My Class and My Life

 This will be long, and I’m not sure where to start. I’m sure I will be doing a lot of editing, and I may have to split it into two or more parts.

 I was raised working as a small boy in my Father’s Kaiser-Fraser auto repair shop until he left the family when I was eleven. I was already by then a fairly skilled auto mechanic, and with the help of my relative and close friend Gleason Appling, who was studying diesel mechanics, we were able to keep the cars running, at least.

I studied a college prep curriculum in high school, taking every math class they offered, aiming at becoming a Mechanical Engineer. I graduated in 1961, but didn’t have the money to go directly to college, so I stayed out one year and saved my coins.

I was accepted at Walla Walla College into an Engineering major, and had trouble immediately, due to my rusty math skills on the year I was out working as a ranch hand for money. However, I enjoyed much of the classwork and practical skills taught in that school. Part of the trouble was I was having to work afternoons as a machinist helper to supplement my funds to pay tuition. While I learned a lot in the machine shop as a helper, it did not count toward my credits.

After the one year of college, I found work in a carburetor rebuilding shop in Fremont, California, due to the efforts of my cousin Jim Russell, who lived in San Jose. I worked there for about a year, becoming familiar with every kind of carburetor that ever existed, and getting a little practice on the Clayton dynamometer that they used to test each carburetor before boxing them up for shipment to various parts stores.

I quit that job, moved back to Merced, and went to work for Montgomery Wards, in their repair shop as a gas engine mechanic, working on mowers, chain saws, and rototillers. In my spare time I helped the TV repairman put up antennas, or assist the refrigeration guy install air conditioners.  

At the beginning of 1965 I was told by the management that they did not want to train me for the new year, because of my 1-A draft status. When my unemployment ran short, I went down to the Selective Service office to find out when they were going to draft me. I knew it was inevitable, because the war in Vietnam was escalating daily. They told me I could request to be moved up the list to the top, and said I guess I better do that or starve, since nobody would hire me.

I got my Greetings letter from President Lyndon B. Johnson in just a couple of weeks, and I started Basic Training at Ft. Ord on April 7, 1965.

The base was nearly empty, as they had had a spate of spinal meningitis cases with several deaths in the months before and had closed the base for training for six months. I was in the second training company after the restart, and we were quarantined to the immediate barracks area the whole eight weeks of training.

I first got to use some of that college training before the first company inspection. We were instructed to have our field equipment arranged on a towel in front of our foot locker in a certain configuration, but the instructions were kind of vague. I suggested to my sergeant that I could draw a picture to make the layout clearer, and he said go for it. I used the year of Engineering Drawing I had acquired to sketch out how the articles should be arranged for inspection, and after the sergeant suggested that I change the label “washrag” to “washcloth”, he took it to the company commander. He was duly impressed and made enough copies for every soldier in the company.  He shared it with other company commanders, and I found that my drawing was being used all over the post. Of course, we got top marks on our inspection!

At the end of Basic, they posted the orders for every soldier on the company bulletin board, and the vast majority were destined for more training - AIT - Advanced Individual Training. I wasn’t on the list, so I inquired and was told because of my skills and experience, I was going to an engine repair depot in Granite City, Illinois, directly bypassing any more training.

However, they offered me Officer Candidate School, because of my high scores on the battery of exams they gave me, but I turned that down because I didn’t want obligated to be a Commissioned Officer until 65 years old.

They also offered me a chance to go to Ft. Rucker, Alabama, and become a Warrant Officer and helicopter pilot. I would have loved to become a pilot, but the prospects of surviving over the jungles of Vietnam in a helicopter were not enticing, so I turned that down, also.

I reported for duty at Granite City Army Depot to the 185th Engr. Co. (HM) and in a couple of days they sent me out to the shop for an interview with the shop officer in charge. He brightened up when I mentioned my dynamometer experience, and asked what kind of dyno? I told him a Clayton 250, and he just about jumped out of his chair. He told me he had three of them out on the floor, and only one soldier qualified to operate it. 

I was assigned to one of the dynamometers, with a Specialist 4 as my assistant. Since I was still a buck Private, I was a little nervous, but after we were introduced, I showed him the third dyno and let him know he would soon have it for his own, with a little patience.

For the next couple of months I spent eight hours a day testing newly rebuilt engines, and setting hot valve lash on each when done testing on an hour and a half card at different loads and speeds. Most of the engines were flat head Dodge sixes for 3/4 ton weapons carriers, but we did a few GMC truck engines and even tried a a 1260 hp. Allison engine for the M-60 tank, but all we could test was startup and idle. 

In the fall of 1965 we got word that the whole company was being moved overseas to get closer to the action in Southeast Asia. All our men and equipment were loaded aboard the old troopship Gen. J. C. Breckinridge and chugged across the Pacific Ocean to Okinawa. There we opened up a base that had been mothballed since the Korean War. It had originally been a Japanese airfield during WWII.

There were several big hangers that were divided up between the different sections of the company. One was the Fuel and Electric Section, and that’s where I was sent, to become the carburetor tester. My Military Occupational Specialty was 63Golf, which is Fuel & Electric Repairman, so my job was pretty obvious.

However, the immediate problem for me is that they had lots of carburetors coming in for testing from lots of different engines, and we only had two engines to test them on, a small GMC and a large Chrome Moly. (I don’t remember who made that one). The shop officer said they were going to try to find other engines for carburetor testing. I asked if they couldn’t just make adapters to fit any carb to the engines we had.

He replied that they didn’t have that kind of ability in the shops on base. I volunteered to design and make patterns so the fabrication shop could just cut and weld the parts together. He seemed a little skeptical but he gave me time and a drafting table, so I designed three different adapters for four barrels to two barrel, two barrels to one barrel, and one with a 90º bend to test M151 side draft jeep carburetors. It took me a couple of days to finish. I made cardboard patterns outlining the shapes and hole details, and in a week or so they had cut, bent and welded them together beautifully, and even painted them OD to match the engines. They worked wonderfully well, and I was presented with an award for “Zero Defects”. I still retain the certificate in my military papers.

Not long after we started testing the M151 carburetors, the shop ran out of parts. The accelerator pump was a diaphragm and spring affair in the bottom of the bowl, and when the diaphragm failed, the fuel flooded the vacuum port to the manifold and the engine would not start. They told us that the whole vehicle was made to be disposable, since they lost a lot of expensive Jeeps in the Korean War, and so the carburetor only had two moving parts - throttle and choke - and all the rest was diaphragms. Since the carb itself was disposable, we weren’t supposed to have to repair them, but they needed them in Nam, and no replacements were available from the manufacturer. 

So I asked the shop officer to check locally for diaphragm material and rivets to match the ones we needed and we started manufacturing parts for these little carburetors. We were able to put out several thousand repaired carbs this way, and I am pretty sure our parts were better than the originals.  

When I was separated from the US Army in 1967, I wasn’t able to find work in my hometown of Merced, California, so I went down to Los Angeles to find a job. I applied for a job at the West Coast Racing Division of Champion Spark Plugs down by the harbor near San Pedro, and although he liked my experience, he said he couldn’t give me the job because they were looking for someone with a college degree. 

That was the first time I realized that it wasn’t your qualifications they were looking for, it was was your certification from higher education they wanted. My class disqualified me, even though I could do the job. It wasn’t the last time I ran into that wall.

With the help of a family friend, John Price, I found an apprenticeship opening in a large manufacturing facility in Downey. The job was training as a Maintenance Machinist. The name of the company was Olympic Screw and Rivet Company, but after I left, I found the owners had changed the name to Fastener Specialties Company, after they heard too many jokes about being on the Olympic Screw Team.

I had only worked there about a month, when I got a call from Milheim Motors, a Pontiac agency in Merced, where I had put in an application for a job. They needed a Tune-up man, and were paying more than a dollar an hour more than where I was. The next day I went to my supervisor and  gave him two weeks notice, and explained why, since I loved the work in the machine shop.

The next day I was called into his office, and my foreman was already there. My supervisor explained that my foreman had told him I was the one he could send out to a broken machine, and I could diagnose the problem, make new parts if needed and repair the machine without needing a lot of help. He offered to move me up in the apprenticeship schedule two years and raise my wages well above what the Pontiac agency was offering.

I accepted the offer and called Mr. Milheim Pontiac that evening. He wasn’t surprised, and laughed as he told me to call anytime I needed more help in negotiations.

I stayed there for two more years until I topped out and was rated Journeyman. Not long after, I became unhappy with the LA life and quit and next found work at John Kimzey Welding out in the country in Woodland, California. The pay was much less, and the benefits were nil, but the work was varied and challenging. I repaired and machined parts for everything from tractors, airplanes, ditch diggers and trucks. Each day was different and exciting. 

I had gotten married before leaving LA, and taking on a family was requiring a little more care in moving from job to job. Even though I liked the work, I had to quit and look elsewhere for a better job. I didn’t find it right away!

My next job was in Silver Springs, Nevada, for Sierra Rotary Engine Corp., a small shop that was making experimental engines for an inventor, Bill Turner, who had patents on twenty seven different engines, he said. Some were steam driven, and some were internal combustion engines, including a scissor piston engine that looked intriguing to me. 

The pay was even worse, but was offset by the cheaper rents in the area. We found a cheap house for rent a hundred yards behind the shop, allowing me to walk to work and save on gas, too.

I don’t think I ever worked in a place that valued my contribution to the company as Bill Turner did. He would explain in the morning what we needed done that day, and was always surprised when I finished the work before he expected. He was almost joyous when we got the machine assembled and rotating at last. (Or maybe it was that fifth of Black Velvet he drank every day!)

He had a dynamometer installed for testing, but unfortunately, due to errors in the design materials, we could not start the engine on the evening he announced it to the investors. Bill told me the next Monday that there was no money in the bank, and he couldn’t guarantee a paycheck at the end of the week. I thanked him for his courtesy and went back to LA, where I knew I could find a job quickly.

I found a job the next day at M-K Products in Santa Ana, as a production machinist making hundreds of small precision parts every day for dental drill motors. I could handle the work, but I hated it. After a month of making the same parts every day, and contending with the LA lifestyle and traffic, I quit and started looking for work someplace else, outside the city. 

After a month of homeless camping in national and state parks across the west, I found an ad in the Grand Junction newspaper for a machinist in Hayden, Colorado, at a power generation plant. I went into the headquarters in Montrose and inquired, and they asked me to take a test to qualify for the job. I had no trouble acing the skills test with my years of experience and training. Then they gave me a psychological test to see if I could stand the isolation. I loved this one as there was nothing I wanted more than to get far from the big city. 

After a perfunctory physical by a company doctor in Montrose, they sent me up to Hayden to interview the next day with the plant manager. We dipped into our meager funds and got a motel room for the night in Craig. We both needed a bath in a bad way!

When we awoke the next morning, my wife Carolyn said her nipples were sore and she didn’t feel like eating breakfast due to nausea. I told her it sounded like she was pregnant. She was shocked but happy, since we had been trying for four years to make that happen. Things were about to turn around in a big way for us. 

The liberal line at WalMart

 What a wonderful day at WalMart!  I don’t get to say that very often.

I was feeling kind of bored and lonely, so I decided to go shopping. I learned that from my wife years ago. I spent part of the day reminiscing with old photos and video of us when she was still living.

Not only that, but I have been on a keto diet for about a year, due to weight and heart trouble, and I was having a carb attack. Specifically, I craved some corn chips with salsa. 

So I binged today. I told myself if I only do this once a year, it shouldn’t hurt me too bad!

I was surprised at the number of shoppers at 3:00 on a Monday afternoon. Most of them were not wearing masks or keeping a distance. This town is a conservative bunch, so that didn’t surprise me at all.

I got my groceries and went toward the checkout row. There was a long line of carts backed up to the fresh fruit and vegetables section waiting for the self check machines. I cut through there and headed for the live checkers. WalMart doesn’t pay me enough to do my own checking.

All the checkout lines were full, and most of them had carts loaded up like they were shopping for a month.

But hey! Look at checkout line  #4! Only two other carts in that line, with just a few items in the cart just like myself.

I looked down toward the checker, and there was a nice looking young black man with natural Afro hair wearing a mask. He was a little slow and unsure of himself, like he had just been hired.

I also immediately noticed that everybody in this checkout line was wearing a mask to avoid spreading the virus. I hadn’t been, but I had one folded in my back pocket, so I took it out and put it on! 

I was vaccinated back in February, so I’m safe from serious illness, but it is perfectly possible that I could breathe in the virus and pass it along to others who might be still at risk. The joker during this pandemic was finding out that people with no symptoms can pass on the virus and infect others.

Kudos to WalMart for having a line just for liberals! They should do that everywhere. As he finished checking each person out, they all wished him a good day, and thanked him. I did the same and made sure to call him by name. Kaleb. Good man!

I have some idea of what it feels like to be the only one of your color in a room. I had some of my buddies in the Army invite me out for drinks at a black bar in Koza, Okinawa, back in 1966. Even though I was with friends and Army buddies, I still felt strangely out of place. Even though they were celebrating with me and buying my beers! 

Yep, it was a great day at WalMart. I may shop there more often, now that I‘ve found the liberal line!

Invitation to the Bryan County Federation of Democratic Women

 Thank you for the invitation to the Democratic Party functions in Bryan County. I consider it to be an honor. 

However, my political story is long and involved, and although I was a fervent campaign organizer for Barack Obama and was elected to the chairman’s seat of the Humboldt County, Nevada, Democratic Party during the 2008 election, I was never more disappointed at his unwillingness to actually fight for poor and working people during his administration.

Before I joined the Democratic Party to work for Obama, I was a founding member of the Libertarian Party in Colorado. That was when the emphasis was on civil liberty, not as they later became the party for freedom to financially ruin all your competitors, when it was taken over by the Koch brothers and Ron Paul.

On February 20, 2001 I spent a long cold day picketing the courthouse on behalf of the Libertarian Party and November.org, a prisoner’s rights organization. We were protesting the incarceration of the 2,000,000 prisoner in the US.  One quarter of all prisoners in every country in the world are imprisoned in the US. We are by far the most imprisoned country in the world, even as we sing about the land of the free, and the land of liberty. I am still a long time member of the ACLU.

During those years of fighting to reduce our prison population, Joe Biden was one of my chief nemesis’ as he was a leading figure in the War on Drugs, Three Strikes You're Out, and other schemes to throw more poor people in jail and prison.

I was no longer the Democratic Chairman in the 2016, but I campaigned hard for Bernie Sanders in northern Nevada, and take a little credit for his win in the Nevada Caucuses. I organized and conducted caucuses for four different precincts, and actually got a couple of wins for Bernie in a strongly red part of the state.

To be frank, I don’t see a lot of hope for either the old conservative wing of the Republican Party or the old Third Way Clinton coalition of the Democratic Party. The younger generations are only too aware of the total failure of both mainstream parties to move America to a place with real opportunities for progress and advancement for them. Both parties are still committed to free trade, which forces US workers to compete with Chinese workers who get pennies per hour. I believe that is one of the main motivations for the rise of Donald Trump. He lied about his intentions better than Hillary did.

I see the national picture of the Democratic Party as pretty dismal. If Joe Biden survives to the end of his term, Kamala Harris may be the nominee, which will be a disaster. Identity politics got her the vice presidency, but her performance during the primaries in 2020 was pathetic. She is not a natural politician, her policy positions are vague to nonexistent, and she just isn’t very likable.

I am a Social Democrat, still in love with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the progressive populist wing of the Democratic Party. As usual, the official Democratic Party has endorsed an opposing candidate to Nina Turner, a hugely popular candidate in Cleveland, Ohio. 

I believe if Democrats went back to the lingering legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ran on his accomplishments, they might have a chance at swaying some opinions down here in the South. I am a beneficiary of a wildly socialist electric cooperative company here in Durant. Many thousands of older people down here are existing on Social Security checks, a socialist conspiracy if ever there was one. 

I believe if Democrats ever want to win again, they need to stop cringing at words like socialist and liberal, and start preaching and educating people on the real history that is fading away with those people who remember the Great Hoover Depression.

Sorry I’m so long, but I don’t know how to say it shorter. 

I’d be happy to sit in on the meeting at the library on July 20, If I’m still welcome. 

Thanks again,

Don Rogers

P. S. I went to the meeting today and was made to feel very welcome. 

Kudos from my Cardiologist

 Hey!! I’m feeling pumped! I’ve got my cardiologist’s praise.

I went in for a follow up on my trans esophageal echocardiogram today, and the doctor came in smiling. He told me my heart valves are perfectly fine and my coronary arteries are splendid! He told me I am in better health than 99% of my peers, and asked me to what did I attribute that.

I told him I think it’s culture. I was born and raised in California, where most people walk, run, climb mountains, surf and swim, and some of us ride bicycles. I moved here, and everybody thinks I’m nuts because I still ride a bicycle, even though it’s been sixty years since I graduated from high school.

He asked where in California, and I told him in Merced, in the Central Valley. He explained that he and his wife went to Santa Monica to visit friends last year, and even took a boat over to Santa Catalina island.

I told him that twenty years ago my wife and I took a side trip from a national square dance festival at Anaheim, and went to Santa Catalina island, and right there on the dock we rented a bicycle built for two. We rode that bike all over the island on every paved road they have at Avalon.

( There were only three then).

He laughed out loud. 

He explained that he is retiring soon and will be looking for activities to keep him young, too.

He asked if I am up on my vaccinations, and I assured him I got mine in January and February. The side effect of those were what we had agreed was probably myocarditis, a rare condition for the Pfizer shots. But I haven’t had any trouble in a couple of months.

My guess is that years of dealing with an autoimmune disease probably ties into that somehow.

He cautioned me that he will probably call me when a booster shot becomes available soon. I asked, “Delta variant?” He said no, the latest mutant is the Lambda variant, and it’s worse than the Delta. It comes from South America, and the president of Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro, who poo-pooed the Covid virus is in the hospital with an oxygen mask keeping him breathing as we speak.

I promised to keep in touch, even though I am cleared from any more cardiologist visits for the present.

Yep, I’m pumped! It’s been a great day. 

I went for a ride on my mountain bike to celebrate and got about a mile away from the house and the front tire blew out with a pop. So I got one mile of biking and one mile of walking back pushing the bike. 

Still feel great!

All About Stalls (Flying)

 I just watched a YouTube video by Dan Gryder called Probable Cause. It is a series of investigations into various airplane crashes and the causes, with the purpose of learning and preventing similar accidents in the future.

The video I watched involved a student and an instructor who were practicing stalls and dove straight into the ground at high speed. His take was that the student was afraid of stalls and froze at the controls, and the instructor wasn’t ready to take it away fast enough.

It reminded me of myself when I first took flying lessons. I also had a fear of stalls. It was not helped when my first instructor demonstrated a spin to show me what was going to happen if I didn’t use the controls correctly to recover from the stall. 

For those who are not pilots, a stall does not involve the engine quitting on an airplane. It is when the wings go too slow to create enough lift to keep the plane in the air. In most airplanes the ailerons quit working as the plane stalls and falls, and the pilot must use the rudder to keep the wings level as he pushes on the yoke (or stick) to gain airspeed and then pull out of the dive. 

It is a skill that must be practiced until it becomes second nature, similar to recovering from a skid on ice in your car. It’s hard to practice enough when you are petrified by fright every time the plane stalls and falls off on a wing.

I had five instructors over a two year span while I learned to fly. Three of them were for a very short time, just filling in while the airport looked for a full time instructor. The two I learned the most from were Maxl Willis, and Bob Shermerhorn. 

The first time I went up with Bob he saw my fear of stalls and decided I needed to overcome that fear. So we climbed up to 10,000 ft so there was a lot of room between us and the ground.

He explained that he was going to take control of the yoke and throttle, and I was to put my hands in my lap. He said we were going to stall this plane for several thousand feet down to show that a stall is nothing to be afraid of. Meanwhile the rudder pedals were mine. When ever a wing dropped I was to step on the opposite rudder pedal. That turns the plane, speeding up the falling wing, and slowing down the rising wing. 

Bob kept the yoke back, with just enough throttle to hold the tail down, and we fell at least five thousand feet in the next minute or two. It wasn’t long until I got good at keeping the wings level with just the rudder. We did that falling leaf maneuver several times that afternoon, until I was getting almost comfortable with stalls.

 I got completely over my fear of stalls for sure the first time I went to the Reno Air Races. I watched Art Scholl do hammerhead stalls and tail slides, falling out of the sky, then recovering and going to the next maneuver. He also demonstrated flying by the stands while he stood outside the cockpit on the wing while waving at us. 

Leo Loudenslager demonstrated spins and snap rolls, which involves stalling just one wing and letting the plane twist through the air. I could see him using the rudder to switch from a left snap roll to a snap roll to the right and back again.

Bob Hoover demonstrated his “energy management” in his Shrike Commander by shutting off both engines and doing loops, rolls, and then landing and coasting up to the announcer’s stand without needing to restart or stand on the brakes.

After watching the pilots at the Reno Air Races, a simple stall seemed pretty tame.

Maxl Willis was a former helicopter pilot, and I learned about flight planning and we practiced cross country trips, including one to the little cafe at Denio Junction, Nevada, for one of those “hundred dollar” burgers. (That includes the cost of the flight). We learned about landing on dirt runways over power lines and doing it safely. 

The cafe had a sign that said, “Denio is so small the town hooker is a virgin!” I still miss Nevada humor!

After I got my Private Pilot’s License, I rented the local Cessna 172 for a while. Then several of us who were pilots at the power plant where we worked formed a partnership and bought a 1966 Cessna 172. 

It had several differences from the later model 172’s I had learned on. The most unusual was the Horton STOL modifications to the wings that involved a reshaped cuff on the outer half of each wing and a “fence” or fin on top of the wing that kept the airflow from angling across the wingspan. The main effect was to keep the ailerons working deep into the stall.

We couldn’t find any instructions or documentation on how the modification was supposed to be used. It made the plane almost useless for instruction. To learn stall recovery a different plane had to be rented. 

I decided to find out what I could do with the Plane and how to use that STOL (Short Take Off & Landing) modification. I climbed up to 10,000 feet and tried to stall it in every configuration I could think of. It would not drop a wing and full roll control stayed with the ailerons at all times. 

The surprise came when I held it in a full stall with just about half throttle. The airspeed dropped to zero with the nose pointed skyward, and yet the ailerons still worked. The plane was literally falling out of the sky tail first at 2000 feet a minute under full control.

I practiced stall recovery from that configuration and found that if I chopped throttle to idle and pushed the nose over, it stopped falling and was flying level at 40 mph in exactly 200 vertical feet. I did this many times, until I was sure it always worked and the maneuver came naturally to me.

The runways at Winnemucca had been extended at some time in the past to allow small jets to land there, so there was just 1000 feet to the first taxiway. I made a game out of landing on just the 1000 foot extension and turning off on the first taxiway. I usually had to add power and motor over to the taxiway. It was easy to land in less than 500 feet every time.

I never tried to land on any of the short mountain landing strips because the old tired Continental engine took a long time to get the plane up to speed for take off. With an engine upgrade to a new Lycoming engine it would have been a real STOL performer.

I did use the stall enhancement once at Farmington, New Mexico, when the tower asked me to “expedite my approach” as a twin Cessna was ten miles out on a straight in approach to Runway 7 also. I was “abeam the numbers” on downwind, so I told my wife Carolyn to “Hang on, this should be fun.” 

I pulled the nose high, added some power to hold the tail down, and turned toward the end of the runway. I turned a half circle directly to the runway, and as the plane lined up with the threshold, at 200 feet I pushed the nose hard over and cut the power. The plane immediately stopped falling and began flying. In just a couple of seconds we were flying level at 40 mph ready to land. I set it down easy and added power to taxi down to the midfield exit. When I announced I was clear of the runway, the tower thanked me for that expedited landing. I’m sure he was expecting a crash landing!

After several years the partners who owned the plane decided to sell to one of the owners and split the money. Some had quit flying, some wanted a more expensive plane to get their instrument rating, and I didn’t need the two extra seats in back, since my kids had grown up.

After some searching, I came across a Grumman AA1B two seat airplane with a canopy like a fighter plane and low wings. A pilot in Reno was stepping up to a bigger plane and was ready to sell his little plane. After agreeing on a price, and agreeing that he would pay for a new annual on sale, we made the deal.

He flew the plane up to Mountain Home, Idaho, for the annual inspection, so when the day came to close the deal, he flew to Winnemucca in his Piper Cherokee and picked Carolyn and I up and we went up to Idaho.

When the inspection was complete, I found a local pilot instructor who was familiar with the plane to give me a checkout ride. This little airplane was nearly the exact opposite of the Cessna. The wings were below us, not above. They were much shorter, only 25 ft tip to tip, and straight, with no stall enhancements added on. It was pretty obvious that when this wing stalled, it quit flying all at once. 

The cloud ceiling was only about 1200 feet that day, and the instructor refused to try a stall demo at that low altitude. He had heard about the reputation of Grumman Yankees, too. So we mostly practiced takeoffs and landings. When he was satisfied I could fly the plane he signed my log book and Carolyn and I were ready to fly our plane back to Winnemucca.

It was getting late in the evening, but the ceiling was lifting, and I could see clear sky toward the Rome VOR to the west, so I filed a flight plan and Carolyn and I boarded the plane and took off. The route is easy to follow, with roads beneath and VORs (VHF Omnidirectional Radiobeacons) all the way home. We turned at the Rome VOR in daylight and flew south toward Sodhouse VOR as darkness fell. 

Somewhere near the Nevada state border we both started to feel tired and sleepy. I was worried about an exhaust leak, so I told Carolyn to bundle up with her coat and I opened the canopy a small crack and opened the fresh air vents near our knees. It sure was cold, but it wasn’t far to Winnemucca. We landed without any trouble, and I tied the airplane down on the ramp and we got in the car and drove home. 

The next day I had a mechanic check the exhaust system for leaks, and there were none. It was just the end of a long, exciting day with our “new” airplane.

I went flying in the “Yankee” by myself in the next few days, and the first thing I wanted to do was check out the stall characteristics. It had a prominent placard on the dash right in front of the pilot that warned, “SPINS PROHIBITED”. I had also read that this plane had the worst record of spinning into the ground on turns to final of any airplane. That is always fatal.

Stalls no longer worried me at all, as long as I was high enough, so I climbed up to 10,000 ft. and tried a slow stall with engine at idle and full flaps deployed. It wasn’t nearly as scary as some had told me. There was no shaking as in a Cessna, but there was a stall warning buzzer that told you you were nearing a stall. The plane just suddenly dropped the nose and quit flying. Sure enough the ailerons became useless, but the rudder picked up a wing just fine, and if you kept coordinated there was no wing drop to worry about. 

A full throttle stall was much more exciting, as the torque of the engine ensured a wing drop at stall, but a stab at the rudder and a push on the yoke restored the plane to flying mode quickly.

I tried accelerated stalls in a 30º bank both left and right turns with full power, and it handled as expected with a break out of the turn, and a quick recovery with a push on the yoke.

I discovered that most stall recoveries took about 200 to 300 feet of altitude loss, so it was easy to see why a pilot wouldn’t want to stall when close to the ground on a landing approach. I changed my procedures when coming in for a landing with the “Yankee.”

The Pilot’s Operating Manual recommended 90 mph on downwind, 80 mph on base, and 70 mph on final in the landing pattern. The stall speed (with flaps) was 61 mph. It barely qualified to be certified in the “Normal” category. I knew a couple of pilots who swore they should’t have certified the plane at all, since it had been known to not recover from a spin. It only passed the certification by having that warning about SPINS PROHIBITED on the panel in front of the pilot.

I believe that every plane should be flown taking into account its strengths and weaknesses. A Grumman AA1B “Yankee” is not a slow, heavy hauler bush plane and shouldn’t be flown like one. It is light on the controls, and fun to fly, even if a little under powered and overweight. To compare it to cars, it is very like an MG sports car. Not really practical, but the most fun you can have flying for the least money possible.

I flew the whole pattern at 90 mph, and rounded the corners Navy style. Only when I was lined up on the runway with wings level did I chop the throttle, pull the nose up to lose speed and put in the flaps. It was easy to bring the plane down to seventy at the end of the runway and when I flared for landing, it soon set down on the pavement. I always held the nose high to keep the castering front wheel in the air as long as possible just to avoid extra wear and tear on the front tire.

I also had to change other things about cross country flying. I had to be more careful about the airports I chose to land on. I flew to Oklahoma a couple of times from Nevada and I had to move down to Double Eagle airport in Albuquerque from Santa Fe, because the altitude at Santa Fe was too high for the little “Yankee” and there were power lines at the end of the runway there. The “Yankee” only had 105 hp and short wings, so a longer runway was essential.

Once when flying to California, I needed to land for my passenger’s nature needs, so I landed at the next airport I came to. It was Cameron Park, a short strip in the middle of houses - an airpark. I started to fill the tanks, but when I looked back at the runway, I stopped at two gallons. In a couple of aspects I was lucky: it was not too hot yet, being morning, and the airport elevation was much lower than my home airport. 

I got out the POH and calculated the density altitude, and runway length, and decided now would be a good time to practice my short runway takeoff. I taxied the airplane as close to the fence as I could, stood on the brakes, and checked both mags, adjusted the fuel mixture for best RPM, then let the brakes loose and held the nose down until I got best angle of climb speed and pulled back and held the speed there until I cleared the house at the end of the runway by 50 or 60 feet. Then I lowered the nose to best climb speed and richened up the mixture a bit to cool the engine for the rest of the trip to Merced. I never made the mistake of landing at Cameron Park in my “Yankee” again.

When my son wanted to learn to fly, I had to search to find an instructor who would teach in my “Yankee”. I found one who was willing if I checked him out in the plane, and especially if I showed him the stall characteristics. He had heard all the horror stories of how “bad” it stalled.

I took him up to show him how it flew, and he liked the handling. A Cessna feels like a truck after flying in a “Yankee” for awhile. He wanted me to demonstrate stalls for him, so I showed him stalls with no power, stalls with full power, and ended with a full power stall in a turn at 30º banks angle. He agreed that it wasn’t that awful, just quick and sudden. 

He asked why I pulled the plane into the stalls, instead of “sneaking” up to them. I explained that I understood why he would ask that, because most people killed in stall/spin scenarios were not paying attention to the airspeed and were surprised when the stall happened, often on the turn to final approach. 

My philosophy is that you make the fatal mistake when you forget about the airspeed, and if you are close to the ground no amount of skill will save you from a crash. It serves no purpose to learn to recover from a surprise stall that sneaked up on you in a turn close to the ground. 

As one instructor told me, the three most important things to remember when close to the ground are 1. Airspeed, 2. Airspeed, and 3. Airspeed.

My son got about ten hours of flight instruction, but got a good scare when they forgot to switch to the fullest fuel tank in the landing pattern. The instructor knew instantly what happened when the engine quit, and switched to the other tank, but there are a few seconds until the fuel gets to the engine. 

In telling me about it later, the instructor praised my son for pushing on the yoke to maintain airspeed as they came in on final, rather than pull on the yoke to try to keep the plane in the air. They just missed landing in the sagebrush at the end of the runway, but they got to the runway alright. Both of them were obviously still shook up when they taxied into the airport, where I was waiting. 

My son lost enthusiasm for flying after that close call, and decided he would be happier on the ground, or letting me do the piloting. I did not try to dissuade him, because if it’s not fun to do, why do it? 

After 9/11, 2001, a lot of the fun went out of flying for me, with closer surveillance from the government, and nearing retirement with tighter finances coming my way, I decided to sell the “Yankee” to pilot friends at the Winnemucca airport. The engine was nearing overhaul time, and I needed the money for other things.

Now and then I think of getting back into flying. My wife died of Alzheimer’s a couple of years ago, and I am single now, with a little money left over, even after buying a house here in Oklahoma. But my eyesight isn’t so good anymore, and my heart is having electrical problems and will probably need a pacemaker soon. 

But I still look up at the students learning to fly overhead (I live under a practice area for Southeastern Oklahoma State University, a large flight school) and vicariously fly with them as they practice stalls. 

I miss the fun!

Having Fun Again

 The power has been on for over a day now, and the seriousness of the situation has abated significantly. Today I’m having a fun time again.

Darlene had a doctor’s appointment this morning. Even though it has been snowing all night, we have only 5” on the ground. We decided I would drive her to town. We were almost the only vehicle on the road.

At 9:00 AM there were no snowplows out, even on the highway. The little Mazda was dragging bottom badly, and in some places plowing and pushing the snow in front, but as long as I can maintain momentum we move along just fine. The snow is fine, hard frozen powder and is easy to push away, even with the ice sheet on the road surface underneath.

I had to back up and punch through the ridge of snow on the side of the highway, but once I got out on the highway I was able to get up to 55 or 60  on the hard ice and packed snow. There were no other cars around, so stopping distance was infinite. 

When I got to town, the snow ridges were much higher between lanes, and especially in the median. When coming into Durant on West Main St, it is necessary to make a U-turn through the break in the median to turn north onto Westside St., since the freeway ramp offset the road by a couple of hundred feet.

Now we were in traffic, and several were waiting at the traffic light as I approached. The green arrow came on, so I held my speed up to conserve momentum to turn through the median for the U-turn. Sure enough, the deep snow caused my front wheels to skid wide on the U-turn, and it looked like we might hit the ditch. 

Knowing the brakes wouldn’t help me, I grabbed the parking brake lever, held down the button and pulled up hard as I added a little power to the front wheels. Wheeee! The back wheels broke loose and made a beautiful circle around the front wheels. I let off the hand brake, steered back to the right and caught the lane perfectly and drove on down to turn right on Westside St.  Back when I was a teenager in California, we called this maneuver a Brody. Great fun!

I bet those people waiting at the light thought there was some crazy teenager at the wheel. Worse! Some old white haired codger reliving his youth with a wicked grin on his face.

We weren’t too surprised to find the doctor’s office closed and dark. Both Texas and Oklahoma are having rolling blackouts because they are not equipped to handle this kind of weather. Even if they had snowplows, they can’t plow the city streets because they would remove thousand of raised reflective lane markers on the streets. The only snow removal equipment we saw was a road grader out on highway 70 slowly peeling packed snow off the right lane. If he doesn’t get some help, we might get the highway plowed by March.

So we turned back and went back home. The only trouble was at that stoplight by Walmart in the middle of the banked curve. Last time there was a pickup stranded there, but it was clear when I arrived today. Unfortunately the red light lasts about two minutes, and I couldn’t drive slow enough to avoid having to stop and wait. 

When the light turned green, I had to turn to the right and slowly crawl the tires up the bank and across the intersection until I could get a little speed going and find enough traction to continue forward. 

For the life of me I don’t understand why they piled up a tall bank of soil to create a banked curve, forcing side roads to climb a hill to get up to the highway, and then put a stop light right in the middle of the curve. It is so dangerous that trucks are prohibited from turning left onto the highway from the north, because the sudden banked slope tips them over if they are the least bit heavy or fast. Years ago I made this same turn in my RV and dumped all the dishes out of the upper cupboards.

The logical solution would be to tear out the whole intersection and lower the grade about 15 feet, make the curve flat (It’s not that sharp a curve) and allow side traffic to approach on the level. Today, I suspect it would be impossible to climb up out of the What-a-Burger driveway, and difficult to get up the slope from Walmart with out chaining up or have studded tires on a four wheeler. 

Well, I guess that’s enough fixing all that is wrong with the world. We continued on back to the house with no further trouble, as there still were no cars on the road besides us. 

We are snug inside the house again, hoping the electricity hangs on for the next week or so. 

Today was fun, reminding me of younger days in Colorado and Northern Nevada. I got to practice some of the tricks I learned the hard way in colder climes. If you want to hear a long tale, ask me about how many ways I have been stuck and had to winch out, jack out or dig out.

It took me years to convince my wife Carolyn that the whole fun of four wheeling is to see how far from home you can get stuck!

The Big Chill

 It’s not funny anymore! Things got serious here last night. 

About seven PM the lights went out and the furnace, of course, shut down. We already had the water trickling in the kitchen sink because the pipes run along the west side of this house, just inside the skirting.

The skirting is fairly substantial, with rocks grouted to the bottom of the house all the way around, and the hot water heater is at one end of the house, and the kitchen sink is at the other end, so a trickle of hot water will keep all the pipes toasty - as long as the electric hot water heater has electricity.

We heat this house with propane, and I just put 300 gallons in the tank last week, so that isn’t the problem. The heat from the fire is distributed through the house by an electric fan, and we soon started feeling the cold coming through the walls. 

I have a small tailgate generator in the garage, but I can’t find the amperage rating on the fan motor. One of my plans for the future is to hook up that generator and see if it can handle the load. If not, I may have to buy a bigger one. If I hard wire a double pole/double throw switch to an outside receptacle, I could keep just the furnace alive without electrocuting any linemen working on the service feed outside. 

I’ll have to check with a licensed electrician before I make that move. 

I called the emergency hotline to the power company, and I listened to a recorded message telling me that there was trouble in the Kirsey switchyard and they had people working on restoring power, but no estimate on when they would get the power back on. 

When the power dropped out, it tried to reclose three times, but popped open immediately, as if it was a dead short to ground somewhere. No wind was blowing, and no ice was building up on the trees or wires, so I was baffled as to the cause of the outage.

There were two brief minutes of power about two hours later, but the lights went back out within a minute, leaving us in the dark. I went out to the motor home and retrieved a battery powered lantern with LED lights, which will make light for 20 hours or so.

We sat in the dim light getting colder and colder until about five hours had passed and we were beginning to shiver. Wilma, my sister-in-law, had offered us a warm place to stay the night if the power didn’t come back on, and the power company still had no estimate on power coming back.

The hot water trickle in the kitchen sink was slowly going cold as the water heater filled with cold water. It was near midnight when we decided it was time to abandon the house. I retrieved a couple of bottles of alcohol that Darlene had just bought, and I poured a full bottle of each in the toilet bowls for antifreeze, made sure the water was still trickling in the kitchen sink, just hoping that circulating water at ground temperature might prevent a total freeze up.

We drove over to Wilma’s house and woke her up. She graciously offered us couches and recliners and blankets for the night. I went to sleep in a recliner with ugly thoughts of busted pipes and water spraying all over the house when the power came back on and thawed the pipes.

When I awoke at about eight AM I called the power company again and instead of the recorded message, I was surprised to hear an actual live person. She could not tell me about the outage status, but she took down my number if they needed to contact me.

Darlene and I drove back out to the house at 10 AM and were thrilled to see the power was back on in the house. The water was still trickling in the kitchen sink, and I opened and purged every faucet in the house - no ice found - and both toilets were intact and functional. 

The time on the electric range was 6:00, so I know the power came on six hours earlier, at about 4:20 AM. That’s about nine hours and twenty minutes chilling in the dark.

We drove back to Wilma’s house and got Poppy, Darlene’s dog, and also her cell phone. The roads are snow packed and rutted, so we dragged the bottom of the car in town, which had not seen a snow plow yet. 

Wilma’s house is on the other side of a creek (bayou) with a steep grade on both sides, so getting across involved a lot of momentum, because with packed snow and ice there was no traction. I measured the south slope a year ago when I was installing a gate next to the road, and found it’s a 13 1/2 % slope.

Last night on the way into town a tow truck was extricating a small sedan out of the median that had slid off the road near Walmart. This morning there was white Ford pickup in the same spot with his flashers going, because when he tried to move on the banked curve, it just slid sideways toward the median. There is a banked curve there, with a stop light in the middle of the curve. Somebody needs to send a traffic engineer back to school. If you are required to stop halfway around a curve, they should not bank the curve.

I pulled around the pickup when he stopped sliding, and had no trouble on the rest of the trip home. Everybody here likes pickups, but when the roads are icy there is nothing more helpless than an empty pickup. All the weight is at the front and all the wheels pushing are at the other end in the back.

So this morning I’m proud of my little Mazda3. It went everywhere I needed to drive in the ice and snow, and drove around several other cars and pickups with no trouble at all. I’m pretty proud of this old house, too. It came through the freeze up with no damage at all to the piping anywhere. 

I’m ready for a hot shower now.