Yeah, he was a character.

Bob Gardner

"karl gruber" wrote in message
...
I gave Harmon Leonard a BFR about 20 years ago. He is long gone now but
fancied himself quite an opera star.

He owned a big freight company here in Seattle and was mostly retired. Bob
Gardner will vouch for the fact that Harmon flew for about 30 minutes
every day and his REPUBLIC TWIN SEABEE was a common sight in the sky
around Boeing Field.

http://tinyurl.com/h4jrs

We had done some landings in Lake Washington and the STOL Twin Bee is
really a terrific short field airplane. It has 6 feet of wing extension
and Harmon just firewalled one engine from a slow water taxi. The airplane
immediately went into a sharp turn but did manage to increase speed enough
to get up on the step. It still went around in circles a couple of times,
but finally got above Vmcg(w) and old Harmon just milked it off the
water.................singing Lohengrin or something. It was a sight and
sound to behold.

I signed him off regularly because he never killed himself and nobody else
would EVER fly with him. He WAS an excellent stick.............but
somewhat of a scofflaw.

Karl
"Curator" N185KG