-
My aviation experiences …
I grew up and now live again in Shawano WI; 37 miles NW of Green Bay and 45 miles N of Appleton. We were blessed with a nice little general aviation airport with back in the day a 2600′ paved and lighted runway, an adjacent airport seaplane base on seven mile long Shawano Lake, and full time FBO. In the mid-1960’s Shawano High School chemistry teacher Fred Davel started an aviation class modeled after one created by Onalaska (WI) HS teacher Duane Esse. When I became a HS senior and eligible for the aviation class I signed up for it … hey! Sounded like fun.
The class met two days a week and provided all necessary “ground school” training for a private license. Davel had obtained a grant for flying time funding for the HS students and had a contract with the local FBO to provide dual training. Students who received a “B” on periodic quizzes earned a half hour of dual instruction for each quiz. After two or three half hour sessions of dual I asked the instructor (Capt Colin Thede) and the owner of the FBO (C.J. “Grog” Grognet) if I could buy additional time with my own money. I was working at the local grocery store, my parents wouldn’t let me buy my own car, so I had some cash to spend. Coley and Grog mulled my question over for an instant in time and said they could probably work something out. The HS school dual rate in a C-150 in the fall of 1970 was $14/hr including instructor, fuel, and oil and they would continue to honor that rate for me. I was making $1.60 an hour at the grocery store.
I don’t recall my parents’ reaction when I told them that Coley and Grog said I could take additional flying lessons (which I thought was an HONOR!). My uncle was a WWII Navy fighter pilot who made a career in the Navy, my cousin was a post Korea USAF fighter and Viet Nam forward observer pilot who retired as a Major, and a high school friend of my Dad’s (Fritz Wolf) was a decorated member of the pre-WWII Flying Tigers and later a decorated WWII Navy fighter pilot who was the first administrator of the Wisconsin Division of Aeronautics. Fritz and his wife took my parents on a few small plane (four passenger) trips including a flight into O’Hare (that my Mother didn’t expect) in the late 40’s or very early 50’s in whatever four place one would do that in. I do recall that a year or two before I started flying lessons a close friend and neighbor of ours was killed in a floatplane accident north of Red Lake Ontario, but that apparently didn’t hold Mom and Dad back from letting me take flying lessons.
My goal quickly became to have my private pilot’s license before high school graduation, but spring weather didn’t cooperate. I had my check ride in June or July of 1971. Once licensed the next time I rented the plane I was told I’d have to pay the non-HS deal rack rate for the plane: $16/hr! That fall I was off to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During my second summer during college I worked at the Shawano airport cutting grass, doing light maintenance, fueling planes, making a couple of truck/trailer trips with Grog to get floats and bring a military surplus De Havilland Beaver to Shawano from Baton Rouge, LA. We used a long flatbed trailer made from the frame of a large travel trailer that had been in a fire (I had to wire the trailer lights before we left Shawano), and got my single-engine sea rating in an 85hp J-3 Cub on straight floats with doors on each side.
Towards the end of my college years I joined the University of Wisconsin W Flying Club which had two C-150’s, two C-172’s, a C-177 Cardinal, and an Aeronca Champ. Using those airplanes I got my instrument rating. A few years later using a friend’s Mooney M20C I added a commercial license. My seaplane rating is restricted to private pilot privileges.
Shortly after obtaining my commercial license the FBO at Shawano had a contract to take pictures of farmland for some kind of agricultural payment program where the USDA needed to know which fields were planted and which weren’t. A camera hatch was put in the back of a C-172 and I spent my days flying around NE Wisconsin at five or six thousand feet with a guy laying on the floor in the back taking pictures. So I exercised my commercial license to earn money!
I flew on and off for the next few years and eventually wasn’t current. I stopped flying with about 550 hours TT … 60 or 75 hours SES and about 10 hours of multi-engine sea dual in a Beech 18 on floats. I’m asked often why I don’t fly anymore, and the answer seems simple to me at least … When I had the time to fly I took the money I really didn’t have and went flying, now that I have some money I don’t take the time I really don’t have to go flying.
I’ll add another post or two as time goes on.
-
1 Reply
-
Cool story Dick! Thx for sharing.
Log in to reply.