Pilots

Whenever I hear the word airman, I think of Eddie Ruhl.

To me, that term has always been evocative of something deeper than the simple appellation of pilot. And Ruhl is more than just a pilot. He is the consummate airman, born to fly, at home in the air the way pilot heroes in novels are, the kind of flier we all want to be but few ever truly become.

These are tall words, I know, but look at some of the credentials: flew C-141s in Vietnam; flew fire bombers and fire spotters in the West; flew Boeing 747s around the world for Flying Tigers; is now a Boeing 727 captain for Federal Express. When not piloting the heavy iron for pay, he flies light airplanes for fun. Ruhl flew his J-3 Cub across the country; flew his Baby Lakes and, later, his Pitts in competition aerobatics. He keeps his PA-16 Clipper at a lovely little grass strip in Pennsylvania that brings the golden age of flight back to life. And despite all that experience, the man still runs around Oshkosh every year like a kid at the circus. Ruhl's enthusiasm for general aviation is unflagging — and highly contagious.

I first met Ruhl in the mid-1980s at Candlelight Farms Airport, a grass strip tucked into the northwestern Connecticut hills near the tip of Candlewood Lake and at the bottom of a long, rutted dirt road. Ruhl was one of a tight cadre of regulars, men and women who could be counted on to show up at the weekend breakfasts, when airport manager and character Roger Dunham would serve up his famous scrambled eggs with crispy black bits of griddle. The food was awful (sorry, Rog), but the company was wonderful. This was strictly a taildragger crowd (the guy with the Bellanca Cruisair had one of the more modern-looking ships on the field), and it was the kind of a lost-in-time place where everyone wore leather jackets.

It was clubby, sure, but unpretentious. The only requirement for membership at Candlelight was a love of flying.

Ruhl found Candlelight by chance when he was based in New York, after drawing a two-hour circle around Kennedy Airport on his sectional. On his first visit to the field, "A guy in a Cherokee came in, then just taxied by and took off again. Somebody said, 'Yeah, we try to discourage nosewheel airplanes from coming in here.'" Ruhl knew he was home.

He was working for Flying Tigers back then, before that airline — and Ruhl — were gobbled up by FedEx. He still mourns the passing of the line, which traced its proud lineage back to veterans of the Flying Tigers and always enjoyed a wild-and- woolly reputation. Before becoming a 727 captain at Tigers (the seat he retains at FedEx), he flew transcontinental routes as a 747 first officer.

The invariable question every freighter pilot faces is, "What do you carry?" The invariable answer, "Everything," leaves many unsatisfied. "I find myself listing a random selection of 'everything,'" Ruhl says. "Sometimes my inquisitor senses blood and nails me down with a seemingly impossible cargo. 'Rhinoceros?' 'Yes.' 'You're a Flying Tiger; have you ever carried a tiger?' 'Yes.'" And mice and monkeys, whole herds of cattle, computers, clothes, flowers, and — at the height of the Cabbage Patch Kids craze — 210,000 pounds of Cabbage Patch Kids, bound across the Pacific for American Christmas shoppers. His most unusual cargo? Abe Lincoln's stovepipe hat, returning from an exhibition in Taipei. Most satisfying? One hundred ten tons of food and medical supplies, along with five volunteer nurses, flown to famine victims in Ethiopia. Most valuable? Gold bars, 80,000 pounds of them, from Switzerland to New York. "At first glance," he says, "the airplane appeared empty, the heavy bars distributed evenly on the cargo floor."

Unlike so many aviators, Ruhl never planned to be an airline pilot. All he ever wanted to be was an Air Force pilot. He earned a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering with that specific goal in mind, and he earned his wings in 1971, just in time for Vietnam. For four years, he flew C-141s to Southeast Asia, mostly Vietnam, carrying fresh equipment and GIs in and hauling shot-up equipment and GIs out.

He always stayed in touch with GA. During his Air Force years, he bought a Citabria and taught himself aerobatics, using Duane Cole's Roll Around a Point. After the war, he realized that he couldn't stay in the Air Force if he wanted to keep flying. Advancement meant a desk job. So, with regret, he left the service. There were no airline jobs to be had — the market was glutted with ex-military pilots — so he got his CFI and A&P, taught flying, and later flew fire bombers out of Boise. "It was a job I just desperately loved."

But it was also highly seasonal, and Ruhl had a family to support. He was qualifying to fly smoke jumpers when Flying Tigers called. They'd told him a few years earlier that he was too old for them, but he apparently had gotten young enough.

Candlelight seemed too good to be true, and it was. Now it's a glider field. But Ruhl has found a new home at Van Sant Airport, home to Stearmans, Speedwings, and Great Lakes biplanes. "Everything I want to do in aviation at this point involves sport aviation," he says. He wants to finish his glider rating. He's never been in a hot air balloon, but he'll do it someday. If Ruhl dreams it, he'll do it. He's that sort of guy.