Moments in History

I collected my new Mooney 231 (M20K) Reg. N1061T from the Kerville factory on July 21st, 1981. Living in Orlando, Florida, I hangered the plane at Kissimmee and flew the entire South Eastern area of the United States on business from Texas through PA. There were some memorable moments - snapshots of history! On November 12th 1981, I flew the perimeter of the exclusion zone at The Kennedy Space Center in Florida to view and photograph the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia on her 2nd mission - STS-2. I hope to publish the photos to this site later. On October 18th, 1982 I flew the Mooney around Orlando MCO airport and "escorted" the two Concordes from British Airways and Air France over Disney World, then to a simultaneous landing at MCO on the twin runways - the only time in history that a twin simultaneous landing of Concorde's was ever undertaken. This was to celebrate the opening of the new airport and the start of Transatlantic flights by the 2 airlines to Orlando. November 4th of 82 saw the start of my return trip from Florida to my homeland, the UK. The Atlantic crossing was a flight from Goose Bay, Labrador to Reykjavic in Iceland on November 7th, which took just under 8 hours and was full of incident, culminating in a PAR approach to the military base in Iceland in a raging blizzard! I finally landed at Luton in the UK (EGGW) on November 9th. I kept the plane at London Gatwick for nearly 2 years, laterly hangering at Biggin Hill and flew all over Europe. I reluctanly sold N1061T in 1984 and it was transferred to the British registry, last known to be living, I believe, in the East Midlands.