The Pepsi Skywriter is one of more than 1,200 Travel Air open-cockpit biplanes built between 1925 and 1930. Travel Airs were popular and rugged aircraft that earned their keep as utility and record-breaking workhorses and saw service around the country as crop dusters, barnstormers, and as private planes for the sportsman pilot. For 40 years, pilots flew the Pepsi Skywriter across the United States for the Pepsi-Cola Company delivering a unique form of advertising known as skywriting.| airandspace.si.edu
Deadstick in the Cassutt Air Facts Journal just ahead, I spotted an overpass with a parallel frontage road running downhill, lined with trees. Instinct took over. I pulled over the trees, lined up with the road, and held centerline while the branches whipped by on either side. Too fast, and it was my first Cassutt landing. I kicked rudder to skid and scrub off speed. Just as I was about to set down, I noticed a single power line crossing the road. Normally I’d slip under it, but the only ca...| Air Facts Journal
It is minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit in this foreign land north of Moscow. I am sitting in a single-seat, Russian Sukhoi 26 at the end of an ice-covered runway waiting to be cleared for takeoff. There is a lot going through my mind. First of all, I have never flown a single-seat Sukhoi 26.| Air Facts Journal
I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting them. My tailwheel lifted—I was about to tip onto my back. I released the brakes just long enough for the tail to drop, then had to brake again immediately. The tail came up a second time, but this time I held the brakes and prayed.| Air Facts Journal
