Crazy ideas of (fairly) old guys

       When we lived on a 'gentleman's farm' in then-rural Fairfax County, Virginia, my parents raised lots of different animals, including goats, specifically milk-producing Saanens.

     Mom had a friend named Bob Black who raised Saanens also, and who owned a Piper Cub.  One day he noticed that our fields might make a decent runway.  He flew his plane in, and Mom charged him $5 instead of the $10/mo. tie-down fee at Manassas Airport.  

     OK, maybe not so flattering a picture (that's me in the middle, probably not destined for swim suit model), but that's the cub in the back field.

     A normal Cub only has a 65 horsepower engine and no starter, so when I was about seven years old, Bob taught me how to sit in the front seat, hold the toe brakes and operate the engine controls while he swung the propeller to start the thing.  That was terrifyingly cool, and although Bob never had a license and couldn't take anyone up (and was probably not to be trusted anyway) I became an airplane nut.

     When I was fifteen, my friend Lloyd Hill and I convinced our parents that we should get a job at the Warrenton-Fauquier airport and in a weak moment they said OK!  We would open the office of the Fixed Base Operator on Saturday mornings, and we were often the last ones to leave in the evening.  We fueled and washed airplanes, changed runway lights and of course cleaned the bathroom, but in the end, we both earned our Private Pilot license, mine when I had just turned seventeen, the legal limit.

     I flew some that summer, and a little in Utah when I went to college that fall, but less and less because of the cost.  When I returned from my two-year mission for the Church, I visited Lloyd in Florida, and one of my last logbook entries involved flying to one of the Keys with him.

     Then life intervened with college, marriage, medical school, residency, kids, private practice, etc., etc., etc. and when I brought the subject up once, Paula wisely put it back down; "You've got five little kids!  Are you nuts?!"

     She must have picked up a brain-eating parasite in South America, because while we were there, she mused one day, "You know, I think I'd rather have you auger in flying when you're 75 than change your diapers when you're 90."  I wrote it down, but didn't actually make her sign it.

     Over the last year or so, the idea has entered my mind again, though for what reason I'm not sure.  

     Luckily, I know a guy.  One of my four close friends from back to Cub Scout days, almost 60 years ago is a fellow named Dave Nelson.  I had the honor of giving him his first flight in a small plane, although he had flown plenty commercially, his dad being head of operations for United Airlines at the (then) Washington DC airport and Dulles.  He liked it, did Air Force ROTC at BYU, and eventually ended up as one of the chief test pilots at Edwards AFB, with the most hours in the F-22, which was being developed at the time.  After retiring, he was hired by Lockheed and became the chief test pilot of the F-35, from which he retired about four years ago.  He has flown, as far as he can tell, seventy-seven different aircraft, and actually flew with Chuck Yeager.  Twice.

     For my 68th birthday (that many?!) Paula let me travel to Palmdale, California where Dave lives, and we went flying! 

     He turned out to be the best instructor I have ever worked with and he did a lot to tune me up and get me back on track legally.  With that good start, I've been doing some local flying here.  Again, the reason for all of this is unclear, but it feels like a good thing to do at the moment.  It has at least led me to study a lot, never a bad thing for an aging brain.  

     So, I guess the moral of the story is this - if you want to learn to fly, tell your mother she needs to get some goats.  Saanens, that is.

Dave