Aviation Antiques

Born in 1971, I am Jon's only child. I took a liking to airplanes as early as I can remember. I spent most of my weekends at Chino and Corona Airport or flying with my parents to many wonderful airports in the vicinity of Southern California. One of my "chores" was to clean the belly of our Waco UPF-7, as I was the right height to stand UNDER the fuselage and wipe it off with a rag!

I continued flying/cleaning/airport bumming through the 1980's with not only my mom and dad, but with my grand-dad as well. Grandpa and I flew in his Cessna 140, C- 150, and C-172 frequently, going out for a morning x-c for breakfast, or just 'boring holes in the sky'........

In the early 1980's dad decided I should learn to fly, so he went in partners with friend and A&P Hugh Smith on a 1959 Cessna 150. It cost $2500 for the plane in flyable condition. The next annual cost about the same, as it turned out there was a down-side to having an aluminum airplane parked out at Half Moon Bay Airport (right by the Pacific Ocean) for a number of years. Once the corrosion damage was repaired, dad taught me to fly and soloed me before the customary age of 16. Soon I bought into the Cessna 150 partnership, and had my first airplane. I flew the Cessna from our back yard to high school and college on a daily basis for about 4 years, as I had the luck of living on an airport, with both schools near the only other airport in the county!

In time I collected the usual ratings most aspirin commecial pilots do, flight instructed, but one of my really fun first jobs was flying passengers for joy rides in a restored 1940 Stearman. It was so much fun, I bought my own biplane, a 1940 Waco UPF-7. I used to tell passengers they put the pilot in the back in case we crashed! I flew it for about 7 years hopping rides across California, until I finally decided I should "get a real job".

I hired on with Union Flights (old time Pt. 135 operator, now gone) to fly freight in Chieftans and Caravans. Eventually, I 'landed' a job flying DC-10's and Boeing 767's, but have since come to enjoy old planes more and more. One of my last projects with my dad was building up a 1931 Waco F-2 biplane. It is a complete restoration, and is 90% done, 90% to go! Flying with no autopilot, few or no radios, and using 'pilotage' is hard to beat!

Happy Flying,

Curtiss Aldrich