February 4, 2010 Aerial Search and Rescue

The Liberty Gazette

February 4, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The Civil Air Patrol and Texas EquuSearch are well known for their participation in aerial search of missing persons. Often, they use grid patterns to comb an area where it may be especially hard to find a person. Mountainous terrain, forests, and large bodies of water are examples of tough areas to conduct a hunt. The CAP calls their pattern “The Swiss-Army Knife of Search grids.” Their fleet of 560 single-engine airplanes carries pilots and observers trained in aerial search. Their conventional grid system was developed in the early 1960s by CAP members in Washington state, and it was soon adopted nationwide.

A grid is a coordinated system of boxes based on latitude and longitude. The basic premise is to divide the U.S. into 15-minute by 15-minute quadrangle grids. These grids are then numerically labeled sequentially on an aeronautical sectional chart. The order of numbering is from the top left to the top right, down one row, and so on. Each 15-minute grid is approximately 225 square statute miles. When especially difficult terrain is involved, the grid sections can be subdivided into four smaller sections.

These methods hadn’t been thought up yet when, on December 3, 1926, a couple had an argument about the husband’s desire to spend the weekend without his wife. Four months earlier, the man had broken the news to her that he wanted a divorce. And that there was another woman. In December, the distraught wife left their home and wasn’t seen again for eleven days. Her disappearance caused quite a stir. More than 1,000 police officers and 15,000 volunteers are reported to have joined in the search for her. One of them was Dorothy Sayers, author of the Peter Wimsey mystery series. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the character Sherlock Holmes, jumped in to help. He was a believer in spiritualists, such as psychic mediums, and gave the missing lady’s glove to a psychic in the hopes it would lead them to her.

Linda: This was also the event that brought out airplanes to be used, reportedly for the first time in the world, for search operations. Several airplanes, in fact. They flew over the British landscape, without a sophisticated search pattern, but earnestly looking for clues.

The missing lady, Agatha Christie, was finally found but claimed to have no memory of those eleven days. Some believe she entered a “fugue state” of mind, a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for one’s personal identity. It tends to happen from severe stress.

On the upside, she later met a fine gentleman who treated her much better. That leaves about the only nice thing I can say about Archibald Christie being that his cold, cold heart ended up opening the doors for aircraft to be used in search and rescue. I’m sure that wasn’t his intended result, but thankfully, from that time on, airplanes have been used when the need arises for the special vantage point which only they can bring.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 28, 2020 Elys go to the Theater

The Liberty Gazette

January 28, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: A notorious medieval Scottish ancestor of mine left tremendous material for a dramatic tale to be told. In fact, about halfway back in time between him and me, another ancestor wrote a couple of lengthy novels about the trouble the old baron had gotten into. The stories are full of intrigue, no matter whose side you believe.

When I first heard of the baron’s reputation and activities, I planned on writing a novel. But life happens, and I put my notes away for a couple of decades. When I took them out again, I thought, hey, this is so dramatic, it should be a play!

After returning from my research trip to Scotland last year, I enrolled in a playwright course in Houston. I’m now taking my second course and learning lots. We had been frequenting Main Street Theater in Houston. They do a lot of Shakespeare, as well as smart, new plays. That’s how I discovered Guy Roberts.

Guy is originally from Houston, but he now lives in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the founder and CEO of the Prague Shakespeare Company and one of the foremost living experts on Shakespeare. He’s given TedTalks on Shakespeare and can recite any of the bard’s plays backward and forward, in his sleep. We’ve seen a few of his productions when he’s brought them back to Main Street Theater. So as I began converting my partially-written novel into a play, I thought of Guy. That’s when I started dreaming what I thought was the impossible dream.  If there was one person in the world who I would want to read my play and give me feedback, it would be Guy Roberts.

During my first playwright course, I asked the instructor, Elizabeth Keel, an accomplished playwright and director in her own right, if she knew Mr. Roberts. I was elated to find out that of course she does! About the time the playwright masterclass began, a promotional post card arrived in our mailbox from Main Street Theater. “See Guy Roberts as Hamlet, in January!”

Elizabeth introduced us by email, we bought tickets to Hamlet, and after the show, we joined Guy and his assistant director at an English pub down the street.

“Yes!” he said. “Send it, I’ll read it.” Then he asked all kinds of questions about the play, and when he seemed satisfied with my answers, and provided a few tips, he leaned forward and said, “But you two are pilots, right?” Yep.

“Why don’t you write a play about what it’s like flying up there, in the front of the airplane? We don’t know anything about what it’s like. I’d really like to see a play like that. In fact, I might produce it. That’s your next project, after this one is finished!” He looked and Mike and me, and he was serious. So, it looks like there may be a stage in the future of Ely Air Lines.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 21, 2010 Curtis and Jim

The Liberty Gazette

January 21, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Our friend Curtis Laird thought of another story from his days in Vietnam. Actually, he’s thought of more than one, but we can only fit in one at a time.

Curtis: Back in November of 1966, I had a small detachment of UH-1D helos with crews at a place called Phan Rang. Our mission was to provide support to a Korean regiment, which was in turn providing outer security for the construction of the Phan Rang air base.

One morning, as we were preparing to launch for our missions, a young Air Force dog handler walked up and asked if he could fly as my gunner on some of the missions. He stated that he was current on the M-60 machine gun, which was our primary armament.

When time permitted, my crew and I took the Airman out over the South China Sea and checked his gunnery skills. Everything went well, so we started working him in on some of our missions. This gave me the opportunity to give my crew members a day off. I kept my fingers crossed that Army headquarters would not find out about this.

A few days later, an Air Force captain stopped by and asked if he could fly as my co-pilot someday. I said, “Sure, why not?” I already had an Airman flying with me, one more wouldn’t hurt.

So, on this particular day, half of my four-man crew were Air Force personnel. This was about the time that Army headquarters found out about it. Needless to say, I was reminded of my careless and negligent manner in which I was flying and operating my aircraft.

Now, we fast-forward 45 years to 2011. I received an email from an individual asking if I was the officer who let him fly as gunner on occasion. I immediately replied that I was the guilty party. We have been in touch ever since.

One more fast-forward. In October 2019, the gunner notified me that he and his wife would be flying down from New York to visit with me and my family. They arrived on November 7. It had been 53 years to the month since I had seen Jim, and we both agreed that we had gotten a little older.

Jim has done well since our Vietnam days. He got his college degree, started a business in the aviation industry, and wrote a book, titled, “The Sky is Not the Limit.” And, he has a wonderful family.

Linda: What winding paths our lives take. Who would have thought how the lives of a young Air Force dog handler and an Army helicopter pilot would end up 45 years later?

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 14, 2020 Lost Planet Airmen

The Liberty Gazette

January 14, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: In 1949, a 12-episode movie serial called “King of the Rocket Men” featured Dr. Vulcan, an evil genius who only appeared as a shadow, and who planned to conquer the world. Of course, he had to eliminate the good guys—the scientists who were making America great.

A couple of those good guys who narrowly escaped Vulcan’s dark plot developed an atomic-powered rocket backpack which they attached to a leather jacket, and a bullet-shaped helmet and a ray gun. With these inventions, they would fight the sinister Vulcan in a tug-of-war throughout the dozen shows, eventually stopping him from taking over the world.

The flight sequences were inspired by the Buck Rogers comic strip; accomplishing the scenes with special effects is amusing to read in the 21st century. To make the main character, Jeff King, alias Rocket Man, appear to fly across the landscape with his jetpack, specialists ran a life-size dummy on pulleys along a wire tilted at a downward angle to the horizon. This was the same way they had achieved the flying look for “Captain Marvel” in 1941. For the shots where they had to show a real person, such as for take-off, they placed a springboard just below camera view. The work was shared among three different stuntmen. For landing shots, the actors just jumped down into the view of the camera. Edit it all together, and it sort of looked like a guy leaping into the air, flying, then landing on his feet like a cat.

A few years later, the production company (Republic) put all those episodes together to create a 65-minute feature film version and changed the title to “Lost Planet Airmen”.

Linda: Remember the song, “Hot Rod Lincoln” a top hit in the early ‘70s? Charlie Ryan wrote it, but the popular version, the one I remember, was recorded by a group called Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen. Listening to the song recently, I wondered where they got the name for their band. George Frayne IV, the lead singer, took the stage name Commander Cody, similar to Commando Cody, the character in another 1950’s film series, and the rest of the band stayed in tune with the 1950’s movie theme as the Lost Planet Airmen.

Interestingly, Charlie Ryan’s song was a response to Arkie Shibley’s “Hot Rod Race” about a Ford and a Mercury neck-and-neck when suddenly a kid whizzes by in a souped-up Model A. Ryan wanted to give the kid’s perspective. He beefed up the story like the kid did the Model A.

Several different singers recorded the song, including Johnny Bond, who then wrote a sequel called “X-15”, which elevated the stakes to an air race in a North American X-15, a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft flown by NASA and the U.S. Air Force. To the beat of “Hot Rod Lincoln” it begins, “Gather ‘round you cats, and you will hear ‘bout a race I had in the stratosphere…”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

January 7, 2010 Living Room

The Liberty Gazette

January 7, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The wind bit my face and snow blurred my vision as flakes melted on my glasses. It was a bit chilly as I scanned the city from the Living Room and felt an incredible sense of accomplishment.

This isn’t a room but a lookout point in the nosebleed section of the Wasatch Range above Salt Lake City. I made it here via a two-mile packed snow path that weaved through snow-choked canyons, climbing up the mountains more than a thousand feet above the city’s upper tier. It’s not the top, which is thousands of feet above, cloaked in heavy drifts of snow and clouds. But I’m not exactly Jeremiah Johnson either. However, there is a feeling of exhilaration having made the journey here. Pictures cannot convey what is only available to those who make the effort.

Linda says I am in my element here. She’s right, I love the mountains. I used to climb them, but it had been more than twenty years since I kicked steps in the snow, climbing to these heights.

I came to Salt Lake City because a corporate pilot friend needed me to cover this year-end five-day trip for him. My regular job’s work schedule was light after an intensive Fall, so I welcomed the opportunity. Most people associate this area with skiing and many of them clogged by in the hotel in their plastic boots. Kids ran around trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.

While I like skiing, I prefer climbing. Physically taxing, it is straight forward. You just put one foot in front of the other, sometimes kicking a toehold, and then take the next step. At 5,000-plus feet above sea level the air is thin, necessitating more controlled breathing in sync with my pace. Sometimes the gradient increases and the pace slows but doesn’t stop, and I eventually achieve my goal. It’s like anything worthwhile. You stay with it until its done.

Descending from the climb is often more treacherous; following the path of least resistance has its own pitfalls. The trail was narrow with steep drop-offs. The dropping temperatures caused the snow packed by people who trod before me to become icy and slick. I didn’t have crampons—those spikes that mountaineers wear on their boots and the FAA frowns upon in carry-ons—and no ice-ax to help arrest a fall if I took one. I could make my own trail, but there was the danger of post-holing—putting my boot through the unpacked snow and finding a cavity under it with my foot encountering who-knows-what. So, working my way down took just as long as the way up.

Flying and climbing, it’s a great way to finish one year and move into the next. I look forward to the new decade, more challenges and peaks to reach, knowing that while my path may meander a bit, sometimes taking side-tracks, I will keep moving through the blizzardy landscape putting one foot in front of the other and moving ahead.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 31, 2019 Last Flights of 2019

The Liberty Gazette

December 31, 2019

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Thanks to good weather, the end of 2019 was filled with flight. On one of those lovely blue-sky days we moseyed west to the historic Stinson Municipal Airport. This airport began life in 1915 when Emma Stinson and her four children leased five hundred acres from the city of San Antonio. They opened Stinson School of Flying, where students were beneficiaries of passionate patriotism and piloting.

Katherine, Eddie, Marjorie, and Jack Stinson made significant contributions to aviation, and the airport named for them is the second oldest continuously operated airport in the country. Only College Park Airport in Maryland, built by the Wright Brothers in 1909 is older.

We love the old stone-faced art-deco style terminal, which was built in 1936. The building got tender loving care for its seventieth birthday when the city renovated and expanded it while retaining most
of the original structure. Inside, photographs and memorabilia decorate the halls chronicling Stinson Field over the past century.

The next day was also severe-clear, so we opted to go north, toward Granbury. The city of Granbury keeps several courtesy cars available for people who fly into their airport and want to go into town.

It’s good for the businesses and the city. They figure you’ll spend money there, at least for lunch. The Granbury airport has a really nice terminal building with a porch that wraps around the west and south sides. In Cracker Barrel style, comfy rocking chairs line the porch, perfect for watching take-offs and landings. Bring your own score card, if you dare.

Inside the roomy terminal, pilots and friends sit a spell to talk about airplanes and the wonderful freedom of flight. It’s always this way when we stop in at Granbury. Always filled with happy, friendly people.

After we fueled up the Elyminator, we messaged our friend AnnElise Bennett, who lives at Pecan Plantation airpark, just nine miles from Granbury. We hopped over and got the grand tour of her new house and the hangar where her Cessna 182, “X-Ray,” lives. We also happened upon several neighbors, most of whom we already knew, making for an impromptu reunion of friends.

Day Three was hanging on with decent weather again, so we ventured southwest to Mustang Island. What a great scenic flight along the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast!

Not far from the island, we noticed circles on the ground—bomb craters. Along that route, there had once been towers where observers watched how close the students came to hitting the targets. Amazing that the rings of the craters still show up, decades later, despite floods and high winds.

At Mustang Island Airport, you can rent golf carts to go into town. Our picnic lunch on the island was superb, and the flight back made us think of a quote by William Langewische: “I ask people who don’t fly, ‘How can you not fly when you live in a time in history when you can fly?”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 24, 2019 Community

The Liberty Gazette

December 24, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

In this very galaxy, relatively speaking, not that long ago (although writing a two-volume book set feels like it), we sought to bring the lines we draw in the air down here to paper. It was always a community thing, and always will be. We feel like we have an advantage because we live in both this community in Liberty, Texas, and in the aviation community. Sharing stories here each week allows us to bring our dual citizenship in these communities together.

Community is a place where a guy who picks up garbage twice a week has so much heart and soul that for our neighbor who is mobility-challenged, he never leaves the trash can on the street, but hustles it up near the house where she keeps it. He makes it easier on her not to have to retrieve it, because he cares.

Community is a place where we can share information about airplanes to the local first responders, as we did years ago in the early days of this column. It’s the place where police and fire fighters want to know more about responding to issues concerning aircraft, because they care.

Community is a place where the local librarian plans cool and interesting events for kids and families, like reading stories and making crafts, encouraging literacy, because she cares.

In 2007, when Cynthia started letting us fill this space in the Gazette, we had heard some people say, “What? We have an airport here?” Soon, the airport began getting recognition for the true asset it is. Its purpose: to serve everyone.

Great blessings came from the entire local community as well as the aviation community to benefit a family with a newborn in intensive care via a fly-in fund-raiser. Bill Buchanan did a live report from our plane as we flew lazy circles over the airport. A flying “poker run” brought pilots from all over Southeast Texas to the Liberty Municipal Airport. They enjoyed breakfast cooked by the Liberty Lions Club, bought fuel (spending money here), and were impressed with the community and the airport.

With it all came recognition that, as they say, in a small town can have a couple different outcomes. Either way, everyone knows everyone. So, when you’re turning and forget to use your blinker and it’s late at night, an officer could pull you over and remind you that it’s important to use your blinker every single time. And in our case, after giving an informational talk about aircraft to first responders, they could say, “Hey, aren’t you the airport people?”

So every week when we bring you another story, whether it’s based on our adventures high in the sky, or something revealing the humanity of our “other” community, we do it with one purpose in mind: to share goodness with our hometown community, Liberty, Texas.


Merry Christmas!

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 17, 2019 New Books

The Liberty Gazette

December 17, 2019

Ely Air Lines
by Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: As we celebrate the publication of our new book series, Ely Air Lines: Select Stories from 10 Years of a Weekly Column, I’ve wondered if I could pick one favorite out of the 100. I think maybe I can, but only because it’s about Mom. It’s about how important all those little airports are between here and Mattoon, Illinois, where she was born. I’m fortunate that I could go back with her to that first house in her life and walk through the little town that was hers more than eighty years ago and witness her reminisce in “Landing on Memory Lane.”

There are so many other stories about people and places—adventure!—that I cherish, that other than Mom, it’s really hard to pick a favorite.

But what a treasure we received when Tommy Chambers shared part of his father’s diary in “Allan Chambers’ Letters Home.” When we received that, we felt like there just wasn’t anything more we could ever write that would top it.

Then there’s “Sign Me Up!” which Bob Jamison wrote for us when I was out air racing and Mike was busy at work and couldn’t get that week’s piece done in time for the deadline.

And there’s our friend Jed Keck, the other Daytonite. He’s always full of stories, and great ideas for more. It’s not unusual for Jed to email us and ask, “Hey, have you heard about …” so-and-so, and he’ll give us a tip on a great story. He’s usually flying way up there around 39,000 feet; it’s good to have friends in high places.

I love learning of humorous stories and sharing them, such as “Of Turtles and Hares” and “No Rush Like It.” And the variety of types of people we meet in aviation never ceases to amaze and impress me: a basketball star, a sculptor, a professional percussionist, a grandma, war heroes and widows. They all have stories to tell, which, once we hear them, we can’t keep them to ourselves.

Mike: “Time with Dad” is probably my favorite. A heartfelt glimpse at the tasks that await a man whose last parent has recently deceased. My dad was not a pilot, but he worked for Lockheed Aircraft and TWA during the Golden Age of Aviation’s later years – the 1950s. The Lockheed Constellation was his favorite airliner. He was my first airplane passenger.

He, too, was a writer. My brothers and I built him an office in our garage where a foot heater glowed red as he banged away at a heavy old typewriter on cold nights, trying to be the next great novelist. The “w” key was always stiff, and he’d hit it particularly hard.

Then come the stories about courage and standing up against tremendous odds. These always score high. I’m in awe of people who won’t give up.

So much of life is touched by aviation. A mile of highway will take you a mile. But a mile of runway can take you anywhere.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 10, 2019 New Book Series

The Liberty Gazette

December 10, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: It all started on June 26, 2007 after Kevin Ladd suggested we write a piece about the airport which had come under attack by certain politicians. An airport is a city’s front door, so the misguided thought that Liberty shouldn’t have one is a fine “how-do-you-do.” But the pen is mightier than the sword (and more legal), and now here we are in our thirteenth year in this space. We never dreamed it would last this long.

In April of 2017, we had the brilliant idea to compile our favorite stories from the first ten years of Ely Air Lines and put them in a book. Our version of a “best of.” I say “brilliant” because there have been times when we’ve questioned that. It’s a lot of work. We discovered that many of the stories needed a fresh update. A lot can change in ten years. So we set about to update them with more interviews and more research. We handed 100 stories to an editor and thought we were ready to go when at the last minute we decided to take each story to our writers’ critique group in Houston. There are no other pilots in that group, so we were counting on feedback that would help us know we hadn’t written too technically. Since the group only meets once a week, it took time to get through all the stories.

After that, we decided it would be good to partner with another editor, but this time one who is also a pilot and has edited several other aviation books. Best of both worlds. That turned out to be a good idea, but it also set us back considerably in time. So now more than two years after “brilliance” struck, we have a two-volume set to be released on December 20 through Amazon.

There are stories of local friends, as well as people from farther away, and our own adventures. And it all began right here.

Mike: The process of seeking inspiring stories is continuous; we are always on the lookout for more. We each contribute from our own perspective and experience. We each have our own style of writing. A third style emerges when we write as one. There are times when one of us has a special story to share, and then that week’s contribution has a single author.

Admittedly, there have been times when we were almost too busy to make the deadline for the next week’s article. We’d ask on the eve of submission day, “What are we going to write about?” Somehow, it’s all worked out, and we thank Cynthia for the opportunity and space she has given us.

I believe so much of life is touched by aviation; so much good lands at the city’s front door. It’d almost be a crime not to share it. We plan to continue, because a mile of highway will take you a mile. But a mile of runway can take you anywhere.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

December 3, 2019 Susan

The Liberty Gazette

December 3, 2019

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: On February 3, 1959, over the Atlantic Ocean from Paris to New York, Pan Am flight 115 had a sudden emergency. I won’t go into details (you can look those up), but as you can imagine, the 119 passengers on board were frightened out of their wits when they dropped suddenly from a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet down to 6,000 in a matter of minutes. You might notice, depending on your age, this was the same day the music died. 

We all know you’re safer in the air than on the ground, and this story has a happy ending. The crew regained control of the airplane, stopped the rapid descent, and made an emergency landing safely in Gander, Newfoundland. 

Among the passengers was a gal named Susan. Now, Susan was 26 and a go-getter. However, this incident threw her for a loop. She refused to fly on the business trips her career demanded of her. She went to a hypnotist, and the treatment was helpful, but Susan needed to conquer her fear, not put it to sleep. You know where this is going. 

The harrowing incident was beyond her control, but her reaction to it wasn’t. So, conquer it, she did. In 1964, Susan learned to fly. And because she was Susan, tenacious, relentless, on-the-move, Susan, she didn’t just learn and quit. She learned, bought an airplane and became the fourth woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. 

Then in 1967, as an American fluent in Russian, she thought she’d fly her Aero Commander 200, named “Chance II,” from New York to Moscow. But the Soviets found nothing interesting about her idea and denied her entry into their air space, grounding her in Denmark, which would have been her final leg on the way to Moscow. You can read her story in her book, “Odyssey: A Daring Transatlantic Journey.” 

But hey, what’s a Russian attempt at insult to a woman like Susan? “Nee-chee-vo” (that’s “nothing” in Russian). 

In 1970, she and her race partner, Margaret Mead (not the anthropologist) won the Powder Puff Derby, and she so impressed the aviation world that Learjet asked if she’d learn to fly a Lear and help market their aircraft. She was a busy woman, so that only lasted a little while, but she did find time to earn her instrument rating, commercial single and multi-engine land, and private pilot glider certificates. She wouldn’t let February 3, 1959 be the day her music died. 

Her fear of flying extinguished, Susan boarded airliners with confidence, which, as I mentioned, was necessary for her career. You might recognize Susan Oliver, highly sought-after actress and director, as "Vina," the lead lady character—“the green girl”—in the first pilot Star Trek episode, “The Menagerie.” She accepted many acting roles, playing opposite all the major male stars, in shows such as Wagon Train, Twilight Zone, and Magnum, P.I. She directed episodes of M*A*S*H and Trapper John, M.D. 

But she also flew. Because she overcame. 

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com