A Blast from the Past

 Way back when I was a teenager my parents used to rent a second-floor apartment in our house. More than one bush pilot flying seaplanes and ski planes for Folsom's Air Service rented that apartment when they first came to town. One of those pilots was Charlie Coe who stayed on with Folsom's and became somewhat of a legend in his time. Charlie was short and a lightweight but always wore a smile and talked with a voice similar to that of Willie Nelson, although without the Texas accent but with much more joie de vivre.

Charlie's greatest claim to fame was his piloting of Folsom's de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver tail number N1537V. This Beaver wound up in infamy as the bright yellow float plane in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. I can remember several occasions when from inside my parents' home I could hear the roar of this radial-engine beast approaching low from the east, a wide-open vista across Wilson Pond. Racing outside I would get there just in time to have Charlie in his Beaver nearly clip the roof-top, roaring over and banking up and to the right before passing over the Greenville airport.

For years, Charlie and his wife motored around in their Metropolitan, which brings me to why I am writing this post. Here's a video from the Metropolitan Museum. As I recall, Charlie's Metropolitan was light aqua and white. I never was quite clear on whether Charlie only ran one of these or maybe had more along the way. For several years they lived in the house at the airport, as I recall, so his car would be parked there at the airport every night.

Metropolitan Museum (full episode)

One more blast from the past...

Did you know that Folsom's Beaver was originally dark red I believe with black trim way back in the 1960's when Dick first bought it? Back then it had a round porthole style side window on each side.