Feb. 05, 2002 - 20:34 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

AIRBORNE

The romance of flying held me spellbound. I remember years ago there was a radio program called I think Jimmy Allen, it was put on by the Skelly Oil Company. I sent away for their Pilot on a board (whatever they called it) I flew in my imagination as I listened to the program and fiddled with the board.

Later when I was sixteen or seventeen years old Lowry Field became a reality and we lived so close that when the military aircraft began to use the field it seemed almost as if I could touch the birds as they flew by. All the engines were recip jobs, noisy as heck. I saw fairly close up the aircraft that would be flying in Europe in World War Two.

There was a long stretch that the only aircraft I saw was on TV. Then for a short while we lived near the end of the runway of what is now Tampa International Airport. I saw takeoffs and landings while we lived there. That was aircraft of the fifties and most of them were recips with the noisy engines.

I was thirty seven or eight when I had a chance to have a flight around the Tampa area through the auspices of the Scouting Council. The day I was supposed to go on the flight I was called in to work.

In 1960 we moved back to Denver and several months later in 1961 I went to work for a government contractor who built escape systems for military aircraft. The company had a remote site with a test track out further west and a small airfield. Heavy stuff was brought in and out by tractor-semitrailers, but the brass flew back and forth from Denver.

It must have been about 1963 I was sent to California to monitor vibration testing on units that were too big for our shaker. The company pilot flew me from Denver to LA where I was met by a company man and from the heliport taken to where I would live and work for the next few months. Going out I saw desert country from close to the ground. Wow, finally after all my dreams I was in a flying aircraft and the chopper ride from LA was a bonus too. My first look at the country from the air, how grand it was.

Several times while I was there I had to fly commercial back and forth from there to Denver and I got to see our Western country from thirty thousand feet. After that first flight at thirty thousand feet it became totally boring. I did get a look at the meteor crater near Winslow, Airizona once. And I was able to see while passing the green mountains the the quick change into barren, desolate, desert country, it was the most distinct topographical map with true colors that I would ever see.

The majesty of our Colorado mountains wearing that brilliant, white mantle of snow in the wintertime awed me. Miles and miles of mountains, with an occasional town tucked into a valley.

I enthusiastically entered the Jet Age while still riding around part of the time in recip gasoline aircraft too. Once as we flew in the company aircraft headed for Utah we flew the valley near Rifle, Colorado and saw a string of balloons drifting on the wind. Our company pilot brought us close enough for us to wave at the passengers, but not close enough to buffet the balloons. Such vivid colors and how peaceful the ride seemed to be.

I think I told once about flying along in the company craft and looking at this rolling brush covered countryside when the pilot yelled out, "Look down." I knew pretty well where we were but didn't know we would pass over Zion National Park until I saw that the rolling countryside I was seeing was riddled with the canyons of Zion. Coming east to Denver once in a T6 aircraft (a World War Two trainer) we flew alongside the highway of Loveland Pass and waved up to cars on the road.

I flew into LA fairly frequently for one reason or another but of all the times I came in there was one beautifully clear night when I saw that amazing carpet of lights as far as I could see. A lot of the times we would circle for a time and then land at Ontario airport and get bussed into LA, but I was granted the sight of wall to wall lights just once.

I was tapped to go overseas to Southeast Asia by the company, once to Japan and the Philippines another time to Viet Nam and the third time to Thailand. Once on a flight from near Yokohoma to Subic Bay in the Philippines I would look out at the mountains and puzzled over what looked different to me. The oddity was that fact there was no snow on the mountains -- trees to the top, then I realized that we were pretty far south for snow. Once I rode on an aircraft I think was a C47 - so old that the tail surfaces were canvas, from near Saigon to Pleiku and thence to Danang. I was at Yankee Station aboard two of the carriers, transferred from one to the other by chopper. When it came time to return to Subic via COD aircraft I remembered the previous warning I had received from a parachute rigger at our factory who told me to make my safety harness as tight as I could get it and a bit more. We faced aft, the aircraft was catapulted just like the fighter aircraft. There was a point that the tension on my restraints was so great that my bottom was way off the seat and just about the time I felt that I couldn't stand any more of that the strain eased off as the craft leveled off.

While overseas I rode in the Chinook choppers, the Hueys and even had a ride in a two seated A1HJ aircraft. The pilot snuck me aboard when he was making a test flight on a repaired aircraft. The Skyraider was made for World War Two but made it too late for that. It did fantastic duty in Viet Nam carrying the biggest load of ordnance and was able to stay aloft much longer than the jets, the craft was used at times to rescue downed pilots as well as being used for other purposes too. So, after we landed from the test flight I happily took the chewing out the colonel gave the both of us and promised never to do it again. The pilot's duty hours were over so we hit the little bar in our compound and beered up.

I still would rather fly in a small aircraft close to the ground than in one of the commercial liners. For a guy who started riding the birds fairly late in life and who still flies Air Wisconsin to Eugene, Oregon two or three times a year as the plane clears the runway and the landing gear thumps up I exult that once again I am Airborne. . . . . . . . . .

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