It is a lovely, peaceful spot set on a knoll, but most of the remains—people who went down the Ohio River and settled on the flat ground below in the late 1700s—were reinterred up here above the floodplain. That large, flat area, called the Turkey Bottoms, would become “Sunken Lunken” Airport in the early 1920s.

I’ve heard comments about how many approach and takeoff paths take you right over graveyards, but I never realized how many cemeteries are located on airport properties.

• READ MORE: Perusing Some Old Logbooks

Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. The ground between or alongside runways and taxiways is flat and well cared for, and what could be a more appropriate resting place for pilots and aviation aficionados? The thought of resting in a place with airplanes soaring into the sky nearby…hey, that makes sense to me.

But since Lunken (KLUK) hasn’t yet seen things my way, I have a plot in a little and very old cemetery at the base of the Mount Washington neighborhood water tower, sitting on a hill about 4 miles from the airfield.

The airport beacon is mounted on top of the tower, and many a night I’ve navigated home fi nding my way toward that bright light.

Out of curiosity, I “uncovered” information about the incredible number of airports—large and small—where an old cemetery is found on the property. And it’s fascinating how the problem is solved.

A Chicago field, originally called Orchard Airport and the site of the Douglas Aircraft Company, was renamed O’Hare (KORD) in 1949, and in 1952, graves in Wilmer’s Old Settler Cemetery—0.384 acres on O’Hare Airport property—were removed by court order because they were in the path of a proposed new runway. Reportedly, 37 whites and an unknown number of Native Americans interned there were reburied in three nearby cemeteries.

Just how long a grave can be “reserved” for sole use by the original inhabitant seems to depend on state and local practices. It’s common for cemeteries to rent plots, allowing people to lease a space for up to 100 years before the grave is allowed to be recycled and reused.

In Ohio, it’s 75 years, but I could find no universal law here. It seems that much depends on the preference of surviving—if any—family members. Sometimes a court order is required.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (KATL) consistently wins the title of the world’s busiest airport and it continues to grow, engulfing more and more small communities. When a fifth runway was added in 2006, it vastly increased the number of possible operations, but it also enveloped two century-old cemeteries.

• READ MORE: Sometimes the Flying Weather’s Fit Only for Turkeys

Authorities decided that these two small family and church burial grounds, Hart and Flat Rock cemeteries, would simply be incorporated into the airport’s master plan. Despite being located between runways with takeoffs about every 30 seconds, they are still publicly accessible via a dedicated access road with signs showing the locations.

Probably the most famous—and curious—on-airport remains can be found at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV).

Members of the Dodson family, Daniel Hueston and John Dotson, are buried alongside Runway 10, while Richard and Catherine Dodson’s graves are actually embedded beneath that runway. If you look really hard out of an airplane window, you can see the markers.

On quiet Saturday mornings, local pilots have been known to ask ground controllers for the “Graveyard Tour.” If cleared, this allows one to taxi out to the Dotson grave markers on Runway 10/28 so passengers can snap a picture before taking off.

Everything is haunted in Savannah and ghost tours are big business, but thus far, no one has figured out how to monetize the graveyard tour at the airport. Perhaps the two flight schools on the field could start incorporating a ghost tour into their sightseeing flights.

When Smith Reynolds Airport (KINT) in Winston- Salem, North Carolina, acquired property in 1944 to extend a runway, about 700 graves in the private African American Evergreen Cemetery were relocated to a new location. But it seems some marked graves remain in a wooded area within the airport complex.

• READ MORE: The Man Who Saved the Iconic Hartzell Propeller Company

If you watch carefully while driving on Springhill Road south of Tallahassee International Airport (KTLH) in Florida, you’ll see a break in the security fence. Pull in there and drive between the fences with signs proclaiming it is a restricted area, and you’ll come upon gravestones of a cemetery around which the airport runways were built. It’s known as Airport Cemetery and was originally a pauper’s graveyard. About 15 graves are designated with stones, but it appears there are about 20 other sunken depressions marking graves.

I’m betting you know many others, but I found one at Burlington International Airport (KBTV) in Vermont, where the graveyard is surrounded on three sides by the facility. And there’s Florida’s Flagler Executive Airport (KFIN), North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International

Airport (KRDU), New York’s Albany International Airport (KALB), and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (KSHD), where Revolutionary War veteran Mathias Kersh and his wife, Anna Margaret, rest—all sites of small family plots. The behemoth Amazon recently added 210 acres as part of its air cargo hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (KCVG) and is seeking permission to move 20 graves from the land it owns there.

No discussion of final resting places and cemeteries would be complete without a mention of a glorious shrine to aviation built a quarter mile off the end of Runway 15 at California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport (KBUR), formerly known as Bob Hope Airport. It’s called the “Portal of the Folded Wings.” The 78-foot-tall structure was designed by a San Francisco architect and built in 1924, intending it to be the entrance to a cemetery called Valhalla Memorial Park.

With its location so close to Burbank Airport—then called Union Airport—and the site of the Lockheed Company, aviation enthusiast James Gillette wanted to dedicate it as a shrine or memorial to early aviators. It took Gillette nearly 20 years, but it was finally dedicated as the final resting place of pilots, mechanics, and aviation pioneers in 1953. In addition to the ashes of those actually interred inside the portal, a number of brass plaques honor famous aviators resting elsewhere, such as General Billy Mitchell and Amelia Earhart.

Familiar aviation pioneers whose ashes are found inside include Bert Acosta (Admiral Richard Byrd’s copilot); Jimmie Angel, whose remains were removed and scattered over Angel Falls in Venezuela, where he crashed flying a Cincinnati-built Flamingo; W.B. Kinner, builder of the first certified aircraft engine as well as Earhart’s first airplane; and Charlie Taylor, who built the engine for the Wright Flyer and operated the first airport on Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio. You can visit the site in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.

But I can’t write a story about aviators who legally rest on airport properties without mentioning who knows how many ashes that have been surreptitiously scattered from airplanes flying over the deceased’s beloved home airport.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: The Connection Between Airports and God’s Acres appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I was a kid hanging out in the old Lunken Airport control tower the first time I saw one…and it was pretty spectacular. It was the mid-’60s, and a derelict B-25 was heading for the airport with a cabin full of reptiles. Really! Some “wild kingdom” exhibition opening downtown was evidently in financial distress and badly needed to attract a good, paying audience.

The pilot called far enough out and told the tower about his cargo. Problem was he’d had to shut one engine down and needed priority to land. By now the press got wind. As he neared the airport, he radioed that he couldn’t get the gear down and elected to land in the grass. The copilot (I’m not making this up) bailed out just north of the airport, and the B-25 skidded to a halt in the grass. It was wintertime and firemen had to unload and incapacitate a bunch of snakes and alligators. The papers had a heyday. I don’t remember if the show made any money.

That was my first but certainly not last experience with gear-up landings and what put it on my front burner is the latest. A friend with a beautiful A36 loans it to a couple guys—one is a pilot for a large corporation who’s probably among the best airplane drivers I know and a pretty good mechanic to boot. I don’t know the other guy, but he recently put the beautiful Beech in on its belly at Lunken. There were claims that “the electrical system was behaving strangely” and, fearing a fire, he landed with no gear, damaging the prop, engine, flaps, and belly skin.

• READ MORE: How Well Do You Know Aircraft Landing Gear?

You can almost bet that any pilot involved in a gear-up landing does two things: They put the gear switch or handle in the “down” position before any rescue arrives and usually have an explanation about why it failed to be down and locked. Almost never did they just plain forget.

If there’s any doubt, you do a tower or airport flyby. Even if it appears to be down, you leave the area and use the emergency gear extension procedure(s) in the pilot’s operating handbook. That’s what happened in a Bonanza with no gear lights I was flying a few years ago. I flew by, went out and cranked it down, and then asked for the equipment on the runway (Why not?). I landed without using any brakes and let it roll out.

The other time was at night with an alternator failure in a retractable gear Cessna Cardinal, totally out of “juice.” I pumped the gear down and could see it, but there were no lights, so I circled the field, hoping for a green light from the tower, but there was nothing. Finally, after watching a corporate guy clear the runway, I landed and, again, stayed off the brakes, letting it roll onto a large, adjacent ramp. When I called the tower on the phone they said, “You did what?” And I responded, “If you guys can’t see any better than that, I’m going to fly my Cub at night.”

These days, there are several aids to total electrical system failures. A handheld transceiver works or, lacking that, keep the telephone numbers of the FBOs, control towers, and approach control you commonly use. I did that a few years ago coming back from Oshkosh, when the generator failed. The landing gear in my Cessna 180 is welded down, so that wasn’t an issue, but at least I could call the tower on my cellphone.

As you might imagine, I’m not always that heroic. As an FAA inspector who did lots of Twin Beech check rides, I rented one of our Part 135 operators’ Beech 18s for proficiency flying with quite possibly the world’s coolest and best Twin Beech driver, Kevin Uppstrom, in the right seat. As we lifted off Runway 18 at Connersville, Indiana (KCEV), Uppstrom simulated a left engine failure by retarding a throttle. I chanted and did the “max power, flaps approach, positive rate, gear up, identify, verify and (simulate) feather.” It was beautiful and, smugly, as we rounded the pattern onto final for a landing, I said, “C’mon, Kev. Admit it. Nobody could handle it better.” He said, “Yeah, so far a great job. Do you plan to put the gear down before we land?”

I guess my funniest gear story involves a rather important CEO of a Cincinnati machine tool company who had a penchant for unique airplanes. He’d owned a single-place Mooney Mite with manually retractable landing gear. But he’d forgotten to use the awkward Johnson bar to extend it before landing. That was before I knew him. By now he was on the cusp of a divorce and rather taken with me (I was nearly seduced by his recently acquired Grumman Widgeon). I was at the hangar after the Mite had been extracted (gear up) from the runway and deposited in his large multi-airplane hangar.

Way before my FAA days, I still knew inspector John O’Rourke, who was walking around the broken bird, pipe in his mouth and clipboard in hand. Mr. CEO was explaining he had no idea why the gear hadn’t extended—he’d certainly put it down before landing. Then the back door of the hangar opened, and the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. CEO came in, surveyed the scene and, in her distinctive upper class, Down East Maine accent said, “Well, I see you’ve done it again.”

I’m not making light of landing an airplane with the gear not securely down and locked. It’s a dreadful experience, but pilots and passengers are rarely hurt. Hopefully, you have hull insurance and knowledgeable people extracting the airplane from the runway without further damage. There’s usually a long wait for overhauled or new engines, props, and repair to other airplane damage. The main problem is ego…and that’s a biggie.

I’ve always loved the memory of a big guy named Ed Creelman, an excellent pilot who flew a Beech 18 for a local paper company. I was nearby as he sat in the Sky Galley restaurant when somebody asked, “Hey, Ed. What happened to your airplane?” Without hesitation, in his signature gruff voice, he answered: “I forgot to put the f—ing gear down.”

He was (and is) my hero.

This column first appeared in the September 2023/Issue 941 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Gear-Up Landings: There Are Pilots Who Have and Those Who May Have To appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The infinitely patient CFI working with me for an instrument rating (yes, it’s still on hold—weather, new avionics installations, annuals, crashes, and trying to learn to use the marvelous gadgetry) is affiliated with probably the best club in this area. After nearly 50 years at Cincinnati’s Blue Ash Airport (formerly KISZ), the “Flying Neutrons” came to roost at Lebanon-Warren County Airport (I68) because Blue Ash was morphed into a suburban park. The club’s curious name originated with the founders—engineers from the nearby GE Aerospace aircraft engine division. The club lost some members who found the new location inconvenient, but it’s back up with 145 members (32 on a waiting list) and six airplanes.

When it relocated in 2012, other large clubs in the Cincinnati-Dayton area had folded their wings, so the Neutrons picked up members—and some from the Wright-Patterson Aero Club, which had operated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base since 1954. It boasted more than 325 members, 10 airplanes, its own hangars, maintenance facilities, and offices. This splendid organization certificated many members who went on to train as Air Force pilots. Membership was open to those serving in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, former military, retirees, and the huge civilian population of workers at the base. Prices were reasonable, instruction was excellent, safety standards were high (think CAP on steroids), and the camaraderie was wonderful.

All was well until 2012, when the 53-year-old club was shut down by a new base commander. This person was concerned because the club wasn’t self-sustaining, losing something like $12,000 annually in a few prior years.

Think about the loss of $12,000 in an organization where that sum is commonly written off in the “shrinkage” of paper clips. And closure was especially inappropriate (read: stupid), considering the benefits to the Air Force that it represented. In my FAA days, I’d often visit the club to give practical tests and conduct safety seminars at its monthly meetings. Curiously, I had permission to land at Patterson Field, which boasts a runway 12,300 feet long and 300 feet wide. What fun to fly 2 miles down that runway in a Cub or an Ercoupe when the wind was out of the north. Or land south and make the first turnoff right onto the club ramp. What didn’t make much sense was I couldn’t drive onto the base but had to sign in at the visitors center and wait for an escort.

Note: Wright-Patterson is actually two adjacent but separate airports near Dayton, Ohio. Wright Field is home to the Air Force Institute of Technology and has long been a center of military and general aviation development—from engine improvements to air skin material enhancements and, originally, the shift from biplane to monoplane wings. It also is the site of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, which you have to visit (see FLYING’s “Destinations” piece in the June 2023 print edition) Sadly, its runways aren’t used anymore…what fun it would be to land there and visit the museum.

Wright-Patterson was named after Orville and Wilbur Wright and Lieutenant Frank Stuart Patterson, who was killed in an airplane accident testing the new synchronized through-the-propeller machine gun during World War I. The advent of World War II expanded the base’s population from less than 4,000 to well more than 50,000. The club’s hangars were at the north end of Wright-Patterson’s long runway (23R-05L), and a 23R takeoff brings you right over a hallowed and historic site—the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where the Wright brothers first flew when they returned to Dayton from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in late 1903. In 1917, figuring airplanes were here to stay, the Army purchased the adjacent Wright and McCook Fields and created the huge and vital Wright-Patterson AFB on the southeast side of Dayton. Wright-Patt club airplanes accounted for about 70 percent of the takeoffs and landings, typically flying about 450 hours per month.

• READ MORE: Lunken Airport’s Grand Old Lady

But this story wasn’t meant to be a dissertation on flying clubs. I wanted to tell you about a wonderful but unprepossessing, even shy person and real gentleman I came to know at the Wright-Patt club. Retired Lieutenant Colonel William J. “Dixie” Sloan was an instructor and could often be found flying or trading stories with other “old hands” around the club. Sloan invited me for a ride in the Wright Flyer replica and, even though it had a VW engine and three-point safety belts, it somehow made you feel like you were in the original model. Curiously, insurance demanded that after we flew down the length of that long runway, we land and turn it around on the ground for the return trip. And when I took an SNJ (really an AT-6) to the base for a T-6 fly-in, Bill and I walked the ramp as I marveled at the 40 or 50 privately owned AT-6s. I heard him say, very quietly, “I remember when this ramp was full of these airplanes.”

Only after he died in 1999 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia did I find out Sloan was a genuine hero. Earning his wings in 1942 at Kelly Field in San Antonio, he was soon flying P-38 combat missions. In the first nine months of 1943, he was credited with the destruction of 12 enemy aircraft in North Africa and later flew 50 missions in C-54 transports during the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49.

His Distinguished Flying Cross citation reads (I’m paraphrasing): The president awards the Air Force Cross to Lieutenant Colonel (then First Lieutenant) Sloan for extraordinary heroism against an enemy, leading a flight of P-38 aircraft escorting 36 B-25 bombers. Attacked by 10 fighters, he shot down two and drove the rest away. His extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness reflects the highest credit upon himself and the United States Armed Forces.

As with Joe Kittinger, I realized that I had again been in the company of a true hero.

This article first appeared in the July 2023/Issue 933 print edition of FLYING.

The post Recalling Wright-Patterson Aero Club’s Unfair Demise appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I don’t mind because I like remembering so many interesting hours (and days) in that terminal build- ing doing Part 135 flight checks and type rating rides in Rhoades Aviation Douglas DC-3 freighters. What a bunch of characters—not to mention, what a collection of hard-used DC-3s. This gig began (for me) in the 1980s when I was an inspector in the Indianapolis FSDO, and a guardian angel nudged somebody in the FAA to send me to DC-3 flight training with Hector Villamar at Opa-Locka Airport (KOPF) in Miami. But you’ve read my stories about that. As a memento, I have a nearly destroyed piston head from a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 and a box of rose petals from a bouquet those beloved ruffians sent me one Valentine’s Day.

It’s no secret that I’ve written some less-than-flattering things about the FAA (and continue to question the “sanity” of possibly appointing an administrator who knows nothing about aviation). But there are good memories of the Indianapolis FSDO where I worked with some really fine people for five years. And, yeah, there are a few less-than-fond memories about some dreadful accidents and a few scalawags I inherited as an inspector.

Del Shanks, a long-time mechanic with Ohio Aviation in Dayton, had been hired by the FAA and was now the maintenance supervisor in our office. And Del really knew his business.

It was a miserable cold winter day, and I was sched- uled to give a 135 six-month’s check in a Beech 18 to a pilot from Sky Castle Aviation. But one of the Marlatts who owned the operation called and said the pilot was returning to Sky Castle because he couldn’t get the gear down in the Beech. Del heard the conversation and, being an old Beech guy, said to relay a message to the pilot: “Tell him to lift off the red cover between the pilots’ seats and smack the clutch pedal with something substantial (like a shoe). That can release the gear motor from all the mechanical paraphernalia and allow it to free-fall into position. Then tell him to hand crank the gear/flap handle to assure it’s fully extended.”

I think it was John Marlatt who relayed the message, and…it worked! What actually happened was a piece of felt “cushioning” glued on the cover had worked loose and jammed itself around and under the clutch pedal. With some difficulty and monkey motions, the pilot was able to remove it and get the gear down.

I guess my point is that these days, damn few FAA inspectors—if you could even reach one—would stick their neck out to help a pilot with a mechanical problem in flight. But the Indy office was full of good people still in love with airplanes—and airplane people.

My assigned operators—Air Marion, Anderson Aviation, Brown’s Flying Service, Muncie Aviation, Sky Castle, Van S, Washington Aero, Indiana Airmotive, and Morgan Aviation—were also good people (despite the guy who brought out his skunk whenever I walked in the office or the operator who’d greet me with a large pistol prominently displayed on his desk). The skunk had been denatured, and the armament was purely for show. Oh, there were a few relatively minor offenders like the kid, a student who flew below the top floors of the municipal building in Connersville, pissed off and buzzing his girlfriend in a truck with her new husband. Or not-unusual situations where operators would charge passengers for flights in airplanes not on their Air Taxi (Part 135) certificates—commonly known as “Part 134 1⁄2-inch” operations.

By far the sleaziest—someone everybody relished investigating—was a guy with a Part 135 certificate using a Navajo largely in air ambulance operations. Either an inspector checked on the planned flight or, more likely, another operator (familiar with this guy’s questionable practices) alerted our office. He was flying to Houston to bring a very sick, elderly cancer patient back home to Muncie, Indiana’s Ball Hospital. Besides the woman on a stretcher, medical equipment, a nurse, at least three family members, and baggage, a legal fuel load would put the airplane well over gross on the return flight. So our office alerted the Houston FSDO, and an inspector met the flight on landing. When he questioned him, the pilot told the inspector his trip had been canceled. In reality, he called his passengers and told them to have the ambulance bring everybody to an outlying airport where they departed…well over gross.

The pilot was suspicious and worried about the FAA. So he landed somewhere en route and arranged to have an ambulance meet them at New Castle, Indiana Airport. They would deplane there and be driven nearly 30 miles on a state road to Ball Hospital in Muncie.

We received a complaint from the family, and I was sent out in a G-car to interview the pilot (who, of course, I couldn’t find), the nurse, and family (two women and a close friend). The elderly and terminally ill patient had died somewhere in this odyssey.

The family and friend were outraged. They had no idea why they had to change plans and meet the airplane at a smaller airport in Houston. And the friend, who was rid- ing in the right seat, described a frightening near mid- air collision at the nontowered Sky Castle Airport (home of my old friends, the Marlatts). I tried to reconstruct a weight and balance from passenger weights and baggage estimates, but that was iffy at best.

The nurse I located “taking care” of an elderly man confined to a wheelchair and living alone in an apartment. It was dreadful, and she—who seemed to work with this operator—was surly and uncooperative.

I don’t remember the outcome, except the operator did get a violation for operations during an airshow at Mt. Comfort Airport.

In my travels, I did stumble onto another memory: a house between Mooreland and Millville, Indiana, with a sign indicating it as the birthplace of Wilbur Wright before the bishop and his family moved to Dayton, Ohio. Turns out the bishop didn’t move his family to Dayton until after the legendary inventor’s birth.

This column first appeared in the June 2023/Issue 944 print edition of FLYING.

The post Finding Wilbur Wright on the Wabash appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“Piece of cake,” I thought. I’d been rated since the late ’60s and logged plenty of time “cloud flying.” But, like some of you, I wasn’t brought up on the new generation of avionics and sophisticated nav equipment. And my 180 has no autopilot or even so much as a heading bug on the directional gyro. Its avionics consist of an elderly BendixKing KX-155 and a Garmin 430. Yeah, I use ForeFlight but it can be a struggle. There were times I was tempted to placard the 430 “inop,” leave the iPad at home, and stick to ILS, localizer, and VOR approaches.

I lost my examiner designation several years ago for propping a Piper J-3 unattended when the tiedown broke—and then got totally busted for flying under a bridge in 2021. So, with all the delays this year, I wondered if somebody was trying to tell me something. I’ve always wanted to learn to weld, play pool, and ride a motorcycle…but, no. I won’t stop flying while I can still crawl into the cockpit.

I did, however, expect life to get easier after retirement. 

Maybe we all tend to look back on even difficult times through rose-colored glasses, but recently, I unearthed a file of “disciplinary actions” taken by the FAA during my 28 years as an aviation safety inspector. I can giggle at the absurdity of most of it now but, at the time, it took a toll and I even considered a medical retirement from the stress. But, I prayed furiously, hung in there,and while I still think of myself as a nice, mostly law abiding Catholic girl, evidently I’m one tough broad (sorry, ladies).

My “rap sheet” began with a written admonition as a brand-new inspector at the DuPage (KDPA) FSDO in 1981, for “not updating activities on your supervisor’s planning chart…although your work is quite satisfactory and completed positively and efficiently.”

The next year, I got a three-day suspension for “reading FLYING Magazine while on phone duty at the front desk…not a job-related activity.” Well, hell, at least it wasn’t Cosmopolitan.

I was trying hard to get a transfer from that toxic West Chicago office—truthfully, to be nearer to my aged and infirm parents in Cincinnati. So I finally wrote to my congressman (not something that makes you popular in the FAA). The flight standards director answered the dreaded “congressional” he received by saying, “Mrs. Lunken is something of a discipline problem.”

They did, however, transfer me to Indianapolis, where the office and the people were flat-out wonderful. They sent me to Opa-Locka Airport (KOPF) for a Douglas DC-3 type rating since they had a large freight operator at Columbus, Indiana, and I was already rated in a Lockheed 18 (Lodestar). Life was good.

After three years, I bid for a slot as safety program manager in Cincinnati, and my supervisor, a wonderful guy named Jay Peterson, asked if I really wanted to do that. “We love you and the manager over there can be, uh…” Well, I did it anyway, knowing the manager was a little odd, but sure that I could handle it gracefully.

Wrong…very wrong.

The job was great—planning and putting on safety seminars plus lots of flying, since nobody else seemed thrilled about the Part 135, medical, and re-exam flight checks…plus loaning me out for DC-3 work all over the country. The problem was that manager—the aviation equivalent of Captain Queeg, a questionable character in The Caine Mutiny, a novel by Herman Wouk. Doing a job well wasn’t nearly so important as paperwork, computer entries, and unbelievably complicated work schedules because of travel and evening meetings. The reprimands started coming fast and furious.

“You are officially reprimanded for occupying a pilot’s seat during the conduct of a DC-3 flight check.” (I still wouldn’t sit helpless on a jump seat while somebody else pulled engines on a Goon…period.)

“You submitted a travel voucher with the grievous error—an improper authorization number and funding code…”

“This is a reprimand for renting an aircraft with my verbal approval but without having a signed form 4040.”

“This is a warning for taking a government car home even though there was an arrest being made in our parking lot when you arrived here from Gallipolis at 11:30 p.m.”

“I am suspending you from your position as an Aviation Safety Inspector for two days for using the office fax machine to subscribe to the Tri-State Pilot News and discussing your sister’s Ercoupe on a government phone.” (I appealed, and the examiner found the disciplinary action unfair.)

“This letter of reprimand involves your effort to have more windsocks installed at Lunken Airport. You did not coordinate your action with me—an embarrassment to this office and a disregard of official policy.”

“…continuous problems correctly documenting your activities in a timely manner…PTRS, T&A, LDR, 4040 EBC, and vouchers. Your seminar activities may need to be curtailed to allow for submission of paperwork.”

And the funniest…“You submitted six letters for review prior to sending them to supporters of your ‘Wings Weekend’ event. While it was a great jester (sic) on your part, you have the wrong return address.” (It was a one-digit error—we’d recently moved from an adjacent building.)

“I am charging you with 15 minutes AWOL for making a touch-and-go landing when returning from a job activity.”

“I am charging you with 10 minutes AWOL for returning from your half-hour lunch break 13 minutes late.”

OK, some were justified, like taking a civilian speaker along in a government rental airplane to a safety seminar. And some “crimes” went undetected, like filling a government van full of cases of beer and wine I bought in Kentucky (illegal to bring across the Ohio River) for an event celebrating the flight instructor of the year with Neil Armstrong as speaker. I probably could have gone to state prison as well as Leavenworth for that one. Or carrying a helium tank strapped in my Cub to fill balloons for a Wings Weekend banquet. I have to admit, if I were a manager, I wouldn’t want me as an employee. But I was very good at my job and beloved by so many pilots and mechanics in our area. Retiring was a difficult decision but the old safety program was being replaced by something called FAAST. It was definitely time to go.

This column was originally published in the December 2022/January 2023 Issue 933 of FLYING.

The post My Life of Crime appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Why? Well, it’s old and has centerline drainage but, most importantly, it’s too close to a row of corporate hangars full of jets—used for both business and privately owned. I don’t know if FAA standards have changed or if they are just being enforced, but I do know that some of these “big operators” have expansion plans and there’s nowhere to go except into the runway’s safety area. The reality is, with 21R gone, accommodating traffic from three busy flight schools with a steady stream of “big iron” on a single runway is going to be a challenge…or, as one controller opined, “It sucks.”

You may have guessed by now that occasionally I don’t see things the same way as the FAA, but this edict seems exceptionally onerous. It reduces a heavily used airport, with three (at one time four) runways, to the single 6,500-foot, fully IFR-equipped 21L-03R. Oh, there is one other “old-timer”—Runway 25—still in use but restricted to aircraft under 12,500 pounds. It’s further limited because its final approach conflicts with the 21L final, and speculation is that it too is on the way out.

Everybody who flies in the Midwest knows that after a cold front steamrolls through the Ohio Valley, the normal south-southwest surface winds typically shift around to north-northwest and landing on 21L demands significant crosswind capabilities and pilot skills. And, with “Sunken Lunken” in a valley surrounded by hills, the turbulence approaching that runway can be awesome. (I confess that not too long ago, after waging an interesting battle with a turbulent crosswind in my Cessna 180, the tower asked, “Martha, are you OK?”) When these winds reach the edge of max crosswind capability for large turbine airplanes, they’re relegated to using Greater Cincinnati (KCVG) some 12 miles away across the Ohio River in Kentucky. This is generally not popular with corporate executives or passengers.

READ MORE: Unusual Attitudes

Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned or, as I get older, change is becoming more difficult to accept. And old memories die hard, like when you find out your old grade school has been demolished or your childhood neighborhood has become a slum, when you find yourself mourning the loss of an old lover…or even a runway (not to mention an airport).

I took my first hour of instruction and gave my first hour of dual on what was back then Runway 20 (because magnetic orientation changes over the years). And many, many times I would surprise a student by saying, “Hey. I’m tired of grinding around this traffic pattern with you. Let me out here, tell the tower you need to taxi back, and make three takeoffs and landings by yourself. And, REMEMBER, you’re going to be high on final!” Of course, this had been coordinated with the tower (and couldn’t happen like that these days), but I’d hop out and sit in the grass alongside the runway, making daisy chains or chewing on a piece of clover while my student made those first glorious three solo takeoffs and landings. Now, I was way across the airport from my flying school and, after his full stop landing, the tower took great delight in clearing the student back to the hangar. He was usually so excited he’d forget about me. So I’d climb the tower steps and use their phone to get somebody to come pick me up.

Runway 21R was the scene of my introduction to ground loops. A group of guys (one of them a CFI who knew how to fly taildraggers) bought an Aeronca 7AC and called themselves the Kamikaze Flying Club. Frank was a little sweet on me and anxious to show his prowess so we went flying in the little yellow airplane with the famous shark’s mouth painted on the nose. Taxiing back to the tiedown, things suddenly began to spin—I saw grass, the taxiway behind us, the tower, and some hangars. It was fun so I laughed and said, “Oh Frank, do it again!” He glowered at me and said, “Shut up! That was a ground loop.” No damage, except to this future airline pilot’s pride.

Another afternoon, when the winds were strong and steady, blowing right down the runway, Mike Smith and I were out in one of Cincinnati Aircraft’s Champs. (Mike’s father, Bud Smith, owned the operation so “rental” was no problem.) Out on final, he was able to slow the airplane to the edge of a stall…and it stopped! We were stationary over the golf course. After clearing us to land two or three times, the controller—who had little sense of humor—told us to LAND or go somewhere else.

The Procter and Gamble flight department had occupied with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s the old Aeronca hangar at the end of 20L since 1950. They’d even designed an ingenious “track” to turn their airplanes sideways on the ramp and winch them into the hangar. Well, the ’60s brought the Gulfstream I, and the only way they’d fit was to raise the hangar roof. P&G being P&G, thought raising the roof and obstructing the tower’s view of the approach end of the 20L was no problem. The city just displaced the threshold of 21R by a considerable 900 feet.

Then the city constructed a wide taxiway for the Gulfstreams crossing at that unusable end and put in a narrow blacktop one for the little guys taking off at the new threshold. It was less than adequate—too narrow to even turn into the wind for runup. That was the impetus for a midnight (after the tower closed) expedition out to the new “corporate” taxiway on our bicycles with cans of traffic paint, graph paper, and measuring tapes. In honor of the notoriously pompous flight department manager who exerted considerable “juice” with the city, we spent all night painting, in large letters: THE NELSON U. ROKES MEMORIAL TAXIWAY.

Nobody knew who did it but, kind of surprisingly, both the company pilots and Nelson loved it. For years, the tower commonly cleared airplanes to their hangar, “via the memorial!”

It was a different time, and I have to accept today’s 8-foot fences and security cameras as the norm—obsolete runways and all those tempting bridges have to go. But, oh, how I miss those days.

The post Thoughts on Closing a Runway appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It was a dark and stormy night; my electrical system had failed, and the battery was dead. Descending lower and lower in the murk, looking for familiar landmarks, I saw—dead ahead—the magnificent Jeremiah Morrow Bridge spanning the Little Miami River on Ohio’s Interstate 71. My only option was to fly beneath that high-and-wide span and make my way back home to Lunken Airport.

No—that’s a big, fat lie.

The unvarnished truth is: It was a pretty, early spring afternoon on March 2, 2020, and I was randomly boring holes into the sky, making takeoffs and landings at several small airports and planning to call Cincinnati Approach for a practice approach into Lunken. I did some bounces at a nontowered airport near Wilmington, but nobody was home, so I flew north a few miles to an old friend’s semi-abandoned private strip. He’s gone now after a tragic airplane accident, but I still land there sometimes and sit on the empty ramp, remembering and whispering a prayer for him. But that day, I was testing my mettle with a couple of landings on that narrow 32-foot-wide paved strip with a built-in crosswind. My “arrivals” were less than elegant, so after the last jarring touchdown, I gave up and pointed the Cessna 180 west toward Oxford, Ohio.

Now I was in “Martha’s Vineyard,” nicknamed by Johnny Lane when he hired me as a fledgling flight instructor 50-some years ago. I’d use this area south of Lebanon for my students’ practice area while John worked with his to the north. To this day, it still feels like my backyard. Still pretty low, I glanced over my left shoulder at the expansive, recently rebuilt Jeremiah Morrow Bridge. And, friends, even now I can neither explain nor justify my impulsive, unpremeditated and spontaneous decision to fly underneath it. I do remember saying out loud, “Lord, I just have to do this before I’m too old to fly anymore.”

Yeah, those were the exact words, but evidently, He didn’t think it was such a great idea. Neither did Ohio’s state highway department or the FAA.

There’s no excuse for this lapse of judgment, but I am very familiar with the area, having frequently hiked and biked the trail underneath this span over the scenic river. I knew there were no cables or obstructions, and I also knew an airplane flying underneath wouldn’t be visible to traffic on the bridge. As an airline-pilot friend once said to me, “Hell, you could fly a DC-3 under that thing.” So, I didn’t consider it reckless or dangerous; I would never intentionally put anyone at risk. But I sure as hell knew it was illegal.

So where was my guardian angel that day when highway workers were underneath the bridge using a photo drone that caught my blurry image? About a week later, I got a phone call from two inspectors at “my” former FSDO.

“Ms. Lunken, on March 2, 2020, did you fly your airplane under…?”

“Yes.”

“Did you turn off your transponder?”

“No.”

We’d go around about the ADS-B Out transponder which—confirmed by a radio shop—had worked loose in the panel mount and was operating intermittently. Maybe those hard landings and the considerable low-level turbulence had unseated the pins. But the FAA wasn’t buying it, and this remains my word against theirs.

Understand, I’ve been “living” and writing this story for more than a year, agonizing over when and how to confess it to you. It’s time. The sword of Damocles has fallen.

When I received the FAA’s letter of investigation, I had already contacted the Yodice Associates law firm in Maryland. Kathy Yodice and I knew that if action isn’t taken on a proposed suspension within six months, it becomes a “cold case” and the FAA issues a “no action” letter. For six months, I checked the mailbox daily with my heart in my throat. I’d even put a tiny crucifix inside the box and retrieved each day’s mail, saying, “Lord, this is up to you…”

Read More from Martha Lunken: Unusual Attitudes

I was mildly hopeful after a year passed—until Kathy reminded me there’s no time limit on certificate-revocation actions, which can be executed years after an alleged event. Yeah, I’ve jabbed at the FAA for years in my monthly column, but it’s hard to believe the administrator would “get even” by revoking my certificates for a relatively benign prank. Especially with no previous violations in 60-plus years of aviating?

You bet.

More than a year after flying under the bridge, a large box appeared on my porch. Opening it, wondering what I’d ordered from Amazon, I felt gut-punched as I stared at a letter titled “Emergency Order of Revocation,” stating, “Effective March 2, 2021, any and all airman pilot certificates you hold, including your airline transport pilot certificate, were revoked.”

FAA enforcement attorney Brian Khan’s letter stated that—after I’d been flying for a year—protection of the public required immediate revocation of everything. My deliberate, egregious operation of an aircraft without an activated transponder and flying under a bridge within 500 feet of persons and structures showed disregard for the regulations, lack of compliance disposition, and defiance of safety regulations. Because I can’t be trusted to conform, I lack the qualifications to hold an airman certificate.

Well, I’ve never claimed to be a role model, but what a cruel and harsh punishment. You can’t begin to imagine how devastating it feels to have everything I’ve worked for, held dear and loved for 61 years suddenly erased.

The Yodice firm would appeal such a severe FAA sanction to the National Transportation Safety Board, but attorney and expert fees in litigating the case could run well in excess of $25,000. Even a decision that mitigated the sanction would probably be appealed to the full NTSB by the FAA. This would drag on, becoming increasingly more expensive, with no guarantee of success.

Kathy got the one-year revocation period reduced to 9 months. So, I can take written exams now and apply for a student pilot certificate after December 2. In the meantime, I’ll stay proficient by flying with an appropriately rated friend as PIC in the 180. Then I’ll take the practical tests for the private pilot with instrument rating. Meanwhile, Flying is temporarily putting my column on hiatus; maybe I’m a little too “unusual” for readers uninterested in the stories of a renegade aviator. I’m scheduled to be back in the January+February 2022 issue, with my story of starting again.

I’ll miss you but will stay busy—as students sometimes say—”studying for my privates.”

This story appeared in the August 2021 issue of Flying Magazine

The post Flying Under a Bridge Too Far appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Is there any way to thank a friend for inviting you to ride in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress—and even in the “candy” bombardier’s seat?

After realigning my dropped jaw and babbling, “Oh, gosh, yes,” I blathered on with: “Really? You’re sure? You’re not kidding? But, David, how can I even begin to thank you?” And then I hung up and began obsessing about what to wear (yes, really) and what I could do to even remotely show my appreciation.

So, I unearthed an old jumpsuit and some aviator-style jodhpurs and then baked my best sourdough bread.

The already famous Doc was delivered to the US Army in 1945, five months before another B-29, Enola Gay, dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The terrible death toll from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions was acknowledged as necessary to accelerate the Japanese surrender, saving many more lives and ending World War II.

For the next 10 years, Doc and a few sister B-29s—the Seven Dwarf squadron—flew military radar-calibration flights and towed gunnery targets. Then Doc was parked in the desert at China Lake, California, destined for an ignoble end as a target for naval-aviator bomb training.

Fortunately, the aspiring naval aviators weren’t all that great at hitting their target because, although wounded and forlorn, Doc survived.

Then, 32 years later, a man named Tony Mazzolini found the airplane in the Mojave and spent 10 years working through government red tape to rescue the distressed old bomber. When the deal was finally done, Mazzolini and his team realized that it would be impossible fly it out because of its “war wounds” and having sat, abandoned, for 42 years in the desert.

It took a couple of years for volunteers to disassemble and put sections of Doc on flatbed trailers, but by 1988, it was back home in Wichita, Kansas, in the same hangar from which it first rolled off the Boeing assembly line more than 50 years before. Then began the daunting process of restoration—repairing, rebuilding and reassembly.

The project got a welcome boost in 2013, when a group of Wichita aviation enthusiasts and business leaders, led by retired Spirit AeroSystems CEO Jeff Turner, formed Doc’s Friends, a nonprofit group with enough volunteers and money to see the project through to completion. It first flew in 2018, and by the following year, Doc—one of only two surviving airworthy B-29s—was touring the country from its Wichita base.

I can’t begin to describe the thrill of flying in Doc—the sound of those Wright 3350s (I removed my headset on takeoff to get the full impact of that glorious roar), the view from that bombardier’s seat in the nose, and the chill of peering through the Norden bombsight with my finger on the bomb release button. I “took out” a dam on the Ohio River while thinking of the 1945 bombardier, sitting in that seat and peering through that bombsight.

We had another “virtual passenger” on board—Cincinnatian Herb Heilbrun, who would soon celebrate his 100th birthday. Herb piloted 35 B-17 combat missions with the 15th Air Force in Foggia, Italy, and the Cincinnati Warbirds have celebrated their honorary member by sending his US flag aloft with its special logbook showing time in everything from a B-17 to the F-22 Raptor and now the B-29. Herb’s WWII bomber missions were accompanied by a P-51 squadron of Tuskegee Airmen, and famously, he met one of these “Red Tail” squadron pilots at a 1997 reunion in Cincinnati. They became friends and, comparing logbooks, found that John Leahr, had indeed accompanied Herb on at least two missions. Incredibly, they learned they had attended the same grade school and found a photo of themselves in the same third grade class—but segregated.

After the glorious 30-minute flight, we landed and taxied to the ramp where another group of 11 was waiting to board for the second flight. These, I learned, were all Cincinnati police officers.

Read More from Martha Lunken: Unusual Attitudes

When Doc was scheduled to come through Cincinnati, on the way to the Arsenal of Democracy flight in Washington, D.C., David Wiser and his wife, Elizabeth, bought all the seats on two flights. It costs $3,600 an hour to operate this magnificent and rare warbird; here’s David’s reply when I asked him about this incredibly generous gift:

“Martha, I come from a family of Chicago police officers and firemen—uncles, cousins, you name it. I’ve seen firsthand what they do and how they do it, and I have tremendous respect and admiration for who they are. These men and women in blue and their families, across the country, sacrifice a great deal every day so the rest of us can feel safe in our homes and on the streets.

“So, Elizabeth and I wanted to do something to show our respect, our admiration and our undying gratitude for the men and women who wear the badge every day, for us. We wanted to let them know there are people out here…who know what they do and truly value them.

“Why the Doc B-29 experience? Well, first, with only two operating B-29s left, there are very few who can experience this flight, which makes it so special, and special people deserve special experiences. Second, as a pilot, I know when you are in the air, you can leave behind—if only for 30 minutes—the craziness that exists 3,000 or 35,000 feet below. These officers have earned some time where they can put the craziness aside. Third, when we talk about loving or honoring someone, we talk about ‘lifting them up.’ There’s no better way to honor ‘blue’ than to ask our friends at Doc to lift up 11 of our officers inside the aircraft that literally won the war for the US exactly 75 years ago. And last, the 18-, 19- and 20-year-old young men who flew these B-29s on bombing runs in the Pacific and the far east in 1945 were among the most courageous human beings the United States has produced in our 244-year history. And we think those serving in law enforcement are cut from the same cloth as our war heroes and veterans.”

Doc left the next day for the Arsenal of Democracy flyover in Washington, D.C., commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. Unfortunately, weather grounded the planned flight of 100 WWII airplanes over the National Mall. But somehow, Doc succeeded in getting honorary air boss Lieutenant Colonel Bob Vaucher, 101 years old, on board for a marvelous flight over Manassas, Virginia.

Mission accomplished.

This story appeared in the January-February 2021 issue of Flying Magazine

The post The B-29 “Doc,” David, Herb and the Cops appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

OK, this is a little out of character, but last night, I “joined” (I think that’s the term) an aviation webinar—mostly because it was presented by the son of my friend Barry Schiff but also because the subject was intriguing.

Brian Schiff is an interesting guy. Longtime captain for a major airline, Brian was soloed by his famously prolific aviation dad on his 16th birthday. At heart, he has always been a GA guy who owns and flies a Citabria and is an active, accomplished flight instructor. His presentation, “SoCal Airspace Anomalies,” dissected the intricacies of navigating the challenging (to put it mildly) Southern California airspace—legally. At some time after 11 p.m., glassy-eyed and numb-brained, I left the webinar for bed. But I was so impressed with Brian’s briefing and his low-key, fun and (deceptively) casual manner as an instructor that, before climbing into the sack, I emailed father and son Schiff, “Great presentation, learned a lot…mostly, ‘Stay the hell out of SoCal airspace.’”

Not surprising, I dreamed about flight instructing that night—real and mostly sweet memories of old students and airplanes interspersed with nightmare fantasies of being a flight instructor in Southern California and headaches about the current FAA airman certification standards licensing requirements. And I remembered (yeah, here I go again), years ago, before I was a CFI, when a local flight school operator and pilot examiner named Don Fairbanks had a well-attended monthly get-together for area flight instructors. They met on the second floor of the Lunken Airport terminal building in a clubroom/bar operated, to this day (usually for something more alcoholic than education), by the Greater Cincinnati Airmen Club.

My friend Steve Grote and I were disgruntled at being excluded, but as pretty newly minted private pilots, we weren’t eligible. We were even more pissed off when an instructor friend named Carl Hilker leaned over the second-floor balcony before the meeting began, taunting us about our lack of qualification.

It was midsummer, which probably explains why Steve had a cherry bomb in his pocket. Waiting until the meeting was underway, Steve lit the firework and raised his arm to lob it over the balcony near the clubroom door. At that moment, the door to the Lunken FAA flight service station opened, and a briefer on break came out into the lobby. Steve—rather nobly, I thought—held on to the cherry bomb, and then…well, then it got pretty ugly. We retreated into the Sky Galley bar where I wrapped his hand in handkerchiefs and napkins and bought something stronger than beer. Finally, in desperation, I called his dad, a formidable, no-nonsense man who lived in nearby Hyde Park. Mr. Grote told us to get ourselves to the house while he called a doctor friend who lived next door. It was the 1960s, so this truly eminent surgeon met us in the Grote kitchen, cleaned and performed minor hand surgery, and gave Steve a bunch of meds—and both of us a piece of his mind about stupidity.

Actually, I was well on the way to having the 200 hours necessary for a commercial certificate and a CFI rating. In those days, there was no instrument-rating requirement, and in fact, the way most of us paid for that rating was by instructing. So, within three years of getting a private certificate, I was “an expert,” instructing for the princely sum of $5 an hour—and only when the meter was running.

But I did supplement my income…

See, when I had presented myself for the CFI practical test at what was then the general aviation district office, Leo Wonderly handed me his version of the oral exam—several typewritten pages of questions—and sent me back to an exam room. When I finished, we broke for lunch before flying, and out in my car, I wrote down every one of the 30 to 40 questions. With the answers, I assembled the whole thing into a book called the Flight Instructor Oral Examination Guide, which was published and sold by Sporty’s. I was no Bill Kershner, but it was a minor hit.

Read More from Martha Lunken: Unusual Attitudes

The questions covered what you’d expect: reasonable and important areas of basic instruction theory, maneuvers, techniques, records and regulations. This was in a better time—before CFIs were expected to be pseudo-psychologists, assessing a student’s personality type, teaching risk management and decision-making processes.

In the next 10 years, eventually as a multiengine and instrument CFI, I would log well over 6,000 hours. After instructing for some local schools, I bought a 1966 Cessna 150 with a loan from my dad, leased a Citabria owned by a friend (for a half-baked aerobatic course), and launched Midwest Flight Center. By teaching evening ground schools at a local university for little or nothing, I attracted enough business to keep me and several part-time instructors busy. Surprisingly, after less than a year of operation, Leo suggested “Miss Martha’s Flying Emporium” become a Part 141 school, which would eventually grant me examining authority for our 141 graduates.

Now, getting 141 school approval is usually an onerous and lengthy process with manuals to be submitted and FAA inspections conducted. But an FAA district office gets “points” for having certificated entities—Part 135, 121, 141, etc.—and in those years, the Cincinnati (then) GADO must have been low on points. We were up and running a 141 school in record time. When I voiced concern about the required manuals, Leo handed me copies of Miami University’s 141 material and said: “Just copy it—and change obvious stuff like location, layout, aircraft, etc. Submit it, and within a few weeks, you’ll get it back for corrections.”

“But why corrections when it’s identical to already-approved manuals?”

“An office never approves a manual on the first try. It will always be returned for two or three or more revisions. It’s sort of a ‘job-security’ thing. But we’ll expedite the inspection process, and you’ll be in business.”

I guess this experience, along with a few type ratings and (doubtless and probably most important) being a female, put me on the FAA’s radar as a potential employee. C’mon, there were far more guys out there with far more experience and skill begging for FAA jobs. As far back as 1970, in the very early years of the flying-school venture, they offered me an inspector position in an FAA office, but I was weighing pressures to marry Ebby. I did, but the marriage crashed and burned some years later. So, faced with instructing or starving, I applied, and they hired me—a decision they probably rued for the next 28 years.

This story appeared in the December 2020 issue of Flying Magazine

The post Webinars, Cherry Bombs, and Flying Schools appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

What a salesman! With one phone call, this Cessna 180 owner and regional director of the International 180/185 Club had sold me on joining the organization and speaking at their convention next year. And by now, you’ve probably gathered that “joining” and “speaking” are recessive genes in my DNA.

But I was intrigued when Eric Gardner described the cabin he and his wife, Shannon, had built on a mountain strip in the heart of West Virginia—a “mountain mama, almost heaven” spot (thank you, John Denver) that author Stephen Coonts wrote of as his Shangri-La. Eric said to think about joining the gaggle of 180 drivers who’d be there on Labor Day weekend.

Rather than waiting, my friend Joe Loewenstein and I flew my ’56 Cessna 180 to this 3,300-foot grass strip in Rainelle, West Virginia. Eric and Shannon had arrived from their home in Florida, and he drove us around, explaining that this place had been reclaimed from an abandoned strip mine in the early 1960s. After Lawrence “Squire” Haynes and two airplane-owner friends bulldozed, leveled and seeded it, Squire built a restaurant. And in those golden days of general aviation, it was a popular fly-in destination. The Squire is gone and his popular hash house closed, but somebody built three hangars, and that cinder-block restaurant still stands. WV30 is open for primitive camping, and Eric said he hopes to have new bathroom and shower facilities by next summer.

During our visit, another beautiful 180 landed, and Eric and Shannon’s friend Scott White joined us chatting at a picnic table. This place does seem to be a magnet for 180-series pilots. As we talked, I was thinking about my introduction to this rugged and beloved airplane.

It was a long time ago—50 years—but I won’t forget that Saturday morning at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati.

The outfit was called Midwest Flight Center (because “Midwest” was already painted on the hangar) but better known as Miss Martha’s Flying School. I operated out of Ebby Lunken’s Hangar 7 on the south line of the airport. Ebby and I shared an office, and when I wasn’t flying, I’d help with what remained of his Midwest Airways venture. A couple of years later—after a long, sporadic engagement—we’d marry, but by 1970, his airline serving Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland and Detroit had sadly imploded. He’d sold the four Lockheed 10A Electras, bought two Douglas DC-3s ($16,000 each) from the defunct Lake Central Airlines in Indianapolis, and was struggling to keep his dream alive with charters to sporting events and northern Michigan resorts. But for scheduled interstate service with “large” (over 12,500 pounds gross weight) airplanes like DC-3s, you needed a CAB certificate of public convenience and necessity. His efforts dragged on for several years with huge legal fees, but Ebby’s bid was ultimately unsuccessful.

My trainers—a Cessna 150 and Citabria—roosted inside this historic 1925 Army hangar, and the DC-3s were parked in the grass across the ramp. Flying-school business was good, but I was alone in the office that Saturday morning because of the crowds and exhibitions on the terminal ramp. In a few hours, the airport would be closed for the airshow.

I picked up the ringing phone, and some Civil Air Patrol Oberbefehlshaber asked if we had portable oxygen—for an ailing airshow spectator, I assumed. I told him I’d get a bottle from the DC-3. When the truck arrived, I was climbing out of the -3, bottle in hand, and I told the driver to go wherever it was needed while I figured out how to get it working.

Instead of the terminal ramp, he headed out a nearby taxiway to the departure end of Lunken’s long runway. The oxygen was flowing when we stopped beside a young man standing next to an apparently undamaged, single-engine tailwheel airplane sitting off in the grass. An older man was lying on the ground.

I remember somebody was doing chest compressions, and I held the oxygen mask to the man’s mouth; we were frantically doing our best with limited knowledge and skill. But there was no movement, no heartbeat, no breath, and the man had a gray-blue pallor. We kept trying and hoping—and fervently praying—until the life squad arrived and took over.

Read More from Martha Lunken: Unusual Attitudes

The young man, the pilot’s son, rode in the ambulance with his father to the hospital. Somebody from the airport asked if I could taxi the airplane to our ramp at Hangar 7 so the runway could be reopened. I had plenty of tailwheel time, but this would be my introduction to the Cessna 180.

The father was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, and his son returned several hours later—quiet and dazed. He told us he’d had some time in the airplane, and got it stopped and shut down after his dad suddenly slumped over (cardiac arrest) during the landing rollout. I remember thinking that maybe it wasn’t the worst way to die—like Bing Crosby who famously collapsed after playing a successful round of golf. But this pilot, a husband and father, was only 50 years old.

Ebby gave the young guy some cash, and I flew him over to KCVG and got him on a Piedmont Airlines flight to Wise, Virginia. We told him the airplane would be secure in the hangar for as long as necessary; I wrote his mom a letter just to say that people had been there, caring and trying everything possible.

Many times, I would sit in that 180 and wish…but a few months later, somebody picked it up, and it slipped into history. We heard no more about it.

Enough reminiscing, I told myself. Just enjoy the beautiful day, this idyllic spot, and savor the opportunity to trade tales with kindred spirits, making new friends with people I’d never seen before.

Except, I had seen…

“Yeah, we’re a real 180 family,” Scott said. He was obviously proud of his own airplane, and that his son, Blaine, a third-generation 180 owner, is flying what had been his grandfather’s airplane.

“You know,” Eric told me, “Scott was riding the right seat in that 180 when his dad suddenly died during a landing rollout.”

The hair on the back of my neck was tingling, and I asked Scott where it had happened.

“Oh,” he said, “it was a long time ago—50 years. We’d flown to Lunken Airport in Cincinnati for an airshow.”

“Scott, I was there.”

He looked at me closely for a while and then said slowly, “OK, yeah, now I remember you.”

This story appeared in the November 2020, Buyers Guide issue of Flying Magazine

The post New Friends in Aviation appeared first on FLYING Magazine.