I have asked myself several times lately where or when did I make a decision to make flying my carrier. I still just don’t know where or when it happened maybe it just grew on me.

Several of the neighbor kids and I were playing in our back yard in late summer of 1945. The war had just ended a small airplane was doing training maneuvers over the farm. I recognized what they were doing, turns, climbing turns, gliding turns. stalls, slow flight, etc, I had checked out the only “how to fly” book in the school library, Jordanoff’s “Your Wings” many times and I had it almost memorized. All the maneuvers described in this book were being demonstrated over our farm and it happened every day, even spins, chandelles and lazy eights. In a few days I got my parents permission to go to the air port while they went shopping, it was a Saturday ritual. Mom did not get a drivers license until she was over 65 and living in Florida.

So there I was, asking questions, about learning to fly, and asking them faster than anyone could answer them. I found out that flying cost $8.00 per hour solo and $12.00 for dual. I could start for $4.00, three dollars for a 15 minute lesson and a dollar for a log book. So I told them I would be back. Mom and Dad showed up shortly and Dad had a beer at the Airdrome Tavern his regular stop on his way home from work each day. I begged them to give me $4.00 so I could start flying lessons that day.

Dad suggested that I could find enough empty beer and soda bottles that I could take a flying lesson every week if I worked at it. On the way home dad dropped me off with a burlap bag about a mile form the house so I could gleen for bottles before supper. The bag got so heavy that I knew I would have to do my scavenging over shorter distances. I found enough bottles that week to pay for my first lesson. Then I remembered the golf course, it had several pond hazards each one less than waist deep. Yeah, it was mucky and dirty but apparently it had not been exploited for a long time if ever, anyhow I got way over a hundred golf balls and I sold them, I think for ten cents each. I had enough for more, than an hours flying time, I thought I was rich.

When I first went to the airport they had two Taylorcraft tandem trainers an L-2M and an L-2B, the latter had a cub type cowl but otherwise they were identical. Both were still olive drab when I started to fly but soon they were painted one red and the other blue. There was also a PT-19 for aerobatic training and a Waco cabin plane they used for instrument training. As the GI bill gained popularity they had to add airplanes but once the initial group of war surplus airplanes were gone the cost of replacing a wreck or a wear out went way up.
While this was going on, others were bringing out the airplanes that had been stored when the war started. I remember the Fleet biplane that I liked so much. Ray Andrews was disappointed to find out that it needed a complete recover and at least a top overhaul, all but one cylinder was low on compression.

A model B Ford powered Funk came out of storage and I got to fly in it, like wise a Stinson 3 place, I never got a ride, no one trusted the 90hp Franklin engine. An Aeronca C-2 single place as well as two C-3’s the 2 place follow on. A side by side Taylorcraft showed up as well as a Piper Cub coupe a comfortable but very slow airplane. A Luscomb Silvaire showed up and I got to fly in it but the guy that owned it was afraid of it because he had ground looped it several times. Bob Lansing a welder that worked with my dad who had worked for several aircraft companys over many years volunteered to fix that. He brought his welding equipment a long pipe and had them jack up the airplane, take off the landing gear shrouds so he could get access to the gear strut. He heated it at a low stress point and with the long pipe over the axle he adjusted the tow in or tow out and the camber, I never learned what his secret was but that Silvaire never ground looped again.

Then there were the war surplus airplanes that the richer people could afford. The PT-19 was cheap because the Ranger engine had a short service life. PT-23’s the same airplane with a 220 hp Continental engine that was almost bullet proof sold for triple or more. Stearmen’s PT-13’s and 17’s brought a good price because so many had flown them during training for the war and either Lycoming or Contintal engines where equally reliable, and they remain classic biplanes to this day. Their was an auction of war surplus BT-13s’ going on and some of us at the airport bid on a lot of six, $500, unfortunately we got our lot. I hitch hiked to go see what we had bought and would call back every day to let them know the good or bad news. All were PW-985 powered and the engine times were all less than 800 hours, which was good. One had a wooden tail cone that was soft in places and there was still some trapped water in the bilges, not a good sign, but the engine on that airplane was the lowest time .

A doctor from Memphis came up while I was looking over our acquisition of six airplanes, and asked if we would be interested in selling that almost new engine from our possibly rotting wooden airplane, I think I interrupted an important meeting, he was the lawyer of the group, with my collect call but he agreed and we recovered our investment, I asked the Dr if he had made arrangements for the residue if he were a lucky bidder he said yes he had a buyer for the hulk I said ok you have a deal but I have to see the money first, he pulled five 100 dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to me and I went to find the paper work that had come with each airplane. He was happy and we had five free airplanes but we had to get them home.

With that much money in my pocket, I took a bus home, I still had to go to school even if I would rather be playing with airplanes. We suddenly had five + B-13’s on the field. Each had to be modified with a bungee system that would help them recover from a spin, a rudder centering device that cost about $300 I did not have that much after giving my parents most of the proceeds from the sale of my bull Guernsey yearling calf that I had showed at the county fair that year, it helped pay off the mortgage on the farm. So I ended up helping install the bungee kits for the others and eventually earned enough to buy the kit for my airplane. I also made some money fixing the fuel leaks in the wet wings on three of the airplanes.

The fuel tanks were sealed with a zink cromate paste that as it turns out is a carcinogen, so fixing a leak was, simply finding the most likely location of the leak and then either repositioning some of the existing zink cromate paste inside the wings or adding a bit more here and there in the suspect places. I had to do the first one twice but got lucky on the other two and I got the leaks stopped on the first try. Yeah, by then I had earned enough that I owned a BT-13 and had some money left over, I even splurged and took my Mom to lunch at a real restaurant and a movie and we took the bus home. Dad was home when we got there and he asked Mom where we had been she said “we went on a date”.

Then disaster struck. The mechanic was repairing one of the trainers that had been damaged during a hard landing breaking the gear strut bending a wing strut and damaging the landing gear attach fittings. It required welding, they had cut away a lot of the covering for safety, but it was not enough, a spark got away and the fabric began burning and the end result was that the trainer was destroyed, the Waco cabin plane and the PT-19 were all destroyed and the hanger had to be torn down because it was no longer structurally sound. What a mess. John Tyndall my first instructor had several months before left the airport and started his own flying school about 20 miles away. That left Johnny Fisher as the sole owner and I think he just gave up. George Gill and his wife bought the residue.

George was a WWII Army Air Corps pilot recently discharged. They bought two brand new 1946 J-3 Cubs and later added a Myers OTW biplane as the aerobatic trainer, each one cost less than $2000. The GI bill flight training continued but it was slowing down. I was not yet 16 years old, so even though I owned an airplane I couldn’t fly it. It did not matter much because I did not have the money to buy fuel for it, it used 20+ gallons per hour and Amaco hightest was forty cents a gallon, The same as I could rent one of the new Cubs for. So it sat just like everyone elses BT-13’s on the field. Our angel arrived, as a total suprise a man from Detroit wanted to buy all five of our BT-13’s he wanted them for his skywriting business, and wanted to expand, they flew line abreast and put out puffs of smoke timed to write like the old dot matrix printers did. I don’t know how many sky writing operations he had but I know that they eventually moved up to T-6’s . And there was more than one skywriting operation that used that technique.

So, our little BT-13 corp. was now with money and no airplanes of course the lawyer got the most and the rest of us took what was left. I did not complain it was more than I had ever held in my hand at one time ever, so no regrets. I soloed two days after my 16th birthday in a Cub on skis. but I have mentioned that before. I enlisted into the Air Force of course hopeing to become an Air Force pilot but it was a long shot. I did not have any college and had only the learning of my past, farm, airport, heavy equipment operator, girl chaser, and pit man at some Nascar Sportsman class races. Not much to recommend one to higher aspirations.

So off I went with three other of my high school buddies to basic training at Sampson AFB in up state NY. It was a bitter winter, one night they even brought us all in from guard duty because it was simply too cold to be out there on the guard posts. I had no problems in basic training because I had spent the summer throwing 80 pound hay bales and wheat sacks onto the wagon and could do as many pushups, pullups or situps as the instructor asked, I even did well on the marksmanship range. But I had plenty of practice trying to keep up with the other kids that would come shoot at tin cans on our farm. Of course I wanted to be an airplane mechanic but the AF didn’t need any just then so they sent me to Military Police Replacement Training Center (MPRTC) at Camp Gordan, GA. That was fun, I got to shoot every hand and shoulder fired weapon that the US military had at that time, what a blast, of course there were the pushups, pullups, and situps but I still enjoyed it.

At graduation I volunteered to become a Pararescue jumper, but that was not to be. There had been some kind of security breach at one of the SAC bases and we were immediately sent to SAC bases as Air policemen. I got to choose Lockbourne AFB a few miles south of Columbus, Ohio. That is where I met the black Chaplain, Major Jenkins that was later stationed at Laon with us. The base aero club had several Aeronca Champs and a Mooney Mite, I know, how did over six feet fit in a Mooney Mite? It was a bit cramped but I really wanted to fly the Mite so I just found a way, if I needed a lot of aileron I would have to lift my leg so the stick would go under my knee. It was still the most macho airplane I could afford to fly.

One of the Air Guard pilots had a flame out in his F-84 about 50 miles east of the base and he did a good job of getting it down in a farm field, but ended up sitting smack in the middle of a two lane county road. Col Godwin called me in and asked if I would go guard it over night. I grabbed a tent, some C rations and some field gear and they took me out there in an AP vehicle. I got my camp set up before dark, not far from a ditch that had running, water in it, only knee deep but enough to go in and cool off. There were gawkers and question askers there till after mid night. One of the girls that visited turned out to be a good roller skater and we dated a couple of times but with out a car we had a hard time making connections, anyhow she was fun.

The next morning a crane, several trucks and a bunch of mechanics showed up. The tail cone came off the engine was lifted out and put on a proper engine dolly, loaded on a truck and the best mechanics were gone back to the base. Those that were left seemed to me to be just standing around scratching their heads waiting for someone to come up with a plan. At first I just offered suggestions, move the tail cone off the road, spin the airplane around so we can get the crane on the other side of the airplane, turn the flat bed around and move it up here so when we get this thing lifted enough we can back the flat bed under it. Then it was a few test lifts to get the slings positioned properly, lift the airplane get the flat bed under it then lower it to the trailer, turn it so the wings were aligned with the trailer, someone go call the Air Police at the base to see if we need a sheriff or highway patrol escort because we have a wide load, and tell them I need a ride home.

All went as planned I went and broke camp made sure my camp fire was totally out, carried everything out near the road. A sheriff and a highway patrolman showed up and I watched them slowly move off with the caravan, what a sight. So I waited, several people stopped and asked if they could give me a lift and I had to refuse because the base knew where they dropped me off, so they should be able to find me. A different driver did not know exactly where I was and had to inquire around but eventually found me. He told me that I was to report to Col Godwin as soon as I got back and added that he hoped that I was not in too much trouble. Yeah, reporting to your commander usually meant some sort of trouble especially for a PFC.

Col Godwin asked what I had done out at the recovery site and I told him the same story that is above. He kept me on pins and needles for a few moments and then said Captain Kelly wants you to come work for him in Base Flight but I wanted to see if that was what you would like to do. I said something to the effect that I had been working on airplanes and models as long as I can remember. He said Ok it will take a few days for the paper work to get through Wing HQ. and here is a three day pass. As I saluted to depart, he asked how did you ever end up in the Air Police? I could only shrug and say they needed Air Policemen more that they needed airplane mechanics when I graduated from basic training. Bob