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