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| Nothing matches the thrill of soaring through the skies with you at the controls |
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| The start of my love for flying, my own airplane. A Cessna 182 with everything on it. I loved spending hours and hours flying anywhere in it. |
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My love for flying was really kindled while I was working at the Naval Missile Center in Point Mugu, California. There I was assigned to the Electronic Warfare Division and we had our own fleet of aircraft to run our extensive testing programs on missiles and aircraft as well. Our Chief Test Pilot, a Marine Colonel by the name of John Ross, became my mentor with the aircraft. He sensed my love of flying and took me up in the aircraft any time we could arrange it, which was often, sometimes two or three times daily. He taught me how to fly all these aircraft as well.
When I moved to Houston to NASA, I fell in with all kinds of crazy pilots, both military and civilian. I worked with these guys all day long and the talk was always about flying. How could I avoid becoming infatuated with a love for flying? I got my civilian license in short order and before long had my instrument and multiengine ratings as well. I then proceeded to get my commercial license. And all of these using my GI Bill which paid for the lessons and licenses.
NASA allowed us to fly to our destinations for meetings or when working at Cape Canaveral, affording us a lot of opportunity to collect flight time at govenment expense. And those that were like me, invited already experienced pilots to fly with me and give me more instruction on every flight. My Deputy, an Air Force Lt. Col, jumped at every opportunity to fly with me from Houston to the Cape or to the Washington, D.C. area. I got in a lot of flying time with excellent instruction along the way. I also accumulated a lot of flying time.
When I got to Washington, D.C. later on to work, I already had a lot of time under my belt, and I fell in with some great groups in that area as well. |
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| On the parking apron in Freeport, Bahamas Islands with a brand new Piper Seneca II |
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We had just gotten this fantastic airplane from the Piper factory in Florida, and this was its maiden voyage from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. to the Bahamas. I was in a group of seven professional pilots, all commercial pilots, who had just bought this aircraft for the purpose of taking paying passengers to various locations throughout the U.S. The head of the group, a retired Air Force Colonel owned a condominium at the Lucaya Beach Towers in Freeport that he rented out by the week. Part of the rental deal was a flight from Dulles to Freeport and back, plus the use of a Cadillac car during the week.
The role of the pilot on this deal was to fly the people there, pick up the group that had been there for the week and return them to Dulles. You were met at the Freeport airport by the departing group in the car, then you drove the newcomers to the condo, got them settled in, and they then drove you back to the airport for your return flight to Dulles.
Lots of flying time at someone else's expense. But for the other members of our little group of seven, the trip was very boring. Some of them had 15,000 - 20,000 hours of flight time in commercial jets and they made their full-time living flying. I was the junior member, and of course they stuck me with the terrible job of having to take these flights on Saturday or Sunday every week. Little did they know how thrilled I was to do this. I got in about 12 hours of free flying every week in a brand new aircraft. We actually had two aircraft, one this one, and the other a Piper Cherokee Six, both seven passenger aircraft, fully instrumented. Such a deal!!
One of my major thrills in all the years of flying I have done occured in this aircraft. We had just had delivery of the airplane from the Piper factory as I mentioned above, and on the first weekend, I had a charter flight from Dulles to Freeport in the Bahamas Islands. All went well on the way to Freeport with a full load. On the way back, I had just taken off from Charlotte, North Carolina headed back to Dulles when the right engine blew up. The cowling flew off and we could see the entire engine. But the wing stayed on the plane.
I feathered the prop, declared an emergency with the tower from where I had just departed, and proceeded to head back for a landing with full fuel tanks. I was in the "soup" on instrument conditions, but the controllers in the tower skillfully guided me back to an uneventful landing. Wow! What a thrill that was!! The factory investigation revealed a faulty casting on the exhause manifold which caused the mainfold to explode and take part of the engine with it, but not the wing! SO I AM STILL ALIVE AND WELL!
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| The Piper J-3 Cub that I flew a lot. I could walk out of my office on the north side of Washington, D.C., to a nearby field, climb into this aircraft and spin around for an hour to work off tensions of the day. What a fun airplane to fly. |
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| On a charter flight to the Florida Keys from Dulles |
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| PreFlight at Montreal International |
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| My very own, first airplane owned - Cessna Skylane |
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| PreFlight at Dulles prior to a flight to the Bahamas - Piper Cherokee Six |
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| PreFlight at Dulles continued |
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| The Piper Arrow, a retractable gear aircraft, fast and effecient that we used often for certain flights |
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| Capt. Ed Rainy in his Stearman - lots of great hours boring holes in the sky with Ed, a United AL Captain |
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| The wonderful Stearman designed in the late 1920's and used as a trainer as late as the beginning of World War II. What a fun airplane to fly. |
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Flying with the group out of Dulles Airport in Washington provided me with a host of opportunities to improve my flying. I flew into moutain resorts all over the East and in and out of major cities as well. Trips to the New England area were common. And we took many charters as far away as Montreal and Chicago. Fortunately for me, most of the others in the group were old flyers and didn't get a kick out of most of the destinations, so I got to fly a lot of them. Work interfered somewhat with my flying, but I was able to work this out.
All-weather flying was also an extra benefit. With commercial passengers, you had to be able to fly in most weather. So I was able to accumulate a lot of instrument hours during these years.
I had a next door neighbor in Virginia where I built my house that owned a WWII Stearman bi-wing. He was a Captain with United Airlines and he also found out that I loved being in the air, so any time he wanted company for his buzzing around the region, he called me. What a thrill that aircraft was to fly. A little noisy and sometimes a little cold in cold weather, but what a thrill to feel like you are outside and still flying around.
I often tell my wife that even with the thrills associated with diving under the surface of the ocean and seeing and doing lots of thrilling things in the water, nothing compares with the thrill of flying, free of the ground, and looking down at the earth below you. I can really understand the thrill to the astronauts that get to view earth from outer space. I envy them!! |
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