The Lovable Con Man
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To be a successful hangar rat, you keep your nose clean and the hangar floor even cleaner. I followed this formula, and in less than a year I had my Commercial Licence—suddenly I was the most highly qualified—and worst paid—pilot in the company, mostly because I was a pitiful salesman.
But I am getting ahead of myself. My time at Placo was the most stimulating and exciting part of my flying career. The 1960s were a boom time for aviation, and the industry attracted wonderfully colourful characters. Some were ex–World War II military pilots who wiped their bums with restrictive civil aviation laws. There were rogues, villains, and cowboys—everyone seemed to be larger than life.
Some attached themselves to aviation because there were easy pickings among the monied folk who bought aeroplanes.
Placo employed a salesman in this category. A man who will go down in history as one of the world’s best con men. He was also unbelievably charming and good-looking. I guess people have to like you before they trust you with their money.
Eric Winson was by far the best salesman Placo ever employed.
And so, with a fanfare, I introduce Eric Owen Winson.
Eric, sometimes known as Farley, was a well-built, dark, handsome brute of about 30. He could—and did—literally charm the pants off every pretty girl within 100 miles of wherever he happened to be that particular evening.
He was by far the best salesman Placo ever employed, before or since. At that time, we were selling about one new aircraft a month. When Old Piet and Zingi pushed off to the Piper factory for a conference, Eric said to Dronkie Lombard, the other salesman, and myself, “Right, guys, let’s empty the hangar before they get back.”
And that’s exactly what we did—we sold ten aircraft that month. Two new ones, and eight second-hand. We sold the whole damn lot before our amazed bosses returned. I say we, but that’s a lie—it was all Eric’s work. I couldn’t sell a life belt to a drowning man, and Dronkie lived up to his name—he was drunk for pretty much the entire month.
But despite Eric’s amazing ability as a salesman, he much preferred conning people. It was an irresistible challenge, which he enjoyed far more than making an honest living.
The first big scam that I knew about occurred during a horrific drought in the Northern Transvaal. There were sickening pictures in the newspapers of cattle dying of starvation.
Eric searched out the phone numbers of all the main ranchers in the area. He called each with the same story. He was an animal lover, and he was appalled by the terrible pictures. He owned many acres of green pastures in Natal. If the farmers would care to rail the cattle down, he would feed them and send them back when the drought was over.
Of course, they were delighted. There were no receipts or paperwork—Eric was doing them a favour.
As the trainloads of cattle arrived in Pretoria, Eric diverted them straight to the abattoir and pocketed the loot. Naturally, when the rains came and the farmers wanted their cattle back, Eric simply said, “What cattle?”
Most of his dealings, however, were not agricultural. He did sell Old Piet’s Comanche, ZS-CWG, to the fertiliser baron—and later rugby boss—Louis Luyt. I remember hiding nearby in the shadows of the hangar to watch Eric’s sales technique.
He seated Louis in the red-leather interior of the Comanche while he painted a fairy-tale picture for his customer. Louis would be flying to Lourenço Marques for an illicit, romantic weekend. His golf clubs would be in the back of the aircraft and his gorgeous partner in the right-hand seat as they slid serenely over small patches of cloud. In the distance, they could just see pristine white beaches and palm trees.
Louis couldn’t sign quickly enough.
Eric didn’t sell aeroplanes—he sold dreams. And he did it extraordinarily well.
He would sometimes disappear to the Free State for a week and come back with an Aztec sale, usually subject to a couple of conditions—such as marrying the buyer’s daughter and somehow gyppoing the HP company so that Eric’s own wallet bulged rather than anyone else’s.
The farmer, his wife, the HP company, and the farmer’s daughter were always left with vaguely puzzled looks on their faces. Surely there must be some mistake—Eric simply couldn’t do that.
He was careful to involve the farmer in some form of slightly illegal activity. He might inflate the price of the aircraft and use the extra money to boost the farmer’s deposit. Or there might be some tax dodging involved. That way, when the farmer eventually realised things were going off the rails, he could hardly run to the cops and admit his complicity in the various frauds.
But even the best schemes must come to an end. You can’t do this sort of thing too often before the law starts to catch up with you, and eventually Eric headed for South America, two steps ahead of a stream of creditors—taking with him a spectacular blonde whose sister happened to be married to Zingi’s brother, Barry.
The next we heard was that Eric had been jailed in Argentina for pushing his baby, in a pram, across the border. Not a serious crime, you might say—and one would have to agree—except the baby happened to be lying on several million dollars’ worth of counterfeit money.
I am not making this up—it is in the court records. In Eric’s later application for a firearm licence in the United States, he omitted to mention that he had been jailed. Inevitably, they caught up with him.
Eric escaped from that jail—we never heard exactly how. Then Barry spotted an extremely luxurious yacht at Monte Carlo and commented that it must belong to Aristotle Onassis.
“No,” came the reply. “It belongs to a bloke called Eric Winson.”
What a wonderful guy—we all fell under his spell in one way or another.
I have another story about how Eric saved me from being murdered by a gang of thugs. Remind me to tell you about that.
Jim's other passion is writing, which he studied for five years at Rhodes University, SA (BA), and Curtin University, Australia (MA). He has authored two international best-sellers: PPL, a standard text in Australia and SA, and Flight Tests, which has helped thousands pass their reviews worldwide. Jim has also written more than 1000 articles for flying magazines.
Jim loves Harleys, horses and cats.
All his flying books are available at www.jimdavis.co.za and at https://www.pilottrain.com.au
- The Lovable Con Man - January 12, 2026
- Old Piet and Mr Piper - October 20, 2025
- Hired and Fired - September 26, 2025
Amazing skills, creativity, and diverse interests this man had!
Very entertaining, more please!
Jim you have penned one of the best ditties in all of AirFacts time. Well done. peterson
I worked at Placo at the same time as Jim Davis and Eric Winson. I doubt if Jim would remember me. I worked for Mr John in the spares division for a few years. Eric was a charmer. Jim and his wife lived on the airfield. Happy days!
Most con men have attractive personalities. That is how they make their living,
I looked him up. What an absolutely terrible person. I am a little surprised someone didn’t just off him in that part of the world.