Marshall McDonald's 90th Birthday

Marshall McDonald 1916 - 2011

This article was written in 2006

 

I first met Marshall in the summer of 2005.  He had signed up for the Fresno Bonanza Pilot Proficiency Program scheduled for October and had asked Pam Bailey if there was someone nearby that could fly with him to Fresno.  Turned out he only lives a few blocks from my house in Palo Alto.  Even though he has a current medical he was in need of a flight review.  I was immediately interested in flying with him when I heard he had a 1949 A35.

As we were driving to San Jose International for our first flight Marshall mentioned his age and birthday.  I thought I want to fly with him on his 90th birthday which at the time was the following year.

When I picked up Marshall for his birthday flight, he had his coveralls on.  He told me that he might have to do some nose strut work prior to our flight.  Marshall and his partner are active participants in the maintenance of their A35.  Marshall has been an owner for about 40 years.

It turned out to be a beautiful sunny California winter day and the nose strut was just fine. We departed from South County Airport for some flight seeing and an ILS at Salinas.  Marshall does the flying since it’s a single yoke and he's current, I do the radio work.  After contacting NorCal we are cleared for the ILS 31 at KSNS.   Marshall flies by the numbers and has the needles centered at the outer marker so I captured a picture of the runway and the gauges.  After a low pass we flew on to Watsonville for some "cheap" fuel.

 

Home

Flight Programs

Links

Interesting Flights

PAO Weather

FHR Weather

Resume

Contact Jim

  

Marshall Inspects the Bonanza

Radio Setup

At the Outer Marker ILS 31 KSNS

Runway from the Outer Marker

Shutdown at the end of the flight