Ancient GA war story

[The Ancient Geek]

As for the Cessna 337 mentioned by a poster above. It is a central axis push-me-pull you type. When it first came out Cessna had a promotional picture showing it taking off with the front engine shut down. Several people tried it and there were a couple of accidents. I was once in a Cessna 337 and we shut down an engine in flight and could not restart it. We were disappointed to find it would not maintain altitude on one. No real problem as there were airfields nearby but I would never try to take off on one.

The single engine ceiling is none too clever so Hot&High is not going to work but it flew OK on the front engine only with the rear prop removed to rescue it from a 4500 foot strip in a game reserve. Takeoff at first light before it got too hot and it used most of the strip.
I was much younger and bolder in those days