Aero Vintage Books

This was taken in August 1976 in Santa Anna, just down the street from the Tallmantz Museum. I had just gotten off the bus and was walking to the Museum when I saw this plane.

I can add some more information to this one. It is, I believe, as Bill mentioned, a BT-13 that was parked at a little operation called Frazier's that was operated by one Cliff Frazier, an oldtimer at Orange County who was the burr under the skin for airport management. Cliff had continual run-ins with the airport managers and their unstated goal was to get him off the airport. That little opeation was right next to the FBO where I drove a fuel truck, took flight lessons, and eventually flight instructed for (that being Shaw Airmotive, ex Newport Skyways), so I had a constant view of what was going on at Frazier's for five years and fueled some his airplanes on ocassion. I never saw much work done on the BT-13...it looked for the whole time I was there pretty much as the photo shows. I think Cliff owned the airplane and did a bit of work on it here and there.

Cliff was a nice guy but he had no use for paperwork and silly regulations. The rumor was he paid his monthly lease payment in coin...like pennies and dimes and quarters, in person at the airport manager's office. I don't know what happened to him or his operation after 1980 or so...the whole area is under asphalt now. I probably have a few photos of that airplane in my file somewhere...I will have to take a look.

Scott,

So what you are saying is that when I was 16 and taking a trip to the Tallmantz Museum; and taking that photo.....you were probably sitting in a fuel truck within a hundred yards of me?? And here we are 36 years later on the internet comparing notes....sometimes the world is a small place. BTW I'm from the Vallejo/Napa area originally.

Yep, I might just be out of camera view there. If you pivoted the camera view 45 degrees to the right you would see the FBO I worked and flew out of. I started flying there in early 1975 and left to bluer skies in 1979. I actually started hanging at the airport as much as I could beginning about 1966 or so, and lived about two miles west of the airport in Costa Mesa. So, yeah, it's a small world.