1953 Flight Training video

[jrenwick]

Please dope-slap me if this has been posted before!

Someone on the Swift Yahoo group posted a link to this video, featuring a brand-new C170:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFFRS8A0rpQ

Enjoy!

John

[lowNslow]

John, thanks for the video! Awesome. If it had been posted before I had not seen it. I like it when they talk about "air courtesy".

[flat country pilot]

That's one to keep

A couple quotes from the beginning that I thought were cool,

"He's a qualified flight instructor" QFI?

"You can get a license for about $100"

"You can become a QFI for about $500"

How many of us took lessons in a suit, tie and stylish hat.

Bill

[johneeb]

.........
How many of us took lessons in a suit, tie and stylish hat.

Bill

I did

[GAHorn]

I learned in a C-150 paying $8.25/hr, wet by the tachometer. CFI was $5/hr. 42 hours ended up costing me a total of $456, plus the checkride was another $41. ($25 for the examiner and 1.5 hrs rental). The written was $8 for Acme School of Aeronautics test guide (grade 100%) and the written was administered at the local FSS for $2. Total came to exactly $499 not including the E6B, plotter, WmKershner's Private Pilot Handbook and HOU sectional (all of which cost me $18.)

The local school in FTW these days says a Private course now costs $6800.

[n3437d]

George,

I try to refrain from being a total Bu_t head but..... when I find an opening I have to take it --- Could you tell me (us) what color socks you were wearing that day? Also what was the length of your hair? Just curious

Wishing you and yours a festive and safe 2009


Joel
N3437D

[N2540V]

The youtube clip is part of a longer movie called the Flying Businessman
The C170 starts at 6 minutes.
http://www.archive.org/details/FlyingBu1953


You can watch it or save a copy for your own archives

[n2582d]

How many of us took lessons in a suit, tie and stylish hat.

I recently digitized some old slides including this one of my wife's grandfather standing next to his 1952 C-170B (N2294D).
How did they wear those suits with summertime temps in the high 90's? No wonder my wife never wanted to go flying with him!

Click to enlarge

If some of you have good quality slides of C-170's with ORIGINAL paint and interior I'd be interested in digitizing them to publish here. It would be a great reference for all of us.

[blueldr]

In 1947 I was a Master Sergeant in the USAF stationed at Brooks AFB in San Antonio, Texas. I worked 24 on and 48 off so I had a lot of free time to kill. I already had a Commercial and Multi Engine so I decided to try for an instructors rating in order to take advantage of my GI Bill. I really had no desire to be an instructor, but what else was available.
I made application at a small flying school on Stinson Field that had four or five very tired old Piper Cubs, but it seemed that the owner was desperate for an instructor since he was trying to work it all by himself. As a result, he offered me a job as an instructor. He said I could work as an instrutor on my commercial but he would have to solo the students, who were all ex GIs on the GI BILL. Inever tried to check on the legality of this arrangement but I did get about $1.00/hr. as a flight instructor. I remember the airplane rate as about $3.50/hr. wet. It was amazing how much beer a dollar bought in those days. Sadly, a very few months later I was transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska, and had to give up my "Flying" job. I never did get an Instructors Rating.

[Robert Eilers]

My Private Ground School consisted of a Sanderson Binder and a TV with video player set up in a hangar.

[SteveF]

In 1958 it was self study using an ASA Private Pilot Training Manual and an ASA Private Pilot Written Test Guide. Thie written test was given twice a month, on paper, at the local FAA District Office for free and you waited three or four weeks for the results. You could also take the flight test at the district office for free.

A Piper Cub was nine dollars wet and the instructor was an additional three dollars. They used a watch to decide how much you owed. If you pushed the 85 horse cub you could get between nine and twelve touch and go's per hour on a twelve hundred foot grass strip.

Took the 85 horse cub up to twelve thousand five hundred one day and watched DC6's go buy under me. Bet they were wondering if their eyes were fooling them. To come down I spun to five thousand and recovered. I was so dizzy from all the turns I had to let the plane fly itself for a few minutes until my head stopped spinning.

Still to this day there is nothing like a summer's day in a J3 with the door and window open!

[170C]

That is a neat video! I noted the reference a couple of times to "air courtesy". Something still needed today. I agree with others regarding learning to fly in a suit & tie----geeze. I can't fathom that in hot weather or cold weather either for that matter. I noted that his hat brim got bent while checking the rudder/elevator movement and wow, those classie shoes

[GAHorn]

In 1947 I was a Master Sergeant in the USAF stationed at Brooks AFB in San Antonio, Texas. I worked 24 on and 48 off so I had a lot of free time to kill. I already had a Commercial and Multi Engine so I decided to try for an instructors rating in order to take advantage of my GI Bill. ...I did get about $1.00/hr. as a flight instructor. I remember the airplane rate as about $3.50/hr. wet. It was amazing how much beer a dollar bought in those days....

Were you wearing khaki-colored socks?

[blueldr]

George,

In those days even my underwear was khaki colored.

[1SeventyZ]

That video is pure gold.

Here's a pic of my grandfather with his 140, but there's also one hanging on the wall of my uncle's house of gramps in front of his Comanche in full business suit attire. Sometimes I'm tempted to dress up and execute a reenactment.