BACK TO BASICS

    My blog is returning to stories both personal and of the mind.

                                     MY NEED TO FLY, PART I

Ever since I can remember I have been in love with airplanes and flight. Reading about their history and current developments along with learning about famous pilots in the past kept my interest alive.

In my youth I began on the road of becoming a voracious reader with comic books. The genres I loved the most were superheroes and horror. If you read my short stories you would see that my love for horror continues.

One thing I remember about comic books back then was the back page. Most of the time there were ads. One of the common ads was of some wimpy guy having sand kicked into his face by a muscular Heman. With the help of this ad, you could become a muscular Heman, and I guess kick sand into a guy not as well-developed as you.

Now I’m talking about the early 1960s, less than 20 years after the conclusion of World War II. The country still had a massive amount of military equipment. You could find ads at the back of comic book for some of this equipment for sale. Of course, readers of comic books had plenty of money to make purchases of these items. For sale were army jeeps for $99. A lot of money back then. I am shocked at the price of cars these days. I bought my first Volkswagen Beetle in late 1969 for slightly over $2000. The only reason it was more than $2000 was that I wanted a radio, AM. There were also ads for crated airplanes from World War II with no indication whether they were bombers or fighters.

This was way before the War Bird movement for restoring and flying such aircraft came into existence. Now these same planes are for sale for millions of dollars. I recall reading a story, not long ago, of a Hellcat, a navy carrier aircraft, being flown cross-country to a school where these aircraft were used for instruction. The plane ran out of fuel and the pilot made a perfect emergency landing in a farm field. When it was time for the farmer to plow, the plane was offered by the government for free to whomever would tow it away. Obtained for free was an aircraft which would cost millions today/

It was no surprise that when I was in high school these ads caught my attention. I, along with some friends of mine who were also crazy about airplanes decided to buy one. Where money would come from was caught up in our dreams.

Now, we planned to buy an airplane. Did we have any tools to accomplish the construction of said plane? No! Did we have any of the skills required to accomplish this task? No! Did we have a place to do the work? No! Of course, nothing came of this plan, but for a very short time, we dreamed

My interest in airplanes never wavered and was carried into college where I enrolled in Air Force ROTC. I took a gamble that I would qualify for piolet training, and I won. When you qualify for piolet training, the government pays for 36.5 hours of flight instruction during your senior year.

I was going to learn to fly – for free.

I still look back on those days of flight training fondly. Of the day when I was shooting touch and go landings. My instructor had me stop on the runway, got out, and I was on my own rejoining the traffic pattern.

I flew twice a week and remember one morning when the air was like silk, and the plane and I became one. Now, this flying was taking place in Oklahoma where it can be rather windy. One afternoon I was flying solo in the little Cessna 150 being used for flying lessons and the wind was blowing hard. I came in for a landing on a runway long enough to land a Boeing 707. I flew the length of the runway but couldn’t stay over the runway long enough to land and had to go around.

Then there was the time I was lost flying solo. I have no sense of direction and did not believe my instrument used for direction. But that’s another story.

Even with a few speedbumps I enjoyed every minute I spent learning to fly.