B-1602  Stinson L-5                              (c/n  ?

                                    

                                           Looks like a healthy craps game going on under the wing of this L-5.  This image from the scrap
                                           book of C.F. Chang.   This aircraft was owned by some branch of the Kuomintang (KMT -
                                           Chinese Nationalist) government.   There were no privately owned civil aircraft in Taiwan from
                                           the time of the arrival of the Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 until at least the 1990s.  There may still
                                           be none now.   The reason for this was that the government was mortally afraid that a private
                                           citizen might actually fly to the mainland (sort of a  reverse defection). The loss of face, should
                                           this ever have happened (and it certainly didn't by air) would have been totally intolerable, and
                                           one that the KMT would never live down.   Now that, three decades later, the two sides are
                                           finally at least talking to each other, and it is now possible for citizens of both sides to acquire
                                           limited travelling capabilities between the two Chinas, I am not sure if the embargo on privately
                                           owned lightplanes in Taiwan is still in effect.   I suspect it is, even now.