he sent a boatload of images. Stay tuned for more!
“From there another left turn over to Bellingham, then inland and another left to head north back to Abbotsford. After landing it was all grins, backslapping, and ‘Man, that was fun, let’s do it again,’ until it started to rain, so then the party was over. Most of us got soaked getting back to the terminal area since our transportation was the same as it had been going out — in the back of an open pickup truck.”
This post and photos are from Bill Bailey, who describes himself as a “hardcore certified airplane nut.” He says his specialty is seaplanes and flying boats, “but if it has wings, I’m interested. My computer/backup hard drives have over 500,000 images of aircraft including firebombers. My dad was a pilot starting in the early 1930s, building time, flying for a number of small outfits, and he got his seaplane rating in a Gulf Oil Co. Grumman Goose in 1939. On December 1, 1941 he started flying for Pan American Airways during WWII as an instructor training Army and Navy pilots on flying boats in the Sikorsky S-40s and S-42s and then later he switched over to the DC-3 / C-47, still training military pilots — and later still the DC-4 as a Check Airman for PAA, giving check rides to PAA line pilots. Before PAA he had been a corporate pilot with a company in New Orleans, and after leaving PAA in January 1949, he returned to the same company and started flying Grumman Widgeons, which is where I got my interest in them. I’m now known as ‘Mr. Widgeon,’ a handle my wife first gave me when I was looking for my first email name, but has since grown to be a lot more.”
“I have a pretty large collection of Widgeon images, over 220 of the 317 Grumman and SCAN-30 (a French-built Widgeon) airframes. I have ridden on over 14 different Widgeons, flown eight of those, and helped rebuild two of them. I also helped two authors with their books with Widgeon information. I’ve ridden in all of the other Grumman Amphibians except the Duck (Goose, Mallard and Albatross), so if anyone has a Duck and gets near the Twin Falls, Idaho area, please let me know — I’d like to check that last box!”
Thanks ever so much to Bill Bailey for the photos and history!!