May 3, 2011 Lauren Jones, Young Aviatrix part 4

The Liberty Gazette
May 3, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: We’re on the fourth installment of our chat with eleven year old aviatrix Lauren Jones, whose cheerful nature is infectious. Could there be anything about flying that’s not just perfect for her? Well, yes. Flying over and seeing damage from Hurricane Katrina made her sad. But closer to home, she misses her sister, Amy, who will soon turn 10. Lauren and Amy are very close, but Amy prefers other activities. “I really miss her when Dad and I go out flying. We have so much fun and I wish she was with us.” But Lauren understands that people have different interests. During the Young Eagles day in Pearland, Amy opted to attend a birthday party, while Lauren declined invitations to two birthday parties with her best friends Hallie and Trina, in favor of working at the Young Eagles fly-in with her dad. She shared a story of when the whole family flew to Little Rock to see grandparents at Christmas time. “I sit in the back when Amy comes along, because she doesn’t like it that much. So I hold her hand, and help her. One time we had a little turbulence, and all the boxes of Christmas presents that were stacked behind us toppled over on us.” Bumpy air is the kind of stuff Lauren takes in stride because it’s just part of flying. “One time we had some turbulence and it was kind of like being on a roller coaster,” she says with a grin. “When we dropped down everything came flying up – even the dirt we had tracked in when we got in the airplane!”

Linda: Looking out the hangar, past the picnic tables and chairs, the grill with hotdogs and hamburgers, and parents waiting for eager kids in their first flight, Lauren gazed at her family’s Bonanza, into which Dad (Stephen) was loading another child for a Young Eagles flight. With a nod toward her plane, she said, “You know, our Bonanza hasn’t always looked like this.” Pen in hand, I knew there were more stories coming from our young friend.

“They were rebuilding the engine when I was in Kindergarten,” she says. I sensed a little melancholy but wasn’t immediately sure why. Clearly the new engine was a good thing. “I got to change the oil,” she says proudly. “When the new engine came, that was a big day for me, because you know in Kindergarten you don’t have homework,” so she could be around to watch. She was even able to engage Amy in the fun by playing in the box and the Styrofoam peanuts. And being near Dad is a significant part of what draws her. “Dad built a cubicle in the hangar for me so I could sit there and draw and be close to him while he put in the new engine.”

Next came a new interior. As she began to talk, I heard the disappointment she had experienced. “The seats were already nice, the interior was nice, but I guess it needed to be replaced. But when it went down for that, it was down for three months – and that,” Lauren says with heart, “was hard on me.”

Lauren is a precious young lady, full of adventure and spunk, kindness and compassion. Check in next week for the final part of this series on a unique girl with a passion for flying. Until then, blue skies.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 26, 2011 Lauren Jones, Young Aviatrix part 3

The Liberty Gazette
April 26, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Retired airline pilot and U.S. Air Force Colonel Gale Haskins has a few fun airplanes to fly, including a Stearman and a PT-19, which he brought out to the “Hope Flies” fly-in, in Liberty a few years ago. I used to work with Gale, who is a neighbor of Lauren Jones and her family at Dry Creek (airpark). Lauren, a fifth-grader, was especially proud of her fly-in community when Gale and several of her other neighbors joined forces to fly the “Missing Man” formation over her school on Veteran’s Day. She’s very fond of Col. Haskins, and if you’ve been reading our Lauren stories, you know she’s one incredible young lady herself. She’s taxied in the PT-19 with Col. Haskins, and he has taken her flying in his Stearman, which she loves the best. In fact, when Gale had his Stearman for sale, the young aviatrix had an opinion on that: “I didn’t want him to sell it; it’s so fun. He almost did, but I’m glad he changed his mind.”

“We had to move the mailboxes,” Lauren explains with empathy, “so Colonel Haskins could taxi his Stearman across the bridge over the (not-so-dry) creek to his hangar. When he took me flying the first time, he asked if I had bugs in my teeth. I said no, so he asked, ‘You’re not smiling?’” Giggling at the memory she says, “I told him I was smiling, but thankfully there was a windshield keeping the bugs from getting in my teeth.” As they taxied back over the creek to his hangar, Col. Haskins asked Lauren if she’d brought her fishing pole, to which she replied with quick wit, “You really should keep some spares in here. Then you could just throw out your rod and drag it in the creek as you taxi by.”

Linda: Lauren’s bright smile beams out of her whole being. Her eyes sparkle when she speaks of friends and aviation, and in particular, of Gale Haskins. “Col. Haskins was a hurricane hunter, and he has lots of cool stuff in his hangar. I really like him – he has influenced my flying a lot.” Of course her family and neighbors also encourage Lauren, but she has a special friendship with Col. Haskins, and her compassion, unusual for her age, really shows. Rather than dismiss an older person with hearing loss, she says with a smile, warmth and sincerity, “I can understand why he has a hard time hearing, now that I’ve flown in his Stearman.”

The young lady even has a sense of civic duty. Dry Creek residents share responsibilities of maintaining their airpark, and before Lauren came along the volunteers were all adults. Recently, however, she began to change that. “I’m on the Nominating Committee,” she says proudly with the cutest smile. “I go to all the airport meetings and when they asked for volunteers for the committee I raised my hand. At first all the adults laughed, but I just kept my hand up, and pretty soon they stopped laughing.” Lauren convinced them she was the one for the job, and now she is responsible for matching the right people with jobs to be done, such as taking care of that creek. Her knack for understanding others makes her perfect for that position.

While not everything is perfect in Lauren’s world, her attitude sure is, as you’ll see next week. Until then, blue skies.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 19, 2011 Lauren Jones, Young Aviatrix, part 2

The Liberty Gazette
April 19, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: The Dry Creek fly-in community prints a calendar every year featuring twelve of the airplanes that live on the field west of Houston. “We were doing the calendar photo flight,” says eleven-year old Lauren Jones, who lives with her family at Dry Creek, “when the photographer said over the radio, ‘You have a few bugs on the belly of that plane.’ But that was okay because we had just finished a Young Eagles Day, so we knew it would have bugs,” she says of her family’s Bonanza.

The youngster’s enthusiasm for aviation and people is captivating. As aviators do, Lauren’s had adventures, and here in part two are more of them.

“We like to visit Moody Gardens and one time we flew to Galveston and got a ride from the airport to Moody, but when we were ready to come back to the airport we couldn’t find a ride. A fancy charter bus came by and Dad asked if we could get a lift to the airport. The driver said, ‘Sure,’ and let us in because it was empty. As we were stepping off the bus Dad tipped him, and the driver said, ‘Thanks! Now I have to get going, there’s a bride and groom waiting on me!’” Lauren’s natural humor makes the story amusing, as she imagines a couple dressed in wedding attire, as she and her father unknowingly detour their ride.

Math is the young aviatrix’s favorite subject in school (which probably makes Mom happy, as she was a high school math teacher), and she enjoys her teachers – especially Mrs. Strahan, Mrs. Russell, and Mr. Sesler. In referring to Mr. Sesler, her science teacher, she says “When you first see him you might not think he’s so fun, but when he gets in to class he is really nice and funny.” Lauren brings out the best in people. She seems completely at ease with older folks, as much as kids her own age.

Mike: She’s even been to AirVenture in Oshkosh for the world’s largest convention, and says, “It was really busy flying into Oshkosh, but it was fun! With four airplanes landing in front of us, and three behind, you have to land and get out of the way.” She’s looking forward to going again this year.

She understands runway orientation and airport traffic patterns, too. “Turning final,” she explains relative to coming home to Dry Creek, “is where you turn over Walmart – of course, that depends on if you’re landing on 18 or 36 – it was base the other day, so that means we were landing on 18.”

The grown-ups who live at Dry Creek have fun with her on the radio. “Dad will be doing touch-and-go’s and some of our neighbors will get on the radio and say, ‘Great touch-and-go, Lauren! That’s a 10! Are you going to let your dad do one now?’” She laughs, and says adorably, “My feet don’t even reach the rudder pedals yet, so I can’t really land it.”

Lauren’s earliest memory of flying in the front seat is at age four. “I was out of my car seat by then,” she reflects, “so I could sit up front. It was a night flight and it was so beautiful with all the lights.”

So what does she like best? “The take-off! It means we’re up and free!”

Don’t miss next week’s installment on this very special girl. Until then, blue skies.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 12, 2011 Lauren Jones, Young Aviatrix, part 1

The Liberty Gazette
April 12, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda:Lauren Jones is not your average eleven year old, and it’s not just because she was born on February 29 – “Leap Day.” This young lady’s passion for aviation may have been encouraged even before her first flight in her father’s Bonanza at the age of two weeks.

Her dad, Stephen, was working out of town when his wife, Christine, went into labor, signaling an early arrival of little Lauren, their first child. When Stephen got the call, he took off from Baton Rouge in his Bonanza, hurrying home to Dry Creek, a private residential airfield west of Houston. He hoped to arrive in time to take Christine to the hospital. His former flight instructor happened to be flying that morning, and was tuned in to the same radio frequency. When he heard Stephen, he said hello. Surprised to hear his instructor’s voice after many years, Stephen instinctively said, “Mama’s having a baby!” Approaching the Houston area, Stephen was surprised as Air Traffic Control cleared him directly through the busy Bush Intercontinental airspace. Flying right over Bush, he realized that ATC had heard his mission. “It was a good thing, too,” explains Lauren, who has heard the story of her birth, “because I might not have made it if Daddy hadn’t come back in time. He took my mom to the hospital, and when I came out I wasn’t breathing.” The hospital staff got Lauren breathing and took her to Texas Children’s Hospital, where she checked out okay.

We first met Lauren at the end of the Valentine’s Treasure Hunt in Lufkin, She was still 10 then, but visiting with her in the restaurant on the field at the Angelina County Airport was more like conversing with an adult. Intelligent, articulate, enthusiastic, friendly, and compassionate toward others make Lauren an easy person to be around, and you kind of forget she’s so young. After the Treasure Hunt I asked her dad if we could write a bit about Lauren, and what follows in the next couple of weeks will amaze you, we promise.

Mike: We had an opportunity to meet up with Lauren and her dad at the Young Eagles Day in Pearland. While Stephen was taking kids for rides in his Bonanza, Lauren helped with ground school, registration, socializing with visitors, and even squeezed in time for an interview. Perched in the hangar under the wing of a twin Bonanza, “T-Bone,” Lauren chatted with ease about her love of aviation.

She prefers taking the Bonanza on trips, and there’s this sparkle in her eyes when she explains, “It’s just the way we travel.” Lauren has the true soul of an aviator. It’s what gets us pumped sharing the flying experience with people. “I like taking my friends flying,” she says. “We take them sightseeing, like around the San Jacinto Monument, to Brenham for lunch, and seeing all the beautiful lights of downtown Houston at night.”

Often it’s just she and her dad, so Lauren has had a lot of time in the right seat, learning about flying the airplane. “I’ve learned how to look for airport beacons at night, and I can navigate back home from Brenham at night; it’s pretty easy, you just follow the road and look for certain landmarks.”

Linda: Lauren says, “There’s always something good happening” in aviation, and her attitude is infectious. You’ll get bit by that bug more next week.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 5, 2011 Young Eagles Day at Pearland

The Liberty Gazette
April 5, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: As we approach the downwind leg of the traffic pattern at Pearland Regional Airport, the two boys in the airplane with me harmoniously burst into singing “Eye of the Tiger” (Survivor, 1982). In the co-pilot seat was eleven-year-old Owen Merrell of Kenefick following me through on the controls, totally enthralled with his very first foray aloft. His friend, twelve-year-old Logan Stinnett of Hardin sat in the back seat, having experienced this feat once before. I gave him his first flight in a small plane a couple years ago here in Liberty. We were airborne nearly half an hour, Owen trying his hand at the controls of the airplane. He made machine-gun sounds as he swept and bobbed about the sky over the open green pastures south of Pearland and Alvin. Now we were returning to the airport to share the wonders of flight with another youngster.

Linda: Young Eagles Day at Pearland was a huge success. Ten volunteer pilots gave 26 kids airplane rides, many of them for the first time. Owen and Logan were the only two from Liberty County. A short classroom discussion of flight followed a pancake and sausage breakfast. After the first group of twelve kids finished the classroom briefing, Mark Davis arrived from Ellington in a Czechoslovakian-built L-29 jet trainer, making a few impressive low passes, then finally landing and taxiing the jet up to the hangar for the kids to see up close. Pilots escorted their excited passengers to an airplane, and showed them how to do a pre-flight inspection. The Young Eagles listened intently and asked smart questions, and soon were strapping in, donning headsets, and smiling for their parents’ photo op. The Lone Star Squadron formation flight team arrived from Conroe in their Van’s RVs (fast and sporty airplanes), making some beautiful high speed low passes in formation. They, too, eventually landed and parked along the flight line, joining in the Young Eagles flights before heading to the classroom to discuss plans for the upcoming May 18 Galveston Air Rally.

Since our Cheetah is undergoing a major overhaul we didn’t have a plane for flying Young Eagles, but our friend Tim George flew his Cheetah in from LaPorte. We first met Tim a few years ago when he came to Flying Tigers to learn to fly. Mike was doing some part-time instructing there at the time and the two became fast friends. Lacking enough logged time to fly Young Eagles, he brought his airplane for us to fly and then helped with ground operations.

Mike: In all, I had the pleasure of introducing or re-introducing five kids to the wonders of flight. I took Logan and Owen up one more time after taking another youngster up for his first flight. This time Logan occupied the coveted co-pilot seat and did a masterful job considering the length of time since he’d had his hands on those controls.

Linda: I was eager to meet up with my young friend, Lauren Jones, too. While her dad flew Young Eagles in his Bonanza, Lauren helped with ground school, registration, socializing with visitors, and even squeezed in time for an interview. Perched in the hangar under the wing of a twin Bonanza named “T-Bone,” Lauren chatted with ease about her love of aviation. We’ll bring you her story in the coming weeks.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

March 29, 2011 Sport Air Racing

The Liberty Gazette
March 29, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Peering out the windshield through the brilliant sunlight we search for what might be a needle in a haystack. There on the horizon, appearing as a small crack in the otherwise flat ground, that crack splits open further, becoming a canyon and down in it a mesa comes into view. Our air race turn-point is the southwest corner of that mesa. It’s pretty bumpy flying low as the hot air rises from the broken terrain below us, and we are flying flat-out as fast as the little Cheetah will go. Sweeping low, we pivot around the turn point making sure not to cut the corner but staying very close, then on to the next turn point.

Linda: Such was our introduction to the Sport Air Racing League which begins its fifth season April 2nd in Taylor, Texas. There are currently twenty races on the schedule this season. They range from as far west as Wenatchee, Washington and St. Thomas, Canada to the northeast at Elkton, Maryland. Pagosa Springs, Colorado will offer the highest field elevation at 7,664 feet above sea level and a new race in Galveston will be our lowest, right at sea level. There will be a new race in my home town – home of the “Indy 500”.

Mike: While most of the volunteers for the inaugural Indy Air Race are local, Linda is the remotely located Race Director. One task of the Race Director is to create a race course that is challenging, fun and safe. We choose prominent landmarks easily identified from the air, then determine the coordinates to be entered as turn points into a GPS.

Linda: These air races are not much of a spectator sport. However, at Indy we’ll have a big show, with displays, and an Official Starter, our family friend, retired Indy racer, Bob Harkey. Bob recently sold his Stearman biplane but he’ll get the race going and it will be a treat for everyone who comes in contact with him.

Mike: The zany pilots of the league are fun to be around. This group is very social as well as competitive. Since there is no purse, the contestants are only in it for the fun and bragging rights. Our league pilots who compete in the Reno National Air Races say they have more fun flying Sport Air races. Big egos need not apply. We do get some homemade stickers for our planes and at the end of the year trophies are given out for points. This all started when Mike Thompson, SARL president, was at the F-1 Rocket race and fly-in five years ago. Now it’s grown into this league known as “air racing for the rest of us.” Thompson still awards the “Fastest Rocket in the Known Universe” title each year.

Linda: Camaraderie went a step further when asking for recommendations for an overhaul shop for our engine. One of our fellow racers stepped up offering his mechanic services to get us up in the air sooner. He sends pictures of our engine in pieces and asks questions like “Now what?” We will miss the first two or three races due to the overhaul, but we’ll make the rest; and I expect that after some modifications we’ll have the “Fastest Cheetah in the Known Universe.”

http://www.elyairlines.blogspot.com/

March 22, 2011 Young Eagles

The Liberty Gazette

March 22, 2011

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We’re gearing up for another Young Eagles event, this time at the Pearland Regional Airport, 9 a.m., March 26th. The Young Eagles program was a vision of Tom Poberezny to introduce youngsters to aviation. Tom is the former president of the Experimental Aircraft Association and son of Paul Poberezny, the association’s founder. It’s truly amazing how many people, after discovering a passion for aviation, say they never considered it before. Aviation advocates have been scratching our collective heads for years trying to figure out why this is.

Why has the pilot population decreased when the reliance on air services has never been greater? In an age where we demand quick results, shipping products, transporting people, and performing aerial services, such as crop dusting, aerial surveying, photography, law enforcement and emergency response, movement by air is the best mankind has to offer right now.

Nineteen years ago Tom Poberezny flew the first Young Eagles. It was during the annual AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The goal then seemed unattainable to some nay-sayers, but Tom believed the aviation community could do it: fly a million youngsters by December 17, 2003, the 100th anniversary of the first flight by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.

That goal wasn’t just reached, it was surpassed. How it happened, and what lies ahead, appear in Tom’s recent commentary, “Brace for Impact” (Sport Aviation, March, 2011) – his title taken from the phrase made famous by Captain Sullenburger, who now co-chairs the EAA’s Young Eagles Program with his co-pilot, Jeffrey Skiles. They took over the reins from pilot/actor Harrison Ford in 2009, after their successful Hudson River landing.

Poberezny wrote that “there are thousands of people who have the soul of an aviator…but who have not yet discovered flying personally.” Survey responses by tens of thousands of pilots echoed “we want others to experience this.” The soul of an aviator. I like that.

Mike: The astounding statistics of Young Eagles speak of that soul; the program’s incredible success is evidence of doors waiting to be opened, that personal discovery of flight would stir the soul.

Now, 1.6 million Young Eagles flown by 43,000 pilots have their names entered in the World’s Largest Logbook.

The EAA teamed up with the FAA to compare notes. Now that the oldest Young Eagle would be 35, how many have earned a pilot license? The results in Tom’s report are encouraging: “Young people ages 15-24 who have participated in Young Eagles are 5.4 times more likely to obtain a pilot certificate than those who have not had such introductory flight.” What’s more, the aviation industry has gained flight instructors, aircraft mechanics, and air traffic controllers who were Young Eagles.

These are the results envisioned, but one surprise will likely lead to a few changes in the program. The focus has been to take youngsters for their first flight, repeat flights being optional. Now that we know that the more often a Young Eagle flies, the greater the chance he or she will become a pilot, repeat flights will be encouraged. Young Eagles will still be open to participants as young as 8 years old, but the information emerging identifies the 13 to 17 age group as the most likely to take to the skies.

Somewhere deep down, Poberezny knew he was right – that someday the proof would be “an example of the can-do spirit” at the core of the aviator’s soul.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

March 15, 2011 A little local news

The Liberty Gazette

March 15, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Lots of news has been piling up in the world of aviation, from here in Liberty and beyond. The Valentine’s Treasure Hunt made several national aviation publications and feedback has been great. Participants enjoyed the hunt, and once again our belief that airports are for people who don’t fly was confirmed. We tout the economic benefits of airports, seeing proof time after time. I ran into Sherry Mettlen in Thrifty Foods the other day and she was all smiles, as is usual for Sherry. She’s a living advertisement for Carol Bond Health Foods because she never runs out of energy or cheerfulness. In fact, as we were registering pilots to fly in the hunt, we began to run low on the liability waivers they have to sign. Sherry rushed one across the street to RJR Floor Covering, and in typical small-town-friendly style, they made ten more copies for us. Isn’t it great when people work together for good?

Sherry was quite excited to tell me how she’s already benefited just from that one fly-in event. She has a new customer who is ordering supplements. He came for the treasure hunt and because Sherry was there to promote her business and the Liberty area in general, she gained a customer, and no doubt she made a positive impact on behalf of the airport, the people, and the town. We need more Sherrys in this world. I know of a few airports in other cities that face difficult situations with neighbors. Why anyone who doesn’t like airplanes would buy a house next to an airport is beyond me, but it happens. That’s one reason TXDOT was adamant while I was on the Airport Advisory Board that Liberty needed height hazard zoning. Its airspace zoning that complies with FAA standards to protect both airplanes and people on the ground. And it helps when people are real estate shopping, they will find out (if airplanes low overhead aren’t enough) that they’re near an airport, and that airport needs to have its airspace protected. It took awhile to get accomplished, but when the cities of Ames and Liberty and Liberty County finally formed the Height Hazard Zoning Board those protections were put into place. A lot of improvements can be made on what we have, and the airport has a friend at City Hall in Gary Broz.

Meanwhile, we’re facing a major overhaul on the Cheetah. During a regular inspection we discovered cylinder #3 was cracked. We got more time out of the engine than the manufacturer thought we would, so we can’t complain. And now will be the perfect time to upgrade the stock engine. Its 150 horsepower from the factory is de-rated by the stock exhaust system, by about ten horsepower. Installing an upgraded exhaust system can raise the horsepower to its rated 150, and we’ll see an increase in our cruise speed. One of three other major modifications we’re considering will improve engine cooling by changing the cowling. Cheetah cylinders typically run hot, so that modification is quite popular, as is a cylinder compression upgrade to 160 horsepower. All this will probably lead to a new propeller, but I’ll have to use my feminine wits to break that news to Mike. You know how it is when we women go shopping.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

March 8, 2011 Lance Borden, part 5

The Liberty Gazette

March 8, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: It’s time to wrap up our series on Dewey Bonbrake, designer and builder of the Inland airplanes, and Lance Borden, his grandson, where we left off with Lance in Laos.

After 20 months in Southeast Asia, Lance was honorably discharged. Having relatives in Houston and not wanting to return to Ohio he took his skills to Associated Radio Service Company at Hobby Airport. Eventually he and a couple partners opened their own radio shop called Airtronics. However, three months into the new business, with lots of customers and things going well, including becoming a licensed pilot, Bell Helicopter came courting with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Lance made arrangements for his replacement and moved to Isfahan, Iran to work for Bell as a Senior Avionics Tech. A move to engineering brought him a promotion to Chief Armament Engineer, where Lance worked on the weapon systems on helicopters. It was during this five-year stint in Iran when Lance obtained his FAA Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic certificate, making him a pilot and an airplane mechanic.

Mike: Due to the Iranian Revolution Lance returned to Houston where he joined Boeing’s electronics team at the Johnson Space Center for the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. Working nights, attending school during the day, he earned an Associate’s Degree in Aviation Maintenance Technology with a 3.9 GPA.

When a NAVAIDS engineer position opened with Rockwell, Lance applied with confidence; even though he wasn’t a degreed engineer he knew more about NAVAIDS than anyone. Rockwell hired him as one of two Shuttle NAVAIDS engineers in Orbiter Engineering. He took home volumes of books to study. Boeing bought Rockwell Aerospace in 1996 and in 2002 made Lance the Space Shuttle NAVAIDS Subsystem Manager until he retired in 2008 after 29 years at the Space Center. Now a consultant for Boeing, when the last Space Shuttle Mission is flown this year, Lance will be one a small cadre of folks having worked every single mission.

Linda: Lance’s grandfather, taught him how to make crystal radios. The Houston Vintage Radio Association asked Lance, a vintage radio collector, to write an article detailing how to build a good crystal radio for a contest they were having. The article was a hit, and was published nationally in Electronics Handbook Magazine. When the magazine’s editor asked for more, Lance wrote eight more articles including one about make-shift radios built by World War II G.I.s in their foxholes. He told readers where to get parts but they wanted kits. So for over 15 years now, Borden Radio Company has kept him busy selling kits world-wide. Much to his wife’s chagrin, the whole upstairs of their house is taken over with his radio business. His website is: http://www.xtalman.com/.

These days, when Lance isn’t putting together crystal radio sets, he can be found in his hangar where he’s restoring one of his grandfather’s airplanes, a 1929 Inland Sport, or out flying around in his 1948 Luscombe. It’s been great fun writing about the Inland airplanes, Lance and his family. No doubt, this story needs a feature write up in an aviation magazine, but for now, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading about some intriguing American history.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

March 1, 2011 Lance Borden, part 4

The Liberty Gazette
March 1, 2011

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We’ve only scratched the surface of some fascinating history, from the development of the Inland Aviation Company, the design of the Inland Sport and other models, to the grandson of the Inland’s designer-builder, Lance Borden. We left off last week with Lance in Laos, involved in secret government operations at the height of the war in Vietnam, and you’re reading this as told to us from the source.

The cliff at the end of the runway in Moung Soui didn’t leave much room for mistakes. A T-28 was on takeoff when Lance heard someone say it crashed. Lance jumped on a bomb jammer and rode down the flight line to find the T-28 turned around, upside-down, canopy open. He could see fuel spilling out and heard the boost pumps running. Charging up with his GI issue P-38 folding pocket can opener, Lance accessed the battery compartment and disconnected the battery, preventing an explosion, as others removed the pilot from the cockpit. Suddenly a Sikorsky “Jolly Green Giant,” helicopter showed up and rescuers went to work on the pilot. They placed him in inflatable casts and transported him to the hospital at Udorn. He survived.

No one knew who called in the helicopter so quickly but many years later while working at Johnson Space Center Lance ended up working alongside a retired Air Force Colonel who flew F-105s out of Thailand. The Colonel mentioned having seen a T-28 crash on take-off in Laos. Turns out, he was the one who had called the air ambulance: Col. James “Bruce” Broussard, 333rd Fighter Group, Taklhi Royal Air Base, Thailand. The rescuers involved were told they would receive bronze stars, but they never did. Probably, Lance surmises, because these were secret operations.

Mike: “Luang Prabang” (code name: Lima 54), located at the junction of the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, Lance says, “was the closest thing to Shang-ri-la I can think of; a gorgeous little town in the mountains, near China.” He transferred there from Moung Soui when a position opened for an aircraft radio guy. They put him in charge of the bomb depot too, storing the bombs that arrived in Air America C130s. “All the guys shared a house in town, crossing the Nam Kong River to get to the airport,” Lance says. “Some of the guys have been back and say the house is still there.”

While at Luang Prabang, Lance was able to fly often thanks to the Ravens and some of the Thai and Lao pilots. They liked having an extra set of eyes in the cockpit. Another adventure occurred while riding in the back of an Air America C-46. Flying low–standard operating procedure for where they were–and heavy with all sorts of tools when an engine quit, the airplane, unable to maintain altitude due to its weight, began to sink towards rising terrain. Everyone started tossing things out of the plane’s open rear door trying to keep it aloft. Just as they were about to toss the last crate, the pilots got the engine restarted.

They faced dangers near the battlefield and even at their house. The facilities where they worked were always susceptible to attack.

After 20 months “in country,” Lance was honorably discharged in California, choosing Houston as his next stop. Our country has benefited from Lance’s choices. We’ll share more on that next week. Till then, blues skies.

http://www.elyairlines.blogspot.com/