You can't see the mechanic from your open cockpit. You yell…"Contact" and the propeller jumps to life, the plane starts to shudder. The mechanic pulls away the wheel blocks and escapes. The noise is incredible, a nine-cylinder Hispano-Suiza…spewing clouds of vaporized castor-oil. Complete cacophony. The propeller is by now an invisible whirr. Out of the way, this is hands-on flight at its finest. Ready for take-off?
