My grandfather loved flying. When he was just eighteen, he saved up enough money, found a guy who had an airplane in his barn, bought it and flew it back to his dad’s farm.

It is interesting to note that during that inaugural flight, it was his FIRST solo flight and not only that but he tried to loop the airplane too. 

When he was at the top of the loop, dust fell into the carburetor and choked the life out of the airplane and my grandfather made his first deadstick landing.

At the time, my grandfather only had maybe five hours of flight instruction in his—well–”logbook,” before he went and bought that airplane. Times were a lot more simpler then. There was no FAA, no medical requirement, no nothing. If you could basically find an airplane, you could fly it.

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