My friend lost his house and his airplane

jshawley said:
My thoughts and prayers to all there...
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I'll pass the word along...thanks Jim. I ran off this thread with all of the positive comments and gave it to Bill.

It's kinda of strange the things the tornado did as it was passing through. It took some of Bill's mail and sucked out the letters and left the envelopes. Some of the letters/bills/correspondence was stuff that he really needed to find, so we sorted through the rubble and out in the yard trying to find it. Out in his hangar, it lifted his old Chevelle and a 10 gallon can of diesel got shoved under it before the car came back down in the same spot and then a beam fell on the car. He lifted the car up with his front-end loader so that I could grab the can out from under the car before he could try to drive it. One of his brush hogs got lifted up and his ladder got shoved under it before it dropped back down in the same spot on top of the ladder.
 
Bill lost not only his airplane, but some of his aviation photo albums...he really liked those photo albums. I was looking through all my photos of his airplane to make him a new album and maybe a video (I think we salvaged his TV) of pictures of his airplane and came across a few of these. Bill helped us take Young Eagles a few times. The last picture would be fitting for the last photo for his album. It's a picture of Chip and me waving goodbye to Bill as he took off at Oshkosh.
 

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An update on Bill. He just bought another TriPacer last month and he's flying it up here tomorrow. I'm so happy for him that he's back in the air. :yes: He rebuilt his hangar and is back in his house again.

BTW, we're having a small fly-in at the farm tomorrow (that's why he's coming up). Chili for lunch if anyone happens to be passing through. :)
 
That's very nice to hear Diana. Give my regards to Bill tomorrow.

Tripacers bring back sweet memories. I had my first airplane ride ever in a Tripacer. It was also the plane in which I learned to fly and soloed.
 
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Gary said:
Ouch!! That really hurts. I am truly sorry for your friend's loss.
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It was pretty overwhelming for him at the time. The tornado stayed on the ground for awhile and left a lot of damage and killed several people.

TeenDoc said:
That's very nice to hear Diana. Give my regards to Bill tomorrow.

Tripacers bring back sweet memories. I had my first airplane ride ever in a Tripacer. It was also the plane in which I learned to fly and soloed.
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Thanks Gill. :) I didn't know you learned to fly in one...how neat!

Bill is planning to join us at Gaston's this year. Here is a picture I took of it yesterday at the farm. He's happy to be back in the air. :yes:
 

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Diana said:
Gil. :) I didn't know you learned to fly in one...how neat!
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To be honest Diana, I learned to fly in the Colt, which is a smaller 2-seat version of the Tripacer. What I remember most vividly is how heavy that sucker was.

Diana said:
Bill is planning to join us at Gaston's this year. Here is a picture I took of it yesterday at the farm. He's happy to be back in the air. :yes:
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Great, I'm planning to be there. Hope everything works out!
 
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