| I Would Rather be Flying |
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| One weekend in 1944 I was surprised to see a car coming down Sweetwater Road (east of San Diego, CA) towing a wagon upon which sat an airplane. I watched eagerly as it turned into an open field only a quarter of a mile south of the house. I immediately jumped on my bicycle and went to investigate. I helped with the unloading and assembling the airplane. I was told that they were going to build a private airport there and they would be happy to let me work with them getting this and other airplanes that would come later into flying condition. No one said anything about pay for the work and I didn't ask. From that day on my life began to change. I worked seven day on and one day off for the Navy at North Island, and put in another couple of hours each evening down at the airfield. Come September I had to quit my job at North Island and return to high school at Grossmont High. However, when I arrived home each afternoon I would jump off the school bus, grab my bicycle and peddle down to the airfield to see if there was anything I could do. Every weekend more private airplanes arrived at the field. Private flying had been shut down because of the war. However, now the Navy was going to allow light airplanes to fly as long as they stayed over 25 miles inland from the coast, didn't fly over 3,000 feet above the ground, and not travel over five miles away from the airport. Very restrictive rules, but the owners were more than happy to comply. They would agree to anything to once again get a chance to fly their airplanes. Their wives were also happy to get the airplanes out of the garage or the back yard where they had been stored. My persistence around the airplanes finally paid off. In November 1944 I was invited to go flying, for the first time, in a Piper Cup that I had helped the owner assemble. |
| Aeronca |
| That first flight was only twenty minutes. (As I write this I have built that twenty minutes into over twenty thousand hours in the air.) From that time on I dreamed about airplanes. I bought every how-to book I could get my hands on. I begin to learn how to fly. Today flying time runs around 75 dollars per hour in a small training plane plus 25 per hour for an Instructor. Back then it was 6 dollars for the airplane and 3 for the instructor. Working at North Island the Navy paid me 72 cents per hour. Working at the little airport I would take my pay in flight time. Soon I was almost ready to take my first flight alone. The first solo is an adventure no pilot ever forgets. On March 10, 1945 I turned 17 years old and wanted so bad to solo that day. However, my instructor thought I was not quite ready. The next morning early when it was quit and few people around, my instructor ask me to hold the airplane's brakes while he got out so I could take off by my self. It was a thrill of a lifetime. When I was airborne I turned around and looked at the empty seat where the instructor had been setting during my initial training. I made the required three takeoffs and landings and taxed to the parking line. There my instructor and another pilot pulled me out of the airplane, ripped my shirt out, cut the shirttail off, and tore the rest of the shirt to shreds; then, made me ware it like that the rest of the morning. The shirttail was posted on the bulletin board as a testament to my accomplishment. |
| That little strip of land rapidly grew into a bustling little airport. Its two grass runways were only about 1600 feet long. With the 65 horsepower engines on most small airplanes, they used the entire runway to become airborne. Soon a small hangar was added, then, a lounge and a gas pump. Until the installation of the gas pump, gas was put into the airplanes from 50-gallon drums using a hand turned pump. Guess who had to turn the pump. None of the airplanes had electrical systems or starters. They had to be started by turning the propeller by hand to get the little engines started. Guess who had to turn the propellers. Like all jobs, when you become very familial with the danger, you also tend to become careless about that danger. To prevent accidents there is a strict procedure and calls that are agreed to between the pilot in the cockpit and the person doing the turning. The person who is to turn the propeller should always assume that the switch is on and any motion of the propeller may start the engine. Approaching the propeller to start the engine the person first pushes on the hub of the prop to check that the brakes are on and the plane won't move when the engine starts. Then, he will call out to the pilot for the switch to be turned off. The pilot will make sure the switch is turned off then call, "Switch Off." Then, the prop is rotated a few times to suck fuel up into the cylinders. Next, he will call out to the pilot, "Contact." The pilot will call back, "Contact," then turn the switch on. The person doing the turning then swings his leg forward then aft to give a turning momentum to the prop with his hands and swing himself away from the prop if it starts. He may have to repeat this procedure a couple, three, times to get the engine started. Larger airplanes with bigger engines usually had some kind of a hand crank that could be put into the rear side of the engine to crank the engine to get it started. However, many times this procedure was not followed because it was more work than to just hand turn the propeller ever though it was larger. I will tell you of one occasion when I was trying to start a Ryan PT-22 trainer by turning its propeller by hand. The propeller was high off the ground and had to be positioned just right in order to turn the prop with sufficient speed to get it started. I called, "Switch Off," and the pilot responded, "Switch Off." I turned the propeller several turns to position the blade for a forceful turn. I called, "Contact," and the pilot repeated, "Contact." I then swung the prop through as hard as I could. The engine didn't start. So, once again I called, "Switch Off?" The answer came back, "Switch Off." I turned the prop to get it into position; then, "Contact," and back came, "Contact," I turned the prop, again and nothing happened. Once again I called "Switch Off" and the pilot repeated "Switch Off" and I again turned the propeller blades to get them into the proper position. I had to put my shoulder against one prop blade to move it through an awkward position. I then reached up and took hold of the prop blade and moved it ever so slightly--and the engine roared into life. The propeller whacking me across the knuckles and ripping through my pants legs. I stood there frozen in terror, the engine roaring, the propeller spinning while I staring into the rotating hub. After what seemed an eternity the engine stopped. The pilot realizing what had happened had shut off the switch and jumped out to see if there was anything left of me. It that engine had started when I pushed that one blade through it would have cut me into half and shredded me into little pieces. Who ever last stopped the engine of that airplane had stopped it by shutting off the gas. This pilot thinking the switch was off when he crawled into the cockpit simply turned the switch to the opposite direction of where it was. Therefore, Switch Off actually became Contact, and Contact became Switch Off. Don't tell me God doesn't look after fools. That day I was just one propeller blade away from not being here to write this, and having no children or great grand children to read it. |
| I was still riding the school bus to Grossmont High and building my flight time by getting up early in the morning and flying the cheapest airplane on the field. It was a 40 horsepower J2 cub with no door and no brakes. The airspeed indicator was a piece of spring steel about 4 inches long secured to the wing strut with a scale behind it. As the speed through the air increased the spring would be pushed back by the air pressure indicating the speed of the airplane. Crude but sufficient for that airplane. After my morning excursion I would peddle my bike back to the house, and grab some wheeties before the school bus came. In 1945 the military was declaring many airplanes surplus. They were stored at locations through the dry western part of the USA. There was one man who bought an airplane, but didn't know how to fly. He contacted me to fly him in his airplane to Cody, Wyoming to visit his former wife and kids. It was in an open cockpit Fairchild PT-19 surplus training plane. We took off one morning and found our way using highway maps, following roads, railroads, and streams we made it to Cody. On the return trip the weather turned cold and I was sure I was going to freeze to death in that open cockpit wearing only light Southern California clothes. From Rock Springs, Wyoming to Salt Lake City, Utah I seriously considering landing on the highway near some town and seek shelter. But, we finally made it to Salt Lake where we took a couple of days to thaw out before continuing. |
| From Salt Lake to Los Angeles we flew toward the Cajon Pass, a narrow pass through the San Bernardino Mountains from the Mojave Desert into the Las Angeles basin, the usual morning overcast was obscuring the pass, and dissipating into the dessert. Not to worry, I said to myself, those morning clouds always burn off by ten o'clock. We continued over the top of the clouds confident that holes would be appearing in the clouds to descend through to the valley below by the time we had flown by the Pass. We flew on for what seemed a very long time without any breaks in the clouds. Then, there it was, a hole in the clouds and I could see a highway through it below. I banked the wings and started spiraling down into the hole. However, the deeper I descended into the hole the smaller the hold became. I banked the wings more steeply and pulled back on the stick to tighten the turn as I continued on down. Even with the steep banked turn the plane begins to go into the clouds, so I pulled harder. I pulled until the instrument panel started to shake, then, eased up to prevent the plane from stalling and quit flying resulting in a spin toward the ground. We suddenly came out of the bottom of the clouds into the misty air below. I saw the highway below with a stream beside it and railroad tracks on the other side. And, to my surprise, mountains rising steeply from the either side of the highway into the clouds above. I suddenly realized I had descended not into the San Bernardino valley, but into the Cajon Pass itself. I made a few quick turns following the highway and shortly came out into the valley. Above the clouds I had no way of knowing how fast the wind was blowing, therefore, I had no real knowledge of how fast I was traveling over the ground. From where I came out into the Pass it is obvious the head wind was strong and my speed across the ground very slow to have proceeded no father than I had. Once again, God was watching over a fool. |
| I would fly anything to gain flight experience. I soon became known as a cheap ferry pilot. Anyone who bought a surplus airplane would talk me into ditching school and hitchhiking to Texas, or New Mexico, or where ever, to pick up their acquisition and bring it back for them. Once an owner, after talking to my parents, called the school and talked the principal into allowing me to leave school for a week so I could go to some out of the way place to fly an airplane back for him. The principal was not happy with my absents but acquiesced to the situation. I traveled lightly. My small case contained a roll of duck tape, safety wire, and a pair of pliers. If there was any room left over I took a couple pair of shorts and undershirt. Hitchhiking in those days was considered a normal way to travel. |
| No new cars had been built since the war started. There was rationed gas. All other forms of transportation were on a priority selection. I hitchhiked to Cloves, New Mexico to pick up an Army Air Corps surplus Aeronica AC equipped with a Franklin 65 horsepower engine. It had been setting out in the New Mexico sun for a few months and was not in the best of conditions. However, I used a little duck tape and stuck it over the places where the fabric was wearing thin, and a little safety wire to help to hold the cowling on the engine where it was loose, and I was ready to go. With a borrowed can I drained enough gas from other abandoned airplanes, left for scrap, to fill the gas tank. I tied the tail wheel down with a long bow loop and put the other end of the line in the cockpit. Then, after several tries at starting the engine I almost gave up when it finally gave a small sputter encouraged me to keep trying. I wiped the perspiration out of my eyes and kept trying. Finally, the engine coughed and sputtered a few times belching smoke from the exhaust stacks, then, settled into a nice idling gallop. I went around and climbed into the cockpit and gave the engine a preflight runup check. The magnetos checked OK, in that the engine would run on each one, if not within limits. At full throttle the engine would not indicate the maximum turns per minute desired. But, considering the fact that this was the first time it had been run in several months, I was quite happy just to keep it running. I ignored the specks of oil that streaked the windshield and pulled on the line leading back to the big loop that tied the tail wheel to the ground. The line pulled the tiedown free. I pulled the line into the cockpit and started my taxi to the runway. There was no control tower and at any rate it didn't matter, as the airplane had no radios. Looking around the traffic area to make sure it was clear I shoved the throttle forward and the little Aeronca started down the runway picking up speed ever so slowly. The runway was long for a little airplane and it is a good thing because to took almost all of it to reach flying speed. Finally I was able to lift off and begin a long climb as I turned and headed for Salt Flats, Texas. The little Aeronica strained to fly at a good 60 miles per hour through the air. Little specks of oil continued to stain the windshield as I flew along. Hours later I arrived at the Salt Flats. The airport was nothing more than a marked off area in the dry lake bed that was used as a landing strip. By the time I taxed up to the gas pump the windshield was hard to see through because of the oil streaks. After shutting down the engine and filling the tanks with gas I cut the safety wire holding one corner of the engine cowling in place, and reached in to check the oil. There was oil all over the back of the engine and I had to add two quarts to bring it back up to the full mark. After cleaning the windshield the lone attendant gave my prop a spin to start the engine for me. I waved good bye and blowing sand everywhere finely got back into the sky. The wind was blowing pretty strong right on my nose and reducing my 60 miles per hour air speed to less than 40 miles per hour across the ground. I stayed low, only a hundred feet or so, above the ground where the wind was not as strong as it was at a higher altitude. I was not making good time. Cars on the highway below were passing me. At one point the highway, my main method of navigation, turned to the north. There was a dirt road continuing on straight-ahead. I chose to follow the dirt road figuring it would be shorter going straight to El Paso than following the highway. The dirt road through the desert was a service road for a pipeline. I could still see the reflection off car windows on the highway to the north of me when the engine gave out a cough and splattered oil all over the windshield. The engine revolutions per minute (RPM) fell off from its normal 2000 to around 1500 RPM with full throttle. I couldn't keep the plane flying with that little RPM, so I landed on the narrow dirt road threading its way between various Taxes desert plants. When the airplane came to a stop I shut off the engine and got out to inspect it. There was considerable oil everywhere. |
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| Then, I noticed the wind. It was blowing down the road and making a soft whistle through the various desert vegetation. I was struck by the sound of it. The only sound. It took several moments for me to realize that I had a problem. There I was on a dirt road in the middle of a Texas desert with no water, no food, and no one knowing that I was there. I thought about that for a long time before I decided to take my next action. I reasoned that even if the engine couldn't pull the airplane fast enough to maintain flying speed, it would produce enough power to taxi the airplane. So, I took a couple of rocks and wedged them under the front wheels. I then strapped the seat belt around the control stick to hold it back so the air going across the stabilizer would hold the tail down. I next turned the propeller and was pleasantly surprised when the engine started on the first try. I got into the cockpit and strapped myself in, and pushed the throttle full forward until enough power was produced to jump or roll over the rocks I had wedged under the wheels to start the engine. It finally leaped forward and with less than full throttle it would move the airplane down the road. What was I doing? I decided that as long as the engine would produce enough power to keep me moving down the road, I would keep going. The road must end somewhere. It could have been miles before I would have encountered any thing resembling civilization. I hadn't taxed a quarter of a mile when I came over a little rise, and there it was, the Hudsbuth pumping station. Several maintenance workers, to keep the four large diesel engines operating, and the natural gas moving, and, a telephone, were in the pumping station. I called San Diego collect and explained to the owner the situation. He contacted a maintaince operator in El Paso, and had them call me to describe the problem. The next day a crew arrived with a replacement engine for the airplane. After it was installed I took off down the road and made a right turn as soon as I was airborne. I headed due north to the paved highway and followed it, with cars passing me, to El Paso, and eventually home. Don't tell me God doesn't continually watch over fools. I could continue with several stories of like nature, but suffice it to say that experience is a great teacher. A fellow pilot once explained to me that we all begin our flying career with two briefcases. One called experience is empty and the other called luck is full. The name of the flying game is to fill the empty one with experience without emptying the case filled with luck. If you survive all of experience lessons before running out of luck you will live a long and full life. |
| Alone in the desert and a long way from nowhere. |
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| La Pressa Airport Spring Valley, CA 1945 |
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