"That first door still works real good, never had any trouble with it. The other planes he had to put the nose up to the door and swing the tail around. You could get a Stearman through that because it only had a 32 foot wingspan.
I guess you could say I started Mike Schweiss off in the big door business," said Fuchs with a smile. I talked to Mike about it and he said,'We can give it a try.' I was the instigator for what Schweiss Doors is doing today. "Mike was building doors already, but they were all little ones and I needed something bigger. He thought he got his first Schweiss hangar door in the early 80s and had read about them from ads Schweiss Doors placed in Trade-A-Plane, and also knew of him when he was working in Fairfax.įuchs purchased his first Schweiss Bifold door in the early 80s and said it has been performing well ever since. "I had 500-plus feeder cattle and did custom corn shelling for about 20 years, mostly in the 50s." He still lives on the farm with his wife and favorite hunting dog Tuffy. "I farmed all my life - never had a job," said Fuchs with a smile on his face. When I got my commercial rating I had to do it with a FAA examiner and he didn't even have to go through the whole thing." At times the radio operators would ask if other pilots could follow me. I pretty much followed the AlCan Highway, but would take shortcuts up river valleys. "Flying in Alaska was the most fun and had the most beautiful scenery. Brings to mind the old saying "Any landing you can walk away from, is a good landing." He had to check them out prior to leaving and a few quit on him due to water in the fuel, even after he had drained the tanks. Those forced landings were mostly a result of engines stopping, vents on the fuel tanks freezing up, some had been on the ground for quite some time. In all those times he said he never had a close call but had to make 10 or 11 forced landings and never got a scratch.
I've been in every state many times and flew to Mexico for 15 years."įuchs uses his 1976 180 Cessna year round and has floats and hydraulic skis for it. For over 30 years I delivered airplanes all over the United States for friends in the aircraft business. "I made 29 trips to Alaska picking up and delivering planes. She found a place for me to stay,"said Fuchs. One time a nice lady told me when you get to Dillingham (a remote Alaska fishing village) just ask for Matilda. Most the time I had to find a place to stay. "I've used to take hunters out west, fishermen up to Canada and line up halibut and salmon fishing trips in Alaska. He calculates he probably has over 10,000 hours logged in the sky's over every state in the Union, Alaska and Mexico. He says he doesn't like one over the other, all three are his favorite. He still does a lot of flying in his assortment of planes a 1942 Stearman PT 13D, 1976 180 Cessna and his bush plane, a 1997 Super Cub fitted with big tires or hydraulic skis or floats. When you talk flying with him, his eyes light up. I also saw C-47s during the war years pulling three gliders, one right behind the other, past the farm.įuchs stands by the awesome looking engine on his 1942 Stearman PT 13D.įuchs is now 81 years old and just as spry as he was in his earlier years. There was a DC-3 mail plane from Sioux Falls that would fly over every day at 5 minutes past 7 in the late afternoon. I looked up and wished I could be one of them. They were all at low level, 500 to 1,000 feet. One time there was 25 of them that flew the section line behind the farm. "Right about World War II, I'd see formations of trainers and fighters. Fuchs recalls those early years very well. He held onto it for a couple of years, selling it later in order to buy some farm equipment. His first plane purchased in 1951, at age 19, among many others to come, was a two-seater 1946 Luscome 8A Master, powered with a 65 h.p. Then it was time for him to buy himself an airplane.
With no war to fight, Fuchs did the next best thing, he started flying at age 15 in 1946 with his neighbor Ed Rieke who owned a J3 Piper Cub and later with his buddy, Marv Battig, who flew a PA-11. Gene Fuchs, now 81, has logged over 10,000 hours in the air since he first started flying at age 15.
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