Why I Never Learned to Fly - Part I

In the summer of 1951, I was 17, about to enter my sophomore year at the University of California at Los Angeles. I had a summer job in a machine shop that manufactured engine parts for the F-86 jet fighters that were being built by North American Aviation for use in the Korean War. I was a stock boy, wheeling raw materials and unfinished parts around the shop from one step in the manufacturing process to the next. Every day, heavy sheets, rods, castings or billets of steel or aluminum would be delivered from mills and foundries in the area. I would transport this raw stock on a forklift truck from the loading dock to the stock room, then trundle it on a flat cart from stock room to turret lathe, drill press, stamping machine or whatever other machinery might be involved in making each engine part.

The shop was in Vernon, then a semi-rural suburb of Los Angeles (and now just another neighborhood in the sprawling city). I commuted the twenty miles from my home near Santa Monica in a 1937 Chevrolet.

The job had variety: sometimes I would deliver parts or paperwork to another North American subcontractor, using the company’s three-wheeled motorcycle. Sometimes I would be assigned to sweep the floor or get coffee. For the most part it was an interesting job for a teenager—at least for the eight weeks or so that I was there.

It was a small operation, with perhaps a dozen metalworking machines and a small administrative staff. Periodically, inspectors from the parent company or the government would come through, measuring, testing, and examining every component as it passed through the manufacturing process. Any flawed parts (and there were few; the machine operators were all experienced men and women) were tossed in a reject bin, to be melted down and reprocessed later.

As the summer passed, I began to see how the machines worked, and to understand the manufacturing process, from blueprints to finished parts. The machine operators tolerated my curiosity, letting me look over their shoulders and ask questions as they worked.

One machinist, a lanky man in his 30s named Charlie, had a photo of a yellow low-winged airplane taped to the top of his turret lathe. I asked him about it one day, and he said, “That’s Lulu. Want to come up with me in her?”

Oh boy, did I! What teenage boy wouldn’t? Furthermore, he soon offered to teach me to fly. That Charlie had just obtained his own pilot’s license (and couldn’t possibly be a rated flight instructor) didn’t bother me a bit. And the fact that he wore impressively thick eyeglasses and admitted he was blind as a bat without them didn’t faze me either.

Charlie and I were both on the 8-to-4 daytime shift, and the airstrip in nearby Compton where he kept his plane was only a short drive from the plant, so we would be able to get in several hours of daylight flying after work. We planned to have the first lesson the next day.

When I got to work the following morning Charlie looked glum.

“Can’t take Lulu up today,” he said. “I had a little engine trouble last night and the mechanic is working her over. But I have a friend who’ll let me use his Ercoupe.” 

It made no difference to me what airplane we would be in. I was going to start learning to fly, and that was what mattered. We punched out at 4:00 p.m., and were soon on the road to Compton. I followed along behind his ancient Buick, distinctive for its peeling paint and the blue smoke belching from its tailpipe. Over the noise of my Chevy’s engine I could hear its distinctive clatter: a piston rod was clamoring to break through its cylinder wall; a new muffler was badly needed. Somehow Charlie’s casual approach to car maintenance didn’t square with the tidy way he kept his tools at the shop or the meticulous care he gave to the work he performed; I hoped it didn’t carry over to airplanes.

We arrived at the airstrip in fifteen minutes. The Ercoupe, a shiny little silver bird, stood parked in front of the main hangar.

It was the kind of aircraft people had in mind when they visualized a post-World War II America with a plane in every back yard. In the 1950s you could buy one, brand new, for $3,995. It had very simple controls, only the bare essentials for instruments, and it was nearly impossible to stall it or to lose control in a spin. The plane was supposed to be so easy to fly that almost anyone could handle it.

It was a trim-looking craft, all shiny metal, weighing barely 1,000 pounds. It had a tricycle landing gear (two wheels under the wings and a third, steerable wheel under the nose)—unusual for a small plane in those days. It carried only two people, seated side-by side in a cockpit over the wing. There was a large curving windshield in front, a raised section behind with two smaller windows in it, and on each side a clear curved Plexiglas panel that slid down into a slot in the side of the fuselage. The cockpit could be closed in by sliding the panels, which rode in tracks, up to the top of the opening. For takeoffs and landings they were always kept in the lowered position, in case pilot or passenger had to get out in a hurry. On nice days you could keep them open, like a convertible.

An Ercoupe in flight, with the canopy side panels open

There was a radio, but small plane operations in those days seldom involved its use; many of the little airstrips, even within the Los Angeles city limits, had no radio-operated control tower. Pilots were expected to keep their eyes open and stay out of each other’s way.

Charlie conducted a perfunctory walk around the aircraft, pulled out the wheel chocks, then climbed into the pilot seat on the left side and told me to get aboard. I stepped onto the wing, climbed over the lip of the cockpit window, and settled into the right-hand seat. It was a tight fit but comfortable, particularly with no rudder pedals on the floor. But it didn’t seem much larger than the little planes in an amusement park ride. I fastened my seat belt.

Charlie primed the engine and turned the ignition key to the start position. The propeller turned slowly around; the engine coughed, belched out a few puffs of exhaust, caught in earnest and began to purr reassuringly. The propeller became a whirling disk. Charlie revved the engine, checked the fuel level, oil pressure and engine temperature gauges, then throttled back to idle while he checked the flight controls. He checked the windsock on the tower, taxied to the downwind end of the runway, spun the plane around, checked the operation of the elevator, rudder, and ailerons once more, then let off the brake and slowly pushed the throttle forward.

The plane started down the runway, gathering speed rapidly. All at once we were airborne, climbing eastward into a clear blue sky. (Remember, this was Los Angeles in the early 1950s. You could see for miles in those days).

Charlie saw my beaming face, grinned back and said, “You take it while I close my side of the canopy. Keep her going just as she is.”

I gripped my wheel and felt the thrill of flying for the first time. The slightest twitch to one side or the other would turn and bank the plane; pushing the wheel in or out, even a fraction of an inch, would send the nose up or down. I kept us climbing, straight as an arrow, at a steady rate. I didn’t dare touch the throttle.

Then Charlie turned to his left, grasped the handle in the middle of the Plexiglas slide, and began to pull it up, over his head.

There was a loud CRACK, followed by the sound of many hard objects crashing into the rear window.

“Holy Mackerel!” said Charlie.

Still gripping the wheel, I glanced in his direction, and saw that the Plexiglas panel had jumped out of the front track. The wind whizzing by at close to 80 miles an hour had snatched it out of Charlie’s hand, shattering it as it bent away in the rush of air. Pieces of Plexiglas littered the shelf behind Charlie’s seat. A lot of it had flown past the tail, fortunately none of it hitting the control surfaces, which might well have been damaged or even torn off.

But not just the canopy slide had gone. So had Charlie’s glasses. He couldn’t see a thing.

We both kept our cool.

“What do I do now?” I gasped.

“Just keep flying the way you’re going, and keep your eyes out for other traffic,” he said. The way we were going seemed like straight up.

I looked around. Still no other planes in sight.

“How high are we?” asked Charlie.

I glanced at the altimeter. We were at about 500 feet.

“OK, start to level off.”

I pushed the wheel forward, too far; we began to nose over. I pulled back, experimented, got the plane more or less level.

We didn’t have to discuss what lay ahead. I had to get the plane back down on the ground, and Charlie was going to have to tell me how.

And so he did. I would tell him the airspeed and general flight attitude of the plane, he would tell me what to do with the throttle, how to circle the field to start the approach, how steeply to approach the runway, when to level off, and finally how to handle the plane on the ground once it had (thankfully) touched down. There was no crosswind, and no other traffic to worry about. I was lucky.

Once we were on the ground, I taxied the plane back to the hangar (the control wheels steered the nose wheel as well as controlling the ailerons and rudder), using the throttle alone to control our speed, since I had no brake pedal on my side. When we were within about 25 yards of the hangar, and more or less near our original parking place, Charlie brought us to a halt using the brake pedal. He cut off the engine, and we both sighed with relief.

I unbuckled my seat belt, put one hand on the edge of the cockpit and the other on the shelf behind Charlie’s head to hoist myself out of my seat. My left hand closed around the unmistakable shape of his eyeglasses.

NEXT: More of the same, only different…