From the Beginning I Was Fated!
Since I was nine months old I have been in love with airplanes. It was a boy's thing, but it was driven into me by my father's second calling in the 30s -- he was a member of the Air National Guard, and flew on Sundays from a field called Sky Harbor outside of Nashville, Tennessee. At nine months old he took me up for my first ride, not that I remember it at all, but it does show the mad dedication he had for flying. My mother was there on the ground having a grand fit when she found out that Dad had climbed into the plane with me on his lap and had taken off!
The second time I went up with him, it was in the (then) new Curtiss O-11A biplanes the Guard had received. They were painted very colorfully with yellow and blue, and with a red and white striped tail. There was a fourth and a fifth ride too, one in a Ryan ST, and the other in a Curtiss Robin. The Ryan was a stunt plane, and I swallowed my stomach around the first loop I had ever experienced. but I did get to hold the stick for a while, even if I couldn't reach the rudder pedals.
At home, when my parents had parties, many of the people there were from the Squadron or from other aviation circles. After they had been there and quaffed a few drinks, the women gathered into a group for their kind of talk, so the men did too. I used to sneak to a point where I could listen to their flying stories and marvel at the close calls and funny events they told about, punctured by the loud roars of their laughter. It made a lifelong impression on me. Flying was romantic, daring and fun. There was no question but that it was the thing to do!
Then, when I was about five or six, we had moved to Miami Beach, and on the causeway from the beach a man had set up a business of selling rides in a seaplane. We had to try it out, my Dad and I! My best recollection is that it was a biplane with a cabin and floats; similar to a WACO Model N which I had flights in later on. It was a bumpy ride on takeoff, but I remember staring down at the part of Miami Beach where we lived from about 1,500 feet, and then later on bouncing noisily onto the water of Biscayne Bay with a lot of spray being kicked up.
The highlight of my time in Miami was going to the airfield to watch Amelia Earheart take off on the first over-water leg of what I understood was to be her round the world flight. This was June 1, 1937. My father decided to go in uniform, thinking that he might be able to get us into the inner circle of fliers, and perhaps even meet Amelia herself. We had just worked our way through the crowd to be near the official stand, when the announcer there yelled at my father to come over. He asked my father if he knew about flying, and would he take the microphone and comment on the takeoff.
So Dad took the microphone and proceeded to tell the story of the planned flight, something about Amelia Earheart and her crewman, Fred Noonan, and then, when they came out and climbed in the plane, what she would be doing to prepare for takeoff. Finally, with a sputter and then a roar the Electra's engines started, and she taxied out to the runway. The plane paused at the head of the runway while Amelia ran up the engines one at a time, and then the brakes were released and she took off, with Dad saying "...and there she goes!" for all of Miami to hear over the radio.
I was not told that she hadn't made it for several weeks, until I accidentally heard about it on the radio myself. But by then, I was well and truly hooked on airplanes and flying, and would not have hesitated to fly with my Dad around the world.
# posted by Mannning @ 9:13 PM
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