Some of you have replied that you liked my recent tales so here is another.

Shortly after Nelly and I got married we bought an old airplane that was setting in the back corner of the hanger at the Loan airport. I was a Maubpassant Brussard (Bussard) a French 1930’s version of the British Gull or the German Klem, I think produced as a trainer during the Spanish civil war 1936-1939, I don’t remember which side France was supporting but they were training pilots for one side or the other.

The Bussard was a low wing two place all wood monoplane with a US marked Franklin engine. I contracted a local furniture maker to replace some deteriorated wood in the baggage compartment, and I started to shop for parts to replace the bungees in the landing gear and an overhaul kit for the engine. Franklin then in up state NY, when given the info from the data plate, wrote back saying that the engine was built by a company which had bought a license to build the engine and they would not supply parts because “they had no knowledge of the design changes that had been made to make the engine metric”.

I evaluated the cost of engines from the US, shipping costs and then the cost of shipping the plane home when complete and decided to sell it back to the original owner. Yeah, I lost some in the deal but we were out of it. A short time later the French Air Force put their Moraine Salanier parasol trainers up on a surplus sale dirt cheap. Having been burned once I didn’t even go look at them.

Fast forward 30 plus years and Nelly and I were in the Museum of Air and Space at Le Bourget airport, she was so proud that aviation activity in France had started about a hundred years before the Wright brothers got the bug. Any how as we walked among the many displays there hung a Moraine Salanier parasol trainer with a US made Continental 220 HP with a Sensenich Prop exactly like the ones on Stearmen and PT-23 WWII trainers. At the time those engines were also dirt cheap because so many had been removed from Stearmen that we being converted to crop dusters and sprayers.

Oh well maybe its best that it never happened but it would have been a blast having the only Moraine flying in the states. But the memories are still great…. Bob