I
think I was born with an interest in aviation.
I was born in 1933, and can remember as far back as Dec. 7, 1941, when
the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. My folks were both school
teachers and we lived in Blue Hill NE at the time and were on
the way to Hastings NE to go to a movie. Our old 39 Chevy
actually had a radio, and we heard about the bombing as we
neared the theater. My folks were so upset they decided that
the movie should be cancelled, (much to my 8 year old
chagrin), and we did a U-turn and headed back home. From that
minute on, listening and looking at the newspapers and other
media that had pictures and or information about airplanes
that were fighting in the war, was my biggest and best
past-time.
I would imagine that I began building model
airplanes when I was about 10 and started with the Guillows
and other like companies, being stick and tissue models and
the ever present model airplane glue, (when coupled with model
airplane dope, if used in small areas), would give you a
combination headache and happy intoxication not unlike ditch
weed. My model room was a converted coal bin, so it was very
small. After the interest of stick models ran dry, I graduated
to powered Free Flight using ½ A .049 Cub engines as power.
Living in the NE sand hills, well known for intense updrafts in
the summer months, I can remember seeing at least two of them
climb out of sight and to be never seen again, even with the
de-thermalizers intact. After eventually getting tired of
chasing after Free Flights, I began building control line
airplanes, with the usual O. and R. .23 and .29 engines,
(which would inevitably die every time you attempted a loop) ,
and finally a new company called "Fox" introduced a couple of
engines, the .29 and the .35 which would run in any position
you could put the plane in, and were super dependable. With
the new "Fox" engines on my planes, I now built flapped stunt
models, (mostly Veco "Squaw’s" or "Chief’s) and started going
to contests and competing. Unfortunately, I was about a Senior
in High School by now and my interest started waning in favor
of "girls".
After graduating from HS and a stint in College,
I married and began a family. Modeling went by-by for about 7
or 8 years or more, till I moved to Council Bluffs from the
farming business in NE, where I met Bud Kilnoski and began
regular visits to the "Pee-Wee" Hobby shop in Council Bluffs.
I again grew interested in modeling and again got back into
Control line modeling and some competitive flying in and
around the CB area. Bud, myself and a bunch of modelers formed
the new control line club, called the "Balsa Busters". I
purchased my first R/C plane from Bud and my first radio from
Tom Mossman in Bellevue. The plane was a single channel
"Falcon 56" with rudder-only for control and a Bonner actuator
for engine control, (full fast or full idle). On or about the
second or third flight, I demolished it, and being
disheartened, quit the hobby for another 5 or 6 years, (I
couldn’t afford it anyway, so the crash was probably for the
best at the time). We moved from CB to Omaha in 1965 and I
again began haunting hobby shop’s, basically "Ollie's" in
Benson and I again got interested in modeling. This time I was
fascinated by the "Proportional" radios with which you could
actually make the plane work just like a real one with all the
control surfaces operating. My first radio was an EK, (made in
Mexico, but really did work well). The well heeled ,R/Cer’s
generally bought Kraft or Orbit radios, but I was content to
fly my little red E.K. and it did it’s job well. |
We first flew at a field out by the Sunset Speedway, but
eventually lost that one, then I can remember at least three
other fields that we had and lost and by that time, I had
decided that I wanted to get into real aviation and the
modeling was dropped.
In a l971 or 72, I started taking flying lessons
from an ad I saw in the World Herald, it read, "Learn to fly
for 500 bucks," . It was actually true. I soloed in 5 hours
and had my license for 500 bucks. I learned how to fly in a
Cessna 150 at Eppley from a private owner/Instructor and after
receiving my Private Pilots licensee, and renting for awhile,
decided that I would like to become a partner in a plane.
Two of my R/C flying pals, Larry Quigley and Dick
Ross, also had the urge to learn to fly, and we went to
Oshkosh together in the early "70’s" and saw an ad on one of
the bulletin boards for an 46 Ercoupe.
The bird looked good, and we drove about 50 miles
away from Oshkosh in Wisc. to see it. It was in good shape and
we decided to buy it. It would cost us $1000 bucks apiece, and
since I was the only one that had a pilots license, it was
agreed that I would return to Wisc. and fly it home. The trip
back to NE is another story much too long to get into here,
but we based it at Flightland and Larry and Dick learned how
to fly in it. It was really a fun bird, and we all enjoyed the
heck out of it.
About that time, I was getting the urge to build
something of my own, and after another trip to Oshkosh,
decided on a "Varieze", (the first one, not the "Long Eze"). I
drove to the factory near St. Louis and hauled the pieces home
and began the project. That was in 1976 and in Dec. of 1979,
the test flight took place at the old military airport near
Scribner NE. The flight was not uneventful, however I walked
away from it proceeded to fly off my hours till I could fly
anywhere. I was hangered at Millard and made many trips in it,
but it was very economically equipped, radio-wise, and I was
only VFR licensed. I flew it till 1982 and decided to sell it.
I sold the "Eze" and purchased a Piper Colt, which I flew for
a couple of years, and then sold it also.
I decided to build another Experimental, and
built a "Beta-Bird", a high wing, VW powered pusher
tail dragger, where you basically sat out in the open, in front
of the pusher engine. I worked a little over two years
building this one. It was supposed to be very easy to fly, but
I just could never get the hang of it. I really hated
tail dragger flying and I must have been nuts to build one. I
envisioned taking off at about 30 or 40 MPH and this bird took
closer to 60-65 to get it airborne and it flew like a tank. A
terrible flying airplane and I was lucky to survive the two
flights I took in it before damaging it in a bad landing the
second flight. That was the end of my flying full size birds
as I purchased a new home and was too busy to do any hobbies
for a couple of years.
When I quit flying full-size aircraft, I was
checked out in the "Experimental Varieze", "Experimental Beta
Bird", "Cessna 150 and 172", Piper "Colt", and the "Grumman
Yankee".
I moved into my new home back to IA and
eventually got back into modeling R/C where I still am. Even
though my interest has waned, I still have a hanger full of
R/C models, (which I must downsize) and have been currently
having fun with the new, small, clean and handy, electric
models. I still see my flying pals of old, but many of them
are out of the hobby or no longer able to model.
Aviation has been a very big part of my life, and
I have always wished that I had gotten into it as a career,
but that is water under the bridge. So, in ending this saga,
the old WW2 phrase "Keep Them Flying" comes to mind. See you
at the "Field".
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