A Pearl Harbor Mystery

Fleischman profiles Kent Pietsch, a pilot who has repeatedly been charmed by a high-wing, low-power, two-place-cabin, tail-dragging, primary trainer called the Interstate Cadet. Today, Pietsch has four Cadets, plus choice parts. One, N37266, came from a collection of seven more or less separate Cadets that an Ohio aficionado was disposing of. The Cadet the Ohio collector was offering was said to be flying over Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attacks. Pietsch was stunned because this might be the most famous Interstate Cadet ever made: on Dec 7, 1941, Cornelia Fort, an instructor and her student had taken a Cadet up over Hawaii for a routine lesson. Fort fly over Hawaii and barely escaped the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor. Seventy years later, her airplane ended up in North Dakota and believed to be in the hands of Pietsch.