Learning to Fly

I think that I first became interested in airplanes during the late 1940s. Every afternoon a huge B-36 bomber would fly overhead in an easterly direction. It flew very high, and I could hear it coming probably ten minutes before I could see it. It was extremely large for the time, with four jet engines and six propeller engines. Then, one Saturday night during the summer of 1949, a jet fighter crashed in East Nassau, and the newspapers were filled with articles about airplanes. After that, I took a great interest in airplanes, reading in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics about every new advance in aviation, with predictions that within a decade personal aircraft would be almost as common as automobiles. I could hardly wait for the day when I would fly. My first airplane ride was during my senior year of high school, when a classmate, Bob Stewart, and I went to the old East Greenbush airport and bought a five-dollar ride in a Piper Cub.

My father was very negative about flying. He told me that as a young man, probably in his late 20s or early 30s, he became friendly with a Mr. Servant, who owned an airplane and small airport in West Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, the current home of the Lebanon Valley Speedway, a stock car racing track and drag strip. Mr. Servant one day invited my father to come to his airport and go flying with him. On the way to the airport, my father’s car got a flat tire. When my father didn’t arrive at the airport on schedule, Mr. Servant took off without him. He crashed into the Kinderhook Creek and was killed. My father took that as an omen that he was not meant to fly, and he never did fly until he was well into his seventies and could no longer drive to California to visit my sister, Lelia, and her family.

During the spring, 1966, the attorney with whom I was associated with in Troy, started taking flying lessons. A new airport had recently opened in Poestenkill for small airplanes, and the owner, Dave Fairbanks, had a contract to train senior Air Force ROTC students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to fly. He had purchased several new low-winged Piper Cherokee aircraft, and the airport became very active. I drove out to the airport one day and Dave gave me a short introductory ride and let me handle the controls for a brief time. I was hooked and signed up for both the ground school and flying lessons.

The Poestenkill Airport was a 2,400-foot north-south gravel runway, about 50 feet wide, with a steel building that served as an office, classroom, and hanger. There were power lines and trees on the north side of the airfield, and a hill, power lines, and trees on the south side as well. The runway was mostly unpaved.

Poestenkill Airpark, years later, following the runway extension and paving.

Dave Fairbanks told me that he had studied engineering at RPI, where his father was a professor of aeronautical engineering. After college, Dave became a pilot and was flying as a co-pilot for Trans World Airlines. During the early 1960s, civil wars broke out in Africa, and Dave seized the opportunity to enter the lucrative gun-running trade. He told me that he and another pilot obtained an old transport airplane and started bringing guns and other weapons from Europe to Africa, sometimes repainting the airplane to appear friendly to the flight’s customers. Dave said that he made enough money in this venture to quit his job at TWA and buy the Poestenkill Airport. Dave personally taught the ground school classes and was the primary flight instructor. He had some part-time instructors as well.

During the spring of 1966, I took one or two flight lessons each week. Sometimes I would schedule an early morning flight before going to work, but I also took lessons in the late afternoon before the start of ground school.

Dave’s airplanes were all new Piper Cherokees, a 4 place, low wing single-engine aircraft. The Cherokees had fixed, tricycle gear, which means that they had a wheel third wheel in front, beneath the engine, unlike the older “tail-dragger” Pipe Cubs. The airplanes were reasonably equipped, with two-way radios and other electronic navigation equipment.

A typical Piper Cherokee

According to Dave, Piper recommended that the Cherokees be landed “flat”, that is landing it almost level with the ground, first touching down on the two main wheels under the wings, and then letting the front gently down on the nose wheel as the speed dropped. The Cherokee would come to rest in a level position In contrast, the tail draggers would settle on the tail wheel as the speed decreased, raising the front of the aircraft higher. The tail draggers stopped with the propeller high in the air, and the tail low.

The most difficult, and dangerous, part of flying is the takeoff and landing. Much of the instruction consists of “touch-and-go” exercises. The student repeatedly takes off, circles the airport, touches down on the runway, and immediately takes off without coming to a full stop. This maximizes the practice of these vital maneuvers. Dave really didn’t like to have his students practice touch and go too much at Poestenkill Airport because the gravel runway had a multitude of tiny stones that could fly up and nick the propeller or the leading edge of the wing. He preferred to incorporate the touch-and-go practice at the Albany Airport or at another airport that had a paved runway. As a result, his students did not spend as much time learning this maneuver as they should have.

Landing at a large airport, such as Albany International, was quite easy because the approaches were long, free of obstacles, and the runways long and wide. In contrast, the Poestenkill Airport had trees and power lines at both ends of the single runway, and hills on the west and south sides. I have talked with experienced private pilots who would only attempt a landing in Poestenkill with great trepidation. It was said that if you learned to fly at the Poestenkill Airport, you could fly anywhere.

My lessons went well. I understood the physics of flight, the mechanics of the aircraft, and the FAA regulations. My military map reading courses provided a good background for learning the essentials of flight navigation.

On June 6, 1966, I had a flight lesson scheduled with Dave for the hour before the start of ground school that evening. It was a nice clear day, and we took off and practiced some routine maneuvers. After we landed, Dave said it was time for me to take the airplane around the field by myself - my first solo. I was thrilled but surprised since I had only logged less than eight hours of dual flight instruction. As usual for a ground school night, there were quite a few students at the airport, as well as several pilots who would hang around. Some had their own airplanes hangered there.

I taxied the blue and white Cherokee to the southerly end of the runway, and prepared for takeoff, running through the checklist - flaps down, carburetor heat on, trim tabs neutral. The usual procedure would also have included a brief announcement of the takeoff over the two-way radio to notify aircraft in the area to be alert. It would be something like “Poestenkill, this is Cherokee N_ _ _ _ _ preparing to take off to the north.” I couldn’t give that warning, however, since the radio had been removed from that airplane for repair.

After a quick look to be sure that no one was trying to land on the runway, I shoved the throttle fully forward and started the takeoff. It was perfect. I felt like John Wayne taking off in the movie, “Flying Tigers". I leveled off at the usual pattern altitude, executed a left turn flying downwind (parallel) of the runway, made another left turn, and started to descend for the final approach and landing. As usual, a landing at Poestenkill always made me apprehensive, both because of my lack of experience and the tricky approach.

I prepared for the landing, applying carburetor heat once again, adjusting the flaps, switching the fuel tanks to draw from both the right and left tanks together, and adjusting the trim tabs. I lined the airplane up with the runway and eased back on the throttle, maintaining the recommended airspeed and rate of descent. As I crossed over the power lines, I cut the throttle back and pulled back on the yoke to raise the airplane’s nose slightly, trying to position the airplane for a flat landing. As I approached the ground, the nose wasn’t up as high as it should have been. The airplane touched down with a larger than usual thump.

Dave taught his students to keep their right hand on the throttle when landing, and if the approach or the landing didn’t feel just right, to give the airplane full throttle and go around again for another try. In effect, to convert an attempted landing into a touch and go.

Instinctively, I pushed the throttle all the way forward and started picking up speed as I once again headed to the north end of the field. As I reached the approximate halfway mark, I realized that the airplane was not gaining as much airspeed or altitude as usual and that the airplane was vibrating. By then it was too late to abort the take-off; there was not enough runway left to roll out. The vibrating increased, and I had to reduce the throttle somewhat to try to reduce the vibration. I barely cleared the power lines and trees at the northerly end of the field.

I was panicked by the situation. It was getting late, there was a little ground fog, and I had no radio, so I couldn’t call for advice. The airplane continued to vibrate, and I flew farther and farther away from the airport to get up to pattern altitude. At one point I considered an emergency landing in a field but finally decided to try for the airport.

As I flew downwind, I could see a crowd of people standing in front of the hanger watching me. (I later learned that two attorneys who I knew who were there went into the hanger so that they would not be witness to a crash, which was considered likely by many of the pilots who were there.) I knew that I would only have one opportunity to land, as the airplane could not possibly stay together for another go around. I strapped my seat and shoulder belts as tight as I could and turned into the final approach.

To my surprise, I made a decent landing. I taxied to the run-up apron and stopped. Dave and the crowd came running over. One blade of the propeller was bent. On my first landing, the nose was too low, and it struck the ground, bending it. All were amazed that the airplane was able to fly at all, or that the engine hadn’t vibrated off its mounts by the damage. When I went home that evening I didn’t tell Nedda how desperate the situation had been; probably because if I had done so it would have been the end of my flying. I never told my parents anything about the incident. They were very upset that I was learning to fly.

The following week an RPI student who had been at the airport when I soloed made his first flight. His landing was bad also, but being determined not to take off again as I had done, tried to keep the airplane on the ground. The airplane began to “porpoise”, bouncing up and down, and finally went off the runway and broke apart. He was not injured, but the airplane was severely damaged.

The following week I had another hour of dual instruction with Dave, and then once again soloed, this time without incident. I continued flying all summer and fall, sometimes taking dual flight instruction from Dave or another instructor. During the summer I went to Camp Drum in Watertown for two weeks with my Army Reserve unit as the ration breakdown officer for the post. I arranged a trade of steaks and other extra foods that an Army National Guard aviation unit wanted for a barbeque for some flight instruction in a small L-19 airplane.

As a prerequisite to obtaining a private pilot’s license, the student was required to make three solo cross-country flights. I do not recall the exact distance requirements, but Dave sent me on my first flight on a beautiful fall Sunday to Burlington, Vermont. That flight went well, although some Vermont Air National Guard fighter jets playfully buzzed around me as I approached the airport.

My second cross-country flight was to the Broome County Airport in Binghamton, New York. The weather was really marginal, but Dave said it would probably not be too bad, and I took off. The weather grew windier as I approached the airport, and after I landed I was told that the only other airplanes that had landed that day were Mohawk Airlines passenger planes.

I telephoned my law school classmate, Don Butler, who lived in Vestal, a suburb of Binghamton. Don suggested that I meet him at the Tri-Cities Airport, a small airport close to his home, and not too distant from the Broome County Airport.

The approach to that airport is just over the Susquehanna River. On my first final approach, I encountered a strong wind as I descended over the river; it was so strong that it blew me off my path to the runway. I aborted the landing approach and went around for another try. This time I approached the runway some thirty to forty miles per hour faster than the normal landing speed, and I was able to hold the course for the landing.

During my trip back to Poestenkill I encountered showers and one of the navigation stations went off the air. Without being able to triangulate my position, I wasn’t quite certain of my position for much of the way back. However, I just flew northeast until I came upon the Hudson River, and then flew north above it until I reached the familiar Albany - Troy area and could return to the airport by recognizing visual landmarks.

My third cross-country flight was to be to Lake Placid. I left Poestenkill on a windy, partly cloudy fall day. I had to fly higher than usual to go over the Adirondack mountains. It became cloudier, and suddenly I realized that I was above the cloud cover, and I was not instrument rated nor trained to fly except by visual flight rules. I found one break in the clouds and spiraled down through it, coming out less than 1,000 feet above the ground. I flew to the small Saranac Lake airport but was told not to land because of the windy conditions. I flew back to Poestenkill, and Dave gave me credit for the cross-country flight even though I had not made a required landing at the distant airport.

By December I had the minimum required 40 hours necessary to be tested for a license. Dave arranged for a flight test with an FAA inspector at the Warren County Airport near Glens Falls. It was a sunny, cold date when I left Poestenkill, but the weather started to deteriorate as I traveled north. The inspector gave me an abbreviated flight test because of the weather, issued my license, and told me to get back to Poestenkill. I headed south, but after about five minutes I ran into a snow squall. The Warren County tower suggested that I return, but then a pilot flying a twin-engine airplane that was en route from Montreal to Albany offered to guide me back, and I followed him for a short distance until the weather cleared. It was still sunny in Poestenkill when I returned.

I didn’t fly too often that winter after getting my license. Although airplanes perform better in cold weather than in warm weather, the days are short and the weather is frequently not conducive to flying. Renting an airplane was not terribly expensive - about $14.00 per hour including fuel. I took some friends on short flights the following spring, mostly to show off to them that I had a pilot’s license and really could fly.

Then I started rethinking my flying. My close call on my first solo always bothered me. Then a client of the law office crashed and died while taking off from Poestenkill on his initial solo flight. I realized that flying was foolhardy, too much of a risk because I couldn’t afford either the money or the time to fly with enough frequency to maintain necessary proficiency.

My decision to cease flying as a pilot was made absolute when Dave crashed and died while trying to land a brand new twin-engine Piper Navaho one foggy night.

Interesting footnote: During April 2007, approximately 40 years after my last solo flight, I went to the FAA site and found that I was still listed as a licensed private pilot, although the address shown was several homes out of date. I corrected the address, and for $2.00 I received a new license. Apparently, a pilot's license is forever!