Airplayn's Hangar

    "Later-day Lindberg Flies for Fun" was the title of a newspaper article published in the mid '70s in the Arkansas Democrat about my newly restored 1940 Taylorcraft BC-65 airplane. It was accompanied by the picture of a thin young man with curly, shoulder length hair and a pointed beard with his ubiquitous baseball cap pulled low over his face sitting in the cockpit. It told a tale of me as young new pilot and his first airplane. The aircraft itself was a 35 year old antique with primitive instrumentation and no electrical system and it was purchased for only $1600. At a mere 750 lbs. empty weight and 36 ft. wingspan it flew 95 mph on a 65 Hp engine and was a marvelous flying machine. After the age old ritual of yelling of "switch off' and "contact", the engine was actually started by hand spinning the propeller from outside of the airplane! Purchased from a curmudgeonly old fellow, the plane was actually a little "long in the tooth" and had seen better days but was still a great buy. But as an intrepid young aviator I was very impressed and flew it with little concern. Eventually, during one of my flights the handle of the trim tab came off in my hand when I reached up to adjust the aircraft. This instilled a new found caution and made me reconsider my decision to continue flying the aircraft in its present condition. Finally I stopped letting my enthusiasm override caution and, using good judgment, I decided to call it a day. On landing the plane the brakes locked, spinning the aircraft off the runway and into the trees, where it ended up on its nose in high brush. Panicked onlookers saw the plane nestled in the sapling trees next to the airport, nose down and with its tail high in the air. Thinking the plane had augured in from the sky, and crashed from a high altitude, they rushed out to drag the pilot's broken and bleeding body from what they assumed was a gruesome wreck. Instead, they found me trying the drag the plane through the brush back to the runway. Coincidentally an FAA flight examiner was flying in an aircraft that landed behind me. To my chagrin I found that he was the same one who had signed off my new pilot's license a few months before. I wisely decided to do some much needed repairs. After removing the wings for transport, I tied the tail to the trailer hitch of a borrowed pickup truck and towed the craft to a garage with the wings resting on some old mattresses in the truck's bed. With the help of a few friendly volunteers, I gave it a thorough inspection and repaired it as needed. Then I proceeded to do a complete restoration to original condition, including a recover with new Dacron fabric and a fresh new paint scheme to make the craft look as it did when it came from the factory 35 years before (see pictures in the website's album). Because this process took exactly nine months to complete I jokingly referred to the newly restored plane as "my baby".

    The article reflected my youthful enthusiasm to get a nice plane “on the cheap” and do my own work getting it up to speed, much like another youth might hop up and old junker car. Other “experts” disagreed with my analysis but they where focusing on  the cost factor of newer airplanes and so they disagreed with my estimate of the cost of flying, but I demonstrated it WAS possible! One reason the resulting newspaper article might have included references to Lindberg was my propensity at humorous attempts to recreate the heroic flier's actions in homage to him. In one instance I spotted a lone fishing boat beneath me while flying over a large reservoir. Impulsively, I reduced the power to the engine and glided down to a low altitude and circled the boat. To the anglers undoubtedly astonished confusion, then I impishly opened my window, stuck my head out into the slipstream and yelled, "Which way is Ireland?" On other occasions I would gleefully tell the tongue in cheek tale of how, just as the "Lone Eagle" had done in 1927, I flew my single engine aircraft on a solo flight to Paris. To their astonished silence I would then, in mock sheepishness, admit that while it WAS truly an actual solo flight to Paris, it was to Paris, TEXAS, a real town a few hundred miles away! Well, maybe it's all in the telling, but it always seems to bring a laugh, or a least a rueful smile, from the listener.

    I always liked flying light aircraft, even over flying high performance jets, and I have recently bought another Taylorcraft to get back to the basics and fun of these small planes (not to mention the lower fuel consumption).  Interestingly, this new plane I just purchased is the exactly the same model and year as my first aircraft that I mentioned above. Maybe it will be my last one too. That sounds kinda cool, ya' know, a full circle?  LOL

    If you're interested in knowing more about him, here are some facts about the "real" Lindberg that add to the image of the real man that I would like to bring up. Notwithstanding his sensational and historic flight, he was an interesting person for other reasons. At the request of a personal friend, a Noble Prize winning surgeon and an early organ transplant pioneer, he invented and developed an ingenious and sophisticated organ perfusion device called the "Lindberg Pump", still used in medical research today. The notoriety from both his heroic flight and the later and tragic kidnap murder of his infant son made the press a constant and unwanted intrusion in his life resulting in an aversion to publicity and a hatred of journalists, resulting in his temporary abandonment of the US to live in England where a more decorous attitude was taken to his need of privacy. On the negative side, he displayed anti-Semitic tendencies which where shared by many people at the time, including the industrialist Henry Ford of automotive fame and may influential people. After his visits to Germany at the request of the US Army to evaluate the budding Luftwaffe, he became a vocal supporter of prewar Nazi Germany. He was eventually awarded the Third Reich’s highest civilian medal, which became a horrible embarrassment after hostilities begin with their invasion of Poland. With the influence of his Quaker mother and by intellectual disposition he was a pacifist and together with his newly developed sympathies he was strongly against our involvement in a war against Germany. To this end he encouraged the public not to become involved in European affairs and fostered isolationism with radio broadcasts and in a speaking tour around the country, making him enemies in the pro-war Roosevelt administration. After Pearl Harbor his patriotism led him to reconsider his opinions and he tried unsuccessfully to reactivate his Army Air Force commission. But the administration in Washington and the Army who once sought his help vengefully blocked his return to service. He found a way to serve his country by becoming an aviation consultant for Grumman, a producer of fighter aircraft for the Navy. Eventually he was sent the war in the Pacific to evaluate aircraft in a combat theater and to lecture young fighter pilots on long distance flying techniques. Though he was not allowed to wear any insignia and was not even given a uniform (he had to buy his own at Abercrombie and Fitch) he actually flew missions in a combat zone.  Against orders he was allowed by fellow pilots to accompany them into enemy skies and he shot down enemy aircraft, almost loosing his own life in the process. His notoriety and nonmilitary status would have surely had him executed by the Japanese had he fell into their hands. In his later years he became and activist in the cause of wild animal conservation and traveled the world to promote measures to help endangers species. He died of cancer in his secluded home in Maui in 1972 in a remote area and a monument to him can be seen there if you are willing to take an arduous four wheel drive journey.