It was a beautiful day to go flying

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:30 am

I had a scenic flight scheduled today with a family who came all the way from Venice, CA and Denver, Colorado so Grandpa could go flying in a Twin Beech again.

As it turns out Grandpa, who is 84 years old, said he flew Navigation students in an AT-7 during the war. I told him that this particular C-45H was actually an AT-7 in its former life and was stationed in Hondo, Texas in WWII. Grandpa had a surprised look on his face and said that He was also stationed at Hondo when he flew AT-7's. We figured that it was highly probable that he flew this very Beech as the pilots rotated and likely flew all the aircraft on the base.

Here is Grandpa flying his "AT-7" again for the first time in 62 years. He sure did a wonderful job of flying. His landing was good too!

Grandpa had a great time and so did we. How cool to be able to watch these guys relive some memories again.

Here are a few shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see Fort Point on the South end.

It occurred to me that we were flying near four old retired military air fields.

Here is a shot of San Francisco and at the bottom is the old Crissy Field.

Treasure Island was a man made island between Oakland and SF. It was a sea plane base where the clippers departed from.

Here is a close up of the hangars that are still there.

Here is a shot that Ted Holgerson gave me of three SNB-2's (Navy AT-7's) in formation out of NAS Oakland flying over San Francisco. You can see Treasure Island and the same hangars in the background. How often do you see sequential buzz numbers lined up in formation?

Here is a long shot of the runways at NAS Alameda which were closed down a while ago. The TV show Mythbusters uses the old runways to blow stuff up on occasion.

I didn't get a picture of it but we flew near Hamilton Field too. The old hangars look pretty run down in the mythbusters shows as they also use Hamilton Field. My father Navigated his brand new B-29 out of Hamilton on his way to Saipan in 1944.

Kind of sad that these great old military air fields are fading away. Combined with Moffett Field, the Air Station at Santa Rosa and others there sure was a lot of Military activity in the Bay area.

It certainly was a beautiful day to go flying though.

Chris Brame · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:53 am

Great photos, Taigh! Have you ever taken a shot of the Short Solent at Oakland from the air?

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:32 am

Great photos. Another place they used to fly P-40s out of is right there next to the highway alongside of the Presidio. There is still enough room, barely. Wouldn't it be great if you could do rides there, D-18, Stearman, T-6, etc or even a dual Spit or P-40? Think of how many people visit the area and many are looking for an adventure and are willing and able to spend some money. I took a helicopter ride there. It was ok, but didn't have the same aura as a vintage plane.

T J Johansen · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:46 am

Bill Greenwood wrote:

Great photos. Another place they used to fly P-40s out of is right there next to the highway alongside of the Presidio. There is still enough room, barely. Wouldn't it be great if you could do rides there, D-18, Stearman, T-6, etc or even a dual Spit or P-40? Think of how many people visit the area and many are looking for an adventure and are willing and able to spend some money. I took a helicopter ride there. It was ok, but didn't have the same aura as a vintage plane.

There will soon be a P-40 giving rides out of Schellville just up the road. That could easily fly over the area.

T J

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:11 am

A P-40 ride out of Schellville sounds good, but just to fly over the area is not the point that I had in mind. First, I have been in the SF area many times, and don't know Schellville. For every visitor that finds there way to that small town, there will be thousands in San Francisco, and many right near this area visiting Fisherman's Wharf.
Also as someone who like history, it would be great to take the ride out of the old millitary base area.
Unfortunately, S F like D C or so many other major cities has pushed aviation out of sight and out of mind of most people, except to travel an hour or so outside of town to be shipped like a parcel on a big, impersonal jet. People don't even think of it as flying anymore, and most don't even bother to look out the window, and it certainly never occurs to most of them that they could actually learn and fly themselves. How popular would the local bar be, if you had to travel a half hour, then ride a 20 minute shuttle to get to it? In Denver both major football and baseball are right in town, reachable in about 1/3 the time it takes to go way out to the main airport.

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:28 am

Taigh;
If the Airdales are asked to handle the ground ops again at the Sacramento Show in March, we may just stop down and have you take us for a tour in the Beech!
That looks fantastic!
What a great way to see the bay!
Blue skies and Happy Holidays!
Jerry

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:22 am

Chris,

No I haven't taken photos of the Solent or the Western Aerospace Museum from the air but the next time I fly over there I will try to do just that.

Bill,

I think that the strip you are talking about is what can be seen in the photo. It is right next to the Presidio. I think the parks folks have put in walkways across the grass and have screwed up the possibility of any flight ops there. I would love to have flown out of Crissy Field. I remember a while ago they did bring a bunch of vintage aircraft in there for a one last time thing before they did the landscaping. Maybe Roger would have some more details about this.

Jerry,

I will be happy to fly you all on a Bay tour or a flight instruction flight if anyone wants to play with the Twin Beech.

corsair166b · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:20 am

....and a photo hop over the USS Iowa would be MEGA appreciated too....in fact ANYTHING interesting back in Suisun back that is ex-Navy could be an eye opener....

Mark

GIJOE290 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:22 pm

Wow, nice photo's!

Thanks for sharing.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:24 pm

corsair166b,

Here are a couple of shots of the Iowa. The person in the photo is John Hannigan and he ran the engine room of the Iowa during the Korean war. He sure had some good stories to tell.

B17news · **Posted:** Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:34 pm

isn't Alameda where they keep the nuclear wessels?

B

mustangsx2 · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2004 9:10 pm **Posts:** 12

Very cool, nice flight Taigh.

sagebrush · **Posted:** Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:05 am

I just love it when we get a mix of old airplanes, history, WW2 vets and great pictures.
Job well done.

Bill Greenwood · **Posted:** Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:41 am

Taigh. do you base at Stockton? What is your fee? Do students attempt the landing, or just experienced pilots? I only have a sample time in twins, but I had a ride in a Twin Beech in Hawaii with the big picture window and it sure makes a good sightseeing plane.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:18 pm

Hello Bill,

Yes, we are based at Stockton Airport in California (SCK). I can do full flight instruction, sightseeing, transition training or whatever anyone would like to do in the Beech 18. Students are more than welcome to land the Twin Beech. Just taxiing to the end of the runway can be the biggest challenge for most. I have had students try to kill me and the Beech more times than I like to think about but I consider each of those experiences quite valuable. I look forward to the challenge!

I have set up the training syllabus in the Beech specifically as an intermediate step toward flying larger Warbirds like the B-25. There are a lot of similarities in the flight operations except that the B-25 is a lot friendlier to fly.

I charge $600 per hour wet for the Beech including myself as the instructor.

I think this is a shot of your Spitfire taken from my old Beech when we were at OSH a few years back.

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It was a beautiful day to go flying

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