Albatros Werke

Brother Hogan's New Standard biplane ride at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome last Friday got me thinking about my visit to the World War I styled airfield thirty years ago.  In 1983 I was a newbie copilot flying for Thurston Aviation in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I was assigned a two day Cessna Citation charter to Poughkeepsie, New York.  As I recall, the customer was IBM.  It was one of those early morning departures designed to arrive before the crack of dawn and then return late the following day, that charter pilots love so much.  I was flying with R. C. Furr, the Chief Pilot, and a super nice guy.  Rather than sit around the hotel for two days, we decided to rent a car and see the sights.  The two notables were the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York, and Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.

 

I remember Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome being a disheveled place---realistic; what you would expect a hastily constructed flying field would look like during the Great War.  Hangars were nothing more than open-ended sheds.  Airplane parts that would not fit inside were covered with tarps.  But the airplanes were cool!  Sopwith; Nieuport; Spad; Fokker---they all flew on the weekends.  Unlike the IBMers, who only flew during the week.

The intrepid charter pilot, in uniform, sans jacket, standing beside what appears to be a New Standard biplane at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in 1983.  The grey polyester pants and black wingtip shoes don't seem to match the surroundings.  The backpack on the ground to my right---the same one that carried books at Appalachian State University---was full of camera gear, now obsolete.

Thirty years ago, more often than not, my Nikon FE/II was loaded with black and white film.  (What better place to shoot black and white film than at a vintage airfield.)  My modus operandi at the time was to print contact sheets before deciding which images to enlarge.  I remember printing only two photographs from this roll of film---the Sopwith with the majestic propeller, and the Vanderbilt Mansion.  Except for the three image strip above, my contact sheets have all disappeared; as have the negatives.  On a lark, I placed the strip on our $100 Lexmark scanner, and set the image for 1200 dpi.  The result was not too bad, all things considered.

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, Hyde Park, New York.

Cessna Citation, N145TA.