Its 23.083 ft (7.04 m) span rectangular wing with an aspect ratio of 6:1, employed an NACA 65A316 airfoil, mounted double-slotted flaps and adjustable-incidence ailerons.

[6] Over time the aircraft was modified to include IFR avionics, an automatic fuel tank selection and cycling system, airbrakes, a stabilator T-tail, a turbocharged engine and built-in oxygen.

Everything that I bought off somebody's shelf—the engine, the avionics, the instruments—survived...I kept the remains for a year, and then, after salvaging what I could, sold the empty hulk to a metal dealer to be shipped to Taiwan and converted into heaven knows what.

We have two children now and much to do, and I rarely think about the old airplane, the 2,000 hours we spent in it, the 350,000 miles of prairie and ocean and mountain that slid beneath its white wings.

Animals and men still live who heard it drone overhead and perhaps glanced upward; trees and stones remain that were once brushed by its shadow.

They forget; but if I murmur the words "Two Mike Uniform" I can still feel the tremor of the roaring engine and sense the vast surrounding space of flight.