Sky King

Out of the clear blue of the western sky comes Sky King.
-Opening line from Sky King

Another half hour show but this time from NBC. Sky King was right up there with Sea Hunt as one of my favorite shows from my childhood. Back in August I wrote a short post about the show after the death of one of its actors, Gloria Winters. It mainly consisted of the following paragraph:

One of my first women role models was a teenage girl named Penny King, niece of pilot and rancher "Sky" King. Penny was brave, resourceful and, the thing I admired most, a pilot herself. I envied that ability and the fact that she got to fly the Songbird, Sky's Cessna T-50 Bobcat or Cessna 310B, depending on which episode you were watching. She, along with Amelia Earhart, sparked my interest in aviation.

That above paragraph tells you all you need to know about why I loved this show. I would change that last sentence though, Penny and Amelia Earhart didn't spark my interest in aviation they just showed me that girls could be pilots too. I already loved airplanes and Sky King had two cool ones.

Sky's Cessna T-50 Bobcat

Sky's Cessna 310B

I watched the below episode yesterday and I still got the thrill of excitement I always felt as a child whenever the Songbird was in a scene. This episode stars the 310B, an aircraft with fuel tanks (called tip tanks) on the ends of the wings, In a nice bit of symmetry the 310B was Cessna's first two engine metal aircraft and a replacement for the wooden T-50.



So, what do all the shows this week have in common? Means of escape; the highway, under water, and in the air. They also have strong men, men who knew how to take care of people and keep them safe. Chief Matthews, Mike Nelson, Clark Kent and Sky King were father figures to me. They were my ideal fathers, the ones who made me feel safe when my own father could not.