October 8, 2019 Curtis Laird's John Wayne Moment

The Liberty Gazette

October 8, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: When Linda and I visited Vietnam a couple of years ago, our Mekong River tour guide, Vi, explained that the area was once heavily populated by tigers. Linda asked, “Where are all the tigers now?” Vi said with a grin, “They went to the restaurants.”

Curtis Laird is back this week with more from his time in Vietnam.

Curtis: Upon arriving “in country” for my second tour, in August of 1968, I received numerous briefings and an update on the tactical situation. A few days later, I was in the cockpit getting my in-country checkout, and it felt good to be back in the air again. A few days after this, I was flying missions with a more experienced aircraft commander. One of those missions I remember well was to fly to Kontum and extract two 155mm Howitzers from a mountaintop fire base and deliver them to the Kontum airfield.

The first lift went well, and we returned to the mountaintop for our second lift. After hook-up and hover check, we transitioned out of the fire base enroute to the airfield. It was then that the #1 engine dropped completely offline. This created a situation all aviators hate to be caught up in.

We contacted Kontum and advised them of our problem, and that we would try and release our 15,000-pound load by the runway. The plan was to make a modified running landing and release right before touchdown. We went over the plan with the flight engineer and crew chief. All agreed, this was our best option. There would be no rehearsals.

Fortunately, the plan worked perfectly. After the artillery guys got their guns and left, we checked the aircraft over and determined the engine malfunction was due to a mechanical problem. Unfortunately, the needed parts would have to be flown in from Camp Hollaway in Pleiku. It was getting dark, and we were in the rainy season which meant the flight crew would have to stay overnight in the bunkers. The aircraft would be left out in the open, a prime target for the enemy.

However, there happened to be an Engineer Dump Truck Company in the area. After locating the commander and explaining our situation to him, he agreed to let us borrow seven dump trucks to surround our aircraft. We hoped the trucks would protect the helicopters from rocket and mortar fire.

After positioning the trucks, we all retired to the bunkers where we spent a restless night. There were many explosions overnight, but mostly from a distance. The maintenance crew flew in the next day with the parts, and by the time we were back up and flyable, it was already getting dark again. But we were not keen on spending another night in Kontum, John Wayne style, so we flew back to Camp Hollaway, that being the lesser risk.

Linda: Good thing the tigers were gone by then. The people there were bad enough.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

October 1, 2019 Curtis Laird's Wildlife

The Liberty Gazette

October 1, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We met up with Dayton’s Curtis Laird again. That always results in storytelling, you know. During his tours in Vietnam, the veteran helicopter pilot took time to see the beauty of the country and the wild, wildlife.

Curtis: The beaches and coastal area of Vietnam are amazing. White sand, blue sea, and coconut palms made me wonder if Robinson Crusoe was following me. I’d marvel at the full moon over the South China Sea, and especially the contrails of about twenty-five B-52s, in the moonlight.

On one of my daytime missions along the coast, we were to fly from Qui Nhon to Nha Trang and recon some islands. There was a little scud (low clouds) onshore, so we flew about a quarter mile offshore. A few minutes into the flight, I saw on the horizon what appeared to be a swift boat. These were not common in this area. As we closed in on it, we ruled out boat but still could not identify it. I told the crew chief and gunner to ready up. We were going to check it out. Upon close observation, we discovered we’d prepared for battle with a giant oceanic manta ray on a feeding frenzy. It was a beautiful sight, as it would lift its wings out of the water, then slap the surface, then swim around and feed on its prey. We estimated it to be fifteen feet from wingtip to wingtip, but those rays can get over twenty-five feet.

Some of the other coastal wildlife and fowl are wild deer, ducks, peafowl, cuckoos, pheasants, and lots of no-shoulders. That is, snakes.

Going inland to the central highlands, it’s like entering a different world. Lush vegetation, waterfalls, valleys with steep slopes of greenery. There are wild boar, bear, monkeys, and green, blue and yellow parakeets, which leads me to another tale.

We were coming off general support status, relocating to provide assistance to another unit. The flight leader decided we would fly low level in loose formation. There were some uncomfortable feelings about this. There we were at treetop level (sometimes referred to as the nap of the earth), twelve aircraft going about 90-100 knots. Well into the flight, the leader made some erratic movements. We thought he was taking fire, but he came up on the radio and advised he’d had a bird strike. That was a relief given the alternative, but it did leave a big hole in the left chin bubble.

After things settled down from that excitement, I saw a blue cloud fly by. The radio came to life again. Some of the other crews had seen it also. Then we saw a green cloud about the same size as the blue one. That’s when we discovered we had flown right through parakeet country, putting its residents in panic mode.

Mike: Come back next week for another installment of Laird Storytelling.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 24, 2019 Turnberry and the Bruce!

The Liberty Gazette

September 24, 2019

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: “At the round-about take the SECOND exit,” repeats in my head even though we’ve been back from Scotland almost two weeks. The GPS’s message seems permanently planted in my brain. While recently visiting the Scottish Lowlands, I renewed my familiarity with driving from the right seat on the left-hand side of the road while turning right around traffic circles. A lot of traffic circles. The rental car’s navigation system sounded irritated when I did not follow its prompts. At least I didn’t have to shift gears, thanks to the automatic transmission, somewhat of a luxury in Europe.

Linda was on a mission, and I was the designated driver. She is doing research on a notorious ancestor of hers, one Sir Robert Logan, who provided a great deal of material suitable for an epic play. Today’s destination was the ruins of Turnberry Castle, south of Ayr, and the birthplace of Robert the Bruce, a former king of Scotland, also her ancestor. There isn’t much left of the castle, but it provided an opportunity to see part of the country’s west coast.

A lighthouse built in the 19th century now stands where the castle walls were tumbled down early in the 14th century. But some of the old walls are still visible. We took advantage of a break in rain showers and walked half a mile from the parking area through a golf course. That’s when I discovered this was also a Royal Air Force base, not once, but twice. In fact, the paved path on which we strode cut across the middle of a slab of runway.

The links existed before World War I. When the fighting began, the property was requisitioned and turned into a training base for the Royal Air Corps. Cadets spent three weeks learning to fly and shoot guns in aerial combat. When the hostilities were over, it was reverted to long, rough fairways, soft, manicured greens, and a boatload of sand traps.

During World War II, once again it was enlisted. The RAF’s Coastal Command trained pilots in torpedo-bombers to drop a new kind of bomb, the “Highball,” that bounced along the water into the sides of enemy ships. But they never used it in battle. Later, the RAF based their Consolidated B-24 Liberators here. They carried torpedoes, depth charges, and rockets, for knocking out German U-boats in the Atlantic.

From a small hillock, the runway seemed short. The wind whipped, and the rain splattered. A monument to the lost airmen of World War I overlooked the torrential waters of the Firth of Clyde. A bump of granite that formed a dome over a volcano long ago stuck out of the sea. They call the rock Ailsa Craig.

I imagined heavily laden B-24s lumbering down the hastily constructed concrete runways into windswept skies. I listened for the rumble of their radial engines. I’d much rather hear that than the GPS voice enthusiastic about a roundabout.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 17, 2019 More Aerial Adventures of Will Smithson

The Liberty Gazette

September 17, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Will Smithson has landed out in a glider nine times, so far. That means he’s not made it back to the Soaring Club of Houston’s grass runway and someone had to come pick him up. Depending on where he lands, either a tow plane will come, or, if he doesn’t make it to an airport, someone will drive Will’s car and trailer, help him disassemble the glider, and drive back. It’s inconvenient, but glider pilots prepare for it.

The first time he landed out in a glider, he ended up in a field, where the grass was four feet high. Tall growth can make it hard to determine from above how much father the ground is below. Just before landing, the pilot must enter the flare, pulling the nose up slightly for a smooth landing. However, Will flared too high, because he thought the grass was at ground level. “Before I touched down, grass and seeds were flying everywhere, all over the canopy. The ground wasn’t where I expected it to be.”

The rest of that landing was uneventful, and most of his other land-outs haven’t been that thrilling. “The land-out itself isn’t a big deal, as long as you pick an appropriate field. I’ve done it so many times that now it only takes me twenty to thirty minutes to take the plane apart.”

But there was that one time. As the thermals dissipated, he realized he would have to land. “By then, I was pretty confident I could land anywhere. The field below me was about fourteen hundred feet with a fence in the middle. ‘No big deal,’ I thought, ‘I can get over the fence. I’ll put out the spoilers and have six to seven hundred feet to stop.’ But close to the ground, I saw it was going downhill. I was moving forward, still trying to get the glider to touch the ground.” The slope wasn’t discernible from the air.

Finally, Will touched down, but on the ground roll, the fence and trees seemed to be coming at him fast. He applied full right rudder and aileron and stopped 80 feet from the trees, ground-looping the plane. Fortunately, there was no major damage.

In the moment, Will says, “I was so busy flying the plane, that I wasn’t scared. My only thought process was flying and landing the plane. But after that, I figured my risk tolerance was too high. I needed more of a buffer.”

Someday, Will would like a plane with a motor, because then he can be more adventurous. Meanwhile, his brick award is at home. It’s actually a foam block painted red. But it's not the only recognition he received at last year's banquet. He also won first place in sport class local competition, the spirit of soaring award, and the taco award—a special one club members made up just for him because, “Ask anyone who picks me up. My car is a mess.”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 10, 2019 The Aerial Beginnings of Will Smithson

The Liberty Gazette

September 10, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

The little black thing Will Smithson saw in the air looked like a bird. It wasn’t really soaring in circles, as he was accustomed to seeing them do, but perhaps it was just doing its thing. As he commanded his glider closer, taking advantage of the lift provided by the thermal, he could finally make out what that “bird” was doing. It was a trash bag flitting around, stuck in the updraft.

Will had always been interested in aviation. When he was 22, he tried to find the cheapest way to fly. His internet search introduced him to hang gliding. He knew as they were climbing to altitude on the demo ride that this could be his entry to the flying world.

Will learned how air rises and moves, and that thermals give you lift. But with hang gliders, you’re always “landing out,” meaning when there’s no more lift, you’re coming down, and landing where you are, as opposed to returning to land at an airfield. After four years of this, he wanted something more. Another internet search resulted in his discovering that gliders have a 40:1 glide ratio, which sure beat his hang glider’s 12:1 ratio. By moving up to a sailplane, he’d get forty feet forward for every one foot down. That would sure improve his chances of finding those thermals and staying aloft longer.

In January 2017, Will went to the Soaring Club of Houston and took a demo ride. He was hooked and joined same day, saying, “I thought it was expensive. But then talked myself into it, because you only live once, and this is what I wanted to do.”

Will sold his hang glider and bought a sailplane. Someday, he would like to fly powered aircraft, but for now, he’s learning so much about soaring, he can’t give it up. “You’re engaged for four or five hours, always busy, always thinking what’s ahead, what’s in the next cloud, engaged the whole time.”

In fact, he says soaring has ruined his life completely. “Friends want me to join them on trips, like going back to Honduras, where I grew up. But there aren’t any sites to see there. Why go, when I could spend that money on flying? I want to be flying my glider! One-third of my day I spend thinking about cross-country flying. It’s the first and last thing I think about—when I wake up, and when I go to bed.

Over the past two and a half years, Will has learned a great deal about himself as well as aerodynamics and thermal dynamics, because he’s willing to push the limits. All that time spent hang gliding increased his comfort zone for landing anywhere.

“Landing out,” he says, “I’m pretty well-known for that.” At last year’s awards banquet, he was given the brick award and dubbed the land-out king.

Next week we’ll share some of his wild soaring adventures, including one that made him rethink his tolerance for risk.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 3, 2019 My Scottish Airline, Loganair

The Liberty Gazette

September 3, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Once upon a time, before I was born, William Logan owned a construction company in his homeland Scotland. Willie, as they called him, had projects all over the country, and he’d hire an air taxi (charter) to fly him to work sites farther away. The same year I popped into the world and was given the family name Logan as my middle name, that air taxi company faced financial troubles. Since Willie relied on the economy and efficiency of air travel for business, he bought the company and re-named it Loganair. They had one airplane, a Piper Aztec.

Now I’ve flown an Aztec, or as some call it, an “Az-truck.” It’s an okay airplane. Great for training in multi-engine aircraft and, I suppose, for starting an airline in 1962. You gotta begin somewhere. There was a lot of paperwork to do, approvals required from the government and all that red tape. As my parents were celebrating my first birthday in October, Loganair took off on its first scheduled flight, a short hop, Dundee to Edinburgh, where Willie was the main contractor building the Tay Road bridge, one of the longest in Europe.

Business grew when they won the contract to deliver newspapers to Stornoway, an island in the Outer Hebrides, about halfway to Iceland. When they unloaded papers from the Aztec, the sheepherders filled it back up with woven cloth to take to Harris Tweed. Then came contracts for service to other islands and an air ambulance. The fleet expanded to five aircraft based at Glasgow.

Things were going great, until January 22, 1966, when Willie wanted to return home from a construction site late at night. The weather was cloudy, and the dispatcher told him there was no suitable aircraft for flying in low clouds at night. No problem, he’d take a train. Or not. He changed his mind and called another air taxi company, which turned out to be a deadly mistake. That operation was unapproved, and the pilot was unfamiliar with the area and carried no navigation charts. When he descended through the clouds, the airplane hit a hill and that was the end of Willie Logan. The insurance claim was denied, and the construction company dissolved.

But the bank took over Loganair’s assets and eventually found a buyer. The airline is still based at Glasgow, now with a fleet of 25 and even has its own registered tartan, the clan design painted on the tail.

Among the over 40 routes they own throughout Scotland, England, and the Channel Islands, is the world’s shortest commercial flight. Depending on the wind, it takes Loganair’s Britten Norman Islander about 80 seconds to fly 1.7 miles between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands. With a population less than 100, building bridges isn’t economical. The only other option is a very slow ferry, making the hop in an eight-passenger Islander the most popular choice. Someday, I’d like to take that flight in an airplane with my name on it.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 27, 2019 The Last Day of Re-Flights

The Liberty Gazette

August 27, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We had great fun filling the week with re-flights around Southern California. Flying select cross-country flights with Mike allowed me to share in his memories of his earliest days aviating.

He still has friends out there where he grew up, and one couple invited us to stay the night before we started our long flight home. They rounded up another friend Mike grew up with, and we all went to dinner together. Since we’re vegan, Asian restaurants make a good choice when we’re with a group of meat-eaters. Avocado rolls and edamame are always on the menu.

Mike’s buddies wanted to know what he was up to, what this trip west was all about. He’s writing a book of historic interest for pilots on the significant changes that have occurred in the way we fly, since he began his journey in flight training 44 years ago. For research, we took the same type of airplane he learned in, back to the same airspace, and retraced his chem trails, noting differences in FAA regulations, shape and size of controlled airspace, changes in the number and busyness of airports and air traffic control towers, and much more. Technology has changed much of the way we fly, too. Both in and outside the cockpit, technological advances have made flying easier, even in the crowded skies over Southern California.

On the way back from the Japanese sushi house, at a stoplight, we thought Leandro, whose big truck we were in, was messing with us, pumping hydraulics or brakes or something. The truck was a-rockin’! Randy, Nancy, and I were laughing at Leandro, saying, “Okay, that’s enough bouncing the truck.” But just then, Mike hollered, “Look at the traffic lights! He’s not doing it—it’s another earthquake!”

Only one day after my first quake, I had just experienced my second. It came from the same epicenter, but jostled us with more magnitude, 7.1 this time. To me, it was exciting. When we returned to our hosts’ home, their dining room chandelier and heavy window blinds were still swaying.

As we do when hurricanes threaten us here, everyone turns on the TV news to find out what they need to know. From the local news channels, I learned about Dr. Lucy Jones, an amazing expert from Cal Tech. She’s been at this a long time and reports what’s happening geologically. Somehow, she takes complex technical details and makes them easy for non-geologists to comprehend. No wonder she’s so popular.

Departing the next morning, we flew the rest of the day and overnighted in Las Cruces. Landing back home the following day, we tucked the Elyminator back in the nest, and tallied it all up: 10 days, 41.7 hours of flight time, 4,075 nautical miles, 32 landings, 21 pages of notes, 2 earthquakes, many good friends, and loads of memories.

Every day of this adventure was chock-full of fun. These past few articles have been teasers for Mike’s upcoming book. We’ll let you know when it’s out.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 20, 2019 Strawberries

The Liberty Gazette

August 20, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Strawberries sold for $5 a flat back in the 1980s. A flat holds 12 pint-sized baskets and I could fit about a dozen flats in the nose of a Beech 99, a twin-engine turboprop, without crushing them.

When I flew freight for Cal Air back then, I’d hop around to all these cities in Southern California, at first collecting cancelled checks and later moving up to flying UPS feeder duty out of Ontario. One of the regular runs I flew had me laying over in Oxnard for the day. With some of the richest soil in all the country, it was a strawberry-growing place if I ever saw one.

Before leaving the airport in the morning, some of my fellow pilots would hand over a five and place their order for strawberries. After making my morning run and offloading cargo in Oxnard, I’d head out to fill those orders—strawberries fresh from a farmer’s field. I’d bring them back to all the pilots at our base, and I’d save some to bring back home to Mom.

Linda: He was probably hoping for homemade strawberry pie in appreciation for his efforts. His mom was a great cook.

During our re-flight of the early days of Mike’s first logbook, on approach into Oxnard, I wondered if all those rows of ground covered with big white plastic might be strawberry fields. But then, we had no room for a flat of strawberries. We were already near maximum gross weight with the camping gear and a week’s worth of stuff. Still, I could imagine the taste of fresh strawberries just then.

That reminds me of a side-story about strawberries. Humor me a random interlude. When I moved here to Liberty, my brother-in-law, Rusty Blue, was keeping a garden in my back yard. I wanted fresh strawberries, so I told him that would be a good thing to plant. Of course, he suggested if that was something I wanted, then I should do the planting. But I know my brother-in-law. All I had to do was go buy the tray of strawberry plants and place them by the garden. Sure enough, he stuck them in neat little mounds. They produced sweet berries!

But back to Oxnard. As we were on final for the runway, just over the highway, besides wondering if all those covered fields had juicy red fruit growing, I wondered if the people on the road below us could read the words on the bottom of the Elyminator – “Stuck In Traffic?” I’ve enjoyed having that sign on the bottom of the airplane ever since we put it there in 2012. It gets lots of laughs.

Mike: I rarely carried any cargo in the nose of that Beech 99 other than the strawberries. So, the evening flights back to Ontario during harvest season often meant the sweet scent wafted its way through the airplane during the thirty-minute flight. It also made that airplane the most popular and welcomed on the UPS ramp.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 13, 2019 Favorites of the Re-flight

The Liberty Gazette

August 13, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: When the person you love tells you stories of a time pre-us, you long to know what it was like. Flying the routes with Mike that he flew when he was a new pilot gave me an opportunity to explore today’s airspace in yesteryear’s flights. Of the many airports we landed at, I picked five favorites.

Kern Valley was one (my first earthquake). Others were Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Catalina Island, and in a way, El Monte. I wrote about those first three over the last couple of weeks.

A few years ago, we stayed a weekend at Avalon on Catalina Island. Unfortunately, this time, we couldn’t stay, but landing at the “Airport in the Sky” and spending thirty minutes at the restaurant/gift shop was nice. Avalon is romantic, so you can bet we’ll be back. Probably when the Zane Grey Hotel re-opens after remodeling.

Why El Monte? Because that’s where Mike learned to fly. This was where his story began. And it was my first time there. When the tower controller instructed me to fly over the Santa Fe dam and follow the water toward the runway, I couldn’t tell immediately where that was for all the congestion below. But Mike was taken back to a place long forgotten. From that moment on, the week of re-flights created its own special place in our hearts.

We dropped in on Burbank and visited one of Mike’s former co-workers still at Ameriflight (formerly California Air Charter – CalAir). Pete handed Mike his I.D. photo from 1985, in which he looked a bit different than today. The guys reminisced a while, then we took off to replicate the first leg of his first flight for CalAir. It was a short one, Burbank to Riverside, about 30 minutes. On October 1, 1985, young Mike carried 1,100 pounds of canceled checks and bank mail in a Piper Lance.

Approaching to land at Riverside, I laughed in appreciation of the “note” at the end of the runway. Painted in large white letters is, “Wheels,” a nice reminder for every pilot, every time, to check that their landing gear is down.

I cannot imagine what it felt like for Mike to revisit this flight, but it swirls in my heart. In the years since then, he’s been the chief pilot for an international corporation, flying all over the world, and people have come to him from around the globe for instruction in flying jets. To come back to Riverside, flying that first leg from Burbank, thinking about the freight he carried, must have brought a tidal wave of thoughts and emotions. He had to be on time in those days before electronic banking. In the Piper Lance, every minute it took to get his cargo to its destination meant thousands of dollars in interest. Later, when he flew canceled checks in a Learjet, he carried billions, with every minute being worth millions. That’s more than a flat of strawberries, which I’ll tell you about next week.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

August 6, 2019 Shaken, But Not Stirred

The Liberty Gazette

August 6, 2019

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: My first earthquake experience happened July 4 this year, as we prepared to depart our camp-by-your-airplane spot at Kern Valley Airport. What a feeling, the earth moving as we stuffed our gear into the baggage compartment! We didn’t know yet where the epicenter was, or the magnitude. The runway looked fine, so we took off, back over Lake Isabella and headed up the Owens Valley at 8,500’, part of a route Mike used to fly regularly. There’s so much history and geology there.

Mt. Whitney

With Lone Pine Airport off our right wing, and Mt. Whitney off our left, we were between the highest and lowest points in the Continental U.S.: Mt. Whitney is 14,491’, and just 88 miles away is Bad Water in Death Valley, elevation minus 282’!

Lone Pine Airport

We flew north, over the Alabama Hills. From the sky, it was just a little clump of hills, but this has been the most popular location for filming Westerns since the silent movie days of Tom Mix. Many scenes in John Wayne movies were shot there.

The perspective from the Elyminator above this grand valley is stunning, but not void of some sad history. We had a good view of Manzanar, the U.S. internment camp where Japanese people were held during World War II. The airstrip is still visible, as are the outlines of former campsites, now lined with dark clumps of trees across the road from the airstrip. There’s a museum there that tells the history. It was a time of panic in the U.S., and we did the best we knew in a time of fear. If you saw the movie or read the book, “Unbroken,” you know what we feared.

Manzanar

Flying over Manzanar on Independence Day had a sobering effect—oh, the wars we’ve fought. But the next town up the valley was, appropriately, Independence. We circled over Independence and flew back down the Owens Valley, past Mt. Whitney again, and headed to Inyokern to fuel up. That’s where we would learn more about the earthquake.

Approaching Inyokern, we tuned in their common traffic advisory frequency and heard the pilot of a TV news helicopter asking if she could get to the self-serve fuel pump or if there was a fuel truck. Aha! The news must be covering the quake! Mike figured we must be near the epicenter.

CHiP at Inyokern

The California Highway Patrol had landed for fuel in their Cessna 206, as did about four more TV news helicopters. We talked with the airport manager and his fiancé, and learned the epicenter was in the next town, Ridgecrest, only about 30 miles from where we had camped. Magnitude 6.4, with several aftershocks forecast.

Helicopters were transporting patients from the damaged Ridgecrest hospital to hospitals in Lancaster and Palmdale. Other buildings were damaged, too, but the CHP pilots said so far, the roads looked okay.

With fuel in the wing tanks, we took off for more destinations, a couple of which are on my “favorites” list. I’ll tell more next week.

TV News Helicopter at Inyokern

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com