Campbell County men rebuilding aviation history

Cincinnati, OH – To Dan Emmerich and Charlie Pyles, the metal-tube frame and maroon-coated fabric in the hangar at Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport isn’t a pile of junk.

It’s a treasure.

 

Emmerich, of Highland Heights, and Pyles, of Cold Spring, are former pilots who volunteer their time and expertise for the Cincinnati Aviation Heritage Museum.

 

They are restoring the metallic skeleton to its former glory as a 1930s-era All American Aviation Stinson Reliant mail plane.

 

That particular plane was one of three employed by All American Aviation, which would later become American Airlines, that carried mail from New York and Pennsylvania and more than 50 small towns to the route’s westernmost point at Lunken.

 

“One man would be in the back of the plane, and he’d toss out the sack of mail through a hole in the floor, while the other man would fly the plane,” Pyles said.

 

“They’d pass by a rope held between two tall posts, like goal posts, and they’d drop out a rope with a hook that would snatch up the rope between those goalposts, and that’s how they’d pick up the mail,” the Cold Spring resident explained.

 

“They’d fly right through,” Emmerich continued. “They wouldn’t stop until they got here to Lunken, which was the largest and busiest airport in the U.S. at the time. This is where they’d distribute the mail to go out the next day.”