Stormville Airport : Stories : Martin Maisel

Martin Maisel, now from Lincoln, California, shares this memory and many images.

Thank you for the wonderful website about Stormville airport.

In the mid- and late 1950s my dad had a house near Sylvan Lake. At the time I was an Aeronautical Engineering student and would often walk to Stormville airport to look at the aircraft and watch the flight operations. I’m enclosing a number of (poor quality) photographs taken at Stormville, mostly in September of 1958.

I believe that Cole Palen had at least one airplane at Stormville at the time. This was before he opened the Old Rhinebeck Airdrome.

Among the interesting sights at Stormville was a running 1909 Sears Motor Buggy. The last photo in this email shows that automobile, with me as a passenger.

I got my degree in aeronautical engineering in 1960 and worked in industry for 10 years (Hamilton Standard (Propeller Division of United Technologies) and Boeing Helicopters). I then worked for the U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate for 32 years in joint VTOL research activities with NASA at the NASA Ames Research Center. The major effort during that time was the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft program that led to the V=22 Osprey.

I got my Private Pilot certificate in 1966 and I currently completing a homebuilt aircraft.

My visits to Stormville left a lasting and positive impression.