What's it like to pull up somewhere in a Beech Staggerwing? Charlie grins and starts to tell stories about people running to see it, about people in cars who chase it to the airport, how FBOs always park him up front at shows, and how one time at Culpeper, "I saw this guy looking at the airplane..and he looked kind of familiar. But I wasn't paying much attention. I looked again and he was literally running across the ramp to come look at the airplane. And he came up and talked to me..and it was Harrison Ford!" Ford wanted to know if the plane was for sale. "He loved it. He sat inside it and we probably talked about airplanes for half an hour and he was talking about how he has a Beaver with the same engine." Charlie says Ford "sat up inside making airplane noises..just like everybody else does."

Of course, he didn't want to sell the plane. Who would? It's pretty nice to have something Harrison Ford wants. Besides, Ford can go find his own Lend Lease crate. There's probably one stored near that Ark he and Indiana Jones dug up once upon a time..

In a hangar around the corner from the Staggerwing, the 'Roaring Twenties' comes alive.

Gene Rambo's 1928 Travel Air 2000

It hasn't always been that way. Gene was in high school when he found the pieces of three old cropdusters in a warehouse in downtown Jacksonville, FL. He says his parents were "pretty upset" when he trucked a big share of the parts into their yard in south Geogia. "They said, 'You paid how much for that junk?'" But, being parents, they loaned him 1500 dollars anyway, for which he took possession of two titles, 8 wings, two sets of tail, two sets of gear, one fuselage, a few instruments, the sheet metal engine cowling for an OX5, no engine and no center section between the struts. He put it in the barn to keep till after college. When he finally got started, it took 13 years to turn all that into a prize winner.

Authenticity was the important thing, compromises are few: Gene put a tailwheel on it instead of a skid and he has a Continental radial on the plane. Even though the current engine didn't come out until 1930 or 31 (the Travel Air is a 1928 model), "they're plentiful, they're powerful, it's a good airplane-engine match." There are lights on the wings and tail section, but Gene says that's original. "It came from the factory wired for lights and you could hook them up if you wanted. The original wires are still in the wings..I just left them."

Performance is spectacular. "I've flown it in competition, aerobatics..and I've won basic one time, doing it in, as far as I know, the oldest airplane in sanctioned competition in the world." He reports that it spins "real nicely, it loops from level flight without adding power and it gains altitude in a loop if you make it too egg-shaped. Rolls are a little tough; it's pretty heavy on the ailerons, but it'll do it. It barrel rolls nicer than it slow-rolls."

I asked his cruise speed: "About a hundred." And your range? "I think it would go three hours; I start sweating at two and a half. It holds 42 gallons of fuel, it burns about 12 gallons an hour, but I never trust anything..I just plan on stopping every two hours." And stall speed? "Between 30 and 35. With any wind at all it's almost no ground movement at all."

Gene's Travel Air is fun to watch. Takeoff is very quick, and then you gawk at the steep climbout, followed by a level turn out of the pattern before it has covered much more than half the length of the runway.

Big wings. Big engine. Fine pilot. Travel Air.

Culpeper Airport is a treasure trove of classic flying machines, and we'll go back there frequently to look for more. Keep watching your Email for notification of a fresh issue. I've got the time to go hunting, and I want to share what I find.

Here's a post script: the B-17, "Aluminum Overcast" sailed by while I was out there the other day. I had a camera in my hand, so what the heck?