Our Cheetah and her story ... (continued)

Once the annual was completed and the Cheetah was back at its McMinnville home base, the next step was to take Cheryl down there and fly it. Bill and I got in the front, and Cheryl got in back.  The fact that she was eager to get in the back seat suggested to me that she already liked this airplane.  My technique for taxiing with the non-steerable nosewheel was a bit rusty, but otherwise the airplane seemed comfortable and familiar.  After the Cessna 150, any four-seat airplane would have seemed spacious, but Cheryl immediately took a shine to the Grumman's outstanding visibility and sense of openness in the cabin. Back on the ground we negotiated a bit with Bill and Shirley.  They agreed to hold a deposit for a reasonable time while we put the 150 on the market.  As spring turned to summer and brought good traveling weather, we decided not to wait for the 150 to sell, and we told the McClungs that we will go ahead with the purchase now.  As it turned out, our time as a two-airplane family was brief, as the 150 sold quickly. We took delivery on a Tuesday evening.  I flew the 150 to McMinnville, and gave Bill the check.  Then he and Shirley flew the Cheetah, and I flew the 150 back to Pearson, not in formation but keeping each other in sight. I put the lash to the 150 at high cruise power, while Bill had the Cheetah throttled back with 1/3 flaps down, to keep from leaving me in the dust.

At Pearson I got into the Cheetah's left seat, and flew Bill and Shirley back to McMinnville.  I dropped them off, then flew back to Pearson alone. On my first solo flight in the Cheetah, I marveled at the visibility.  The vast expanse of window, combined with the unusually low glareshield, gave the commanding vista of sitting at a desk perched on a mountaintop.

N116MC leaves McMinnville for its new home

Back at Pearson I started to wonder if I'd made a mistake.  My ancient, corrugated-metal T-hangar was surrounded by grass, with only a small asphalt pad right in front of the door.  And in western Washington in the early summer, grass grows quickly and thick and is usually damp.  The 150 had been easy to push backward up the grassy incline to the asphalt pad and into the hangar.  The heavier Cheetah, with swiveling nosewheel, was not, even with a towbar.  I tried pushing the airplane backwards, but my feet kept slipping on the wet grass and I landed on my newly-depleted wallet.  I didn't know if it was even possible to get my new airplane into its hangar!

Over time I developed the technique of taxiing forward at an angle as close to the hangar door as I dared, so that at least two of the airplane's wheels were on the asphalt pad.  Then I would shut down, get out, open the hangar door, pivot the airplane around on the asphalt, then shove it into the T-hangar tail-first.

About a year later the old hangars in the grass area were torn down, and I moved into a newly-built hangar with level, paved approaches, and the problem was solved. Within a few months we decided a new paint job was in order.  We also decided to change the registration number.  I didn't mind the "N116MC" chosen by Bill McClung just three years earler -- it was easy to say on the radio and controllers rarely got it fouled up.  The problem was, by coincidence a Tiger N16MC was based at a field on the other side of town.  The idea of two "Grumman one six mike charlies" on the local frequency gave me an identity crisis.  So we changed it to N365PS. (While our Cheetah was still N116MC, the owner of Tiger N16MC suggested that he and I fly in formation to a nearby tower-controlled field, shoot some touch-and-goes, and play with the controller's mind!)

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