Original Cessna logbooks

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Bruce Fenstermacher
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by Bruce Fenstermacher »

I'll have to compare that to the one I have for my '49.

I can create all the prepress art but finding a printer/binder who can/will handle the short run will be the likely issue. Most likely it will not be printed in the traditional sense on a press but copied on a copier. I have a friend in the printing business who might give me ideas.
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pojawis
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by pojawis »

but finding a printer/binder who can/will handle the short run will be the likely issue
Not if one has their own press. Presses from $100 and WAY up...

http://commercialprintingpresses.com/
hilltop170
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by hilltop170 »

I'm just wondering if all you would need is to reproduce the cover for the new "old" logbooks. I don't have any examples in front of me but it seems the pages are pretty much the same new and old. Are you trying to recreate your old logs or just want to start using old looking logs for current entries?

In 2007 I asked Mort Brown who was one of the production test pilots why the logbook dates were just the year. He said they didn't know when the planes might sell and didn't want the customers to think their plane had been sitting around for a long time before they bought it. Of course, the airworthiness certificate would give the actual date it was issued.

I could be wrong but the initials in your logbook look like Doyle Worley's. He was another production test pilot concurrent with Mort Brown. I met Doyle in 2007 at the same time I met Mort at the Cessna 195 Club Fly In in Wichita. I have a picture of them both together. It was a real honor to be able to talk to them and ask questions. Mort had flown the initial flight in my 195 and he signed my original logbook again beside his original initials. I asked if he might have flown my 170 also and he sent me copies of his pilot log showing he had flown the planes just before and after mine but not mine. Mort is gone now but still had a detailed memory when he was 99 when I met him.
Last edited by hilltop170 on Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:50 am, edited 4 times in total.
Richard Pulley
2014-2016 TIC170A Past President
1951 170A, N1715D, s/n 20158, O-300D
Owned from 1973 to 1984.
Bought again in 2006 after 22 years.
It's not for sale!
racerrick
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by racerrick »

I was dinking around online & stumbled across this forum. Doyle Dean Worley was my father. He grew up in Chanute, KS during the "Golden Age of Aviation", Chanute was named in honor of aviation pioneer Octave Chanute & Martin & Osa Johnson who flew all across Africa in the 20's & 30's in a Sikorsky amphibian, were from there. Dad built model airplanes & worked odd jobs at the Chanute airport to earn money for flying lessons & accumulated quite a few hours. He moved to Wichita, began to work in the Cessna factory before the war & joined the USAAC entering flight training in 1943. I remember him telling me that during his first Army Air Corp flight the instructor asked him, "so..., just how many hours DO you have?" He flew a Republic P-47D with the 525th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 86th FBG entering the ETO at Pisa, Italy, up the boot into France & then Germany. He returned home on the Queen Mary. My claim to fame is I was shooting up German tanks & bombing Italian bridges as a baby - Dad's nose art on Li'l Torque 33 was an infant in diapers & a top hat jauntily holding a cane - that was me. My sister Barbara & I still have his war memorabilia including the hot shot fighter pilot photos, helmet & goggles, white scarf, leather flight jacket (which I still have) standing on the wing of his P-47, all his military & civil flight logs, letters he wrote home, lots of pictures, medals & some hunks of aluminum shot out of his airplane by German flak. He returned to Wichita after the war & began to work at Cessna again while going to college on the GI Bill. He began test flying for Cessna in 1951 with Mort Brown & Ted Hart at the Pawnee Plant. Bill McNeill & Jim Greer joined the crew in, I believe, about 1952 or 3. I remember being around all of them as a young boy. I remember having dinner several times with Mort & Sharon Brown & Dad & Mort did a video together at a 195 convention in Winfield, KS in maybe the mid1990s - I think it can still be found online. The first flight I remember was with Dad in an L-19 sitting on two 'chute packs in the rear seat. Mom, Dad & I would sometimes go to the factory on a Sunday, pick out a nice 170 or 195 & fly up to Hutchinson for breakfast. I suspect that hasn't happened in a long, long time. Must have been OK though as one Sunday we encountered Dwayne Wallace doing the same thing! Once the 310 production began in earnest & the Wallace Plant was constructed, Dad moved there as Chief Production Test Pilot with Jim Wolf under him. Several other test pilots were subsequently hired but I don't recall their names. Dad flew all the 300 & 400 series & he & Jim Wolf flew all the T-37s, A-37s & Citation I's as at that time they were the only jet rated pilots. He got his jet rating in T-33s at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City. He was on the cover of flying magazine in about 1971 or so. I worked my way thru college & the first year of dental school working at Cessna, the last two years on the flight line right by Dad's office. We got to fly together a lot in the uncertified aircraft as I was an employee, got off shift at 3:30 & the pilots were flying dawn to dusk during those 1960-70's heyday years of civil aircraft production. It was long, hard work days for the test pilots & one of the reasons Dad retired as early as he did. Dad was a gifted pilot; he'd fly the pattern working the squak sheet on his leg, always aware of traffic, turn final & grease it. It wasn't a joy ride for me. He put me to work tracking down squeaks & rattles, adjusting autopilots or whatever else we could do in flight. He scared me once. We could hear radio traffic in the flight hanger, he had just departed, declared an emergency with smoke in the cockpit, bent it around a tight pattern, landed & taxied hot up to the hanger door with the canopy up, braked so hard it blew out the main gear tires & rolled out onto the ground. Jim Wolf punched out of a T-37 once - I don't remember what Dad said the issue was. Production test flight could be routine but, like all aviating, it can have its moments. I got no free ride from Dad working at Cessna either. He flew a T-37, did the usual test acrobatics, landed, walked over to me where I was pre-flighting an A-37, asked me if I had prep'd. the plane he just flew which I had, asked me to hold out my hand & deposited some screws, washers & scraps that fell into the canopy. "Son, you need to be more careful," was the rather stern admonishment. He retired in 1975 at 55 years old, just as he had always planned. During our annual vacation trips to Montana to visit grandparents, we'd scout property in Colorado & his dream was to retire in a cabin in the mountains. He built that cabin in 1976 near Salida, Colorado. Mom passed away 12 years later & Dad got hooked up with Marge - they were quite the pair. They moved to Apache Junction, AZ & Dad built & flew RC airplanes with a local club for many years. Dad passed away at age 89 in 2009. He was a good husband & father, a gifted natural pilot & one of the Greatest Generation. We still miss him.

Richard Worley, DDS Denver, CO
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daedaluscan
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by daedaluscan »

Thank you for sharing about your father. A full life. I love that he started and finished with models. I suspect it will be the same for me, but a lot less impressive in the middle.
Charlie

1956 170B C-GDRG #27019
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Richgj3
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by Richgj3 »

Thank you for that great story of your Dad. I have the original logs for my C170B from 1952. The airframe log has no initials next to the test flight but the engine log does. Looks like they could be MB.
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Rich Giannotti CFI-A. CFI-I SE.
1952 C170B
N2444D s/n 20596
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DaveF
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by DaveF »

Richard, thanks for finding us and telling your story!

Looks like my ‘54 was test-flown by Ted Hart.
027D22E6-EA09-4DBA-A326-D6640C7F6FCB.jpeg
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c170taildragger
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by c170taildragger »

I just came upon this thread. I acquired N21023 a 1954 170B in 2018. It had been sold originally to an airport in Minot ND registered as N1992C then about 10 years later left the states for Canada. Mr Worley had signed off all the original logbooks of my aircraft.. I found his obituary and it was enlightening to know a true hero flew my airplane. As a former veteran and Naval Aviator I wish I had had the opportunity to shake his hands down let him fly that same airplane!
The airplane had a ramp wind accident in 1995 and was put on its back.. a gentleman from Ohio purchased it and rebuilt the aircraft over the next twenty years.. I have enjoyed getting to know my found treasure and to insure that I remember as I get older what airplane I’m flying I changed the registration to N4170B. 1954 170B!
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Ryan Smith
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Re: Original Cessna logbooks

Post by Ryan Smith »

I’m not quite sure how I missed this thread. Your dad test flew my airplane in March, 1952. I wish I could have met him. If you ever find yourself in North Carolina, or I ever find myself in Denver with it, you’ve got some flight time in N2256D.
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