The International Cessna^® 170 Association

A good read about the Aero Squadron with Bill Wehner [our founder].
http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2 ... P=News:S2T

John

In the above message, the picture in the link showing the Curtis airplanes with the community of Colunbus,NM, in the background is ,I believe, wishful thinking. I was stationed at Demng Army Air Field during WWII and remember Columbus as being a big damn bunch smaller than that painting even then.
We used to go through Columbus on our way down to a small Mexican village south of there to buy Gasoline. It was trucked down there from the standard oil bulk plant Deming, but, unlike in the United States, it wasn't rationed in Mexico.

blueldr wrote:In the above message, the picture in the link showing the Curtis airplanes with the community of Colunbus,NM, in the background is ,I believe, wishful thinking. I was stationed at Demng Army Air Field during WWII and remember Columbus as being a big damn bunch smaller than that painting even then.
We used to go through Columbus on our way down to a small Mexican village south of there to buy Gasoline. It was trucked down there from the standard oil bulk plant Deming, but, unlike in the United States, it wasn't rationed in Mexico.

HEY, bluEldr! YOu and me crossed paths again! When I traded my Chief for a Studebaker Starlite Coupe we did the deal in Deming, at your old Air Field! Then drove down to the border, and walked across the bridge into that little Mexican village to eat and drink and fool around.

(There were a couple of parents with teenagers down there that looked a lot like you.)

Those Curtis aeroplanes didn't do too well down there. The actual aerodrome wasn't nearly as nice as in that picture. In fact, at the time, the landing area had cactus and yucca and creosote bush on it, which would hit the axle between the wheels and break it, causing the landing gear to collapse. This led to the clearing of brush from landing areas, which in the earliest version, were not necessarily straight pathways, but were large, round fields, hence the term "drome"...a Greek word for "contest area" or "race area" such as hippodrome (and therefore, aerodrome.)
Later it was decided to avoid axles altogether and design individual landing gear.

(OK. After that, you guys deserve a break, so I'm off to work for the evening, punishing a couple poor chaps in the simulator.)