ND Pilot Found

The 60-year-old pilot who left Bismarck ND bound for Fergus Falls MN was
found in a slough. I spent four days co-piloting a Gippsland Airvan looking
for him. The English born pilot remarked that our search area was roughly
the size of England. We had 15 planes looking for him for about two weeks. I
thought the missing pilot might be in a slough. The water in the prairie
potholes was so green we couldn't see anything beneath the surface, and
nobody spotted any oil slicks in the slimy water.
I went to the air museum in Fargo when I had some down time during the
search. A crop duster at a tiny (two cows and one horse) North Dakota town
had a poster for Flyboys, attesting to the marketing effort for the film. At
first I wasn't sure if the movie poster was for a new movie, or an old movie
appropriate for the décor of the crop duster's office. The crop duster has
several biplane crop dusters with huge radial engines in various states of
repair. He used a turboprop monoplane for work. A FBO at a larger airport
was lovingly restoring three P-51 Mustangs. He gave us the keys to his car
without hesitation to go to town for dinner.
I bet I am the only North Dakota born pilot in this newsgroup. The bet is
for a beer and a meal, in Grand Forks or Fargo. Being pilot trained at UND
doesn't win the bet, unless you played hockey for UND too. KD
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/719089.html