03/15/2007. Remarks by Howard
Walker: "This photo was the single photo taken at the
airport as part of a promotion for the opening of the movie 'Dames'.
One of the models is my mother, now 89 years of age. She is the one
getting out of the cockpit of the Bird BK, the plane on the left. The airport is
long gone now, the land becoming an industrial park.
My first real
job in the summer after I graduated high school before going off to
college was at the Central Airport working for Kellet Aircraft. They
had a government contract to build experimental air mail pickup
devices. Two steel poles about 50 feet high, about 50 feet apart with
a cable strung between the poles. The air mail sack was attached to
the cable, and a plane would fly low and snag the sack with a hook
somehow. I don't remember just how it was done, but I saw a test flight/pickup
done there once and it did work. My job was to de-grease the steel
poles before they were machined. Ugh! It was messy."
