My First Airplane

Summer of 1936

And my fascination with the airplane.

 

Post-World War I America’s fascination with the airplane was enhanced by the returning airmen who barnstormed the country capturing the imagination of the rural population.  Their daring antics fired the population and the more adventurous individuals took the rides of their lives.  Further heightening America’s awareness of flight were such individuals as Charles Lindbergh, Laura Bromwell (killed in a crash on June 5, 1921), Wiley Post (Post and Will Rogers were killed in an Alaskan plane crash on August 16, 1935), Amelia Earhart (possibly crashed at sea, July 2, 1937), Douglas Corrigan (Wrong Way Corrigan), Jimmy Doolittle and Howard Hughes. This group of aviators and aviatrix all commanded vast media attention and became the heroes and heroines of “man’s” age old dream of flight.  Throughout the ages, man has experienced a dream in which he has defied gravity and soared in “free flight”…a universal dream.   

 

During my parents “courting days,” in the latter part of the 1920s, they had taken airplane rides on several occasions, and they related the stories time and time again.  According to their story, the pilot asked them what kind of flight they would like, and my father had replied, “give us the works!”…and the “works” they got.  Two of my earliest recollections are of being quickly grabbed up, and rushed outside into an overcast Washington day.  The first incident was to watch a bi-plane fly over Alger, Washington.  The plane was a black silhouette against the gray sky and the image of the plane with its two wings, fixed landing gear, traveling at an “incredible speed” above the local hills remains with me in great detail today.

 

 This was not only an exciting event but also served as a valuable learning experience for me.  My parents had given me a large red toy airplane the previous Christmas.  It somewhat resembled the Spirit of St. Louis and for some unknown reason, when I played with the plane I always flew it tail first.  No matter how many times my parents informed me that I was flying the plane “backwards,” I had insisted and refused to take their advice.  However, following this incident I was a believer and began to fly the plane in the correct direction.  I must admit I still remember thinking how terribly wrong it seemed…it just didn’t look right!

 

My second time out to watch a fly-over was to view the majestic Goodyear-Zeppelin the Akron (officially the ZRS-4) as she passed over the Alger.  This massive, lighter than air, rigid frame aircraft, was quite impressive.  She measured 785 feet in length, propelled by eight engines, filled with 6.5 million cubic feet of helium, and neatly tucked within its hanger bays she carried five F9C fighter aircraft.  Although the Akron could cruse at an astounding 75 m.p.h., this day, she slowly moving across the sky in a Northerly direction, so slow in fact, that it looked as though it was barely moving.  The two incidences were indelibly etched in my memory forever…at the age of 71 years I can still see each in sharp detail.

 

 At the age of 6 years, my parents and two of their friends took me for an airplane ride from the Bellingham, Washington Airport.  It was to be my parents third airplane ride and my first.  As we approached the red Curtiss Robin parked beside the runway, it was an exciting sight.  When we were being loaded into the plane I was seated by the port window directly behind the pilot so that I would have a good view of city and hinterland below. The airplane in which we flew was the same type aircraft that would later carry “Wrong Way Corrigan” on his infamous flight to “California.”  Corrigan had been denied  permission to make a solo transatlantic flight…however, landed in Dublin, Ireland 28-hours later on July 18, 1938.  Once more I can remember my first airplane  flight and the aerial view of Bellingham in great detail…it is as though it were yesterday.

 

My first airplane flight had been quite fascinating, but it would later have an embarrassing twist.  When I returned to school that following Monday, I found that I was the only one (including my teacher, Miss Anne M. Schenking) who had flown in an airplane…I was the big shot.  I was asked to tell our room (which included grades 1 through 4) about the flight. All was going quite well until one smart-ass 4th grade kid purposed the following question, “did the stars look bigger from up there?” Of course, it had been a daytime flight…my mind frantically processed the question and I answered “yes.”  Big mistake, as he quickly and gleefully informed me that, “they would NOT look bigger.”  There was a deafening silence as the students awaited a rebuttal…but none was in the offing. I had my brief moment in the sun…and I learned a very valuable lesson from that degrading episode…if you don’t know, be sure and not try to fake it!

 

As the years passed, my fascination with the airplane continued. Early on, I had carved wooden airplanes (using Washington Red Cedar), and during my high school years, I read many airplane books. I deluged my English teacher, Miss Eula Phillips, with so many factual book reports that she was obviously exasperated and penned the following message.

 

“B+…I hope you’ll start reading some books about people –

          something with a little imagination instead of cold facts.”

 

This particular book report was titled “Fighting Ships of the U.S.A.,” a book on ships  featuring  aircraft carriers.  God rest her soul, it just never seemed to happen, and I continued to read “cold facts.”

 

            During the World War II years our little town of Forks, Washington was located but a short 7 miles from the Navy Auxiliary Air Station, Quillayute and the constant overhead “war bird” air traffic inflamed my desire and I vowed that I would learn to fly “some day.” Having lived the first 12 years of my life during the “Great Depression,” followed by the four years of World War II, my dream of flying seemed far off…if not impossible.  Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, following the dropping of two Atomic Bombs, the first on Hiroshima (9:15 a.m., August 6, 1945) and the second on Nagasaki (August 9, 1945).  The “some day” occurred sooner than I could have imagined as aircraft manufactures quickly swung into action, and 11 months following the end of World War II, the Forks airport was once more opened to Civilian Aviation.

 

            During the second week in July 1946, Bill Bransfield landed his red surplus Aeronca on the grass, weed and small tree filled runway one mile south of the Forks.  I raced to the airport, and had soon been asked to help Bill around the field.  The job consisted of clearing of the runway, gassing up the plane and assisting Bill in the construction of a small square building that would serve as an office. The building  included a desk, a small table for aerial maps, and a study area.  Bill was on a short budget and a loft was constructed above his desk where he slept.  For my efforts, Bill would give me flight time and my first 15 minute logged flight with Bill was on July 19, 1946, and after 7.5 hours of dual instruction I soloed.  On my 16th birthday (December 30, 1946), with 72 and 20 minutes flight time, I gained my private pilot license  (No. 658984). My mother and father were to be my first passengers.

 

And so it was that my parents who had harbored a fascination for the airplane over the years, would support the idea of flying and purchase a Cessna 120.  On March 5, 1947 the plane identified as NC 77480 was delivered to the Forks airport.  I was checked out by the ferry pilot, and later that afternoon my dad was first to fly in the plane with me, followed by my mother, each having a 15 minute flight. Mom and dad were always supportive of my flying, my dad soloed, passed his private pilot license test nearly a year later and his license number was 793296.  Although my dad and I never discussed it, I am sure that he believed the acquiring of his private pilot license was one of the major accomplishment of his lifetime. Mom often flew with me, and seemed quite at ease…however, I’m sure that she had moments when she wished she were safely on the ground.  It was an extraordinary experience for us all, one that I would not trade for anything.  It had seemingly been a long trip from those early days when my parents carried me out to see the bi-plane and the Akron, my first airplane flight with them, and now I was taking them for their first ride in our own airplane. It was truly a life long dream come true. 

 

The pleasant pastoral and relaxed grass airfields of the early post World War II era would soon vanish. The skies became crowded, the airports congested, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, C.A.A. (later to be known as the Federal Aviation Administration, F.A.A.) imposed regulations that to me were too restrictive.  These facts, along with the ever increasing cost of airplanes, maintenance and flying would soon end my desire to fly.  Sometimes changes are most unpleasant, and the good old days of flying as I had known them in the late 1940’s were gone.

 

“It would all become a fond memory.”

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