A few months back I started to think about a taildragger. What better one to have than my dad's old Cessna Skywagon? Not registered in the US or Canada so I feared the worst but decided to apply to the National Archive of Canada to see what became of the old girl.
As per the thread title...you could say stabbed, shot, drowned and finally burned.
Where it all began; Christmas of 1966. Shiny new A185E exported to Canada:
Didn't make it's 2nd birthday before it was landed gear down in the water and flipped:
Fixed and flown another 5 years before hitting a powerline and crashing into a lake:
Fixed and then purchased by my father. He flew it for a couple years and didn't crash it but he didn't land on a highway after running out of fuel. Iirc there was a pissing contest between him, Transport Canada and the RCMP (maybe OPP) when he wanted to just gas it up and fly out. Anyway, it resulted in the wings being removed and the plane trucked to an airport. He sold it not long after.
She flew on until the winter of 1979 when a whole bunch of aluminum was bent again. Not having the logs, I'm not sure what happened. It was on wheels at the time and may have ended up on it's back looking at the repair list:
Made it another couple of years before it was sunk again:
Put back together and flown for another 5 years before finally being completely destroyed in a hangar fire:
That finally did it in and after only 22 years so ends the tale of poor old CF-VHC. Guess I'll have to find a different taildragger and start a new legend...
Now then...who's got a 185 they want to sell me?
