Pilots

A silver-gray pickup parked in the lot at Gnoss Field wears the California license plate AV 8 TORR. Its owner, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Torr, is an aviator in the true sense of the word. Although today many people know Torr as a member of California's Marin County Aviation Commission and an active lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, few realize his real contributions to aviation.

Torr's love affair with flying began in 1930 when his father treated him to a ride in a Ford Tri-Motor at their hometown field in Cortland, New York. The fires of his flying passion lit; Torr spent all of his spare time at the airport, trading his services as a grease monkey for rides in Curtiss Jennies. In 1932, a model airplane he built even won him a ride in a Bird Biplane.

Torr first soloed a Piper J-3 Cub on skis in the winter of 1939, earning his private ticket soon after. A year later he bought the Cub with a friend, hired a flight instructor, and started the Cortland airport's first FBO, offering flight instruction in conjunction with the Civilian Pilot Training Program. "There was lots of interest from the high school and college students in learning to fly, and we helped that by selling $5 scenic rides in a Waco UEC we got on leaseback," says Torr.

The darkening clouds of war caused Torr to join the Army Air Corps in the spring of 1941, and he graduated from the air cadet program as a second lieutenant in August 1942. Torr's first duty assignment was on the West Coast, flying anti-submarine patrol in a North American O-47. He would also pilot the North American B-25 and Boeing B-17 before being ordered to fly a brand new Consolidated B-24 Liberator from Lincoln, Nebraska, to England. Torr remembers that his route included a 12-hour-and-15-minute Atlantic crossing from Fortaleza, Brazil, to Dakar, Africa, and an emergency landing due to low fuel in Trinidad.

"My number three engine was running so rich I had to transfer fuel from all my other tanks to keep it running," he recalled. "Cleared by the tower for an emergency landing, I am on short final when I see all these guys with wheelbarrows running around. By now we are so low on fuel I don't know if I can make a go-around — so I fly a chandelle, turning right over the tower, and land on a smaller runway.

"We were met by an angry major in a jeep, who began to chew me out for buzzing the tower. He calmed down when he saw our dry fuel dipsticks. The tower had forgotten to clear the construction workers from the runway," says Torr.

A Pratt & Whitney technician on the field later discovered that the number three engine's induction baffles had been installed backwards at the factory.

Once in England, he joined the Eighth Air Force on daylight bombing raids into Germany. On a mission to Muenster, a burst of flak set his left wing ablaze. Bailing out behind his crew, he fell 15,000 feet before opening his parachute. The German fighters were known to find the parachutes easy targets, and Torr waited until he was only 2,000 feet above the ground before pulling his ripcord.

"I parachuted directly into prison," says Torr, describing his descent into a German slave labor camp. Fortunately, his entire crew would survive the ordeal of being prisoners of war for a little more than 13 months.

After the war, Torr stayed in the Air Force, where he served as a transport check pilot, as well as a base engineer. In 1965 he set up a network of navaids and airfields in Vietnam and Thailand. He then returned to the States and was the base engineer at Hamilton Air Force Base in California until his retirement in 1967.

When he retired from the Air Force, he learned that Marin County was in the process of building Gnoss Field and looking for an airport manager. He applied for the position and was readily hired.

The county planners had based the runway alignment for Gross Field on wind data from nearby Hamilton Field. Unfortunately, the hills around Gnoss create prevailing winds that flow in a different direction. Because construction was well under way when he was hired and it was too late to change directions, Torr had them extend the planned 2,200-foot runway to 3,300 feet.

His contribution to a successful county airport led to service on the Regional Airport Planning Committee. He later became president of the California Association of Airport Executives. He even earned a place in Who's Who in Aviation and Aerospace.

Soon after he became the manager of Gnoss Field, the CAP's Marin Composite Air Rescue Squadron took notice of Torr and asked if he would like to be their commander and check pilot. During one checkride in a Beech T-34, they were summoned to search for a missing aircraft in mountainous terrain near Calistoga, California. "We came upon the crash just at dusk and circled it with the landing lights on for two hours in the dark to help the sheriff's ground team locate the site," says Torr. Though badly injured, the pilot and his passenger survived.

Today, Torr is still an enthusiastic pilot. He flies search and rescue missions for the CAP, helps deliver donor organs when necessary, and shuts off faulty ELTs. His unit also works with the California Office of Emergency Services, providing earthquake and flood relief. He personally trains new mission pilots in the squadron's Beech Bonanza and is a respected voice on the airport commission, where he continually lobbies for airport improvements.