My wife and I owned a Twin Beech for 7 years, a 1957 E-18S
It was a great experience learning about, flying and fixing up the family and friends machine. We took it on some great trips; Sweetwater TX with a WASP to their reunion,
several OSH and LAL trips plus several local airshows.

After meeting and flying with a few of the Women Air Service Pilots our interest was directed more to some of the older Beech 18 warbirds. As comfortable and refined as the high cabin Beech was, we always wanted something more historical, specifically an AT-11. Last spring we had the opportunity to buy a nice and very significant AT-11.
It was built in 1941 and served the entier war in Victorville, CA training Bombardiers and Gunners. So we sold our E-18 (and our RV-4) to buy this cool old warbird...
41-9486 cn 912

Victorville was also a WASP base and we are confident that it was also flown by the Women Air Service Pilots.
Unfortunately, like all WWII veterans, the WASP are all about 90+ years old and are not going to be with us much longer.
Our goal is to honor these brave and courageous women while they are with us and educate all of us on what they did for the War effort.
Here is a nice link to their website:
http://wingsacrossamerica.us/wasp/index.htm

Beech Guru Bob Parmerter has graciously provided us with the history on 41-9486, but if anyone has any other military photos or history on this aircraft, we would love to know more.

Thank you,
John and Fran Hess

John & Fran,

Welcome! Very cool airplanes

Drew

Thank you, and here are more pics,...



PS, I really like this Beech Talk Forum,
you guys do a great job!

Thanks again,
John and Fran

agreed. What a hoot! I love your Twin Beech

John, I live in Fayetteville and absolutely LOVE Beech 18s!!!

I'm based at KFFC. Is that where you keep the plane?

Hi Vincent, we are on Willow Pond, the grass strip off Lester Rd.
We do have a building at KFFC but trouble with "through the fence" agreements kept us from using it as a hangar. It's the one that we hope to (eventually) have the restaurant, next to the CAF.

I look forward to meeting you,
John

Beautiful airplane!!! And....wonderful mission to honor the Wasps.

Hi Vincent, we are on Willow Pond, the grass strip off Lester Rd.
We do have a building at KFFC but trouble with "through the fence" agreements kept us from using it as a hangar. It's the one that we hope to (eventually) have the restaurant, next to the CAF.

I look forward to meeting you,
John

Wow, fabulous! Thanks for keeping one of the old birds in the air.

Just when I thought I was the only person he wished he had that............. very nice history as well.

Good Luck with it
MC

Beautiful Plane and great location at Willow Pond.

I am from Fayetteville also, but keep my Cherokee 180 at Tara Field. I hope to trade up to a Vtail soon, since I keep going back and forth from Ft. Polk, LA.

Martin

[quote="Martin Howley"
I am from Fayetteville also, but keep my Cherokee 180 at Tara Field. I hope to trade up to a Vtail soon, since I keep going back and forth from Ft. Polk, LA.

Martin[/quote]

Hi Martin, you sure cant beat the value you can get on a good V tail these days.
I'm sure you know Chris Cox at Tara, I'll bet he can find you a good deal or a possible trade?

Best of luck,
See you around 4A7
John

John is much too bashful to tell everyone that his other plane is (was) a B-17, the Liberty Belle. John was left seat in the Liberty Belle when he had to execute a forced landing in a cornfield near Aurora, IL after an in flight fire in June, 2011. All seven souls aboard walked away as the ship was consumed by the fire. The efforts of John and his flight crew were described as "nothing short of heroic". You can fly left seat in my airplane whenever you want.