N5317W - still in the air

I've always remembered the tail number of the Piper Cherokee that I learned to fly in at Midway back in the 1960s. What I didn't know until today was that it was manufactured in 1962! I hadn't realized it was so new, when I was flying it.

And I found the plane today, thanks to the internet and Facebook. N5317W seems to be owned now by an Army sergeant who lives in California, who completed his tour of duty at the end of 2010. If he reads this, "Thank you for your service!"

Won't he be surprised when he opens my email!

And that reminded me of a Capt. Jim Philpott, about whom I heard when I was stationed at Lowry AFB, Colorado (Denver). By the time I got to Lowry in 1959, it no longer had flight operations, although the runways and hangars were still there. I started hearing about Capt. Philpott and his reputation. The standing order at Lowry was, "When Philpott is flying, the hangar doors will be kept closed!"

He had threatened to fly through the hangar, if he ever found the doors open. I tracked him down in the 1970s, and he confirmed the story. At the time he was running a flight school somewhere in southern California.