The Airmail Switch

Near the end of my Airmail days, I was kind if a "pilot at large" for the Nickelsons. I lived in a hovel near BWI airport. One week I was sent to Norfolk to cover a mail route. The regular pilot was sick with a virus. My boss wanted me to check up on everything. He had heard that the pilots on the route were sometimes landing at a halfway point and swapping planes in order to overnight back where they started from. He said that must stop. The route went one-way: Norfolk, Richmond, Charleston W. Va., New River Valley Va. The next night was the reverse: PSK, CRW, RIC, ORF. One night the pilot would overnight in Norfolk, the next night in New River. When I got to Norfolk my old friends were there and we had a nice visit and all was very well, except my friend GB was ill of course. Just before I left to fly the run, GB said, "Oh Lou, there's one more thing, you gotta land at Charlotsville and swap planes with Little Joe". "Look GB I've been told about this, and I can't do it and you guys can't do it anymore either" "Oh excuse me Mr. Lou company man, I know you're a big boss now Check Airman sir"! "C'mon GB I just can't do it, we can't do it" "Here's the deal Lou. Little Joe wants to stay in New River. His girlfriend is there. He'll quit before he spends another night here. He'll be sitting in CHO waiting for you no matter what you say. Also, tonight is Friday and if you do the switch, you'll be back here at 2 AM and we will have a party in full swing. You know Sue, and she'll have her friends here and they've heard about you and want to meet you. And you'll be here all weekend, at the beach. Or do you want to spend the weekend at 'No Reefer Valley, Va' in a bunkhouse? I got to CHO before Little Joe because Richmond is closer to CHO than "Charlie West". So I stood alone on the ramp and looked west in the clear, starry sky. I'd heard about Joe, but never met him. I picked up a light to the west and as it approached it seemed too high to be landing here. The aircraft must be a Jet, the descent ratio looked like one to one. When he landed he kept up a frightening taxi speed and he was alongside and parked. He climbed out, this is what I saw: A small, tanned, muscular, very young man. He had a wild look in his eyes. He was wearing cut off shorts. Only cut off shorts. No shirt, no shoes. He had a mane of wild long, jet-black hair. He shook my hand with a big grin and climbed aboard the Navajo I had brought in. He fired up and was gone. I climbed into Joe's Navajo. You have to belly crawl over the mail and slide down into the cockpit. I flipped on the battery switch. Everything came on. The lights, the radios. While I fired up, CHO FSS was calling me. "Cumberland Four, you're released for Richmond, runway your choice, numbers to follow and our friend in Cumberland Three says to say thanks to you".

The Nest West

We had a bunkhouse in a hangar at the New River Valley Airport in Dublin, Va. We called it the "Pro's Nest" But we already had a bunkhouse in Cumberland, Md. at the other end of the Airmail route, the original "Pro's Nest". So we called New River "The Pro's Nest West", or "Nest West". One Saturday we were just sitting around the "Nest West". My friend Mark was waiting for his girlfriend to come from Blacksburg, Va. Mark had arranged for Leo Daley, who was an instructor there at Blacksburg to fly his girlfriend over to New River to meet him using the school's Cherokee. After a while Daley came staggering in looking white and stunned, and kind of brush torn. Mark took one look and said "Daley you crashed"! Daley just nodded his head over and over in agreement. My other buddy and I started laughing and apologizing for laughing at the same time. We had been abusing alcohol and perhaps other substances. Mark said, "Is Robin alright"? Leo started nodding his head up and down again in the affirmative. We now howled even louder and apologized more. We all followed Daley out on foot to where the airplane was in a sorghum field a half mile short of New River's 6000 ft. runway. Mark's girlfriend was waiting a safe distance from the airplane. It was a cloudy day and no skydivers were out, and not much going on so we decided to rescue the airplane right away and perhaps keep Daley out of trouble. We had no Jeep and this was before every middle class American had four-wheel-drive. We wound up using a small tractor which the FBO used for a tug. It was slow, but that was good. We knocked down and cut down a path through the sorghum and inched our way through, then dismantled a fence, then managed to cross a ditch by pushing and pulling and towing, and we were up on the taxiway. We hosed the mud and grass and sorghum stubble off and assessed the damage. It was minimal. We fueled the aircraft up, because it was completely out of fuel. We polished out some scrapes in the paint. We moved a bunch of planes out of the hangar and stuck the little 140 in a back corner and moved the planes back. The airport was open for fuel on Saturdays, but only until noon or 1PM, then by request. These guys had been flying around locally and in the pattern in this 182. They came in and got gas. The refueler "Doug" was the Airmail pilot's buddy forever as we would take him on the mail with us sometimes. "Hey what's the story on that plane that was down off the airport? " What plane"? "A plane down in that cornfield right over there"! "Where?" "Just east of the runway"! "If it wasn't on the airport property we have no control over it. You sure it was a plane"? "The guy must have taken back off". "Yea". The next day a phone call came in asking about a plane crash and it got the same stone wall. After hiding out a day and a half Leo Daley was leaving, but his shirt was a mess. I dug in my Airmail duffle bag which I lived out of. My Avant garde girlfriend back in D.C. had made fun of my brand new shirt with it's longhorn logo. She was too proletarian for capitalistic symbols. (Don't you love the Seventies?. I ditched the girl). I got out the shirt and gave it to Daley. For keeps. It fit him like a glove. G.A. Informal

Apache

What is my favorite instrumental by "the Ventures" from back in the sixties? It's "Telstar". I will do a blog about that another day, Baby Boomer in the dawning "Space Age". My second favorite by the Ventures is "Apache". The Piper Apache is very underrated. Why is it so maligned? It's old. So no one should expect it to be without flaws. Many folks like me who got their M.E. rating in one have a nice soft spot for the aircraft. I love the Apache. When I was a line boy at College Park, my boss had one of these. Every time I fueled it I would jump in it and fire it up and taxi it over to it's parking place. I loved operating a twin, even if I couldn't fly it. When I got my instructors rating I was able to slowly get in a few short lessons in the "pooch". Sometimes when a regular renter was getting dual I could ride along in the back and get a "free" lesson. Finally I got my M.E. Oddly enough in those days there was not an M.E. Instructor rating. So if you're an instructor in cubs and 150's like I was, and then you get your M.E. - well now you're an M.E. instructor! I knew I was not ready to give dual in the Apache. Also we had a few guys that were senior to me and they were entitled to the M.E. students and more qualified. But a surprising thing happened which got me some PA-23 time in good ole 19P. A few of my Cessna 150 students would simply ask for a ride from me in the Apache. We would just tool around on their nickel and I'd stick them in the right seat. We would have fun and I would treasure the multi time. When people talk about Apaches they usually say they are "underpowered". I disagree. If you're lightly loaded the "Apatch" is a double barreled super cub. Also, put the 160 engines on it and it's better. The other thing they say is that the Apache is "bad on one engine". I don't want to get into a long talk about multi-engine technique. But I think the Apache does just fine . If you're heavy and you lose an engine, you must go down, just like if you lose an engine in a single engine plane. With fuel cost today twins are becoming dinosaurs. They're cheap to buy and getting cheaper. The new Rotax powered twins are going to change things forever at least until we have electric engines. You can buy a mod for your Apache and make it into a "Geronimo". I don't know much about this . For some reason I just don't like the conversion. If you want your Apache to be bigger and better, your best buy is to sell the Apatch and get an Aztec. Piper has already solved this bigger and better thing. And the Aztec is on the short list of best airplanes ever. One rainy day I was sitting around the office because my students were canceled. Everyone had gone home. It was Nicholson Air Services in Cumberland, Maryland. American Screw of Martinsburg had called for a charter. We had no planes and no pilots. But the big boss "Nick" was there. His personal plane was an Apache. I had been riding right seat few times on charters, but I had really just started working there as a CFI. Nick says, "Hey Lou, do you have students today?" I could see what was coming. "Why no Nick, I'm free". Next thing I know I'm off solo in a lovely all original Apache from Cumberland to Martinsburg to Cleveland and back. All IFR. My first PIC charter in a twin. It would be a long time before I got another one. But I decided I wanted to fly the Mail. Solo. G.A.Informal s

no such thing as a dream job

I had a job burnout back in 1976 and was in the process of taking an airmail route which ran from DC National to LaGuardia five nights a week. This was the jewel of a job that I had been trying to get for three years. Out of my home town. Turbine equipment. A raise in pay. A really sweet little run which was a piece of cake. But some things developed which made me regret that I had ever quit my cute little four nights a week Boston Logan bank work job in an E Model Pa-23. I was seeing a very cute girl and starting up living with her, and it turned out my boss really liked this girl too, and now hated me and was advising his father, the big boss and owner, to fire me. And there was a new reason every day. Then there was the guy I was flying with on the run who was to check me out as Captain. He was crazy, in a bad, unfriendly, unsafe way. He was a good pilot and had a certain charm. He was known as "Mad Dog". A topic for another day, another post. Then it turned out they wanted me to fly a Commuter during the day, every day, to Newport News, Virginia. The legalities of this were not even close to being workable. And Mad Dog had this little game (of many) that he would play where I could never find the airplane. So if I showed up for work at the gate at BWI ( it was called Friendship then), the airplane would be at it's parking place at Butler. I would rush over there and he would reposition it to the gate and I would be "late". He liked the game so much he did it at night too on the Mail run. One time he didn't speak to me at all for an entire round trip on the mail. At the end of the night he finally unloaded and started screaming and I was physically afraid. I never went back to that job. I started driving out to my buddy's farm in Frederick county and working as a hand, mostly mowing and painting. I had my phone disconnected and I dropped out of sight. There was a mini pilot shortage going on and I had several friends who showed up at my door to try to get me to return to flying with tempting offers. I finally took one. The guy had a nice Aztec and I just started flying him all around and it was summer and it was kind of fun. Then he got a Bellanca dealership and me and my buddy started ferrying brand new Decathlons, Scouts, etc. from Wisconsin to the East Coast. My boss had bought an FBO in Laurel, Delaware and it was a blast operating the Azwreck off grass. All good things must come to an end. One day I was returning from showing a beautiful new 7ECA at Frederick and stopped into Gaithersburg to hang out with some buddies, and show off the airplane which I had been looping the crap out of. This serious looking guy with a tie wanted to talk to me. I could just tell he wasn't a Fed. He bought me coffee and offered me fifty bucks to fly the 7ECA back up to Frederick where they would have me leave it and reposition me to home. He said my boss was in big trouble, and I could get in big trouble too. He said "Charlie" my boss, hadn't made one payment to Bellanca. "Not even on the Viking"? I said. "Not even on the Viking" , he said. I told him I'd have to think about it. I asked my buddy to walk me out to the 7ECA. My buddy is a big muscular guy. The guy in the tie didn't follow. I cranked up and made a beeline back across DC and the Bay right to Laurel, De. I parked and ran into Charlie's office. I panted out the story of the almost Repo, how we were all in trouble etc. Charlie was smoking a cigar. He was leaned back in his chair. He said calmly, "You know Lloyd, one thing I've learned over the years is....You just can't please everybody". G.A. Informal

Hangar Flyin'

Back in the early 80's I had this Cher OH kee 140 which I had bought for $6k. I was on a low budget and I was running auto fuel and had basically no radios. I had a hangar at this really minimal yet convenient public airport called Suburban. More stories about Suburban later. This hangar had belonged to a guy with a little homebuilt. This T Hangar came with no doors like many there at Suburban . What the previous tenant had done was simply build a huge plywood wall across the area where a door would be. He then had these small hinged doors, four of them, to be openings for the fuselage and wings of his tiny little homebuilt. It was pretty slick, but it didn't work for my PA-28. For a long time I just parked the plane in front of the hangar and tied it down. Later I adapted a way to get the tail in the main doors and left the plane part way in. I was told by the airport management to "do something about your hangar". The Altmans who ran the airport were very good and patient people, and the Suburban Airport atmosphere was like family. One nice autumn day I decided to get my plane in the hangar for the winter. I went to the lumber store(this is before Home Depot) and bought a circular saw, an extension cord, a hammer, and one of those big carpenter pencils, and a tape measure. I went back to the airport and started hacking away at that door and basically just enlarged the old tiny-airplane opening into something that my plane would exactly fit through. It looked like a billboard a plane had flown through in a cartoon. I put the plane in. I never did build and install doors for the opening like the other tenant had. I just left the crazy cut-out and everybody knew my hangar. I was on the waiting list there for an "end hangar" for a long time. One day when I least expected it, Debbie said "Hey Lou, you still want an end hangar?". That was one of the best days of my young life. It was like I had won the lottery. I tried to explain my good fortune to my non-flying friends, but they just didn't get it. This is big, so big , I told them. "I see Lloyd, you're renting a hangar and now you're moving to a better one. Yes that 's nice. You have a Piper Cub, don't you"? With an end hangar one has an extra room sort of, because the hangar is accidentally larger. Some guys put a couch and TV and stereo there. Some guys put a workshop, or a little machine shop. A hobby car. A poker table for a once a week regular game. I could write a whole post about end hangars. Actually some of the most extravagant hangars I've seen are not even end hangars, just T's. But I knew what I wanted. A little kind of club house to party in, spend the night if I wanted, hang out, a pilot's lounge. But Peter Pan was aging and he couldn't stop his whiskers. By the time I could get the floor done and start dry walling I had moved on to finding my own place in the sun on Delmarva. Now thirty years later with my own half mile of turf to land on and hangar to go with it, I see that I have partitioned off a 20 X 12 little "room" in the hangar. It's the club house I never did grow out of. G.A. Informal.

Building Time

I don't want to make my whole blog about College Park Airport, College Park, Md. I have plenty of tales about other things. I was just thinking about this 15 year old kid that I just gave a ride to in the M-10, and I later e-mailed him with some suggestions about how to get some flying time when you're young and have no money, but you just want to get up again somehow. That was me in my early teens. I used to hang out at another DC area airport called Freeway. My older brother took lessons in the Piper Colt for $12 per hour. I was 13 years old and during my brother's lesson I would walk around and look at every single airplane on that field. Every time. One time when I was a little older, one of my mentors was going up with his pal in a Mooney just to fly around. So me and this other kid got to go and sit in the back seat if we would share in the rental. We paid $3 each. I still remember that ride, I believe it was the 4th time I had been aloft in a plane. Thanks Bernie. In Jr. High I had this classmate who had been on a few PA-18 rides in the CAP and had actually taken the stick a few times. We used to sit at our desks and use a ruler for a "stick" and he would give me lessons. Spins and everything. He knew a lot, I think. Thanks Bill M. Later when I had a private license I was an undergrad at Maryland. I started hanging out at College Park Airport and I had checked out in the Cub. That's a story for another day. But anyway, they had these telephone poles made into a kind of long fence and lots of people would sit there on the weekends on nice days and watch the planes. There was a lot to see. It was a beehive. The pattern very full, lines at the gas pumps, transients with nowhere to park, rentals, lessons, old local ragbaggers, the likes of which you don't see anymore except at a fly-in. And College Park's runway was a little tight with obstacles so those fence sitters got to see a few interesting go arounds, and scary moments. I would show up and work this crowd of onlookers eating their snacks, tending to their kids and dogs. "How about a plane ride? It's only ten bucks an hour." I would fly a lot this way and be exhausted at the end of the day. The guy with the FBO, Jeff Brinkerhoff, gave me tacit approval for this flying because he was too busy to drum up this extra business anyway. As long as the plane got rented, he was happy. This went on and I got a Commercial which was quite easy back then and a topic for another post. One Saturday Brinkerhoff called me at home. "Hey wanna come out and fly? I'm short an instructor and we're busy". I said, "I don't have an instructor's". "Thats OK you can give rides and check outs and I'll pay you five an hour like everybody else". That was the day my flying career began. Thanks Jeff. G.A. Informal

Horn Point Revisited

We really all had a great time. The weather cooperated. There are two grass runways at Horn Point. The one we landed on was pretty soft and muddy, but as the sunny day wore on, it dried out a bit. Some airplanes were slipping and sliding but since they were taildraggers it was pretty manageable. My Coupe Cadet did not like the mud at all, and I damn near got stuck. There were two other Coupes there. A '46 Ercoupe, and an Alon A-2. My friend BD was there with his beautiful Stearman and he won a prize. Another friend of mine has a DC-3, a Fairchild PT-23, a classic 172, and many others. Guess what he brought to HP? His 1970 Pontiac Bonneville! My "other" plane, the Cher OH kee showed up flown by my buddy Paul and he really did a nice job with it through the mud and all. He and I flew formation back home to Rosewind and it was about as pretty as it gets. Pretty bumpy though, and I bet they had some great soaring which I missed up at Smyrna. My strip was in great shape considering the rain we had... Some folks have said they can't get to my blog, or they can't find my You tube vids. So... I have a web site now with links to that stuff. http// www.grasstrip.com . Note only 2 s's not 3. Like grass trip. I'll set up a better link next post. Now I must go to North Carolina. In the PA-28? No, in a Ford F150. G.A.Informal.

Paper Cub

This is the 'Eve" of Horn Point, one of my favorite fly-ins. The weather may or may not be OK tomorrow. I'll be taking my M-10 Cadet over there. My plane is rare, (only 59 made) but it is nothing compared to the Antiques that we'll see. My Cher OH kee may come over also, flown by a friend, but it will be parked with the "modern" planes, even though it is 39 years old. We'll see Champs and Cubs and Wacos and Stinsons etc. Cubs. Piper Cubs. A Piper Cub. When I was a kid in grade school the words Piper Cub meant "small airplane". Nobody said "light airplane". They said Piper Cub. "Hey my dad's friend has an airplane. It's a Piper Cub". "Neat, what kind?" "A Cessna". It seems among pilots of all generations, just about everybody has a Cub on their short-list of what they'd like to own or rent or just fly around. Add me to that list of pilots. If your favorite plane is a Bonanza, your second favorite might be a Cub. The guys who "first soloed" in Cubs are getting scarce. That was before my time, but in a next generation kind of way I got to give some guys their first solo in a J-3. My first "first solo" student when I was working as a CFI was in a Cub. Sometimes my favorite plane ever is a J-3. I can't help it. I can't keep up with new planes and new regs and new radios and new airspace, and GPS's, and RVSM, and ETOPS, TCAS, Light Sport, Cirrus, etc. I do know everything about Gen. Av., but only the Middle Ages. Now when you say Cub, what the hell are you talking about? The J-3 comes to mind. What are all the other Cubs? The Cubby. the Legend, Husky, PA-18, Super Cub, J-2, J-5, Taylor Cub , Cruiser Etc. Now you go to a company and they build you a Cub. So we each have our dream Cub we would have built for us. Some guys want a monster Super Cub with 200 HP. That's cool, but if I wanted a bush plane, I would want something else besides a Cub. Some guys want an original J-3 that looks like it came out of Lock Haven yesterday and was ferried to them by Mr. Bill Piper. Some guys want an old one with a tail skid or a three cylinder engine or both. I could like that. I'll tell you mine. Mine is the best. I want a J-3. Like original, but all new. Polished wooden floorboards. Wooden prop. 100 horse. Antique repro. guages but not the white face ones. No little bear cubs on the guages or anywhere else. Cub yellow. No. Cream white with silver and black trim. Good state of the art comfortable seats, but they can pass for looking original. A hidden permanent electrical system with alternator, starter, comm radio, xpnder, mode C, hard-wired GPS, and hard- wired intercom. A set of Skis for later. Metal spars. Aux tank. Yea, dream LloydLou. Did I miss anything? What's your Cub like? G.A. Informal

Make me King I know how to fix it

I've noticed that over the last few years when someone says "thank you" sometimes the person they're thanking says "not a problem". Usually now when I say thanks to a server in a restaurant they reply "no problem" or "not a problem" . I know things change. Out with the old, in with the new. But "your welcome" seems much kinder, more polite, less confusing, prettier. "Not a problem". What the hell does a problem have to do with this? I'm thanking you for godsake. There wasn't a problem to begin with. Was there? I've also noticed recently that most people talk about gas prices, and Iraq, and pollution and global warming with the paradigm that we must use up all the oil on the planet. Some want to use it all at our same rate and when we run out a long time from now, well we run out. Others want to conserve oil and "save" our reserves so we can have our cars and heating oil longer. Many feel that even if we have to fight wars we must have this oil or America will perish. The paradigm is that we must run on oil and isn't it a shame that we're running out. Maybe I'm naive, but why can't we just switch the entire Western World over to electric cars (not hybrids) and do it in four years. You simply give a 100% tax credit for each electric car. Nobody will ever again buy anything but an electric car. The gas cars we have now can be recycled for the steel etc. America will not perish if we have electric cars instead of gas cars. A few oil companies may be crying , but that would be great. They are like the tobacco companies. They'll have to diversify or die. But But But the Chinese will still buy the Arab oil!! First of all, so what? Second, No they wont because they're leapfrogging past the "plug in hybrid" (which we don't even have yet unbelievably) straight to the electric vehicle. I went flying today with my friend the Professor. I checked him out in my Cadet Coupe. He did very well and he is a fair and reasonable friend and bought the gas and bought wife and I dinner. It was a nice mid-May day. Want to know the temperature? It was 23 degrees. Gen. Av. Informal

thanks BD for the "Jolt" story

I expect and hope we at Gen Av Informal will hear more from BD. We are all hoping to go to a fly-in this weekend called "Horn Point" near Cambridge, Md. We expect to see BD there with his biplane. College Park airport in College Park, Md. is the country's oldest continually operated airport. When the Wright Brothers set up their operation there in 1909 with the Wright "Military Flyer", the airport was already there and had an operator. A few "Firsts" took place around that time: First radio transmission from a plane to the ground. First woman to go up in a powered ship. First Military flight. First Military solo. First Military aircraft fatality. First bomb drop. The first telegraph message "What hath God wrought" that went from Washington to Baltimore went alongside College Park's field and the railroad tracks are still there. The U.S. Airmail pioneers had College Park as an all important base in the 1920's and one of the original Airmail hangars is still there. The airport was active between the wars with airshows and open house events which drew thousands of people from the Washington D.C. area to see exhibition flying by famous barnstormers such as George Brinkerhoff. During WWII Army Cadets were trained at College Park in the Taylor/Piper Cub, and the Cubs were stored in the hangars by standing them on their noses as there were so many. In the post war era Engineering Research Corporation or "ERCO" was founded and operated by Henry Berliner who built the first Gyro Copter and paved the way for the modern helicopter, all at College Park. "ERCO" also built 6000 "Ercoupes" at their factory next to College Park The Ercoupe was an innovative low wing modern nose wheel airplane which needed no rudder pedals and was unspinable. Descriptions of College Park in the 1970's and beyond are for another day and another Post. But today one may still visit College Park Airport and see the Wright Monument and the museum, and if the Park guards don't mind, maybe a glimpse of the hangar and the foundations of the Airmail hangars. This place is holy ground to me. I will probably tell many stories of College Park in this blog about the times and adventures I had while flying there. And about others like BD who were there. We were pioneers too, but our adventures pale by comparison to the rich history of the oldest airport in the world. G.A. Informal.

centigrade Rage

I hate Centigrade. It's great in the chem lab. I loathe Centigrade. It's fine if you grew up in a country where it is the standard system. I despise Centigrade. The 0 to100 scale is nice and neat. I abhor Centigrade. We're eventually going to the Metric System anyway. I detest Centigrade. Canada uses it. I can't stand Centigrade. It's easy to convert it to Fahrenheit. I dislike Centigrade. One of my hobbies is hating Centigrade temperature. Another hobby is using my little PA-28-140 to shuttle my son back and forth to school for visits home on holidays and breaks. I love doing this. My wife and son think I'm making a sacrifice by doing this transportation chore and I let them think that. But I love these little trips. It's 234 N. miles from my backyard strip in Delmarva to his school in North Carolina. In low winds it's about 2.5 hrs. each way. Going home on about a 60 degree heading there's usually a tail wind and the flight will last about two hours. Now after two years, I can recognize every field and tool shed on the route. I go VF&R if at all possible. My son Matt is amazing. He has little interest in flying, but he likes these quick flights home to where mom can do his laundry. I have a little portable Garmin 196 which I have been slowly learning to use. He usually catches up on his sleep on these legs, but when we're near the dreaded ADIZ I ask him for help. He can use the 196 way better than me but he's never been shown how. Then when I need him to fly, he operates the airplane with autopilot smoothness and accuracy. He knows every dial and switch on that aircraft, every symbol on a sectional. He understands the IFR system and knows he has to co-pilot when we're in IMC. But he doesn't think any of this is unusual. He has been flying with me since he was 1 yr. old steering the plane in his diapers on my lap. He thinks everybody grows up with an airplane in their back yard.

the hardest GA aircraft to fly

Remember, I know everything about GA flying. The easiest airplane to fly is the Ercoupe and all it's descendants. What is the hardest? If you've never checked out in a tailwheel airplane, then all tailwheels are the hardest. You know what I hear a lot is "All airplanes fly the same whether it's a J3 Cub or a 747". Airline pilots always say that. But that's not saying anything. The easiest airplane to fly is the airplane you fly every day. The hardest airplane to fly is a tailwheel twin Beech with turbine engines, a so called "Kerosene 18 ".

just under the wire

It's 11pm in eastern time. I really want to get a posting in every day so " get it up" LloydLou. The weather really is storming here tonite. I flew the PA-28 today in the rain. I also put up a new You Tube video, and it was a song about flying so my blog and my You Tubing kind of crossed today. Enough about me. Let's talk about my airplane. Why did I buy my 'Coupe Cadet? I had no money. I had just retired from my job. I had just retired from my job! That's reason no. 1. No. 2 is I always wanted an Alon A-2 and watched them in trade a plane for the last 30 yrs. An Alon A-2 is a refined Ercoupe and a Mooney M-10 Cadet is a refined Alon. 3. This airplane found me through a friend who was charged with the job of annualling it and finding a buyer for it. I bought it before it was ever put up for sale. I was just about to buy a little glider from this friend when the Cadet came into our lives. 4. I told my wife about this new used toy and she thought it was very cute and said we should buy it. 5. It has rudder pedals. 6. It was somewhat affordable, not as cheap as that Colt I was telling you about. 7. The original Ercoupe design, which the Cadet basically is, goes back to the 30's and the airplane is a genuine antique. I could talk a real long time about the ercoupe, but I won't tonight. 8. I grew up about 4 miles from the factory that made about 5,000 of these planes in the post-war era. 9. When I was a kid, the first plane I rented after I had a Private was an Alon A-2. 10. You can open the canopy in flight, like a convertable. 11. I can take it to fly-ins and it's always a hit and people say "what is it? An Ercoupe? A Mooney?" And I say, " Yes. Yes".

a comment on my first post

A comment on my very first post has come in. The "anonymous" commenter says it is a vicious lie. And here it is my very first cute little story of my new cute little blog. Would I lie? Would I even embellish? I'm hurt. How can I go on? Well don't worry Pablo, and be ready because I figure I got about 365 of these little stories and you will be featured in a few of them. As a matter of fact, there's one post which I will present now which refers to you. Long before I became a CFI I knew the concept of a so called "Natural Pilot". I knew from my first few lessons, that I was not a natural pilot. All my life I have struggled with learning and doing the art of flying. Now days folks say "yea that Lloyd's a great pilot". But I'm barely an "OK" pilot. The truth is that I'm just experienced. I just liked flying and I stayed in it for so long, that I just got more and more used to it. I got away by shear luck with so many screw ups and that is one reason I have this blog. Not so others can learn from my mistakes, but so that I can entertain with my mistakes. And, that it can be a lot about me. Anyway, when I started instructing I realized that even if I wasn't a natural, I was pretty good at telling if someone else was a natural. I discovered it was fun and rewarding to teach someone who you knew would soon be way better than you. One time when I was teaching for Brinkerhoff I had given a few lessons to a guy who was just not getting it. At that time I had about 800 hrs. and I was the best instructor in the United States. I went to my boss, Brinkerhoff, and I said "Jeff, this guy ain't gettin' it. What do we do? Brinkerhoff was a wise mentor. He said, "First we let somebody else fly with him, but we already know the result of that, second I don't want to take any more of his money and you've got to tell him." That was an agonizing feeling for me. Then the secretary chimed in and said, "But Jeff you've already taken his money and sold him a package plan." The boss said, "Goddammit , Goddammit". I've got some stories about the natural pilots I've flown with, but for another day. I'll list three: Brinkerhoff, my old boss; James D., my best ever friend; and Pablo, who is our commenter. Gen. Av. Informal.

can you hear me now?

Wife, it seems has gotten on to my blog, so maybe it is in fact alive. The best value today in a used aircraft is a Piper PA-22 Colt. Buy one for $12k. They're pretty cool to fly, kind of rugged like a Cub. They are basically a clipped wing Cub. But you have radios, xpndr, starter, lights,etc. and a nose wheel. Cubs cost $40K. I have a few Colt stories. When I was a kid I used to rent planes from Brinkerhoff( a whole other set of stories) and sometimes the planes were all booked up especially on weekends. But he had this Colt which was in marginal shape and always available. He used to use it for parts runs to other airports. So after I was told there was nothing available to rent at all, I would say "what about the Colt?' Then he would look out the window( I guess to see if the Colt still existed), and say "it may not start" as he handed me the keys and a little clipboard. Sometimes he would offer a little plastic box of fuses because you would need them. The Colt would always have a dead battery, but after some good pull throughs and prime and a nice snappy hand prop she would always start. The spare fuses were for later, if you needed lights or radios. I logged many a happy hour as a young private pilot in that Colt that no one else wanted to fly. One of the instructors was telling us one day about the "old runway" there at Brinkerhoffs and a kind of a dare or bet was set up and I watched that instructor land that Colt on a 150 ft. stretch of old cracked aspalt and weeds. He may have used up what was left of "my" brakes. Nobody flat-hats like that anymore. One more thing: the reason I love the Colt may simply be because it was the airplane I joined the mile-high club in.

you can't get there from here

Well, I filled in the blanks, and I started this blog. But nobody can read it or visit it or contribute to it because I'm the only one who can get to it. So I guess it's just for my eyes only. That's OK I guess-- I've been kind of reclusive lately anyway. Maybe since this blog is FREE from Google, I'm not allowed to have readers or contributors until I pay money. I guess I can respond to myself. I often disagree with myself. I think my next post will be about the reasons why I bought my Mooney M10 Cadet. And I'll share my secret of the best value in a cheap used aircraft. It's not an ercoupe of any kind.

I'm Lloyd---this is my new blog

I don't really know what a blog is. I don't know how to set up a cool looking home page or anything. My wife will help me with that stuff. I'm going to get my friends to write some posts and see if we can have some fun. This blog will be mostly flying tales and hangar lore, but I will answer questions because I know the answers. I gonna start by telling a typical story from my flight experience. I welcome your comments, replies, tales of your own. Here goes: Back about 30 yrs. ago my friend Pablo and I were returning to work from a holiday weekend in the DC area to the New River Valley in Virginia. We were flying along in my Citabria, I was in the back and I had fallen asleep while Pablo flew. I was awakened suddenly by a loud "thunk". It sounded to me like an engine "clunk". I leaned up and yelled at Pablo (this was before headsets and intercoms) "what the hell was that?" He said "I hit a tree". "Oh, " I said. "I thought we were kind of low". We talked (yelled) about maybe stopping and checking the damage, but she was flying OK. I asked him why he was cruising so low and he said he was following I-81 and wanted to read the signs to note his progress. We continued to New River, but I just couldn't get back to sleep. GA Informal