It’s been a lot of years since I piloted one of these. It’s an Aeronca Champion or ‘Champ’ for short. These were built after the second world war and were in direct competition with the Piper J-3 Cub. I have flown and instructed in both types and, believe me, they are a lot of fun to fly.

Image: Aeronca Champion

We were shopping in a strip mall near Torrance Zamperini Field when this nicely painted Champ flew over us on a short approach to runway two-niner left. A wave of nostalgia went through me as it sent me back in time to the days of dead reckoning, seat-of-the-pants, needle, ball and airspeed flying.

Verna and I were out and about today. We happened to pass the Carson Goodyear Airship Operations Facility and saw the airship “Spirit of America” moored on the landing pad. Sensing a photo opportunity, we stopped in the parking lot and went to the observation deck on the west side of the base. Verna took this photo of the “blimp” from the deck. Click the image to enlarge.

The Goodyear Blimp Website describes the operations at this site:

Four pilots direct operations of the California-based Goodyear airship — the Spirit of America — Jon Conrad -Pilot-in-Charge, Matthew St. John - Assistant Pilot-in-charge, Kristen Davis - Senior Pilot and Nathan Brooks - Senior Pilot.

In addition to the four pilots, the Spirit of America operation has a crew of 16 including aircraft mechanics, radio and television technicians, riggers, heavy-duty maintenance mechanics, ground handlers, and a public relations manager. Three support vehicles complement the Spirit of America’s operations, including an 18-wheel tractor-trailer mobile maintenance vehicle, a 22- person MCI bus, and a nine-passenger van.

We stopped at Torrance Zamperini Field today to visit the Western Museum of Flight. While we were there, a neighbor to the museum had his hangar door open and inside was this beautiful Boeing-Stearman vintage biplane. I paused to take a couple of images to merge into this 3D shot of the aircraft.

Click on the image to enlarge.

If you don’t have a pair of 3D glasses, you can see the 2D version here.

This is Wikipedia’s summary of the Boeing Stearman Model 75:

The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane, of which at least 9,783 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s as a military trainer aircraft. Stearman became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known as the Stearman, Boeing Stearman or Kaydet, it served as a Primary trainer for the USAAF, as a basic trainer for the USN (as the NS & N2S), and with the RCAF as the Kaydet throughout World War II. After the conflict was over, thousands of surplus aircraft were sold on the civil market. In the immediate post-war years they became popular as crop dusters and as sports planes.

These were seen in the airspace near Torrance (CA) airport today. Although the paint schemes are not uniform, I believe that all five of these are either Army/Air Force AT6 ‘Texans’ or Navy SNJs (which are the same airframe, but with folding wings for aircraft carrier use).

Now, I can’t take credit for this nice photo of the squadron’s straight echelon formation since it was Verna’s camera that got this while I was still on my way home from work today. Click the image above for a closer view.

We have been going to visit Mom and Dad very often in recent weeks. Dad is quite ill, but is at home. When we visit, we often sit out in their patio to get fresh air and enjoy conversation with Mom and my sisters who also are frequently there (one of them is almost there full time taking care of Dad.

Mom and Dad’s house is near the approach path to LAX; consequently, airliners on approach pass close overhead. While relaxing in Mom’s patio, I took this picture of a Fiji Boeing 747 in landing configuration about two miles from touchdown. What a pretty paint job! Click 4 really big.

I was at Mom and Dad’s today. They live near the Los Angeles Airport. I took this picture of an airliner on approach to the airport from their front yard. I thought the sun and the clouds made a nice backdrop for the airplane. Click for a larger view.

Last spring, we visited the Western Museum of Flight. Today, I was going through some of the photos from our visit and found this one of “Sierra Sue,” a 1953 demonstration aircraft.

Image: Sierra Sue (Click to enlarge)

Here’s what the Western Museum of Flight webpage says about this aircraft:

Built in 1953, the Sierra Sue was Northrop Company’s flying demonstrator for the Air Force’s AX close-support aircraft design competition in 1972. The AX Competition led to the manufacture of two prototypes, Northrop’s A-9A and Fairchild-Hiller’s A-10A. After an extensive flight test program, the Fairchild-Hiller design won the competition.

Designed and flown by Ron Beattie and Walt Fellers, the aircraft was manufactured by Acme’s (Sierradyne Inc.) Crawford and Keeney. It was used by Sierradyne in the ’60s to test and promote Northrop’s and Dr Werner Pfenninger’s boundary layer control concepts. The plane was never officially considered a Northrop aircraft.

Manufacturer	Acme Aircraft Co ( Sierradyne Inc)
Number Built	1
Wing Span	20 feet 2 inches
Overall Length	18 feet
Empty Weight	590 pounds
Number of Seats	2
Power plant	85 hp Continental C-85 pusher