Musings: A stowaway bug

He was taking advantage of a brief military leave. Shortly after takeoff, however, the J–3 Cub’s single engine died. With no way to restart the engine, my father was still in the landing pattern, so he came back to Earth. The heel brakes were basically ineffective after landing, and he began to drift toward the hangars.

In Dad’s typically laid-back way, he told me he was not particularly alarmed during this escapade: “The positive thing, with a dead engine, is I knew I was going down. There were no other alternatives to consider.” Fortunately, the airplane stopped just short of the hangars. People on the airfield were not as nonplussed as my father.

One of the flight instructors approached Dad a little while later and asked, “Do you know why the engine quit?” He then extended an index finger in my father’s face with a fuel-soaked brown beetle stuck to his fingertip. A little bug in the carburetor was the tiny but mighty obstacle that led to engine failure on Dad’s first solo flight.

Some 60 years later, in his 80s and a veteran GA pilot, my father recounted the following experience that highlights the opposite of “scary” aviation and moves to the sublime. In his own words:

Admittedly, flying is addictive. Of the tens of thousands out there who do it, not much gives more satisfaction the feeling of becoming unglued from the Earth and reaching for the heavens, or coming home at dusk and touching down ever so gently in a full-stall landing, with what is affectionately known as a “squeaker.”

You’re pretty much alone up there and feel a kinship to the Lord surveying his creation and how man has shaped it. Reminds me of the Catholic priest who was taking flying lessons from Charles Lindbergh in the 1920s. While ineptly wobbling through the air he told Lindbergh he felt closer to God when he was flying—to which Lindbergh responded, “When you’re flying, so do I.”

There is a feeling of awe when looking down on our productive Illinois farms—orderly rows of dark green corn set with such precision, or during harvest with the trailing dust blowing across the field, while those wonderful machines gobble up eight rows at a time. You want to feel the splendor of God’s creation? Think on this: My wife, Dorothy, and I were flying home from Iowa near sunset. We had been visiting Ron and Shirley Settle in Marshalltown (Ron and I served together as weathermen at a Naval air base). When we left, there were towering white cumulus to the left and to the right, with bright smooth air between. Not a ripple. It became obvious we would overtake a giant storm ahead, so we flew slower, admiring the rain-refreshed land below, glistening in the glow of the setting sun. And there! Up ahead were five (count ’em!) brilliant rainbows spread out against a backdrop of angry, dark, roiling clouds.

“When the Lord returns, he will step out of a sky like this,” Dorothy said. What a sight: two white cumulus clouds bracketing a beautiful sunset behind us, brilliant arches of color between us and the dark sky. The promise after the storm.

To come down to earth, life is good. I like it here. Something new and exciting almost every day. I will be 80 next year and the people at the retirement center call me a spring chicken. [Note: Bob was a volunteer bus driver, bringing people to church on Sundays.] Well, I am trying to get an instrument rating on my pilot’s license and may never make it, but I am grateful. I can still walk.

Two years after my mother Dorothy’s passing, Dad remarried at age 86. Maurine, a family friend of many years and 10 years his junior, enjoyed flying with Dad too. They flew to Michigan, Wisconsin, and a few other short trips before Dad’s doctors said, “No more.” The airplane and hangar were sold recently.

It has been a pleasure sharing Dad’s stories with other aviators who can appreciate the perspectives of my now-100-year-old father. His last flight in his Cessna 182 occurred at the age of 97! His sons, both pilots, accompanied him on flights, and his great-grandson has just earned his private pilot certificate and is saving for commercial flight school. Dad and Maurine live in a retirement center near family, and on the wall is a huge photo of Dad’s airplane parked at Chicago’s Meigs Field. Dad has shared his love of flying with scores of passengers and anyone who would talk aviation with him, so who knows how many future pilots he has impacted?

Gayle Franck of Batavia, Illinois, is a freelance writer who works in a retirement center and was inspired to share her father’s stories.