Dawn Patrol’s Last Hurrah

If you’ll just pay attention and listen to her, Lady Fate always finds a way to tell you things that portend your future. Sometimes it’s a “grab you by the nose and kick you in the pants” happening that tells you you’ve run outta your nine lives and it’s time to take a long think about your future. Think of the fat lady singing her last aria in the opera, tripping and falling head-first into the tuba in the orchestra pit. Now that’s a surefire attention getter. She should have been listening.

At other times it’s a gentle nudge from Madame Fate trying to help you make the right decision. But, unfortunately, sometimes a subtle nudge just doesn’t quite do the job. You need a nudge that’s a real attention getter!

It’s been said that the worst day of a pilot’s life is when he mounts his trusty aerial steed knowing it’s his last flight. The second worst day of all is when he climbs into the cockpit not knowing it’s his last flight.

The Perfect Day?

In our case, the second worst day happened in April 2020, during the height of COVID. Nobody was doing anything or going anywhere. It was a beautiful early spring flying day. The temperature was in the low 70s. Winds were right down the runway at zero gusting to two. In other words, it was a perfect day to fly a squirrelly little WW-I taildragging “water bug” that was just anxiously waiting to bite you on the butt any time you were not paying attention.

Because of the ongoing COVID issue, Liberty Landing International Airport was deserted. It was ours for the day! (Hold onto that thought.) Sweetie and I were both really excited. A flyable day had been a long time coming. We’d just recovered from our first case of COVID. Fortunately for both of us it was a mild case. We also hadn’t done any flying over the brutal winter we’d just experienced. You don’t fly open cockpit in a Missouri winter.

After fighting the usual curse-filled battle with the obstinate, unwieldy, heavy doors, the hangar was finally opened. We pushed our canvas falcons out onto the gravel in front of the hangar. The birds were dusted off and cleaned up. Props washed and windshields cleaned. Then we fueled them up with fresh ethanol-free premium auto fuel. Fuel tanks were checked for water and crankcase oil levels were verified. Then we each did a meticulous preflight on our birds. After that, just to make sure, we each did a beady-eyed FAA inspector-quality preflight on the other bird.

Surprising both of us, after complaining for just a little while, the engines started fairly easily. We patiently waited for the pistons to finally quit swapping holes and for things to settle down. We warmed them up until everything was snorting along peacefully. Every engine instrument had a needle resting in the correct green arc.

We waddled out to the runway and got ready to commit aviation. We got off the ground with no drama and flew about 30 minutes, rejoicing in the beautiful conditions. There was not a bump anywhere. The air was millpond smooth.

After a few close formation passes down the flight line that were just perfect, we landed. Again with no real swerving side-to-side drama. (We saved our dramatic, out-of-control, wingtip-dragging, off-the-runway-around-the-runway-lights-and-back-on-the-runway-landings for airshows in front of cheering crowds.) We taxied back to the hangar and shut them down. As the engines shuddered to a stop we just sat there grinning ear-to-ear at each other, savoring the magical moment. This was one of those many times I treasured the fact that I was one lucky guy to be married to my best friend.

That’s when it happened. Age and continuing medical issues surfaced like a spouting angry white sperm whale right outta the pages of Moby Dick.

We couldn’t get out of our airplanes.

Did I mention we are both passing 80 years old at Warp Factor Nine Speed? My all-metal titanium-replaced right shoulder didn’t have the strength to lift me out of the cockpit without help, which was usually there at the airport.

Sharon by that time had undergone two spinal operations. Her surgeon knew about our hobbies. Scuba diving was bad enough, he’d said. But this flying madness was the icing on the cake. He’d sat Sharon down and counseled her in a strongly worded come-to-Jesus meeting that he didn’t want to hear that she’d been seen doing any BLTs—bending, lifting, twisting—while flying.

One little incident might put her in a wheelchair. But by being real careful, and with outside help, Sharon had always been cautious getting in and out of her Morane.

Here Come Da Nudge

Like I said, because of COVID the field was deserted. There was no help anywhere. We were in a quandary about what to do. I’m thinking this was our attention-getting “nudge” from Ms. Fate.

It took me five torturous minutes of struggling to get set up to get outta the Nieuport’s cockpit. That’s when my useless right arm chose to give out on me. I ended up falling backward out of my Nieuport flat on my back onto the gravel. When I hit the ground the air whooshed out of my lungs like a fat guy falling on a beach ball. I lay there like a beached walrus for a few minutes gasping for air. My first squeaking noises sounded a lot like a Labrador giving a rubber squeaking-mouse toy a really hard time.

I finally started to breathe again. My next thought: Had I damaged myself in any way? A slow cautious inventory showed that toes, fingers, feet, arms, neck and legs were all moving as ordered. Everything seemed to be working OK.

Now, gotta go rescue Sweetie. Throughout all this Sweetie didn’t make a sound. She told me why later on while driving home.

By rolling over onto my stomach I was able to crawl on my hands and knees over to Sharon’s Morane. I climbed up to the cockpit using a rear gear leg to get to her. Then with my help, Sharon was gingerly extracted slowly from her Morane.

After putting the birds away in their hangar and again, vividly cursing the hangar doors, we started the 40-minute drive back home.

The drive home was tense, silent and brooding.

Sharon broke the silence first. “You know,” she said, “If you had broken your hip or finally trashed your shoulder when you fell out of the Nieuport we would probably have been up the proverbial poo-poo creek without a paddle. Someone driving by the field in July would see your skeleton lying there on the ground and my skeleton sitting in the Morane and hopefully call someone to come check us out.” And, yes, our cellphones were left in the car.

Then at about the same time we both basically said, “You know, I think we’d better hang this up before something really bad happens to us. Today could have gone pear-shaped on us in a split second.”

With That, We Were Done

We made the decision to make the cut as quick and clean as possible. Giving up our hangars was easier and a very welcome change in our monthly finances. The waiting list for hangar space was long. Finding a home for our birds could have been a problem but not in this case. Liability issues dictated that selling them was not an option we wanted to explore. Anyway, we already had a home reserved for them.

The delightful Combat Air Museum is a little gem located in two enormous hangars at Topeka’s Forbes Field, home of the 190th Air Refueling Wing. The officials at the museum jumped at the chance to add two planes to their  contingent of WW-I replicas. The museum contains one of the largest collections of WW-I aircraft replicas in the Midwest. Twelve replica WW-I planes in all are on display.

Sharon and I have four of our birds there on permanent display: my WW-I Taube Bomber, Sharon’s DH-2 replica, my Nieuport 11 and Sharon’s Morane. All are specifically, in writing, prohibited from ever flying again.

As age progressed and my eyes got foggy and my eye/hand coordination disappeared I donated all 167 of my rare unassembled plastic 1/72-scale WW-I and WW-II aircraft models to the museum. They have a master modeler there itching to start adding them to their large display cabinets of military aircraft models. All my WW-I magazines and books are going to the museum too. Our planes and models couldn’t be in a better place.

One of my favorite authors is Patrick McManus. His book A Fine And Pleasant Misery is a good case in point. It’s basically about some of his adventures in hunting and fishing that were absolute disastrophies at the time. But, these same disasters are a ball to talk about in the winter in front of a roaring fire while sipping a steaming cuppa hot chocolate with a blizzard screaming around the windows of your house.

Over the 40 years while we were flying our little cheap warbirds we’ve had our fair share of “outstanding pleasant miseries.” Most were documented in this very magazine with titles such as “The Flood of ’93,” “Corn on the Taube,” “Send Up the Bump Dummy,” “Nightmare at 2000 Feet,” “The Two-Cycle Engine Toss,” “It’s the Great Pumpkin Drop” and many others. Two stories didn’t get printed, a pair of “nightmare at 2000 feet” tales, rejected because editors here said they were way too graphic for a family publication. They are chapters one and two in my second book, Fokkers At Six O’clock!! Available from Amazon.com.

One final note: Do we miss flying? Of course we do! Was it time? Of course it was! Madame Fate don’t fool around and she sure as heck don’t tell no lies.