What a wonderful little bike...
I was just wondering how you were liking the transition from your bandit to this vintage 650. I guess I know now!
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Just Ride.
- Thread starter Jim
- Start date
I was just wondering how you were liking the transition from your bandit to this vintage 650. I guess I know now!
It has faults in its 40 yr old design...some of those issues can be upgraded..but as she' sits she is pretty darn good ..I love the sound the vibes the motor is not anemic for my needs by any means..Iam pleasantly surprised.
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Sorry am tired going to crash
This afternoon was hot and muggy... blast furnace coming from the south, thunderstorms along with it. Not ideal picture taking weather.... screw it, off we go.... down into the heart of Kansas City. Well not the heart exactly... just North of downtown, across the Missouri river sits the Charles B Wheeler Airport... just simply called the Downtown Airport these days. Opened in 1927, you could walk out of your skyscraper office, hail a taxi, and 2 minutes later be standing at the TWA ticket counter. Hows that for convenience? Home to TWA airlines, located in the center of the country... she was a crowning jewel of Kansas City.
Can you spot the fatal flaw? In her day, she was huge... had a 6,000 ft runway. Back in the day when Ford Trimotors ruled, and only needed 1,000 ft of the expansive runs of concrete. Surely she would serve KC for eternity.
Planes grew bigger and faster, and needed longer and longer takeoff and landing runs. In 1960 the FAA issued a statement calling the airport "the most dangerous airport in America." The fatal flaw? She was built on a peninsula created by the winding Missouri river. With no room for expansion, she was doomed.
In 1972 Kansas City opened Kansas City International airport out in the farmlands 20 miles north of the city. All major airline operations moved there, dooming the Downtown Airport. Except she refused to just quietly fade into history. She's still there. Granted, but a shadow of her former self... she soldiers on. I flew off and onto her runways and walked her ramps for years before I retired. At one time I knew her like the back of my hand. Lets have a look.....
Here we are just off the end of runway One Niner, facing south. You can see the Kansas City skyline in the background. It was a strong wind in our face. Any planes landing would pass about 50ft directly overhead. A cool shot.. no? We sat there for an hour... nothing. As I said, a shadow of herself. The SG was growing impatient... so was I. So... off we go around the perimeter road. We're on the West side of the airport now.
In the background is the mighty Missouri River. It's almost crested it's banks here several times this summer... and it's rising again. In 92 or 93, it completely covered the airport in about 10 feet of river. There's a high water mark commemorated with a plaque on one of the embankment walls. The road was closed today... a shot for another time perhaps.
Here we are in the parking lot of an abandoned hanger. Lots of these to pick from. I tried to get a peak inside, but everything's bolted or chained. No such luck.
One of the open air T-Hangers still in use.
TWA went bankrupt years ago. I remember this MD-80 flying in about 10 years ago. There it's sat ever since... waiting it's turn to be added to the museum.
Here's the Airline History Museum. Inside it sits a Lockheed Super Connie, a Douglas Gooney Bird and a handful of other planes from the past. When I was teaching, we used to hold our graduation ceremonies inside this hanger. To my mind, it was a fitting way to welcome newly minted mechanics to the world of aviation.... surrounded by the past. For an old hand like me.... well... lets just say I always managed to get something in my eyes...
Back around to the East side now, this used to be part of the main terminal. In it's day it was state of the art. Thankfully, the city still maintains it
All is not gloom.... here's a charter, it's APU patiently humming away... waiting to take a busload of passengers to who knows where.
Down but not out... Downtown Airport soldiers on.
Cheers, Jim.
Can you spot the fatal flaw? In her day, she was huge... had a 6,000 ft runway. Back in the day when Ford Trimotors ruled, and only needed 1,000 ft of the expansive runs of concrete. Surely she would serve KC for eternity.
Planes grew bigger and faster, and needed longer and longer takeoff and landing runs. In 1960 the FAA issued a statement calling the airport "the most dangerous airport in America." The fatal flaw? She was built on a peninsula created by the winding Missouri river. With no room for expansion, she was doomed.
In 1972 Kansas City opened Kansas City International airport out in the farmlands 20 miles north of the city. All major airline operations moved there, dooming the Downtown Airport. Except she refused to just quietly fade into history. She's still there. Granted, but a shadow of her former self... she soldiers on. I flew off and onto her runways and walked her ramps for years before I retired. At one time I knew her like the back of my hand. Lets have a look.....
Here we are just off the end of runway One Niner, facing south. You can see the Kansas City skyline in the background. It was a strong wind in our face. Any planes landing would pass about 50ft directly overhead. A cool shot.. no? We sat there for an hour... nothing. As I said, a shadow of herself. The SG was growing impatient... so was I. So... off we go around the perimeter road. We're on the West side of the airport now.
In the background is the mighty Missouri River. It's almost crested it's banks here several times this summer... and it's rising again. In 92 or 93, it completely covered the airport in about 10 feet of river. There's a high water mark commemorated with a plaque on one of the embankment walls. The road was closed today... a shot for another time perhaps.
Here we are in the parking lot of an abandoned hanger. Lots of these to pick from. I tried to get a peak inside, but everything's bolted or chained. No such luck.
One of the open air T-Hangers still in use.
TWA went bankrupt years ago. I remember this MD-80 flying in about 10 years ago. There it's sat ever since... waiting it's turn to be added to the museum.
Here's the Airline History Museum. Inside it sits a Lockheed Super Connie, a Douglas Gooney Bird and a handful of other planes from the past. When I was teaching, we used to hold our graduation ceremonies inside this hanger. To my mind, it was a fitting way to welcome newly minted mechanics to the world of aviation.... surrounded by the past. For an old hand like me.... well... lets just say I always managed to get something in my eyes...
Back around to the East side now, this used to be part of the main terminal. In it's day it was state of the art. Thankfully, the city still maintains it
All is not gloom.... here's a charter, it's APU patiently humming away... waiting to take a busload of passengers to who knows where.
Down but not out... Downtown Airport soldiers on.
Cheers, Jim.
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Hey that’s pretty cool Jim! When I first looked at that satellite photo of the airport and you asked if we could see the design flaw, my first thoughts were the possibility of the river overflowing it’s banks, I see that actually happened. With regards to the runway being trapped between two rivers, I’d sure hate to overshoot that runway! Very interesting history.
Nice write up and photos too. Thanks!
Nice write up and photos too. Thanks!
Thanks for the tour. I love old airports.
Airline museum huh. Gives me another reason to go visit my sister and her family..hmmmm my oldest sister lives in Overland Park.....Dad worked for American Airlines. Engine overhaul from the piston days to jets and Turbofans. I think the GE CJ6 was his last engines of the 70's. This was in Tulsa OK.
Airline museum huh. Gives me another reason to go visit my sister and her family..hmmmm my oldest sister lives in Overland Park.....Dad worked for American Airlines. Engine overhaul from the piston days to jets and Turbofans. I think the GE CJ6 was his last engines of the 70's. This was in Tulsa OK.
Oooh, I see a Grumman AA5 in the T-hangar behind you...
Yup. And behind it sits a tired ole 310 with tuna tanks.
Aux wing tip tanks. Cessna's early version of them were... shall we say.... aesthetically challenged.
Yup, shaped like a... um.... tuna
Sky King's Songbird...
Yeah, wish I could find reruns of that. Was one of my favorites as a kid.
A little trivia for ya Rudy, bein' an ole A. F. guy like me... She also saw duty in the 50's and 60's as the U-3A/B... The Blue Canoe.
Oh man... here's a thought... travel around the country and do a photo essay thread on "gate guards."
There were some serious, bad-ass birds back in the analog age! Now, it's all composite, digital, fly-by-wire, video game, Buck Rodgers kinda stuff. It might be incredible, it just doesn't have the romance, the panache of the planes of yore...
There's no school like old school!
There's no school like old school!
JAX71224
jax71224
Hey GGary ! Get us one of the VFW plane on a pylon way out Packers Ave. outside Madison some time when in the area? EDIT-- One night riding out to Sun Prairie from Madison University Ave. area as we rode by that marshy spot after the airport, a deer jumped over the extended front-end of my buddie's old school CB750 "chopper" nearly kicking his head, just missing him!
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Stepped Out for Air and Got Smoke!
Couple nice examples in the Barber Vintage Festival host hotel parking lot.