safety last.
In 1930, Rose quit the show and gave birth to Charles W. Gatschet Jr., who was nicknamed "skip" by air show performer Ben Gregory. Why is a bit unclear, but it's stuck. Gregory's job is to pack 14 paying passengers into the Ford Trimotor. It was profitable at first, but in the end he charged as little as 50 cents for the ride. The break-even point may be north of $7.00 per load. This kind of business model during the Great Depression era lost a little bit for every ticket, but the quantity made up for this, which inspired the future low-cost airlines. People's Express and Freelandia thought of it by accident, but my favorite belly airline is Taiwan's U-Land Airlines (seriously). The tough marketing name: "Welcome to U-Land, where the seats are very cheap, but you have to land this MD-82 because we can't afford a pilot."
Old Charles served as a flight instructor during World War I before being transported to France, but he arrived too late to participate in the war from the war to the end. He resumed his mission during World War II and died in a C-46 in the China-Burma-India theater. The investigation after the accident pointed out that there was a problem with the assembly of the Curtis electric propeller, which reversed when it was supposed to be feathered.
Skip served as an Air Force Link Trainer instructor during the Korean War and learned to fly after get off work. In 1952, after driving a J-3 Cub for a solo, he found a second-hand Taylorcraft BC12-D, three of its four 65-HP cylinders could withstand at least a certain amount of pressure. Skip threw the broken fourth cylinder onto the waste pile and replaced it with a slightly better jar. After fixing it with bolts, he paid the seller $350—the entire plane, not just the cylinders. The strange thing is that the engine does not generate enough power to improve the buyer's and seller's checkout ability, so student pilot Skip flew from Dallas to San Angelo, Texas, and the T-Craft flew about 200 miles. It was at low altitude. Use all available power sources. Yes, children, when student pilots are protected by invisible forces, that is the age of innocence.
In 1986, Skip continued his career in airlines, retiring from TWA as the captain of the Boeing 767. On the way, he flew a piston twin-engine Martins aircraft along the Ohio River Valley, where you can learn how to deal with snow and thunderstorms, or re-use Links. The twins led to the four-engine Lockheed L-1049 Constellation, aka Connie. He shuttles from the left seat of Connies to the right seat of the jet aircraft-Convair 880 and Boeing 707-and then back to Connies, which is an aircraft favored by Skip, although as he said, it is "original" ". Engineers are busy monitoring the engine temperature while managing the "nightmare" fuel system. These will not affect it to become the most beautiful passenger aircraft ever.
The list of aircraft that Skip flies for TWA is impressive: Boeing 707, 720, 727, 757 and 767. Lockheed includes L1011 TriStar and 1329 JetStar, which are mainly used for training. Fans of James Bond may remember the Jetstar Cat Galore that appeared in the 1964 movie "Goldfinger." Spoiler alert: Jetstar's Auric Goldfinger performed poorly due to a window problem. This introduces window issues in Save-A-Connie Constellation. Skip participated in the foundation from the beginning, donating time and money. In 1989, a staff member unlocked the Connie in the desert and flew it to Kansas City Central Airport (MKC), where the Aviation Museum is located. After a year of rebuilding the fuselage and the suspension of the four new engines, she was ready to take a close-up. If you've seen Martin Scorsese's movie "The Aviator" about TWA's weird boss Howard Hughes, you must have seen Spear and the crew fly to California Watch the movie "Save-A-Connie Constellation" (Save-A-Connie Constellation). Connie’s windows cannot support the pressurized cabin, so operations are limited to low altitudes.
After the refurbishment, Connie was expected to spend 10 years in the air storm flight demonstration, but the result was 16 years of flying, which is a longer career than U-Land-It Airlines. The age of an airplane is not important, as long as someone keeps replacing parts, but as qualified pilots, engineers, and mechanics get older, Connie’s future is uncertain. At the same time, the crown jewel of the Aviation Museum is in the non-flying collections of Kansas City, where people of any age can dream.
I have hardly read the highlights of the Gatschet family aviation story. His mother Rose did learn to fly, but never received a pilot certificate. In 1914, his father built an airplane according to a plan in Popular Mechanics and started flying. Decades later, Skip followed in his footsteps and built a Stitts Playboy (two-seater trailer) from the plan without a kit. He also built a gyroplane and rebuilt an abandoned Rosella biplane. And let them all fly, which makes his story very exciting.
Hey Paul, this is People Express, not People's. Here comes...
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