My dad has had this prop socked away in the attic for 60+ years. I remember seeing it as a kid, but we just dug it out last weekend. It was from a Wiley Post bi-plane built in 1935 that my dad owned with some buddies in the early ‘40s before he went in the service. The damage occurred one day when Dad was taxiing across our local strip following a rainstorm and hit a gully and nosed-over.
If any of you aviation guys have any advice for tracking down what became of the plane, I would love to hear it. Dad is 88 now and would really like to know what happened to it. I have contacted the Wiley Post museum with the tail # and they are looking into it, but I am open to all advice. I checked the FAA website, but it seems you can only lookup N-numbers, not the old NC-numbers. Dad is not in great health these days and my mom, his wife of 64 years, recently passed, so this would make his day if we could find out what became of the plane.
For those of you who don’t know, Wiley was a kickass contemporary of Lindbergh and Earhart and was the first man to fly solo around the world (among numerous other accomplishments). Not bad for a guy with one eye. History also remembers him as the pilot who was flying Will Rogers when they crashed and were killed in Alaska.
