{"id":453,"date":"2010-11-01T06:18:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T06:18:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-11-01T06:18:05","modified_gmt":"2010-11-01T06:18:05","slug":"land-o-matic-makes-flying-driving","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/land-o-matic-makes-flying-driving","title":{"rendered":"Land-O-Matic Makes &#8220;Flying Like Driving&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Kim Stevens<br \/>\nIn the late 50&#8217;s Cessna and their nationwide network of dealers did a great job marketing the company&#8217;s&nbsp; new C-172 by mailing out postcards to prospective students and owners.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"227\" align=\"right\" width=\"356\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/\\wp-content\\uploads\/cessnapostcard.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My mom recently presented me with a stack of old post cards she had been saving, including the one shown with this article. The shiny C-172 pictured with a first generation Corvette certainly caught my eye today as I&#8217;m sure it must have for anyone who saw it back in the day.<\/p>\n<p>This particular post card was addressed to my dad, Sam Stevens, and came from Clinch Flying Service, a <br \/>\nCessna dealer, located at the Municipal Airport in North Platte, Nebraska. It was postmarked April 10, 1957 and was a reminder that ground school class would be held on the following Saturday at 10:00 A.M.&nbsp; The back of the post card reads,&nbsp; [Take a &quot;drive&quot; in the sky in this amazing new airplane, the Cessna 172 with patented &quot;Land-O-Matic&quot; landing gear. It makes &quot;flying like driving!&quot; See and fly one at your nearest Cessna Dealer today.]&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><!--break--><\/p>\n<p>My dad got to fly the 172 on lots of cross countries back then.&nbsp;He got his Private license in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid fifties on the G.I. Bill and then his Commercial with Clinch in North Platte. &quot;I loved that plane,&quot; he said.&nbsp;&quot;I had to drive the 44 miles to the airport for each lesson since I lived in Cozad at the time.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Clinch Flying Service was started in 1938 by John Clinch a native of Norfolk, Nebraska when the airfield was a fenced pasture. Clinch, considered the &ldquo;father of North Platte aviation,&rdquo; started the Clinch Flying Service. For thirteen years he also managed the North Platte airport, which has become a modern municipal airport. Clinch assisted in the development of the Nebraska Department of Aeronautics and <br \/>\nhelped organize the Nebraska Aviation Trades Association.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"230\" align=\"right\" width=\"358\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/\\wp-content\\uploads\/cessnapostcardback.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My father recalled that a rather experienced kid they had working for them some, conducted the ground school which&nbsp;took place about once a month.&nbsp; He said that after a few minutes of talk, they played poker the rest of the night. &quot;I&#8217;m sure the Clinch Flying Service was unaware of this happening,&quot; he said. &quot;I always lost what money I had.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kim Stevens In the late 50&#8217;s Cessna and their nationwide network of dealers did a great job marketing the company&#8217;s&nbsp; new C-172 by mailing out postcards to prospective students and owners. My mom recently presented me with a stack of old post cards she had been saving, including the one shown with this article. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7019,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-453","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}