The Airmail Five Man

One of my best "Eras" in General Aviation, maybe the best was my Navajo days. A period of about a year in 1974 when I flew the US Mail in the PA-31-310 Piper Navajo. I was my own boss. The mailbags never complained. I was "Cumberland One". I would leave Cumberland in the evening and go to Martinsburg, WV. then Baltimore, then on to Charleston, WV, then Pulaski, Va. Spend the night in Pulaski(what was left of the night, it would be 3AM). Sleep part of the day. Then I was "Cumberland Two and would retrace my steps: PSK-CRW-BWI-MRB-CBE. So I would spend every other night and every other weekend in Pulaski. Pulaski is also called: PSK, Dublin,VA., New River Valley, Nest West, Hoop Town, No Reefer Valley, The No Reef. The first few weekends in New River were pretty boring so I started hanging out with the skydivers who were there also on the weekends. These people are crazy and they just want to be on the edge all the time. I started flying the jump plane for them a little bit because the jump pilot, well, he wanted to jump, not fly. I became friends with these jumpers and even started to have a social life because the college girls would come out for one, and only one, jump. This is before there were tandem jumps. The student had to take the jump training, then go out on a static line. Took all day for the first jump. I flew the jump plane quite a bit and it was fun and there was a huge party at the end of the jump day. I finally started to like New River. One day "John", the guy who ran the drop zone, said, "Hey Luther, you've earned a bunch of jumps and you better take them cause winter's coming and our season is slowing down". Pilots don't usually get into jumping-- all that about a "perfectly good airplane". I was no exception. I was a terrible jumper and terribly scared every time I did it. I made a total of eight leaps and number eight was "The Airmail Five Man". Finally winter and the holidays came and went and I was getting into a sweet job back in Baltimore flying bank work and living in my home town. But for some reason I was filling in on a run and was back at the No Reef. The other mail pilots were there and my best friend Pablo. The weather was to be nice and everyone is telling me I'm going to be in on a reunion jump of the old Airmail pros. An Airmail Five Man. There will be four jumpers and one jump plane pilot--all five guys from the airmail. The jump pilot will be Gary because he can't jump because his arm is messed up from a jumping injury. Ironic. Gary is "Tall Gary" of today's Budapest Blues.com. Pablo and Mark have their own rigs and are real jumpers as well as airmail pilots. Brian and myself are student jumpers. Mark will be our jump master. So it's all decided. But it's not our jump plane. It's not our drop zone. We run our little plan by John, the drop zone guy. "Well, I guess we can get you on the schedule, but Luther can't go. He hasn't jumped since like September and I got too many trainees today." Mark says, "Luther has to go. It's the Airmail Five Man! "You pilots are lucky I'm letting Gary fly it with that busted arm. Luther can't go without training." Mark says, "I'll put Luther out on a static line then OK?" John is thinking. He can just see these five pilots screwing this up somehow. "OK. He goes on a static line. He wears a full student rig. Radio. Sentinel, and I personally brief him and he shows me three PLF's", and I don't have time for this shit." ( a PLF is when you land, you roll and fall down so you don't get hurt, practice is off a platform) "Done. Thanks John. We owe you" "No you don't" Now it's time to go and everybody in the whole drop zone is watching the five of us and checking my equipment and I am very scared. John comes over. We're the next load. I say, "Uh John look Uh heres the deal. If I break my leg I'd rather do it with my buddies on this load than do it jumping off that goddamn six foot platform. If I bust my ass there, then I can't go! "All right but you do everything Mark tells you and you guys are buying beer for the party. Get going." And away we went. The drop zone watched five out of towners in their plane with their equipment. Pilots yet. Pilots usually can't jump. We did great. Mark really did know what he was doing and he kept us straight. At the party that night there were five guys who just couldn't stop smiling.