Tuesday, July 24, 2007

short landing of the day.



Grumman G-21 "Goose", stopped on the numbers at LOAL (Wiener Neustadt).

I'm sure there are plenty of experienced pilots who could land that bird on the width of the runway, but I was nonetheless pretty proud of putting her down on the threshold and braking to a full stop before the tail had even passed over the numbers completely.

In related news, a company called Antilles Seaplanes is tooling up to make brand new Gooses (the correct plural of the airplane's nickname), available with the original 450hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp Jr. radials, or new 680hp PWC turboprop engines. I think the turboprop version looks a little unbalanced with those long engine nacelles, but I'm fond of the Goose's original lines. That's a classic aircraft, and it's great to know that one could pick up a zero hours airframe if one were so inclined, rather than an original...there are about sixty airworthy original Gooses out there, and the youngest of them is more than sixty years old.

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