EAA Sport Aviation - August 2010

Pilot Friends

Kindred spirits connected by a love of flight

I LIKE PEOPLE FROM MANY professions, but liking them has precious little to do with what they do for a living; it has everything to do with who they are as people. Along those lines, let me share with you some of the people I communicated with lately.

Milon and I served in the National Guard together. He wrote that he was driving to the Creswell airport to look at a Champ. It’s an 85-hp 7AC, hangared, flown occasionally airplane that the owner wants to sell. Milon hasn’t flown in five years, but he’s “gettin’ the itch” again. He is looking at airplanes, has his physical scheduled, and is studying for his flight review. It’s not just for himself that he’s doing all this. He said, “I have four grandchildren, and I want to share flight with them.” Lucky grandkids to have a grandpa like that.

Richard, with whom I also served in the Guard, wrote to set up a lunch date with a bunch of retired Guard pilots and mechanics. Those mechanics were amazing: Some worked on our airplanes for 20 years and knew them like the backs of their hands. The airplanes looked and flew like they were maintained: excellent. I once climbed into one and found the throttle knobs and flap handle had been polished. We’re all meeting for lunch at the airport café, Thursday at 1 p.m. Stories and laughter will happen.

Jack instructed in SNJs for the Navy during World War II. He still likes to hang around airplanes. “It fills a void that will just not go away,” he said. His granddaughter Lauren is marrying Jerome this fall. Jerome has a scheduled slot for military pilot training. I’m not sure who’s more excited, Jack or Jerome. Well,

actually, they’re both equally excited. It’s a bond separated by—what?— 65 years? It’s still a bond.

Then Mike wrote to me: “I have a friend who works at the bank who wants to give her dad an airplane ride for his birthday. My airplane’s down with a sick engine right now. Would you consider taking him?” I said I would. Sharing flight with those who marvel at flight is always rewarding. Working together to spread aviation joy, that’s what it’s all about, right?

Remember my buddy Tom, the accomplished pilot who got sick? (I wrote about him in the February issue.) Well, guess what the slacker is up to now: He got his Ford Tri-Motor type rating. And one in the T- 28. He and Beth Jenkins flew Devil Dog, the Commemorative Air Force’s B- 25, in a 17-ship formation over the reunion of the Doolittle Raiders, which four surviving members attended. If I were king that story would have been headline news in every newspaper in the country.