No need to read this. I just started waxing nostalgic, and didn't stop.

I won't tell you how long ago it was, but one of the planes, wet, was $7 an hour. $11 with an instructor. And there wasn't much metal in it, and none covering it.

Delightful thing, and Aeronca 7AC, 65 or 85 hp., ASEL. No electrical system, no radios, not much but a compass, tach, oil pressure gauge, airspeed indicator and T & B. Maybe something else, I don't remember. Could soar, slowly (cars on freeways could pass me), and let me linger and look anywhere. Super for local flights, logging time. No one asked how far you went, just how long you flew. It was so slow I swear you could fall asleep on a long approach.

Now, the freedom I experienced in those planes, especially the smaller ones, has been duplicated, yes, DUPLICATED, by a bicycle. In my approaching dotage I've found that I can "take off" (leave home) and travel anywhere, down alleys, along rivers, head anywhere there's pavement or gravel, and snoop to my little hearts content. I had no idea when I started riding one, about 5 years ago after breaking my foot and having no way to exercise my own "Bowser, Jr.", that I love it.

What I don't get to do is drop little parachutes with notes for friends out. I could pee on their rhododendrons, though. Didn't think of that.

Have fun! After girls, it was my biggest thrill for a while. And I'm glad I didn't have to choose between them.

Quit after I found out the hard way how unreliable they are. Even with all the ratings a person could really want, I wasn't comfortable flying in severe weather, and my boss would get upset when I couldn't get to work after a couple of days off and flying 6 or 8 hundred miles away. The first time I did get away with "the planes aren't flying out of here". The second time he learned it was MY plane, and that sort of ended that. I kind of tapered off.

Hadn't thought of those days for a long, long while.

Arf