CHAPTER 1
YOU SEE THE AIRPORTDON'T YOU CAPTAIN?
Puerto Vallarta provided lots offun and entertaining momentswhile there, and some times whileleaving. Our favorite trip was scheduledto depart Puerto Vallarta at 0900. Thefirst stop on our way back to Phoenixwas Mazatlan, just 35 minutes up thebeautiful coast in our fast bright yellowDC-9 jet. Yes "Bright Yellow". The ownerwas of course "Howard Hughes" and thePresident was "Russell Stevenson". Moreon Hughes Airwest later.
The good thing about flying in Mexico,then was, no airspeed restrictions atany altitude, other than around theairports. We enjoyed zooming up the coastat 3000'msl. The air was so smooth thatmorning and the visibility was unlimited.Our airspeed indicator showed 330 kts.The coastline just rushed by.
Captain Merle and I had flown thistrip many times and were very familiarwith this route, the approach and theairport. Mazatlan airport had a singleEast West runway. Arriving from the Southwe normally made a right turn, South ofthe airport for a left downwind approachto the West runway.
Capt. Merle and I were not up latethe night before and was well rested.The weather was clear with no trafficen-route. This was truly, "A Lovely DayFor An Airplane Ride". Capt. Merle wasflying this first leg of our return tripto Phoenix. He had such a great touchwith the controls of our airplane. Hisattitude was relaxed and confident. Itwas a pleasure for the entire crew to beflying with him.
So, there we were, zooming up the coastat 0925. Mazatlan airport was coming intoview 25 miles ahead. I give the tower acall. They reported no other traffic inthe area and cleared us to land to theWest as expected.
It was a quiet Mexico morning. Therewas no conversation in the cockpit or onthe radio. The DC-9 was quite, I was quietand Capt. Merle was quiet. All was good.
I glanced over at my Captain, a verycapable 30,000+ hour pilot. An Ex-NavalAviator who retired as a full commanderfrom the Naval Reserve. He was not usingthe autopilot to fly this leg. Both ofthose experienced hands are on the yokeand his eagle eyes are looking straightahead at the airport. A minute or sopasses before I glance over again. Iam anticipating his reduction in cruisepower and calling for me to do the"Decent Check List".
No command yet. I guess he is going toshow me something new on this approach.
I just wait in anticipation.
We are crossing the water at 7 milesper minute. Airport now just under 15miles away.
His eyes are still looking straightahead, his hands on the yoke, the coursestill very steady and the altitude righton. But, we are really closing on thatairport fast.
He had not said a word for the last 15minutes and I didn't want to talk, justto talk, so I just waited.
Another minute flew by. Now we weregetting very close, my guess under 8miles, and we were still at cruise power.
The DC-9 is so aerodynamically cleanit takes time and distance to slow downand turn, even with the speed brakes.
I could wait no longer. I would haveto hope for another time for the lesson Iwas being taught. I said, "Merle, you seethe airport don't you?"
He jerked up from his stare to say,"Airport". He now saw Mazatlan Airport.It was just a couple of miles away andsaid, "Holy @#$*".
With that, he pulled back on thethrottles to idle, extended the speedbrakes and made a steep right turn as weapproached the center of the airport. Aswe slid over top of the airport to enterfrom the North side, we heard this loudlaughing coming from the galley which waslocated just behind the cockpit.
I quickly called the tower and advisedthat we would be making a right downwindapproach. They said, "Royer, clearedto land". I know I heard that MexicanController laughing at the "GringoPeeloootos".
After we smoothly landed and weretaxiing to the terminal gate, both girlscame into the cockpit still laughing.They had been standing in the galleywhen Capt. Merle started the simultaneousDecent, Approach and Landing phase of theflight. Vangie and Ruth both were drivento their knees by the g's of the turn andrapid deceleration of the jet.
The great flight attendants they were,really showed when both passed it offto the passengers as a routine Mexicanapproach.
I thanked Capt. Merle for showing methat approach. It was the first and onlytime I had seen that approach done on ourairline. He did ask me not to demo it toanyone, including him.
This is the first time I have mentionedit since then.
Merle and I along with 4 or 5 otherpilots belonged to a golf club in Phoenixcalled "Indian Bend". He was a goodgolfer and I got to see him hole outhis second shot on a par 4 hole from 230Yards. I still remember that from over 45years ago.
Just how did I get here? Well let metell you my story.
CHAPTER 2
PILOT TRAINING, "WHERE ITSTARTS"
I am convinced that pilots, by theirvery nature or by their early upbringing, are a different breed.I am not sure what that breed is exactly,but I think the ones I expound on here,INCLUDING MYSELF, will give you thepicture.
Certainly, many of the rare birds Iam writing about today grew up the sameway, with great curiosity. I was alwayslooking to do things that were a moreexciting than those that were availableto me. The search for that excitement wasalways present. I really didn't want tohurt myself or anyone else. I just wantedto explore fun and exciting things.
The first age I remember beinginterested in flying was when I was 6 or7 years old. We lived in a two story homewith a big screened porch in the backin Glendale, Ohio. The porch roof wasslopped just slightly with trees growingby it. What fun it was, running up thestairs, taking out the hall window screenat the top of the stairs and climbingout on the porch roof. The top of theroof led to early flying opportunities.It had to have been 15 feet from roof totera-firma.
A large tree was close to the porchroof and mature enough to have bigbranches. That beautiful tree providedopportunities for me to sail. The onlyproblem I had was that the tree was notright up against the porch. The nearestbranch was about 5 or 6 feet away. Thefirst flying I did was diving out tocatch onto the tree's branches and let myweight gently take me down close enoughto the ground where I could drop at areasonable rate to the soft grass below.It was really a kick. The fear abouthurting myself was just not there.
My mother, bless her heart, was soafraid I would really get hurt. I wasthen, as through my life, not in completedisregard for my safety. The fun andexcitement was worth the measured risk.Even had I missed the limb, it would nothave hurt too much, maybe just scuffedmyself up a little.
I would have gotten away with thatcaper a little longer than I did, but thebranch was so far from the porch I couldnot get back on the roof from the tree.Jumping again meant I had to go back intothe house, up the stairs and out thescreened window onto the porch roof. Igot caught after too many great jumps onone day! I should have known they wouldfigure out that I was just going up thestairs, but never coming back down.
I expanded from that tree to divinginto hay stacks at my grandmother's farmin Kentucky. What fun it was to swan divefrom the rafters and land on your chest inthe hay. The rest of the kids that did jumpjust landed on their rears. Actual divingwas so much more fun than just jumping. Ihad to really be careful diving. I almosthurt my back by hitting too vertical once.But that too just expanded my learningcurve to try more things. Those earlyflights were great adventures. I couldn'tunderstand why the other kids didn't wantto fly off those rafters into that greatstack of hay 10 feet below.
They just didn't see the adventure.They just saw the danger.
Too bad!
CHAPTER 3
SKYDIVING
The first general aviation pilot Iran into was a middle-aged fellowwho became a life long friend,"Midge Huff". Just picture Jackie Gleasontelling stories and chewing on a halfsmoked cigar.
That was , truly a "Rare Bird".
I met Midge through my brother-in-lawJim. I was 21 years old and just finishedthree years in the Army, mostly withthe 101st. Airborne. I naturally wantedto get into skydiving. Jim knew a guywho dropped jumpers and took me to thislittle grass strip in southern Ohio thatthey called an Airport. There, I metMidge.
Midge had been flying for over twentyyears at that time and was also a MasterParachute Rigger. What a perfect fit formy skydiving aspirations. He sold skydiving buffs, like me, parachutes, taughtus how to pack them and then flew usup to make jumps in his aircraft for aslight fee. It was a perfect fit for oursky diving dreams come true and make goodprofits for Midge.
Midge had just a private pilot licensebut had many, many years around aviationand many hours of flying experience.Midge did not see the need for acommercial license. I mean, he was doingwhat he wanted with a private license.He was dropping jumpers from his Cessna170 airplane, flying his Bi-plane at AirShows and selling parachutes. Picking upa few bucks here and there was all he wastrying to do. He told us often that itbarely made enough money to pay for theequipment, gas and airplanes.
He couldn't seem to keep themid-section of his shirt buttoned andlooked nothing like your vision of apilot might be. But, boy could he fly!His story telling was almost as good asGleason's too. It took quite a few yearsbefore I found out his first name was,"Millard". That RB taught me survivalskills in both flying and parachuting.
Midge's second wife, "Janice", wasquite young and somewhat interestedin his flying. Shortly after they gotmarried, she tried to get him to teachher to fly. The poor thing, she had tohang around the airport a lot to be withhim anyway. It just seemed like the thingfor her to do.
Midge took Janice up just once for aflying lesson. It was her first and onlylesson. He scared the daylights out ofher doing loops, snap rolls and stalls inhis Cessna 170.
Yes, I said the Cessna 170.
It was her first flying lesson and herlast. She almost threw up. Her learningto fly days were over.
I asked Midge why he was so rough onJanice for her first time up. He bit alittle harder on the short stogie andsaid, "Hause, don't you know how much itcost to fly? She don't need to fly." Shenever wanted to go up for a lesson again.
Janice was really good to Midge and usjumpers. She did a ton of sewing on ourparachute canopies and made the sleevesused on the chutes.
The sleeve slowed down the opening ofthe parachute and reduced the openingshock. The sleeve slipped over the entirecanopy after it was straighten out andpleated. Then we would fold the entireunit and pack it in the container afterfirst rubber banding the shroud lines.The pilot chute was attached to thesleeve and pulled the whole assembly outof the container when the rip-cord waspulled.
The sleeve was not attached to thecanopy when we first started using them.Following each jump, someone had to chasedown the sleeve and pilot chute. Thesleeves were most colorful and stood outso we could find them easily. Usually, abright red, yellow or blue was best tospot even in the trees. Finally someonethought of attaching the sleeve to theapex of the canopy to keep from loosingthem. It worked well, no interferencewith the opening at all.
Midge had a parachute loft up in hislarge attic. It was a great loft. Hehad everything you could imagine forparachutes up there. He had the bestsewing machines money could buy.
Nothing was too good for Janice.
He had two machines for the light workon the canopies and sleeves. Janice ofcourse did that. He also had a heavyduty sewing machine that he used to sewthe nylon harnesses. That machine was sostrong that it could sew harness materialup to an inch or inch and a half thickwhen folded together.
The amount and variety of the supplieshe had in that loft was unbelievable.Military surplus canopies, still in theiroriginal boxes were sitting all over. Hewould buy 25 to 100 of them at a time.He even had a full length parachutepacking table. We packed lots and lots ofparachutes in that loft.
It was great time for me. I learneda lot about parachutes in every area.Knowing every aspect about them, how theyare made and properly packed gives youeven more confidence. I also got greatchutes, (we called them sacks), for areasonable cost.
What a great opportunity I had tomodify parachutes with the help of"Master Rigger Midge" and Janice. I woulddream up different patterns and cut thecanopy trying to get max performance inguidance and still have enough nylonleft to not land too hard. Janice sewedreinforcing tape to the areas cut outto keep that thin nylon material fromripping.
Twenty eight panels of nylon fabricrunning up about sixteen feet from theskirt (bottom) to the apex (top) madeup a canopy. I would take out one panelstarting at the skirt going up abouteight feet to see if I got enough of thetrapped air pushing me forward. Not bad,so I would cut out two panels and thenthree. I never knew exactly how much totake out until I jumped it. It was wild.the number of combinations we tried.Several of us were making all sorts ofmods to get more performance. You neverknew exactly what to expect when you gotto the drop area. I found that it wasbetter to skip a couple of panels insteadof cutting panels out all together. Thesack tried to collapse when too many cutouts were close together. We developeddesigns that worked well for us.
Single panel cuts worked great for ournew jumpers giving some them some abilityto guide the parachute without loosingmuch trapped air. They didn't have torely on slipping the chute for guidance.
The designs we made were inverted T's,Double T's, U's and T-U's. Anything wecould imagine to give us more forwardspeed. Always in search for higherperforming parachutes. We would makemods. and I would try them out. Howglad I was that I had the training inthe Army 101st. Airborne on how to makePLF's, (Parachute Landing Fall). Some ofthe landings were really hard. I scrappedthose sacks. Our mods. worked well mostof the time. Some jumps we made forpay were into tight spots. Any help wecould get to stay out of the trees, therivers and the power lines was greatlyappreciated.
I had made 40 or 50 jumps from Midge'sairplane before I found out that Jim hadyet to make a single parachute jump.That brother-in-law of mine, who toutedme to skydive with Midge, had not evengotten into Midge's Cessna for a ride.Well, "we'll fix that", I said to myself.I asked Midge to drop Jim and he said,"Ok" with a quiet smile. Jim was tooembarrassed not to jump now.
Before Midge could sack Jim up, (puta main and reserve chute on him), I gaveJim some training on how to get out ofthe airplane and how to land. Midge goesover with Jim again on how to get out ofthe airplane and how to pull the ripcord.Jim's first jump was to be a freefall. Iasked Midge why a free fall on his firstjump. New jumpers usually received 4 or5 static line jumps before their firstfreefall. Midge's reason, "static linesbeat against his airplane and chip thepaint". We're not wimps are we?
I was becoming more comfortable withMidge's decision when he tied a shroudline to Jim's wrist and to the rip cord.That seemed good to me at first. A safetyitem for Jim, on this, his first freefalljump.
The only thing that didn't look rightto me was the cord. It was about 6 feetlong. I said, "Midge, I think that is agood idea to be sure he pulls the ripcordbut shouldn't it be shorter, certainly nolonger than his arm, to insure the pull".Midge said, "Hell no Hause!. I know hewill pull the handle. I put that line onthere so he wouldn't drop the ripcordafter he pulls it. First timer's get soexcited after the chute opens that theydrop my ripcord. You know they cost me $6each".
