{"id":14689,"date":"2020-01-29T13:35:32","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T13:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/?p=14689"},"modified":"2020-01-29T13:38:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T13:38:06","slug":"land-o-matic-makes-flying-like-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/national-news\/land-o-matic-makes-flying-like-driving\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Land-O-Matic Makes “Flying Like Driving”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Kim Stevens<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 50’s Cessna and their nationwide network of dealers did\na great job marketing the company’s  new C-172\nby mailing out postcards to prospective students and owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mom, a number of years back, presented me with a stack of old\npost cards she had been saving, including the one shown with this article. The\nshiny C-172 pictured with a first generation Corvette certainly caught my eye today\nas I’m sure it must have for anyone who saw it back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This particular post card was addressed to my dad, Sam Stevens,\nand came from Clinch Flying Service, a Cessna dealer, located at the Municipal Airport in North Platte,\nNebraska. It was postmarked April 10, 1957 and was a reminder that ground\nschool class would be held on the following Saturday at 10:00 A.M.  The back of the post card reads – Take a\n“drive” in the sky in this amazing new airplane, the Cessna 172 with\npatented “Land-O-Matic” landing gear. It makes “flying like\ndriving!” See and fly one at your nearest Cessna Dealer today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad got to fly the 172 on many cross countries back\nthen. He got his Private license in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid fifties on\nthe G.I. Bill and then his Commercial with Clinch in North Platte. “I\nloved that plane,” he said. “I had to drive the 44 miles to the\nairport for each lesson since I lived in Cozad at the time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clinch Flying Service was started in 1938 by John Clinch a native\nof Norfolk, Nebraska when the airfield was a fenced pasture. Clinch, considered\nthe \u201cfather of North Platte aviation,\u201d started the Clinch Flying Service. For\nthirteen years he also managed the North Platte airport, which has become a\nmodern municipal airport. Clinch assisted in the development of the Nebraska\nDepartment of Aeronautics and <\/p>\n\n\n\n

helped organize the Nebraska Aviation Trades Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father recalled that a\nrather experienced kid they had working for them some, conducted the ground\nschool which took place about once a month.  He said that after a few\nminutes of talk, they played poker the rest of the night. “I’m sure the\nClinch Flying Service was unaware of this happening,” he said. “I always\nlost what money I had.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, my father\nchose music as a career rather than aviation, but I am grateful that he shared his\nlove of flying with me. He also helped me finance my commercial license and\ninstrument ticket. I\u2019m glad I had the opportunity to take him up with me a\ncouple of times to demonstrate the accomplishment that he had invested in, but\nmore importantly to share in the joy that we shared as father and son.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kim Stevens In the late 50’s Cessna and their nationwide network of dealers did a great job marketing the company’s  new C-172 by mailing out postcards to prospective students and owners. My mom, a number of years back, presented me with a stack of old post cards she had been saving, including the one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Postcard-front-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=14689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14692,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689\/revisions\/14692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}