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These are airplanes I have flown

The first ride.

Shortly after being released from active duty, a death in the family caused me to ask my friend, Pamela Arnett, to marry me, earlier than I had planned. I needed a job, and a plan, and a place to live. I had lived at Almar Apartments, on the third floor, before I went in the military, and now, a ground floor apt. was available.

This is where we lived when my son Todd was born and I worked, and I attended National Guard meetings, where I had a friend, Eric Johnson. He always was talking about being a pilot, and one day, he talked me into going for a ride. I had always been terrified of flying, and as we walked up to the airplane we were to fly, a Citabria, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Champion_Citabria and I reached out my hand and touched the skin of the plane.

It felt like a thick plastic bag streched real tight. I tried to talk my way out of getting into something that I could completely destroy with a pocket knife. Eric assured me that the skin was a lot tougher than it looked. We took off from Seattle Airport, which is an experience, by it's self. The ride went well until he did a "stall", which is unnerving the first couple times. Back safe on earth, I really did a lot of thinking, and decided I would learn to fly.

The first lesson.

I lived close to a small airfield, Harvey Airport . http://www.harveyfield.com/

It has a 2,500ft paved runway, and a grass runway, however long you could make it, between telephone wires about 3,000ft apart. There was a sweet lady there, named Marilyn Harvey; I chatted with her about maybe taking some lessons. She told me what was available, and introduced me to "Bob Montgomery", flight instructor, and he told me some prices. That should have stopped me right there because I was newly married, and had one child already. She offered me a job pumping avgas, and I remember trading with my instructor, car parts for lessons. He owned a Luscombe 8A. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luscombe_8

This is a picture of a cherry one. Bob’s wasn’t so cherry. It looked worse and worse, the closer I got to it, and I started having second thoughts.

When he opened the cowl for a preflight, there was a “Frantz Oil Filter” on the engine. For those of you, under 50, a frantz oil filter has a can, into which you insert a roll of toilet paper, http://www.frantzoil.com/TOILETPAPER.html and rather than a filter, all the oil is pumped through the toilet paper, highly illegal in aviation.

I had learned how to “prop” the engine, to start it, and I climbed in, and tried to close the door. It was really noisy, and as we started to taxi, I could see the ground go by in the gap of the door. The tail wheel shook the whole plane as we taxied. We took off, and I had the controls, right away. We did stalls, spins, wing overs, and a bunch of stuff that had me thinking about breakfast.

Sold

The first few hours went really fast, and it became time to solo. Bob said he didn't want me crashing his airplane, so he gave me a couple lessons in the Aeronca Champ., (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeronca_Champion) owned by the Harveys.

Solo

I was absolutely terrified when Bob got out and told me, "Take her around". Starting right then, I gave up: car parts, lunch money, and beer bottle deposits on flying solo, and getting all the things, like cross countries, out of the way.

I was working in one of three gas stations, pumping gas at the airport, and working at United Control Corporation, in Redmond Washington.

https://aero1.honeywell.com/thermswtch/tshistory.shtml

It wasn't long 'till I had enough hours and credits, (passing the written), to take the pilots test. I passed, and as soon as I had a temporary license in my hand, I took my wife and 2 week old son, Scott for a ride in the champ.

It wasn't long before I moved up to bigger and better things. I got checked out in the Cessna 150,

and then the Cessna 172.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_150 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172

One of my favorite trips was to Friday Harbor airport, http://www.portfridayharbor.org/fridayharborairport/ in the Puget Sound. This was where I learned that it takes a lot of headwind to overcome landing on a downhill runway.

As you can see, the prevailing wind is blowing smoke towards the runway, and you might think that runway 16 is the way to go, however, 16 runs downhill at an alarming rate, should you choose to go by what you can see. The runway is quite long, and I attempted to land into the wind. As I got closer to touchdown, the ground seemed to drop away, and I would have been wise to go around, but my pride caused me to force the airplane down, and stand up on the brakes. When I came to a stop, I was inches away from winding two miles of barbwire in my prop.

This was a stressful time for me, because I was changing jobs, and moving from house to trailer, to apartment, to moving out of state.

The big move

After nearly 3 years at Boeing, it was layoff time, and being proud, rather than be laid off, I quit and took a job in Tulsa Oklahoma. Not too far from my apartment was Riverside airport. http://www.jraa.org/aboutkrvs.html

I went to one of the schools, and asked to rent a 172. They didn't have any hi wing airplanes to rent, so one of the instructors asked if I would like to get checked out in the Piper Cherokee 140. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PiperPA-28-236DakotaC-GGFSPhoto4.JPG I liked, and I took a check ride, and I fell in love again.

I logged a lot of hours in the Cherokee-140, 'till one day I took the wife and kids to go for a ride. We all got in the 140 and I taxied out for takeoff. I stopped short of the runway, and did a runup. The left mag was ok, but when I switched to right mag, the engine died. I turned around to taxi back to the hangar, and when I got close to my parking place, the right mag died also. I got out of my dead airplane and walked back to the flight school. I asked for another 140, but another was not available. The guy that checked me out said that I could have a Beechcraft Musketeer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Musketeer

He said that they were so much alike, that, with my skills, I wouldn't require a check ride. I loaded up the family, and we took off without further incident, until I picked up my microphone to radio the control tower. I noticed a battery light that said "discharged". I entered the pattern with wing wobbling, till I got the green light, then safely landed. The lesson in this for me, was that no matter how much alike planes are, get checked out in the one you intend to fly. I saw the battery/generator switch, but I had no idea what position that switch needed to be in. From that day forward, I became a pain in the ass about getting "checked out".

While in Oklahoma, we made several trips to Ft. Smith, to visit "John's"(can't remember last name) relatives. I struck up a friendship with a nephew. We worked on cars together. One day, we drove to the air strip, and rented a 150. I took him for a ride, and I never saw anyone ever get that excited!

Another big move

The day I drove into San Bernardino, it had just rained, and the air was so clean and fresh, I could see the mountains where Lake Arrowhead, and Big Bear reside. They looked like they were across the street. It smelled good, and San Bdoo looked like a beautiful place. One night in the motel, and breakfast at I-HOP, and a steady breeze out of the west, and the smog from L.A. blew in and we could no longer see across the street. I learned to be patient in Washington, and wait for a nice day to fly, but this became a challenge, waiting for the smog to subside enough for visibility to fly.

Redlands. Earl(can't remember his last name). Two four niner one tango. I have moved up in the world. Now I only fly when I take someone along to share the expense. In comes Steve Reynolds, one of my best friends ever, and his wife Julie.

I take him for his first ride in a small plane, he draws on his G.I. bill, and in record time, Steve has his instructors rating. Now we can both log every hour we fly as instruction, him as teacher, and me as student, in no time at all, I have enough hours and credits for my commercial license.

Another big move

This move takes me to a land where I am the foreigner, and I am amazed by my fellow Americans, always grumbling that "THEY" should learn to speak English. We are discouraged from piloting in Iran. I made a study of the requirements, and it was obvious that if I wanted to fly there, I had to jump through a million hoops. Before I found all this out, a friend, Jerry Templeman, and I were offered a chance to buy a twin engine, luxury, executive airplane, which was used to fly the oil pipeline, all over the middle east. . A B-25 Mitchell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_B-25_Mitchell

It came with a brand new engine in the box.

The engines on that thing were huge, 27 cylinder radial engines, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_R-2800_Double_Wasp each one packing 2,600 horsepower. When we looked at it, I thought that it might sell, in the neighborhood of 50 or 60 thousand dollars. Just for fun, we asked the price. They were asking 1,000 dollars. In Iran, we made good money, and 1,000 dollars was nothing. We bought it, did a/i (air worthy inspection), put in 108 new spark plugs(what a horrible job) filled it with gas, and got it ready to fly. We did several engine runs, and we both got a chance to do hi speed taxi (enough speed to take off) and the feeling of power was incredible. When we learned we couldn't fly it, we found some air force pilots that took it off our hands, and flew it out of the country, under cover of darkness.

After leaving Iran, I came back, and did very little flying. I remember before we went the second time, I remember finding a 150 at Colton airport, which had a tach meter in it instead of a hobbs meter, which measures exact time. Todd and I went every payday, and by manipulation of the R.P.M., we could fly two hours for the price of one. We racked up a lot of hours, and Todd loved to “drive”. He never lost his love to “drive”, and now he has his own airplane, and a son of his own, that loves to fly.

A Plane, and a Son of his Own

Scott

Scott got the first airplane ride, but the bug never bit Scott.

He was my “music boy”. He went on to play in several bands (singing). He has also raised a houseful of musical boys.

I am so proud of my whole family!

Airplanes I have worked on: http://www.petesmemories.com/autowork.html

Or;

Go to Sacramento:  http://www.petesmemories.com/autosac.html

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