[GH85Carrera]

One of the many stupid rules of the FAA (there are more than one) is that to do commercial work from an airplane the pilot has to be a commercial pilot (good rule) but the airplane has to be a regular production aircraft. It can't have an "experimental" in the title. There are several neat airplanes we would like to be able to use, but they have the experimental label on them. Something that can haul butt to get to the location, and then fly slow and stable at the site and then haul butt home would be idea.

One of the guys that used to work at Ace Aerial was involved in aerial photography back in the 50s and 60s. He actually sold equipment to the CIA. He said one night there was a loud banging on the front door and two agents showed up. They told him to get cleaned up, dressed and ready to go in 30 minutes. They waited in the living room. They hauled him to a local Air Force base, loaded him in an airplane and they flew for many hours. He mentioned to one of the agents that he did not have his passport and the guy just glared at him. Many hours later after changing to a smaller airplane they flew on. He had no idea where he was. The landed at a small airport and they took him over to a U2 with no marking on it at all. The aerial camera he sold the CIA was not working right. He looked at them and said it might have been smart to tell me where and why I was coming here. Fortunately he did not even need parts. They had assembled the film backs wrong. The film magazine is matched by serial number to the canister. He had to take it apart, check the assembly order and it worked perfectly.
It was a standard camera with a really LONG lens for shooting from high altitude and getting a small area of coverage.
They made him wait at the airport until the pilot radioed back that the camera was operating properly.
He never knew if he was in Africa or South America. It was hot and dark was all he knew. They flew him back and he sent them a LARGE invoice that they paid.

He was fascinating to listen to. He used to buy all sorts of "surplus" aircraft parts from jet fighters. Each part was tagged and stored carefully and in perfect condition. After 5 or 10 years they would realize they need one of the parts back. He would sell them for 10 to 1000 times what he paid for them. He had a large warehouse to pay for.