I wasn't allowed to take off a plane as a child but I was allowed starting at age 8 to pilot a plane after being free from any airport take off or landing pattern.
So, we took off from Yucca Valley Airport where my father's best friend owned 2 1/2 acres with a house on it for summer or weekend use and then flew towards Palm Springs and then down the Valley between San Jacinto Mountain that overlooks Palm Springs and that area. My father and his friend wanted to talk so they let me fly the plane cautioning me that we would be blown into a mountain and die if I flew straight ahead. Ed (my father's friend) showed me how to use the pedals to make the plane basically fly sideways into the wind so we wouldn't be blown into a mountain next to us to our right called San Gorgonio which is the highest mountain in Southern California. So, I pushed the left pedal so the plane would fly basically sideways away from Mt. San Gorgonio which stands above 11,000 feet and we were flying about 7000 feet to be above the takeoff and landing lanes of any airport we might fly over.
I think that day our destination was the Encino Airport where my father had left our car and we then drove back to Glendale where we lived then. This was around 1958 when I was about 10 years old and the first time I had piloted a plane I was 8 years old in Santa Fe New Mexico and then I flew a piper tri pacer.
The plane I flew this day in 1958 at age 10 was a 1949 Steinson that my Dad's friend Ed owned and flew then.
This yellow one below could be the same plane by the way because this is exactly what Ed's looked like in 1958.
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