Dave Downs

I may have told this story before…… 1965, I’m working at the local airport as a line boy on weekends for flying time; mow the lawn, clean the rest rooms and fuel planes. Brand new Beech Bonanza lands and taxies up to the fuel pumps. I go over to the plane and am somewhat surprised that a ‘little old lady’ gets out and asks me to top off the main tanks. I look in the cockpit and notice that there is only one seat, for the pilot, the rest of the interior is filled with fuel tanks with radios strapped to them. The ‘little old lady’ was Louise Sacchi, 340+ solo ocean crossings, both Atlantic and Pacific in single engine and light twin aircraft. She wrote a book - Ocean Flying.

It is still there at the Wings of Freedom museum located on a parcel of land separate from the old Willow Grove Navy Base. A small area of Willow Grove is still active as Biddle Air National Guard Base. They are flying the MQ-9 Reaper drones. The aircraft are not based there but are flown from the facility.

Interesting…..these just showed up behind my shed. Unusual for my area.

First I think I should define ‘chiggers’. In my area they are small red insects, smaller than the average period at the end of a sentence. They burrow under your skin, usually where your clothing is tight, like at your belt line. They itch like crazy. The cure is to paint the affected area with clear nail polish so they suffocate. My young neighbor does small squares for the local ‘horse crowd’ and stores them in my barn. The bales have become infested with chiggers to the point where you can pick up a bale and you will get 3 or 4 crawling on your hands. This is totally new to me, never seen anything like this before. Has anybody here ever had this problem?

First time I saw painted rocks was when I was in the U S Army…..old timers will understand 😀 (if it moves, salute it, if it don’t move, paint it)

Some Chinese money I brought home in 2002. Seems strange to me that some have English on them.

Local scrap yard pays partly with new 2 dollar bills. They give you a weigh ticket with a bar code on it, there is an ATM type machine that reads the code and dispenses money. Sometimes you will get 5 two dollar bills instead of a $10. Don’t know why they do it, maybe just to be different.

YIPPIE!!!!! Many thanks to the Mods!!!!!

This thread must have jinxed me… I haven’t had any close up encounters with stinging insects for years. Went to drag an old lawn tractor out of the shed today, it’s going off to the scrap yard. Dirt floor and the wheels were a little sunk in so I got a digging bar to get some leverage to move it. Jammed the bar in the dirt and started prying on it…….and all h&@& broke loose. About 2 million really angry bees came boiling up out of the ground, 2 of them chased me over 50 feet, both of them finally got me. I happened to have 2 cans of wasp spray, emptied both cans in the direction of the nest. That slowed them down enough to pour some gasoline down the hole which eliminated any further activity.

My area of S. E. Pennsylvania gas is $4.39, my niece went to visit her boyfriend in the Pocono Mountains yesterday (40 miles away) and found a Sunoco station with $3.45 gas. UPDATE! My niece went by the station about an hour later, gas was over $4.00, she thinks maybe somebody got fired for posting the wrong price!!😀😀😀

Mom’s 1951 Chevy, 2 door sedan, manual transmission.

Yep, get in a car with a random stranger you met on the internet……perfectly safe….😀😀😀😀😀

Link to topic

In the Technical IH Talk forum there is a thread "CX55 or skidsteer for picking rocks in pasture". 'Haystack' has quoted 'HydroTek' and 'stronger800' and in the quoted message there are Chinese characters - -

Why are quotes including Chinese characters!!!?????

Friend of mine flew pipeline patrol for over 15,000 hours, I flew with him a couple of times. No cameras were used, if he saw something unusual it was inspected by the good old human eye at tree top height. His normal altitude was about 500 above ground level. One of the lines he patrolled went across Philadelphia International Airport, he’d call the tower, then went into a holding pattern until they gave him clearance to cross, there were a bunch of tanks on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River; we flew across the airport at 200’ or so. First time I flew with him was in the winter, he told me to bring my snowmobile suit, surprised I asked him if the heater in airplane was inoperative. No problem with the heater he said but there are some areas in Northwest Pennsylvania that if we should unexpectedly end up on the ground it might take a day or two for us to walk to civilization. He did have to make 3 precautionary off-airport landings - flew the airplane out of all 3, once after replacing a cylinder jug. Amazing guy, lost his left hand at 7 years old, retired from flying and operated a D-8 Cat. Sorry for the long post, lost him a few years ago, I miss him. RIP Bill

Same problems here but could see acem’s pictures, this is on my phone, will try computer later.

Almost had that happen to me only it was a 4” high pressure gas line. I was interested in the laptop the utility marker guy was using and noticed the a gas line crossing the 18” storm line we were going to install, he had missed it. We hand dug the line and found we had about 2” of clearance from the O.D. of the storm main. The excavator would have ripped right through it. I earned my pay that day.

I know there are pictures of Farmalls in use during WWII in some of our topics, in fact I have posted pictures of some, usually in airfield use. I took this screenshot from a video of operations in New Guinea during the monsoon season, the tractor was attached to a fighter squadron. I just thought it was an interesting picture and maybe some other members may have pictures to add.

Low compression in the cylinders could be the problem

Rumor (pretty much confirmed but very hush-hush) has it that she bought a 95 acre place about 7 miles from me. County tax records show property is owned by a corporation. Looking it over on google earth reveals some interesting things including a lake, tennis courts, formal gardens and a giant house and entire property is fenced with electronic gates and I’m sure 24 hour security as well as cameras when she’s there. One thing I didn’t see is a dedicated helipad.

As mentioned in another thread the first plane that I flew was a Beech Musketeer but mentioning a Citabria brings special memories to me. This was mine, 150 hp, serial number 7 (early Citabrias had oleo gear, not spring steel). Great airplane, put over 1000 hours on it in 14 years.

My first thought when I saw this was ‘why? But it is for sale…..

Soloed in a Musketeer and took my private check ride in one - N2336W

Coated rotors were about $20 more than standard, I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I asked. Still can’t figure out why, done 10 - 15 sets of disc brakes over the last 10 years or so, never had this problem.