Hi, everyone. I joined the forum yesterday after finding a link to a discussion of flying a Twin Beech that I found on google, and thought I'd register and check in.

My intro to Beech planes happened before I was born, when my dad started flying skydivers at Hinckley in '74, back when it was a hot drop zone. They always had at least one Twin Beech there, and I loved those planes. They looked huge to me. My dad only flew the 18 for a couple of years before we moved away and he retired from flying. He passed away a while back and I inherited his logbooks. One of my favorite entries was from the line he entered for a day of flying at the Zephyrhills Freak Bros convention. The comments said something like "Hole found in left rudder. Replaced rudder." He used tell the story that the hole was big enough to fit an 8 year old through, but I was a big 8 year old so it was probably just big enough to fit my head. Apparently one of the skydivers saw the hole before a load, but didn't think it was important enough to fix before they did their jump, so he flew at least an hour like that.

His favorite plate was the Staggerwing, and when we went to Oshkosh we'd spend a lot of time drooling over them.

I started taking glider lessons at Hinckley when I was 12, but didn't finish. Got my SEL in Fresno in '93 when I was 18, finished my glider rating back at Hinckley the next year, and eventually made my way to Albany, where I've been flying mostly with the CAP and in a borrowed 7AC Champ.

And, as you can tell, I get a little wordy sometimes :-)

Eric,
Welcome to BeechTalk!

Welcome aboard Eric......would that be Hinckley, Ohio?

Thanks, guys.

Hinckley, IL, about 50 miles west of Chicago I guess skydiving people would probably recognize it, but maybe nobody else knows about it :-)

Welcome to BT Eric !!!!

Welcome Eric!

Welcome from the other side of the aviation wasteland of the United states. Come on over and try out some real winter flying some day. Pictures??

You're in good company! - Welcome to BT!!

Welcome aboard Eric!

Since you asked... here's two pics. The one of the Champ on skis was on one of my favorite flying days, even though we almost got stuck on the lake.

A friend had invited me and a friend to go meet at a pub on the Great Sacandaga Lake. During the warmer months it's a popular stop with boaters with a nice dock and a small beach. In the winter it's popular with the snowmobilers when the lake freezes over.

We landed our planes (I think there were 3 of us) next to the drag strip the snowmobiles had packed down, and went in for lunch. I had underestimated how cold it was that day, and by the time we got back out my engine was totally cold. I spent probably half an hour swinging that prop (no electrical system=no starter) and didn't get it close to starting.

While this was going on, I'd gotten myself a sizeable audience of alien-looking creatures staring at me from behind their helmets. Imagine a dozen Stigs staring at you, almost totally motionless, sitting on their snow machines. Creepy.

Fortunately, the owner of the pub is a fan of airplanes and he eventually offered to help, which entailed running extension cords out to the end of the dock and plugging in our block heater for a while. He even bought us coffee and dessert and flat refused to even let me pay the check.

When we left, I came back around and raced a snowmobile and stayed at treetop height over the frozen lake just for fun, begrudgingly climbing to about 800 feet for the short flight back to the home airport.

The other picture was taken while killing time during a hurry-up-and-wait moment. You get a lot of those in CAP.

Welcome! I left you a PM with a local area question. Todd