Fleet Finch

摘要

The first time that I sat behind a Kinner engine was in a Ryan PT22. It was one of those great summer days when everything goes just right. There I was in the front seat of an open cockpit airplane while the pilot in the back seat looped and rolled all over the sky. The five cylinders of the Kinner just sort of popped away and blew smoke and bits of oil in my face, but who cared? Years later in the summer of 2000, it was a different Kinner, but the sound was the same, the air smelled great, the view was different this time through the wings of a biplane and once again I'm having a ball. I'm the pilot this time in the front seat of a 1941 Fleet Finch Ⅱ /16B biplane. Yes, the front seat; the Finch is flown from the front seat unlike the Tiger Moth or Stearman that are flown from the rear. This gives a much better view of the ground in the immediate area around the nose than some others.