I’LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN
BETTER PILOT
Super Chief, Not
Super Pilot That Day
Low on fuel and almost out of ideas
BY H.G. FRAUTSCHY
MY FAMILY KNOWS ME as a fellow who is somewhat obsessed with
maps. Any kind, any type of depiction—I find them all interest-
ing, but I can’t say I’ve always paid as much attention to them
as I should.
Labor Day weekend of 1985, I hopped a ride to Chicago on
PEOPLExpress out of Newark, hoping to return with the very
first airplane that my wife, Brenda, and I
would own outright. We’d been searching
for an Aeronca Super Chief for months,
tromping all over the convention grounds
in Oshkosh, and then driving around
southern Wisconsin and bits of Illinois
