Last night I watched a movie about the history of the airport at Van Nuys, California. It was a 2005 movie, titled "One Six Right: The Romance of Flying." One line in the movie really struck home with me. It was when one of the old-timers at VNY said that pilots have done something that very few people on Earth have done.I know that feeling. I've done it. I started flying when I was about 16, outside St. Louis, at a little airport somewhere near the Meramec River. I think I flew only about 5-6 hours, not enough to solo. I must not have expected to resume flying, because I didn't save that first logbook.
When I was 25, I started again. After three flights out of a little field just south of Chicago, I joined a flying club at Midway, shortly after O'Hare opened. Midway was deserted, and the one airplane of the Flying Sparks Flying Club was parked in a hangar along the Central Avenue side of the airport. I did solo there, but I stopped short of getting my Private Pilot license. And I found that I preferred a Piper Cherokee (low-wing aircraft) to the high-wing Cessna 140. August 20, 1965, was a big day for me. That was the day I soloed that Cherokee.
Ten years later, in Denver, I resumed flying. VA dollars couldn't be used toward the Private Pilot license, so I signed up for law enforcement classes at UCLA (University of Colorado (between Lawrence and Arapahoe (Streets))) and saved the left-over dollars for flying. My flight instructor there was a hard-as-nails retired USAF pilot, George Brunsman. I have always remembered George with positive feelings for his demand for exact flying.
Although I logged my last flight on January 14, 1979, all those early morning flights, taking off in the dark and landing after sunrise, are etched in my memory. That "old-timer" at Van Nuys was right! The joy of flight is just that - pure joy.
Every man and every woman should find at least one thing in life to do that tickles the heart and that creates a deep, lasting, joyful feeling. Do it, and do it now. Don't put it off.
