Talk Tonight at the Tex Rankin Theatre

I was honored to speak tonight about Pacific Spaceflight's aviation project at the Tex Rankin theatre at the Pearson Air Museum (also along were Pacific Spaceflight members Washoe Magruder and Alexander Knapton, who demonstrated the suit and answered questions from the audience). Who was Tex Rankin? I wondered and looked around: Early aviator; in 1928 he ran the largest private aviation school in the US, based in Portland, Oregon,a nd the Rankin Method of flight instruction was widely adopted and some of its principles remain in fixed-wing flying schools today. Photo below is Tex, with a black cat. In addition to carrying black cats on his flights, he often numbered his aircraft '13'. These were his demonstration that safe flying was not about luck but proficiency, and as he was proficient he could carry a black cat in a plane numbered 13 and even a broken mirror aboard; and fly and land safely. Wild!