Flying
Between my two tours of duty in the navy I took advantage of the GI Bill and learned to fly an airplane. During a period of about 10 years I logged several thousand hours of flight time as a pilot, it was one of my passions at the time. I have two or three tales that are somewhat unusual with regard to my flying experiences.
This is me at Lake Tahoe airport.
All of my friends knew I enjoyed flying and that I would use just about any excuse to take passengers on a charter flight. This picture was taken by the fellow that hired me to fly him over northern California and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The trip was made to allow him to take aerial photographs . As long as we were in the area I suggested we land at the Lake Tahoe airport which was within walking distance of the casino's. We had a nice lunch put a few nickels into slot machines and left.
In those days the airport at Lake Tahoe, Nevada was just a fairly large hay field and because of its elevation ( about 6,000 feet) was somewhat dangerous to use, many pilots crashed trying to land or take-off. Another problem was that the airport was what was known as a one way airport, this meant the pilot could only land or take-off in one direction regardless of the direction or velocity of the wind. Any pilot will understand the difficulty presented in circumstances such as I have described. The reason it was a one way airport was because there was a mountain at one end of the runway. Later the present airport was built at a different location which allows all planes including jet airliners to land in a normal manner.
I will try and relate some of my flying experiences. I held a commercial pilots license with an instrument rating when this photo was taken. And yes that is a cigar in my mouth, a present from the person I was flying. I was not actually a smoker.
I was about 22 or 23 years of age at the time of the photograph and still single. I flew my wife Laura many times on flights to various locations. I also flew both my parents but never did take either my son or daughter Mike or Mary Ellen for an airplane ride. By the time they were old enough to have not been afraid I had quit flying.
Born 08/13/1925