Hello
friends!
It was only a few weeks ago
that I wrote my last newsletter, but here I am again.
However, a short month makes for a short newsletter! Time
flies and winter is slowly moving on to the place where
winters go during spring, summer and fall. Today as I am
writing this, old man winter is making his final assault
on us. But the weatherman tells me that by Friday
temperatures will be in the sixties and spring will be
knocking at the door. In that spirit, I also announce our
next event to you. This will be a Young Eagles
Rally which runs from 9:00 AM until noon on
March 9 at beautiful Mountain View Airport (MNF). The
runway at MNF is 5000 feet long and 60 feet wide. This
will be a real treat to us pilots who think anything
longer and wider than Mansfield is a playground (you know
who you are). In fact, the runway is so long that they
have the luxury of a displaced threshold at both ends!
The threshold displacement for runway 10 is 181' and for
runway 28 it is 311.' MNF is the home of the hosts of the
event, Mike and Sharon Vaughn, and is also the home of
our Vice President, James Wiley. Bob Brantley, one of our
newer members, also has his beautiful Falco based there.
At the end of the Young Eagles Rally
there will be a brief business meeting, and after that we
will be treated to barbequed hamburgers and hot dogs by
our hosts. Please bring a covered dish, salad or dessert.
Drinks will also be provided by the hosts. Make this a
great start to our 2002 season by bringing your airplanes
to fly the many kids in the area who would like to
experience the freedom of flight.
Celebration
for Andy Anderson
Our last meeting was
a birthday celebration for Andy Anderson. Andy
can now look back on 88 years on this earth. Many
of those years were spent building and flying
airplanes. Along the way he passed on his
enthusiasm for flying to many of his friends and
neighbors as well as his family. In fact, there
were four generations of Andersons present,
including some pretty cute great-grandkids. Andy
was presented with a painting of his favorite
American Eagle airplane, which was commissioned
by his son Don from Bill Ghan. Ron White had a
fantastic "photographic" birthday cake
made for Andy, using a picture of Andy and the
Wright Flyer he built.
Two of those who were inspired by Andy
("Andy's Young Eagles"), Don Tate and
Don Nevels, attended the meeting and gave
accounts of their careers in aviation. Maybe now
that Don Tate is retired from his job of flying
airliners for TWA/American he can, like Don
Nevels, join our Chapter.
|
Andy
Anderson receives Bill Ghan's painting of his
American Eagle from Ron White |
Member Bio: Career in Aviation
Fittingly, this month we are
happy to bring you Don Nevels' "bio." It was
very inspiring for me to read Don's narration of how, in
spite of the many handicaps he, a poor boy from the
Ozarks, had to overcome, he had a great career in
aviation. His story is not only well written, but it is
very uplifting and shows great character.
Donald
L. Nevels
|
"If
there is any word that describes my life it has
to be desire. Like most of you, at an early age I
wanted to fly so bad that I could just taste it.
Probably no one has been more surprised at where
my aviation career has taken me than myself,
unless maybe it's a couple of my high school
teachers. Ever since I can remember, I always
told people that I was going to be a pilot when I
grew up; unfortunately, most of my teachers and
relatives knew that it was nothing more than a
lofty dream and that I should really be thinking
about helping someone on a farm, working in a
factory or something simple—as my grades in
school reflected that I really needed a simple
job that didn't take a lot of brain power.
"I now think back on an aviation career of
forty some years, the many friends, wonderful
airplanes—such as the Aeronca Champ, the
Pipers (particularly the J-3 cub, the
Taylorcrafts, the Cessnas, the homebuilts, the
Beech-18, the DC-3, the C-7 Caribou, the line of
Boeing 727s, 737s, 757s and 767s) that I have had
the opportunity to fly over those years. Somehow,
I keep looking back to that boy with so much hope
and ambition and so little resources.
"As I stated in my book Wings,
Dreams and Memories, I was inspired by
the small planes that flew around town. But the
real spark was the Skylarks, an aerobatic
wing-walking act from Mountain Grove. In Stephen
Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People, he states that
satisfied needs do not motivate people; it is the
unsatisfied needs that really motivate us. That
statement really describes my life after the
Mountain Grove Skylarks' fatal crash during the
Minnesota State Fair in 1951. To satisfy my
desire for aviation I read of the Wright
Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, Jack
Knight, Amelia Earhart and every other aviation
book I could find. I wanted to experience what
they experienced. I was so motivated that I
wanted to do everything, but the reality of the
situation was that my grades in school were
considered troubling at best, and what little
money I could earn would be bare subsistence with
little left to finance an aviation career.
"My younger life was defined by Whizzer
motorbikes, Cushman motor scooters and Harley
Davidson motorcycles that I purchased from money
t I earned at various jobs. My real ticket to
freedom was a 1941 74 Harley Davidson motorcycle
which I rode to every airport within range. My
favorite was the farm of Louis "Andy"
Anderson just on the south side of Mansfield. I
cannot tell you how much that man, who restored
old airplanes and even built his own designs,
inspired me as a kid. Andy is still an
inspiration to me!!!
"After high school it was into the Marine
Corps in pursuit of the Marine Air Cadet program.
Although I had all the necessary scores on the
aptitude test, my lack of English skills on the
college equivalence test shot me out of the sky
quicker than a MIG fighter. (My lack of study in
school had quickly caught up with me.) In order
not to waste the next four years, I went on a
severe budget and used the seventy-eight dollars
a month I earned to fly, through military flying
clubs. Near the end of my four year enlistment I
managed to acquire a commercial pilot's license
and a flight instructor rating. By this time my
pay had jumped to one hundred forty-one dollars
per month.
"After a year of flying civilian I entered
the U.S. Army's Warrant Officer Flight School at
Ft. Rucker, Alabama. This was a wonderful
program, flying the L-19 Birddog and the
DeHavilland Beaver. After graduating from flight
school in May of 1965, it was on to Vietnam with
a short stop at Ft. Ord, California, for a
DeHavilland Otter check out. Flying in Vietnam
was some of the most exciting flying imaginable,
using the Otter to the fullest extent possible,
supporting the Special Forces (Green Berets)
units located at small base camps scattered
throughout Vietnam. The airports were minimal at
best and most were roads leading into the
compounds; at Song Bay, the airport was the main
street of town.
"Back in the United States, it was to Ft.
Stewart, Georgia, instructing pilots on how to
fly airplanes into and out of short and
unimproved strips. After the army, with the help
of the GI Bill, I attended Spartan School of
Aeronautics where I received an airframe and
power plant mechanics license. It was also during
this time I joined the Missouri Army National
Guard as a pilot. After Spartan, it was a job
with Orion Aviation flying co-pilot on a Beech-18
flying night mail between Springfield, Missouri,
St. Louis, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee. My
primary job was to load and unload the mail
sacks. By this time the airlines were requiring a
college education, so when this company went
bankrupt, at age twenty-eight I entered Southwest
Missouri State University for no other reason
than to get a job with the airlines.
Surprisingly, I found college much easier than
high school—I think it is called maturity.
At age thirty-three I graduated with a degree in
education, and was now told that I was too old to
fly for the airlines. The maximum age had dropped
to twenty-eight and it was as if my whole life
had been wasted.
"I became a school teacher at Mountain Grove
for four years. Then I went back to flying again
as a co-pilot for Barron Aviation out of Vichy,
Missouri, flying the legendary DC-3. We were
flying supplemental to Federal Express out of
Houston, Texas, to Memphis, Tennessee, and
return. After a year I took a job as a captain,
flying the DC-3s for a company which became known
as Air Americana into Old Mexico and Southern
Texas. Meanwhile, I was still flying with the
Missouri Army National Guard and they were
getting the DeHavilland C-7 Caribou. I was
offered a job flying these since I was their only
pilot that had any experience with the larger
aircraft. This was a wonderful job, flying not
only the C-7 Caribou but also almost all of the
airplanes and helicopters in the army inventory
as well.
"Never one to quit, at age forty-six I sent
the last of many applications to the airlines. At
age forty-seven I was hired by United Airlines as
a flight engineer on the Boeing 727, and two
years later as co-pilot on the 737, and four
years later as co-pilot on the 757/767s. Then,
two years later, I was back on the 737 as a
captain.
"Today I look back on the whole experience
more with disbelief than anything else. It is
hard to believe that I ever went through the
sacrifice of doing without almost every thing for
four years to get a pilot license. I think back
to my early geography and history classes,
thinking I would never use any of this stuff. I
shake my head with amazement as I now look at a
globe of the world and realize how much of it I
have traveled and called home through both the
military and the airlines.
"I also find it hard to believe that I found
a wife who put up with me during all these times
thick and thin, good times and bad. Now we have
two sons who are following in my
footsteps—our oldest who is a standards
captain with Frontier Airlines flying the Airbus
out of Denver, Colorado, and my youngest a
captain on an Embrair Regional Jet with U.S. Air
Express out of Richmond, Virginia. Also a
daughter who is following in my steps as a
teacher.
Don
Nevels' Skybolt |
"But
more than anything else, I owe a debt of
gratitude to two people who in 1941 struggled to
earn a living by cracking walnuts selling the
kernels and wild rabbits that they had trapped.
During this time, they lived in a chicken house
which they had made into a home. It was in this
chicken house that their first son was born, whom
they named Donald for no other reason than that
they liked the name. We seemed so poor during the
early years of my childhood, but as I look back
sixty years later at my parents and grandparents,
the Skylarks, the Wright County Library,
bicycles, motorcycles, old country roads and
small country airports, I now realize how wealthy
I really was. It would be from these two people
that I would learn so much about life and old
fashioned values like hard work, honesty,
responsibility, setting goals and thrift. I have
personally found these really much more important
during my aviation career than anything I ever
learned in college."
|
| This is a
real lesson in persistence and staying focused on
a goal, Don, and we thank you for sharing it with
us. |
Wright Flyer Progress
Bill Ghan
would like to thank all those who have given
help—and have promised to help—with
material and finances in the building of the
Wright Flyer replica for our part in
"Countdown to Kitty Hawk 2003." We had
a workday last Wednesday and Bill, Doc Openshaw
and yours truly worked hard on the center section
of the top wing—as you can see in the
accompanying picture. Workdays are planned for
Wednesday afternoons. You are all invited to come
and help, and to learn from Bill's vast
experience in aircraft construction. Please give
Bill a call on any Tuesday to let him know that
you are coming the next day. His number is (417)
924-8818. I have built quit a few ribs for the
Flyer and, everytime I have helped Bill, I have
left with new knowledge and a feeling of pride
that I've been able to contribute in the
celebration of American ingenuity and can-do
spirit. |
Fred and Doc
assembling top center section of Wright Flyer
replica |
| There
are some other similar projects around the
country, some highly financed ones, where they
have said that the airplane is nearly impossible
to fly! But somehow the Wright Brothers did it,
and look where we are now… |
Buzz Thunderbee by Squawk
Buzz was so stocked for
survival on his return trip that he had a weights and
balances problem. Now he wishes he'd just stayed there
another week!
| Early Arrival from
Florida… |
 |
See
you at Mountain View Airport on March 9 at 9:00 AM.
Yours truly, Fred Kalhoefer, Newsletter Editor
|
