{"id":1654,"date":"2010-07-28T23:48:18","date_gmt":"2010-07-28T23:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2018-11-08T13:46:37","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T18:46:37","slug":"benny-arrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/fantasy-of-flight\/benny-arrives\/","title":{"rendered":"Benny Arrives!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My Benny Howard “Ike”<\/em> replica recently arrived at Fantasy of Flight. \u00a0It is a faithful reproduction built by Kim Kovach of Detroit, Michican and is powered by a 4-cylinder Menasco engine. \u00a0The original airplane used the impossible to find 6-cylinder Menasco so the two rear exhaust pipes on this airplane are dummies. \u00a0Kim did a great job building it and it will make a great addition to the Golden Age racers on display at Fantasy of Flight.<\/p>\n

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Benny<\/em> has since been assembled and is now on display with all his friends from my illustrated children’s book All of Life is a School.<\/em> I have now collected seven of the ten characters in the book!<\/p>\n

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Benny as depicted in my book All of Life is a School<\/p><\/div>\n

I first saw this airplane several years ago at Oshkosh and made a mental note it would be great to acquire one day. \u00a0Surprisingly, Kim called me and we tentatively cut a deal on the phone based on whether or not it would fit me. \u00a0I flew through Detroit on a trip and barely squeezed into it. \u00a0The only deviation from the original was to continue the 18-inch width at the instrument panel back to the rear of the cockpit where your shoulders are. \u00a0I’m glad he did this as there was no way I would have fit into the 15-inch original! \u00a0Even now I have to roll my shoulders forward to get in. \u00a0To fit in height-wise, there are not only detents in the floor for your heels but a cushioned seat that also allows your butt to sink below the floorboards!<\/p>\n

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Benny's Cockpit<\/p><\/div>\n

On a side note, I’ve written my next book in the Gee Bee <\/em>series called and recently began the process of working with the artists. \u00a0I got smart this time and only wrote in new characters, which I already had in the collection! \u00a0Look for more about this new book with some preliminary drawings in future blog posts.<\/p>\n

Kermit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Benny Howard “Ike” replica recently arrived at Fantasy of Flight. \u00a0It is a faithful reproduction built by Kim Kovach of Detroit, Michican and is powered by a 4-cylinder Menasco engine. \u00a0The original airplane used\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,11,16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benny-howards-ike","category-fantasy-of-flight","category-all-of-life-is-a-school-gee-bee","category-kermit-weeks","benny-arrives"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6350,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/6350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasyofflight.com\/collection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}