http://www.alexisparkinn.com/biplane_rides!.htm

If you've ever had the urge to experience aviation the way it was
almost 80 years ago, this is your chance. It's just not every day
you get to fly in a 1929 Travel Air!

I took my daughter up last summer, and it is absolutely the coolest
ride there is. Low, slow, with that big "Harley-sound" up front, all
whilst wearing the leather helmet, scarf and goggles -- MAN, that is
flying!

Gary Lust, the owner/pilot, is the fellow who we are trusting to teach
our 16 year-old son to fly -- so you KNOW what we think of his
piloting skills. He's the best there is, IMHO, and he's flying a
classic airplane from the Golden Age of Flight. Can it get better?

Stop in Iowa City some time, if for no other reason than to check out
this VERY cool plane.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
>http://www.alexisparkinn.com/biplane_rides!.htm
>
>If you've ever had the urge to experience aviation the way it was
>almost 80 years ago, this is your chance. It's just not every day
>you get to fly in a 1929 Travel Air!
>
That is very cool. When you said 1929 Travel Air, I was thinking of a
completely different airplane. I took a ride in a '29 Travel Air about a
decade ago at an Antique Aircraft Assoc. fly-in, but it was a 6 seat 6000B
model. It looks like Travel Air was a busy airplane company in 1929. Not
only did they make the 3 seater and 6 seater, but they fielded the Mystery
Ship at the Cleveland Air Races. It's surprising how many are still in the
air.

I rode in this one :

http://airminded.net/ta6000/ta6_1oc.jpg

Looks like this 6000B is still flying in Air Taxi Service in Alaska :

http://www.alaskaseaplanes.com/nc9084/nc9084%20web.html

And you were worried about Piper supplying parts for 25 yr. old airplanes!
:-)))

John Galban=====>N4BQ (PA28-180)

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/aviation/200706/1

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:48:06 GMT, "JGalban via AviationKB.com"
<u32749@uwe> wrote in <7449cbb886a81@uwe>:

>It looks like Travel Air was a busy airplane company in 1929. Not
>only did they make the 3 seater and 6 seater, but they fielded the Mystery
>Ship at the Cleveland Air Races.

Umm, that would be this one:

http://spotted.cjonline.com/pages/photo_page.php?mm=1498232&gallery=308416

http://spotted.cjonline.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=308416&offset=80


http://www.thewhartons.net/pancho_barnes.htm
She returned to the Powder Puff Derby the following year in a
powerful new Travelair Mystery Ship, a low-winged speedster with
huge wheel spats which has been called the most beautiful of the
great racing airplanes. Blasting across the route at an average
speed of 196.19 mph, she took the world’s speed record for women
away from Amelia Earhart.


http://www.air-racing-history.com/PILOTS/Pancho%20Barnes.htm
First, however, would come a proper marriage, followed by the
birth of a son. At the age of 18, Florence wed the Reverend C.
Rankin Barnes, a prominent Episcopal priest, and settled down to
the duties expected of a proper clergyman’s wife. In due course
their son, William, was born. Not long afterwards, however, the
young bride’s self-reliant personality asserted itself in dramatic
fashion: abandoning church and child in 1928, she disguised
herself as a man and signed on as a crewmember aboard a freighter
headed for Mexico. Once the ship was safely docked at San Blas
with a cargo of bananas and contraband guns, she jumped ship with
a renegade sailor and spent four months roaming through the
revolution-torn interior. Somewhere along this trek, while riding
a donkey, her comrade dubbed her "Pancho" for her fancied
resemblance to Don Quixote’s faithful companion. She was delighted
with her new nickname, and kept it for the rest of her life.

Into the Air

Returning to San Marino later that year, she turned her eyes
toward the skies. By then, Wall Street’s Bull Market was roaring
along, the public was wildly air-minded in the aftermath of
Lindbergh’s flight to Paris, and the nation’s adrenaline level
perfectly matched her own. Pancho bought an OX-5 powered Travelair
biplane, hired an irascible but expert instructor, and set out to
learn how to fly. Defying her teacher’s best efforts to discourage
his "dilettante" student, she soloed after only six hours of
instruction. The young socialite promptly celebrated this feat by
taking a friend aloft and buzzing the field while her passenger
wing-walked among the flying wires. From that point onward,
aviation became the dominant note in her life.

Scorning the genteel aspects of her upbringing, Pancho took to
wearing men’s clothes, often oil-stained and dishevelled, and to
smoke cigars. Kitchen matches scratched across the seat of her
pants replaced silver cigarette lighters, and her speech, never
too delicate at the best of times, became notoriously coarse and
salty. Although Pancho was always ready for a laugh, however, she
was never a buffoon in the air. Always, she took flying seriously
and went to great lengths to become a skilled pilot as well as a
practical mechanic. Her professional approach to flying never, of
course, prevented her from enjoying enormous fun along the way.
Soon tiring of buzzing her husband’s dignified church during
Sunday morning services, she assembled something called "Pancho
Barnes’ Mystery Circus of the Air," and went on barnstorming tours
with herself as a star performer. She shared the spotlight with an
improbably handsome parachute jumper named Slim, who specialized
in enticing young females from the audience into their first
airplane ride and shortly--to their great surprise--into their
first parachute jump as well.
...


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838434-1,00.html
Friday, Jun. 07, 1968
For the several hundred prospective buyers who strode into a
hangar at the Orange County, Calif., Airport last week, the
temptation to snap a ghostly salute was nearly irresistible.
The planes were all part of the famous collection put together by
Hollywood Stunt Flyers Frank Tallman and the late Paul Mantz.

But such, at least, was not the case with one beat-up, prop-less
oldtimer, listed as the "Travelair Mystery Ship." "Mystery ship,
hell!" snorted Oldtime Aviatrix Florence Lowe ("Pancho") Barnes.
"I bought this ship in 1930 and flew it to two women's world speed
records." When she made the winning bid of $4,300 for her old
plane, which had been in Mantz's collection, the crowd stood and
applauded. Pancho Barnes, for her part, guaranteed to have her old
ship back in shape and flying soon. "I've got a lot of friends out
at Edwards Air Force Base," she said. "I'm sure they'll give me a
hand."


http://www.thewhartons.net/pancho_barnes.htm
Of her personality and that clamorous era, little now remains:
some concrete foundations and the remains of a fanciful stone
fountain near the Edwards AFB firing range; a few photographs. The
dim, rectangular outline of a dirt airstrip can still be made out
from the air. There is a battered door from the ranch pickup,
still faintly lettered, resting against a wall in the Air Force
Flight Test Center Museum. But the Pancho stories still circulate
freely in the flight community, some titillating, most nostalgic,
all now recounted with tolerant smiles. For many years now, the
people at Edwards have gathered together on the site of the Happy
Bottom Riding Club for an annual barbecue which goes far into the
night. And in a hangar in nearby Mojave, Pancho’s black-and-red
Travelaire Mystery Ship is gradually returning to its original
splendor.

As always, Pancho had the last word: "Well ------- it, we had more
fun in a week than most of the weenies in the world have in a
lifetime."

> That is very cool. When you said 1929 Travel Air, I was thinking of a
> completely different airplane. I took a ride in a '29 Travel Air about a
> decade ago at an Antique Aircraft Assoc. fly-in, but it was a 6 seat 6000B
> model. It looks like Travel Air was a busy airplane company in 1929. Not
> only did they make the 3 seater and 6 seater, but they fielded the Mystery
> Ship at the Cleveland Air Races. It's surprising how many are still in the
> air.

Yep, Travel Air was one of the most successful of the early aircraft
companies. Considering that they had Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech,
and Clyde Cessna all on the payroll, I guess that's not surprising.

Sadly, the Great Depression wiped them -- and dozens of others like
them -- out.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"