- Joined
- Dec 27, 2009
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I've known since mid-summer that the recent article about my Starduster TOO was probably going to happen but I didn't know exactly when it was coming out. It all started a few weeks after first flight happened. I was making trips up to Minot several times a week. Basically whenever Kent or Warren could fly I would be there taking care of all the routine inspection and to address any issues that may come up during flight tests. On one of those trips Warren introduced me to Moose Peterson and he asked if he could take a few pictures of my plane. Moose was back in Minot over Memorial Day weekend and what I thought was going to be a few pics of my plane sitting on the ramp turned into three separate photo shoots!
First day he set us up for some family portraits. We were fortunate to have a beautiful evening with great clouds for a background. The second day they did the air to air. It was fun to be able to sit back and listen to there thorough pre-flight briefing where they went over every step of how they wanted to fly the shoot. The third day was Memorial day and we all enjoyed a nice BBQ in front of the hangar and Moose took some more still shots of the plane. At this point I still knew nothing about an article in the works. They never said a thing! Moose does online photography classes and my Starduster was supposed to be subject matter for one of them. It wasn't until a few weeks later when Moose was back that he asked if I could come up to Minot so he could interview me for an article that he wanted to submit to SA. He also wanted to get a couple more air to air pics and I believe one of those is the first double page spread you see in the magazine.
Looking back on this past summers events really seems a blur now! The real back story to the story is what makes aviation so great and that is all the time and effort Kent and Warren Pietsch put into mentoring me along the way. Those are two very busy guys and they went WAY out of their way putting all that time into flying my Starduster. Then on top of that Warren spent several hours bouncing around with my rusty flying and taught me how to fly the darn thing and soloed me out! Then Moose comes along, puts a ton of time into taking pictures and writing up an article to tell my story. If any of you guys ever cross paths with Moose just say hi and start talking planes with him. Sooner than you know it he will be reaching for his camera!
First day he set us up for some family portraits. We were fortunate to have a beautiful evening with great clouds for a background. The second day they did the air to air. It was fun to be able to sit back and listen to there thorough pre-flight briefing where they went over every step of how they wanted to fly the shoot. The third day was Memorial day and we all enjoyed a nice BBQ in front of the hangar and Moose took some more still shots of the plane. At this point I still knew nothing about an article in the works. They never said a thing! Moose does online photography classes and my Starduster was supposed to be subject matter for one of them. It wasn't until a few weeks later when Moose was back that he asked if I could come up to Minot so he could interview me for an article that he wanted to submit to SA. He also wanted to get a couple more air to air pics and I believe one of those is the first double page spread you see in the magazine.
Looking back on this past summers events really seems a blur now! The real back story to the story is what makes aviation so great and that is all the time and effort Kent and Warren Pietsch put into mentoring me along the way. Those are two very busy guys and they went WAY out of their way putting all that time into flying my Starduster. Then on top of that Warren spent several hours bouncing around with my rusty flying and taught me how to fly the darn thing and soloed me out! Then Moose comes along, puts a ton of time into taking pictures and writing up an article to tell my story. If any of you guys ever cross paths with Moose just say hi and start talking planes with him. Sooner than you know it he will be reaching for his camera!