Pilots

It's tough to think of anything about loran and GPS that is even the least bit critical. After all, what's not to like about little black boxes that have brought super-area navigation to the general aviation masses? Only this: atrophy of pilotage skills. If we can always fly direct to our destinations, no matter how distant, why look at the ground along the way other than to sightsee? The answer is that high technology isn't infallible. A black box can hiccup just when you need it most. That's when you may have to call on Bob Brechtel's low-technology, never-lets-you-down, backup navigation system: air markers.

Brechtel is one of the very few people in the country who earn a living as an itinerant painter of air markers. These are the bright yellow-on- black rooftop billboards that identify the name of the town and have a circle with an arrow and a mileage figure representing the direction and distance to the nearest airport. They are, literally, aviation's signposts. You won't find them in Chicago or Atlanta or New York, but if you've lost your way while flying over unfamiliar country, spotting an air marker on a small-town roof is the next best thing to happening upon an airport.

Brechtel's been painting them for nearly 30 years, in 24 states. He got into the business while taking flight instruction in Des Moines (he's a lifelong resident of Iowa). The state was casting about for someone who could paint air markers in a hundred or so Iowa small towns, and someone suggested Brechtel. At the time, he was a master odd-jobsman who, among other projects, employed a crew of 28 to maintain public telephone booths across Iowa and Nebraska.

Painting air markers soon became his prime business, largely because he enjoys aviation so much. He works through state aviation agencies, which feed him contracts to paint dozens or more air markers at a time. Brechtel isn't certain of how many he's painted, but it could be 15,000 or more. In Iowa alone, he's done 6,000.

There's a bit of science to painting one. The block letters must be at least 10 feet high with a 15-inch stroke (the width of each stripe that makes up a letter or numeral). Brechtel always exceeds the minimum standards. "I make them bigger, maybe 12 feet tall," he says. "I'm in aviation, so I want them to be seen." The circular airport symbol must have an inside diameter of at least 12 feet. Most letters have a 5-foot span. Some are wider: an A and an M each measure 7 feet, for example, while a W stretches to 9 feet. The letters, airport symbol, and mileage must be yellow. "Not orange. Yellow," Brechtel emphasizes, "and it must be painted on a black roof."

That's not always easy to do. Brechtel complains that black roofs aren't so plentiful in eastern towns. Midwestern and southern grocery stores, car dealer garages, gymnasiums, and tobacco barns mostly have black roofs, but easterners seem to prefer gravel-covered roofs, according to Brechtel.

All of the tools of his trade — sturdy 28- and 20-foot ladders, boxes of industrial-quality 7-inch-wide rollers and several long handles, gloves, traffic cones and flags, hard hats, chalk line, and big buckets of Sherwin- Williams federal specification yellow traffic paint — are meticulously arranged in a brown trailer that he tows behind a massive Olds Custom Cruiser station wagon. He has two such trailers, one of which he keeps on the East Coast to avoid having to tow a trailer all the way from Iowa. Back when business was really good (states' budget woes have impacted Brechtel's line of work), he had a third trailer and a second crew.

On a typical trip, he will drive from small town to small town in a particular state painting air markers. It's a pretty informal process. With the state government's blessing in hand, usually there is no need to obtain the advice and consent of the town fathers. Brechtel sizes up the town, finds the biggest and blackest rooftop, then asks the building's owner for permission to climb up top and lay down some paint. Detective work may be called for if it's an absentee landlord, but most times, the owner is more than cooperative. The most enthusiastic landlords are ones who also fly.

After so many years experience, Brechtel can pretty well do the job with his eyes closed. Using a sectional chart, he figures the direction and distance to the airport. Then he paces off the roof to determine the center, makes a chalk line to define the upper and lower limits of the letters, dabs some paint on the roof to outline the alphanumerics, and begins painting in earnest. Mistakes are easily corrected with a dollop of black paint.

Working alone, it takes Brechtel about an hour to paint an air marker. The time depends in part on the name of the town; Sabillasville would be a bigger deal than Scio, for example.

Yes, he has fallen off a roof (resulting in a back operation), and he has had a misspelling. It happened once, a long time ago, in Pennsylvania — he doesn't remember the name of the town — and, honest, says Brechtel, it was his assistant who goofed.