Several Pilots Aided In The Recovery, Seen Fighting Over A Penny

By Tom Woodward

And so the joke goes. Something to the effect of …

Q: "Do you know how copper wire was invented?"

A: "Two pilots fought over a penny."

Now I'm not saying that pilots are cheap because if you look closely at some of the equipment installed in many experimentals you know no nickel was spared. What I am saying is pilots will rob Peter to pay Paul when building something that will be their pride and joy. Case in point; while walking the flight line on day minus one at AirVenture, I came upon a beautiful Mustang II. The Texas flag on the tail caught my attention but the nice paint job and the Rotary engine held it.

The lines of the Mustang are particularly appealing to me for more reasons than the fact that I just purchased a partially completed kit. While I looked at the construction, interior, and instrumentation my bride struck up a conversation with the builder’s wife. They both had just arrived from Chicago by car and of course the question that comes to mind was how did their airplane arrive ahead of them? The story goes like this.

The wife drove to Chicago to visit her parents while the husband/builder flew the airplane first to Chicago to pick up his wife and then on to Oshkosh. Of course at this point they are in Oshkosh without their car, which is still back at Mom's. Of course it was reasonable to rent a car in Oshkosh but remember what I said about pilots being "thrifty"? This couple decided to jump on a Greyhound bus back to Chicago to retrieve the car in order to save a few pennies on a local rental.

Now I'm not saying this is crazy, I would have done the same thing myself but the point is, the absurdity of it struck me as funny. The true absurdity came about ten minutes later, as we walked away and I said to my wife, "I'm going to try to cut down on my eating this week so I'll have the money to purchase the engine for my Mustang project". The fact that saving a couple of bucks on food won't come close to even buying a fan belt made no difference to a pilot’s way of thinking. Though the dollars don't equate, to me it seemed like a fair trade and I didn't even have to rationalize this to my wife! She understood as I'm sure the builder’s wife did.

If I had to venture a guess it would be that pilots scrimp and save every penny to pursue one of the most expensive hobbies invented. My wife calls me "cheap" but I tell her I'm "thrifty". If you're a pilot, you probably are too.

FMI: www.mustangaero.com