Shelley Fabares

Have you ever heard of a Fantasy Camp? It's when you pay some folks a whole bunch of money to be a real pro at doing something that you love. Except you are an amateur. I think the classic example is the race car driver thing. They give you ground school. Suit you up. Put you in a real car on a real track. I have to admit that that would be a gas. "Is that your crash helmet"? "Oh I hope not". Then of course aviation wise, you can pay to be in a dog fight world war two style. Sort of. I have a buddy who used to work doing that. You have two piston powered T-34's. Each plane has a pilot and a customer. They dog fight and the customer gets some training and they stage a dog fight. Unfortunately, they tore the wings off of a few T-34's and the FAA grounded those operations. My buddy in the business told me it was no fault of the venerable T-34 Mentor. Maybe the classic is the baseball fantasy camp. You get to play with the old retired players who are quite famous. Actually, every tandem parachute jump is a mini Fantasy Camp. After all, you're jumping just like a pro on your first and only jump. Long free- fall and everything. I had a kind of home-made Fantasy Camp experience. It was maybe three or four years ago. A pretty autumn day. There was this music concert being held at a private farm. The band was one of the best groups in the Baltimore-DC area. It was actually a combination of two bands that were combining for a tour through Tennessee and Texas. They were raising money for that tour. The price at the "gate" was whatever you wanted to contribute. Minimum $5. This was a wonderful party. Anyway, my friend Clark and myself were definitely going. And inspired by the "contribution" aspect I was hatching a plan. As Clark and I drove from the shore to Western Maryland I insisted that we play the Bob Dylan song "Love Minus Zero" over and over and nothing else. Clark thought it strange that I had my harmonica rack and one harmonica in my hand the whole time. He kept asking me what was going on but I wouldn't tell him, because maybe nothing was going on. We get to the concert. The opening band is playing and they are wonderful. My good friend Malcolm is there and he knows the guys in the featured band. I know one of the guys "Billy" who is kind of famous. I tell Malcolm I have a crazy idea. I'll pay $100 at the gate if they will let me be front man and sing a song with them. They want to raise money right? Malcolm says "wait here". I go and get a beer, and they havn't said yes yet and I'm nervous as hell. Then "Billy" Kemp himself appears. "Lloyd, what's this all about? You wanna do a song for $100." I say "Yes, and I want you to hand me your Martin D-45 in regular tuning so I can just play at the front mike and be all set up. I know nothing about stage equipment. Also, I have no rhythm, so the band will have to follow me." He says "What song?". I knew he was game. So I got to play with some really great pros. I did my harmonica break, they did a lead break, and I got to play Billy's guitar. On a real stage. Here I thought I had invented the folksinger fantasy camp. But no. It turns out the "Kingston Trio" were going around with two of the original players. The other guy had died. So they were selling a Fantasy slot and the buyer could be the third guy in the trio for a once in a lifetime song. I saw it on YouTube. If I never do anything more as a folk singer, I'm happy. I had my Fantasy Camp. Gen. Av. Informal.

March Madness

Sunday before last it snowed nine inches here at my place. The last gasps of winter. We had no snow up to that point, except a few dustings that didn't stick. So it snowed for a day. And there was a deep freeze. Three days in a row below 15 deg. The day I want to tell you about was Thursday March 5. This is the day that it went from a real Winter to a real Spring in about nine hours. I had been watching the forecast so I knew what was coming. I got up at 4:30 AM. I was too excited to sleep. It was going to go from a dark 12 degrees to a sunny over 60 thru the course of the day. I made some coffee. I tuned in the weather channel on the little kitchen TV. I checked the faucets and the pipes were not frozen. I had left the water on and a radiator below the sink. The downstairs was pretty cold and I fired up more portable heat. As I had a bite to eat I searched out the window for a glow of dawn. There was a kind of false glow. I got my boots on and wandered out to the deck, then out to the back yard. The snow was squeaky. It was a cold winter morning. Yes there was now a sort of light in the east. I went back in the house. I got on gloves and hat and parka. Jake, my dog had appeared. He and I went out to play in the snow. We walked out to the hangar. The wind sock. The picnic table. I started up the Jeep. Jake jumped in the back of the Jeep. He thought we were going for a ride. We were, but only a few hundred feet. I pointed the Jeep east and parked with the heat on and my coffee still hot. We watched a beautiful sunrise. According to my thermometer outside the hangar it was 9 degrees. A few cars were starting to appear on the county road out front. So I guessed it was OK for me to drive around without waking anyone up. So Jake and I started driving up and down the airstrip. We were beating down the snow and checking the runway. The radio in the Jeep doesn't work, but the old cassette does. But there is only one tape. The Beau Brummels. I love the song "Laugh Laugh". Remember? We go back to the hangar and park. The dogs are all out now running around barking. So wife is up. Is it getting warmer already? We wander back to the house. The professor is up too and he's making breakfast. He's always making a meal. He has been living here about two weeks or so. His plane is snowed in here and he's been commuting with the Jeep and a rental car when he can't fly to work. Yes he flies to work. And lives in our man-cave in the back of the hangar. Q. What do you call a Profesor who has broken up with his girlfriend? A. Homeless. (and car-less). But it's been nice having him here because he's the cook and does the shopping and buys the food. And he's entertaining. And I call him "Dupree" and he hates that. I tell him that now is the time to fly the plane out. It's gonna get sloppy after 60 degrees today. But he has the rental car and things to do in Bmore and DC and he will drive the ninety miles one way. After a fine breakfast he dons his corduroy sport jacket. He packs up his book bag with his manuscripts and notes. His tobacco. His brown bag lunch is raw vegetables. His laptop. His wool muffler. He will forget his phone charger, as usual. He'll be back tonight with groceries. And if we're not too tired we'll have a campfire. I'm already tired. While wife hangs out in the barn with her horse, I fall asleep in front of the computer. At noon I'm out shoveling the wet snow away from the hangar doors. It's bright and sunny and 45 degrees! I'm thinking I'll get the Cher OH Kee out and try to taxi out on the snow and go flying in this bright snow-sunshine. I call up Eric. He is my neighbor who has llamas. And sheep. And cows. I owe him a flight or two in return for labor. He rebuilt my garage roof. But the real reason I call him is I want him to take video with my camera of me. So he says he'll be over soon. So I get the hangar doors open and get the airplane rolled out. I do a few little chores for wife in the barn and house. I want to get in good with her because I need a favor. Eric shows. And we give him two fresh bales of hay in return for the video I want him to shoot. Then we get the airplane all pre-flighted and it starts up nice. It ought to. It's 50 degrees! We taxi out. It's getting sloppy. Stretches of bare grass. Slush. Packed snow. Turn around at the end and take it rolling. I try every trick in the book, and a few that aint in the book, to unstick her. But halfway down she still isn't flying. So I abort and take her back in and put her away. Then we start on the video. It's a music video. So we just shoot tape of me walking around in a cowboy hat, trying to look cool. But I'm 59 years old, so how cool can I look? Now it's 60 degrees! Eric goes home with his hay to his llamas. The sun is starting to set and its now getting cooler again. I go in and see wife in her office. I give her my audio CD. And I give her the nine minutes of raw footage of me in the snow with the cowboy hat. I tell her what I want. I expect her to edit it. Create it. Capture it. Encode it. Upload it. Download it. Etc. And I want it ASAP of course. She says, "A few days". Now the sun is setting. Jake and I are back in the Jeep. This time facing west. I'm having a nice bottle of Sam Adams. It's the most beautiful sunset ever. I can see the professor's rental car a half mil e down the road approaching. We walk to the house to meet him. He has groceries. He has wine. Jake and I go back to the sunset. I have another beer. Then a new plan arises and I am to follow Dupree to drop off the rental car, and drive him back. So wife does another favor. She's a saint. She drives because I'm exhausted from watching the season change. It's like jet-lag thru time zones. We have a great meal at the Cambridge Diner. I have eggs which makes no sense. When we get home Jake and I go straight to bed. Thursday March 5, 2009 is over. When I awoke at dawn on Friday, I was in the same position as when I fell asleep. Next: the Holy Holidays. The Ides, St. Pat's, and the Most Holy.....The Equinox. Gen. Aviation Informal. PS......... if you want to see the video...... it's easy......go to YouTube.....then search n98009..... then click on "as tears go by"

fighting the last war

General Aviation around Washington D.C. is different than anywhere else. In a bad way. After 9-11 some temporary rules were set up up to restrict flight around the D.C. area. The rules were hasty, reactionary, useless, and a huge waste of everyone's time. And they still are. Oddly, the New York City area has had no changes to it's airspace in the post 9-11 era. I guess the folks in Washington are more important than the folks in New York. I once asked the AOPA about this New York thing. They said that they had fought to keep it from happening in New York. I should thank them. If we use the New York example as we protest, their answer will be to set up an ADIZ in New York. If there is some sort of attack made on Washington with a light plane, I don't think it would do much. But 9-11 happened with airplanes. So it's airplanes we're worried about. Let's defend against airplanes. This is a kind of "Maginot Line" mentality. Let's insist that the terrorists attack again with an airplane, if they must attack. Perhaps we can get them to obey the speed limits and use transponder codes. Unfortunately, the next attack will be something we don't expect. Will it be something as simple as a half dozen suicidal terrorists cutting loose in a city with automatic weapons? Kill as many as they can before they can be killed. That will do more damage than crashing a general aviation plane into a building. And it's a hell of a lot easier. The ports are a big concern also. We're putting a lot of resources into this policing of private pilots around D.C. While we're all jumping through hoops to keep the good guys out of the kill zone, are we missing the new real kill zone? By dealing with the good guys 24-7 are the bad guys glad that we're busy with that? Just a day or two ago the Washington ADIZ became a permenant part of the regulations. No longer temporary, it's here to stay. That's sad because a lot of us hoped it would go away, and be slowly replaced by other more effective security measures. It's now called the ADIZ/SFRA. And there's a new ruling that comes with it. I just love this. Any pilot who flies within 60 miles of the area must have completed a test and have a certificate showing he has been trained about the ADIZ/SFRA. 60 miles! So if a guy never wants to go near the stinking SFRA and just wants to fly around it, he must take this test. The test includes proceedures that are specific to Leesburg, Va. and the trainee must know about it even if he's never gonna go there! I love this. This is not only locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen. This is making the neighbors take a course about the horses that used to be in the barn! How will they enforce this? What does it accomplish? I wonder if they considered forcing everyone who flies within the SFRA to take the test, and just not worry about the neighbors who are outside the SFRA and have nothing to do with it. Make sense? I understand the FAA is violating three or four hundred guys a year for ADIZ infractions. About one a day. If they all now have this course under their belt, maybe there will be less violations. Maybe. Now if we could just get the terrorists to take the exam.

hearts and flowers

Today was a great Valentines Day. My wife went to Salisbury with a girlfriend to go look at horsey stuff. So I just dinked around all day. I took care of her five dogs. Letting them in and out. My dog just stays with me all the time. I told him it was Valentines Day. He was not impressed. Then I said, "Jake, what time is it"? He barked out the answer. "Now! now! now!" We walked around looking at our new pseudo pavement. Don't ever listen to a smooth talking country Eastern Shore Delaware guy who says he's been asphalting at the neighbors and boy can he "give you a deal" while he and his crew and equipment are here. I spent a lot of money I didn't have. And during a depression. It's called pseudo pavement because it's not a complete blacktop job. It's recycled asphalt. Called "cold mix" or "cold pour". It's basically like putting down gravel. But after it's rolled it looks pretty good. He quoted me a price on doing my runway. 2500 ft. 50 ft. wide. "Fifty Thousand". But the cold pour is soft and crumbly and it wouldn't work for landings. You need the full blacktop which would cost 4 or 5 times that. Don't worry my friends. I would never pave my runway even if I had the money. So we paved the driveway. It's been a two-track since the wagons made it around 1910. The smooth talking guy with the cowboy hat told me I didn't need a permit. So Jake and I walked on the new driveway. Wife came home. They had eaten at "Outback". I figured she wouldn't want to go out again for a Valentine date with her husband. But she eats like a bird and we went out to Seaford. All the restaurants were crowded. We did get seated at a very elegant place called Ihop. We spent 24 bucks. But the big night wasn't over. Oh no. We went to this store named "Roses". "Roses" is a few steps below the dollar stores. "Roses" makes Wal-Mart look like Neiman Marcus. But I love "Roses". Since I hadn't gotten wife a Valentine, and we had to drive right past..... I begged her to let us go to Roses. She said OK, but with conditions. First, she would not go in. She would wait in the car. Second, I was not to get her a card, or candy. I ran into Roses. They were closing. I bought a little white stuffed puppy dog, an LED flashlight, and a box of cookies. She claims that all three gifts suit her very much, especially the puppy. We rode home and onto the newly pseudo- paved driveway. We agreed this had been a fine date. I was making some tea and she took a call from her sister. She spoke and spun her office chair around to face me as I looked in on her. "Oh yes, Lloyd got me a Valentine gift. It was "Roses".

Mary Feik

The pilots who flew in World War II are a dying breed. There was a time not long ago that many pilots had fathers who flew in WWII. Now it's getting hard to find fathers who flew in Korea. My friend Clark flies as an instructor at the Naval Academy Flying Club. The other day he called me to say he was going to have coffee with Mary Feik and I could join him. I knew who Mary Feik was. I took my video camera and my autograph book and headed out to Lee Airport in Annapolis, Md. The 84 year old famous engineer, mechanic, pilot shook my hand and smiled and let me turn on my camera. Even though I was a perfect stranger. Her gray hair was beautifully done in a Mary Martin-Peter Pan style. She looked like a million bucks. I had a list of things to ask her but it went out the window. I heard myself ask her what is was like working for the Army Air Corp. when you were a cute 19 yr. old and the only girl around. Were you chatted up by a lot of men. She said no she wasn't. She said she was part of an engineering team and it was strictly work. But she was not "one of the guys". On flight trips when there was a layover, she would have a bag with her that enabled her to dress in a dress with stockings. "They went out with a lady". I asked her something about Wright Patterson, and she began a narrative that would last off and on for three hours. I wish I had every word on the tape, but I don't. The story begins with an eighteen year old girl not being accepted into the engineering department at the University of Buffalo. She applies for a job with the pre Pearl Harbor Army Air Corps. As a maintenance instructor. She is hired and notified by telegram. This would lead to her testing and flying aircraft like the: P-51, P-38, T-33, B-17, B-25, B-29. She designed the flight simulators used for WWII fighters.. She flew 6000 hours in B-29's as a test engineer. She was honored by NASA as one of the 47 most significant women in aerospace. She restored airplanes for the Smithsonian for 10 years. Including work on the Enola Gay. She received the Charles Taylor Master Mechanics Award. She knew Crossfield, Yeager, Hoover. And so much more. She told me about testing a B-25 one day with a failed right main landing gear. They battled with it, it went up and over in a big cartwheel. Her co-pilot had not a scratch, but they had to cut Mary out of it. On her 50th wedding anniversary she was riding on the Concord to London. She was called up to the flight deck and asked to observe the flight engineer for the entire flight. Three hours and thirteen minutes. She told her friend Scott Crossfield (the first guy to mach 2), "See Scott, I did it too". Now I've got this video of Mary. My wife and I are going to try to edit it and post it up on YouTube. So all my friends can see Mary Feik, the living legendary female aviator.

Elizabeth Taylor

Being from the boom generation, I'm pretty computer dumb. I love certain kinds of music, but I don't have a music device such as an MP3. I have a blog, but barely know how to sign into it. Any time I get in trouble on the computer, I get my wife to come and fix it. In the airplane, I use the GPS to give me course and track and groundspeed. I'm so grateful to have that, I don't ask the GPS to do anything else for fear I will push the wrong button and it will go away. I was fiddling around on YouTube watching the oldies from my childhood. I have a few old folk songs at my own YouTube channel. This is only because my wife set it up for me. While I was watching a Neil Young song "Long May you Run" (about a car), I clicked on a cover of the song. It was by a person called "the brooke" or "brooke". She had the sweetest voice I ever heard. Just a kid from Montana. I was amazed that her cover had 53,000 hits. My "Four Strong Winds" (also Neil Young) cover, has by comparison, 400 hits. Then I clicked on her cover of Sam theSham's "Little Red Riding Hood". 199,000 hits! Check her out! I guess if I'm a YouTube junkie, and I Google anything I have a question about, and I have a blog, I must be at a level that I can at least use the computer in a rudimentary way. The way I use the GPS. But what strikes me is how great the computer technology enables me to reminisce about the older stuff. Old songs, history, facts, myths Another thing that strikes me is that newer generations who play video games and text 24-7, embrace things like Sam the Sham. I know I'm way, way out of touch and that's OK. We all have our place in the time line. But having a computer and putting a few little songs up on YouTube makes me feel connected. And there are lots of folks on there with me. The internet is the new town square. The new Times Square. Obama is the first internet president. Each person can get what they want from the web. Somebody like the brooke can get rich and famous from it. I bet she will. But I'd like to give her some advice. Not about singing. She's the best ever. But about life. The fictional character Velvet in the book National Velvet (or movie) has new found world fame. Her mother advises her to enjoy it for a short time, and then move on to a normal life with normal love and family. She obeys and that's the end of the movie. So brooke. Don't be Brittany Spears. Enjoy your love and your new baby and friends and family in Montana. Post a song now and then and a million of us will log on line. You'll still be a great singer. You just won't be a freak in a glass cage that everyone wants to see fall. As for money, anyone can tell you there is never enough money, if it's money you want. I just saw "National Velvet" on TCM the other day. I highly recommend it.

On a Sunday

I'm an old crow's feet aviator now. I guess I'm just two generations away from the barnstormers in a way. But my dad was too old for battle in WWII and was an instructor of Army Air Corp Cadets. He was born in 1903, the year of the Wrights. He got his first plane ride in a Jenny. So did my mom. So I'm almost one generation from the barnstormers. About 33 years ago I was working on the Airmail. I spent every other weekend at the New River Valley in Virginia. One Sunday it was open house at the airfield. The locals were there in droves. The weather was gorgeous. Many of the locals watched from their cars. Others hung on the fence. The brave ones came in and asked questions. "Now that you've come down, will you rise again?" "Why do they jump out of the plane when it don't crash?" Having been a suburbanite all my life I was as awed by the spectators as they were by me. Although there was no airshow per se, there was plenty to see. There were the skydivers. Running two jump planes. An FBO airplane giving rides. Two gyroplanes whipping back and forth down the runway. Some local pilots out for Sunday flights. A biplane from Blacksburg. The mailplanes just sitting on the ramp, and folks walking around them. And barbeque. And the skydivers partying with the college kids. And my Citabria. I had no intention of doing anything at the open house, other than eat food with the skydivers and check out the college girls. But my buddy Pablo wanted to do some flying and was building up his hours. So he started giving rides in my Citabria for five dollars. Pretty soon people were coming up to me and handing me five dollars. They wanted to be next in line for a ride in the red and white "stunt plane". After about two hours of this, I found out that Pablo was giving each customer a "loop" during the ride. During refueling I was able to talk to Pablo and I told him giving loops on every ride was pretty illegal. No parachutes, no airspace box etc. He said, "Look Luther, you're selling rides to the public. I have no commercial license, you have no commercial insurance. Loops are the least of our problems". "Yea Pablo. But look you got to cut these rides shorter or I'm losing money". He took a bathroom break and got a coke and a candy bar and jumped back into the plane. I left my friend Leo to collect five bucks per person and help strap them in. I went back to the "drop zone party" and the girl in the tank top that I was trying to convince to let me show her my mail plane. We kept hearing that this jumper named "Crazy Denny" was going to fly his "bat wings" for the event. He did show, but the wings weren't that effective and it was too far up to really see what he was doing. But he did actually have wings for the free fall. This was before webbed jump suits. Before ultra lights. At the dawn of square parachute rigs. As I looked around the New River Valley Airport that day I saw a spectacle that was a real aviation phenomenon. I felt like a barnstormer, and I knew it was as close as I was going to get. Right at the peak of it all, a rumor was circulating through the crowd. The rumor was that the FAA was on the way to New River Valley! If you are a pilot, or an aircraft owner, you better not ignore such a rumor. After I heard this, the first thing I saw was "Crazy Denny" scrambling around with his gear and getting the bat wings into his truck. In five minutes he was driving away. Pablo was in the air with a ride. The Citab had a radio, but I doubted Pablo was using it. So my plan was just to stop Pablo after this ride. In the meantime, I went to "Jumper John" who ran the drop zone. "John, is it true? The Feds?" He replied, "OH Yea, we're packin' up. Even though other than Crazy and some experimental shit, I'm mostly legal". "But John, maybe it's just a rumor. How do you know they're coming"? "We know. Mel, with the gyrocopter, he's got a sister or something at the Charleston General Aviation District Office. We even know which inspectors are coming!" I looked across the field and I saw the gyros being put quickly into the hangars and no one else flying. I also saw Pablo on final. I started running the half mile to the ramp. He taxied up. We got his passenger out. "Pablo, ramp checks! Get this plane outa here. Fly over to Blacksburg. Park and call me every hour. Stay outa here." "Whatever you say boss", he replies. I walked his passenger back to the parking lot. The locals in their cars were all packing up and leaving. They didn't want to stay around either. Nothing more to see. And apparently the "cops" were coming. I went to the office. It was Sunday. All closed except the line guy who had sold a lot of gas today. I wanted to lock up my mail plane. I had never done that. I asked Doug the line boy about it and he said he could lock it but it was no use, because Wayne (the other mail pilot) was willing to talk to the Feds and show them whatever they wanted, including my mail plane. Wayne was a very good friend to me and had helped me learn a lot. And a decorated Vietnam vet too. But he was the kind of guy who would remind the teacher that she had forgotten to assign the homework. Well, I didn't want to be standing around when the feds came and I had no car. And my Citab was over at Blacksburg. So I just started walking down the airport road towards town. The airport was a ghost town. An hour ago it had been teaming with activity. At the drop zone, not one car in the parking lot. I cut across the "peas" which is the spot where they touch down under canopy. I intercept the main road and I see a black sedan with two men in it. I eyeball them as they drive by, but they don't slow down to look me over. Have fun guys. You fixed it so it's safe at New River today. No accidents, no flying. And if you expect to build up your ego by intimidating pilots, you'll be sorely disappointed when you meet my friend Wayne. It's still early. Jumper John will be having a nice party right now. About a three mile walk. I doubt the tank top girl will be there, but you never know.