Ernest K. Gann in a AA DC-3.
I actually did that. For Flying Magazine’s 50th Anniversary issue, we had a DC-3 repainted in AA colors, and Ernie and I–swapping seats–re-flew one of his original routes. Newark to Wilkes-Barre and on to somewhere else, I can’t remember where, maybe Elmira, then to Stewart (which wasn’t part of the original route, but it was where I lived and my wife and I needed to be dropped off).
What I remember most vividly was the grizzled old Texan who was in charge of the DC-3–he didn’t own it but was the owner’s chief pilot–who sat uncomplainingly in the back through too many hours of Ernie’s and my fumbling attempts to be nice to his airplane, and then he flew the last leg himself. We landed at SWF in the failing afternoon light, turned off the active, called ground, taxied to the ramp, and gently turned into our parking spot at the marshal’s guiding.
All with the tail in the air, the fuselage level, that old fart showing us exactly how a Doug Racer could be gentled into doing anything you asked of it.
Then he slowly lowered the tailwheel and we shut down. “What’d you say your name was? Gann?”
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