Those "Flying and Glider Manual" articles
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:02 am
Every time I read from the old "Flying and Glider Manual" articles about the Air Camper, supposedly written by Bernard himself, I often think: "this does not sound like the style of talking and writing from a quiet, reserved, country boy mechanic. I think somebody else wrote this stuff and put Bernard's name to it. I finally found the truth today while doing some on-line research:
Part of the lore of the wing section development is that Pietenpol, after trying one standard design of the day, said, "I couldn't lift hen feathers with that wing." But more careful research attributes that statement to Weston Farmer, pilot and colorful editor of Modern Mechanics and Inventions back in the late 1920s and early '30s. It was "Westy" who actually authored the MMI articles bearing B. H. Pietenpol's byline.
Those who knew Pietenpol (who died in 1984) are quick to tell you the language used in those articles was not that of the quiet, reserved, self-educated gentleman from rural Minnesota.
Part of the lore of the wing section development is that Pietenpol, after trying one standard design of the day, said, "I couldn't lift hen feathers with that wing." But more careful research attributes that statement to Weston Farmer, pilot and colorful editor of Modern Mechanics and Inventions back in the late 1920s and early '30s. It was "Westy" who actually authored the MMI articles bearing B. H. Pietenpol's byline.
Those who knew Pietenpol (who died in 1984) are quick to tell you the language used in those articles was not that of the quiet, reserved, self-educated gentleman from rural Minnesota.