The required walkaround before the flight was not a simple one. First of all, you have to look carefully for rips in her fuselage and wings fabric. No rivets at all, of course, but a lot of fabric everywhere...

And a lot of nuts around her too to check. No flaps, but hinges everywhere... And a lot of wires and rods, with nuts and bolts... Without checking the engine (only the oil level), you spent more than 40 minutes checking all that stuff...

In the end you climbed the rear seat (the one from which light biplanes are normally flown - just a matter of CoG -) and made the initial checks before start-up.

They were extremely simple: the plane didn't had an electrical system in its own (just the engine ignition system, that was autonomous), so just to set some levers in their right places, set the altimeter, check the fuel quantity, prime the engine (this is, pump manually some gas into its cylinders), both magnetos on, throttle half opened and shout: "Clear Prop"!... Someone on the outside 'gave you a prop', this is, swinged the propeller in a way the engine started at the first attempt... Dear Manolo, how many times you swinged props for me at that time...! We'll meet again, sure...

I love you all...

TWRman

You all  know, ladies and Aviation don't usually match... What a pity...!


I love you all, my friends (including the one who don't want to be my friend now...)

Mine was E3B-486. It was her military registration, and as this appears in my Logbook.

My first flight on her took place on August 19, 1974. My last flight was on January 3, 1975. Next time I went to the Aeroclub to flight her I found that a stupid and very incompetent pilot had destroyed her in a crosswind landing, having been advised previously not to flight that day... Good bye, my beloved Bücker...

I'm completely sure one day I will own one...

I put it now a couple of pics, two of them in formation at July last year FIO exhibition and a close-up of her classical rear seat instrument panel... Ahhh!, those times... The best in my whole life (no ladies fucking off  at all then...)

I once had a biplane too. I didn't own she, of course, but from the moment her engine was started, with me strapped in her back seat, she was mine until, back on the airfield, engine stopped, strapped off and jump off her seat...

She was exactly like the one in the pic, except she had not the roundels painted, neither in her fuselage nor in her wings. The grey overall colour scheme was exactly the same, with the St. Andrews' Cross painted in black over a white background in her rudder ...

She was a CASA 1131E Jüngman, build under license from the Germans but with an engine made here: an ENMASA Tigre of 125 hp. The Spanish Air Force (Ejército del Aire) was taking them off from active service, as an elementary trainer. By 1974, they offered all the Airclubs around the country one or two of them, in a lend scheme. Aircraft were completely overhauled, airframe and engine. They offer them at no cost at all and for 400 hours flying time or aircraft destroyed, whatever it came first... I heard just a few of them, less than 10, were given back to the EdA. The rest of them were destroyed in accidents, mainly on landings,,,

Two Final Reflections...

First one, from 'Illusions': "Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't"... Think about it...

Second one from my own: " The Universe writes straight on twisted patterns"...

I love you all

TWRman

Good evening to all. Though I've kept on reading 'Illusions' today, it's quite late now to reflect anything on this reading...

Anyway, I cannot stop from posting the phrase in the picture:

If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't, they never were

She took off at 2120 UTC last Friday, and disappeared into the night sky...

Don't know whether she will come back or not, but this is her choice, not mine. I will wait, for sure...

Love you all, but specially you, Grasshopper... 

These are two pictures of the Air Traveller 4000, the biplane Donald Shimoda, the Messiah, flew in his barnstorming deals in the Richard Bach's book 'Illusions'

Compared with the Fleet Richard flew it's a very different kind of a biplane. This one is clearly larger and heavier than the Fleet, being her MTOW (Maximum Take-Off Weight)  almost twice the Fleet's. Her advantage was she was a three-seater. Donald could fly two passengers in each flight. The drawback, she needed longer landing strips, not very easy to find out...

                                                   

I've not been able to be through 'Illusions' today, so I'm not going to comment anything about it now. And besides, I had an extremely awkward experience yesterday night (in fact, at about 0045- 0:45 AM Saturday) that still has my mind a little bit 'frozen'. Sorry about that...

Love you all

TWRman