Friday, December 13, 2013

WestJet viral "Miracle" video

First, I should say I'm a big fan of outside-the-box thinking and ideas that shake up people's expectations. Once in a while we all need something to renew our sense of wonder, or even just make us think.

This WestJet video has made me think quite a bit. It has exploded all over social media and news outlets, with headlines like "Must-Cry Video? Watch WestJet Airline's 'Christmas Miracle'" and "What WestJet airlines did for its passengers this Xmas - I teared up." 

Because of my journalism background, I've been gritting my teeth at the recent tsunami of teaser headlines that use curiosity to entice clicks. I'm even more miffed that it works. All that to say, I usually skip over the wishy-washy teasers, but given the sustained ubiquity of this particular post, I eventually thought I should take a look.

Initially, I was pleasantly intrigued by WestJet's imagination and resourcefulness. For a moment I suspected this was something they'd done to bless passengers who'd had to travel on a Christmas-day flight, but it was a 2013 pre-Christmas event. 

A boy gets an Android tablet, a family gets a 50" flat screen, and a woman cries over a digital camera she wanted. An adaptation of "The Night Before Christmas" poem closes with the lines, "A WestJetter would say, it was more than mere fun. Miracles do happen when we all work as one. ... Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight."

On NPR's blog Mark Memmot wrote, "Some Scrooges will say, 'Bah humbug, it's just a public relations stunt.'" but contended that "experts tell Global News that WestJet isn't likely to get a big boost in business from any good will it generates" since people tend to choose travel based on price, not brand.

Although I have my doubts it had nothing to do with raising publicity for the airline (WestJet said it would donate free flights to one family if their YouTube video got more than 200,000 views; it's now at 19 million), I'll give WestJet the benefit of that doubt and assume this wasn't a marketing stunt. Whether they make a return on their miracle is not my beef.

What concerns me is the growing presence of marketing in our lives. I don't mean merely our exposure to advertisements, although that's certainly at an all-time high. Through YouTube, Facebook, and other social media, we are being recruited as advertisers. Clicks and views are worth money, so if you're getting clicks and not cashing in on them, you're missing out, or so the reasoning goes. Conversely, if you're not getting clicks and you want to, there are thousands of ways you can sell yourself--your blog, your pictures, your "likes" on Facebook, and of course your YouTube views. Who dosn't want to make money from home without much effort? I've been told you can even purchase followers on Twitter.

Marketing has always been marketing. I'm not saying this is anything new. But I believe there's a line that's starting to blur--the line between marketing and our own personal lives and relationships. Do you feel the compulsive urge to share things online as soon as they occur? Do you get a little shot of dopamine when you check your status and see a lot more "likes" than you expected? Do you fantasize about coming up with a great idea for a video and watching it go viral? Maybe even landing a talk-show interview as a result? 

I'm not as down on new technology as many are. Each era of history produces unique cultural artifacts and situations that may even be romanticized in years to come. It would be a shame to throw them out and miss out on what people in future generations will one day wish they could have experienced. The dawn of the Internet! Week-by-week discovery of the infinite possibilities as processing power skyrockets. 

The thing is that cultural artifacts have their victims as well as their heroes. Sometimes they're even one and the same. I believe a big danger lies in quantifying the value of experiences, information, etc. based on their online notoriety, for one because competition of goods drives their price down, which makes the "sellers" more desperate and competitive. And then we end up with a kind of inflation of information--increasingly sensationalistic news that's got to be shorter, with more hooks, more EYE CATCHING! We need bold, italics, all caps, and lots of teasers. 

If you've read this far, you're one of perhaps 5% who clicked on this blog. 

As I logged in this morning to finish the post, I was ironically greeted by the following message:

The latest from Blogger Buzz
Earn money from your blog this holiday season
2 days ago by A Googler

The holiday season is here and retailers are spending more on online advertising to promote their products. Your blog has valuable space and you can earn some extra money by placing Google AdSense ads next to your content.


If you don’t already have AdSense set up on your blog, visit the Earnings tab of your Blogger dashboard to give it a try. It’s free and only takes a moment to sign up.

And if you’ve tried AdSense out in the past, head to your blog and give it a second look. It now has updated controls, so you can match the ads that appear to the style of your blog.
Happy holidays!


Posted by Ian Cohan-Shapiro, Marketing Manager


Three nights ago I dreamed I was in some rural community, but in the future. There was a big, dilapidated barn people were living in, and they were very poor and hungry. They weren't growing vegetables or tending livestock. They were brainstorming how to orchestrate something to film that would make enough money to get them by for another month or so. Perhaps someone would die in the film, perhaps there would be a terrible crash or explosion. They didn't have CG.


Forgive the sensationalism of that last paragraph. I wouldn't share it as an apocalyptic doom-and-gloom condemnation of technology. I only share it because it was a real, honest-to-goodness dream that shocked me. I don't think that's where we're headed. But I do think we should watch that blurry line between our lives and our ads.

That WestJet wanted to publicize their "miracle" is, perhaps, neither here nor there. Many millions of people enjoyed--and were deeply touched by--what they did. I found the closing words about "working as one" rather arbitrary and disjunctive, a generic placeholder for what I was expecting to be a very meaningful message. It may not have been marketing, but I'm not sure what it was actually  intended to be. I'm encouraged that for every "miracle" that goes viral there are many secret ones. Sometimes that it is secret is the best part. It feels great to inspire others, but for me it usually feels even better when I've got a special secret, whether that be a scheme to bless someone or a gorgeous sunset through the snowy trees.

To NPR's credit, in November I heard one of their commentators remarking on the "Brown Thursday" phenomenon this year, in which retailers are trying to pre-empt the mainstream Black Friday sales to get a jump on the rampant consuming. "Sorry," the commentator said, "Thursday's already got a name, and it's called 'Thanksgiving.'"


~~~

Lately I've begun to enjoy the habit of leaving my smartphone at home in the evenings and instead donning an old pocketwatch I found at a Mexican flea market for a few pesos. It was broken, and it was quite a few years before I found a watchmaker capable and willing to make it work. Someone I respect once told me that we ought to intentionally cultivate a habit of fixing things that could just as easily be discarded, because it helps us remember that we're like that; we all need some fixing, and there is always hope. 

I'm not trading my smartphone for a pocketwatch. Every generation has its reactionaries as well as its "actionaries." They key is balance, and knowing our own limits and weaknesses. Every time I compulsively reach into my pocket to take a picture or check my email, and find only the smooth contours of my pocket watch, I feel an almost involuntary victory over my weaknesses and insecurities.

Someday I'll bet people will carry around vintage iPhones and dress "turn of the century" (again). And rightly they should. But hopefully they'll be winning the battles of their own day, and their own technology.



Friday, November 22, 2013

Panhandle piloting: 3,000 miles in a Mooney Mite (Part 2)



As the sunset bled down into the western horizon, the sand grew cool underneath my back. The stars overhead seemed to drift across the sky like satellites, though it was the thin veil of cloud underneath them that created the illusion of motion.

I set my alarm for 5:00 but woke up on my own at 4:45. The air was barely cool, almost that same perfect temperature that lulled me to sleep. I slipped out of my sleeping bag and stole barefoot across the sand further into the open to where I could watch the distant clouds begin to glow with the first full day of my journey.

The Mite sat with full tanks ready to go astride the runway. After washing up at the FBO (fixed base operator) and making myself some oatmeal with a portable water heater, I spread my maps out on the wing and tried to figure out how I was going to get to Eureka. Miles and miles of restricted airspace encircle Fallon from the north, south, and east like a giant crescent. I was able to get a hold of someone on the phone who said they didn’t really activate those restricted areas until 8:00, so I was lucky I still had time to get through.

The sun just began to beam brightly when I took off, and all of Nevada sprawled out beneath me. That flight reminded me how wonderfully vast our country is. It seems so small now that we can hop on an airliner and end up on the other side in just a few hours. Miles below, there is so much we miss. But I saw everything, even wild herds of horses grazing in meadows surrounded by forest on top of mountains thousands and thousands of feet high. I was cruising at 9,500 feet, and they were not far below me. There is still all the adventure and discovery and wonder a soul can hope to find.


At Eureka an older man topped off my tanks. He said he remembered seeing my Mite a very long time ago in Reno. That’s how it is when you own a Mite. They have their own social lives, and they make friends even when you’re not around. I asked him for some advice on getting to Denver. I was 22, and though I’d grown up flying in the Sierra Nevadas, crossing the Rockies was a whole different ballgame. He recommended going up north through Salt Lake, so took his advice.

After climbing out of Eureka into a smooth, quiet sky I plugged my headset into my MP3 player and started listening to an audio book I’d brought called At the Back of the North Wind. In the book, the north wind comes and whispers through a crack to a boy who sleeps in the hay loft of his family’s stable. He opens the window, and night after night she takes him on her back to fly over the cities and oceans of the world. The author paints the sights and sensations in vivid detail. The book was written by George MacDonald in 1871, 25 years before the Wright brothers even began dabbling with unmanned gliders. I found myself choked up as the narrator described uncannily exactly what I was feeling and thinking as I myself rode the wind over mountains and valleys and little towns. Someone knew just what it would be like before anyone had ever seen an airplane fly.
Wendover made for a nice stop half way. Having never been there before, the WWII museum offered a fascinating couple hours’ break from the flying, and quite a contrast from where my mind had been during the previous flight. The Wendover Air Force base was where the B-29 unit trained that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Another hour and I was in Ogden, where I had a late lunch at the airport café. Avgas there in 2006 was $3.90 a gallon, which meant I was paying a few dollars an hour of flying, or about a dollar every 25 miles to see the country from an open cockpit with the wind in my hair (not including the price of oatmeal). I called 1-800-WXBRIEF1-800-WXBRIEF to check the weather again and see how much farther I could go before the afternoon thunderstorms took their turn to rule the sky. It looked like I could squeeze in one more flight if it was short.

East of Ogden, a wall of mountains shot up to over 9,500 feet, so I had to meander up to the nearest pass and goad the Mite up and up to a safe altitude over the rugged mountain forest. The wide, low desert of Nevada and Utah were behind me. The rest of the journey to Denver would be high, rugged, and completely new to me.

I settled down for the evening at the small airport in Evanston, WY at 7,138’, about the altitude of the highest mountains around my hometown of Quincy. A muscular phalanx of thunderstorms shut off the way to the east. The guys at the FBO were really friendly and didn’t mind me camping out there for the night.

Almost every small airport has an old dog with a name like “Radar” who hangs out on a large, battered couch. Evanston had two dogs, who both became very jealous of my attention when I arrived and began to rough each other up to see who could win the right. But the couch belonged to the biggest cat I’d ever seen, who solicited a good pat and then fell asleep with his enormous head on my lap.

I felt a little tired myself after a good five hours of flying. At first I wondered what I could possibly do for the rest of the afternoon, but remembered right away that that was the whole reason I had left. I needed time and space that didn’t have to be filled, that could exist for their own sake and remind me that life, like the pages of the books in my backpack, has margins.

I lay out on the lawn for a few hours and read a book about the Arthurian knights who rode about the country sleeping in forests and glens looking for adventure and wrongs to put right. When the light faded, I wandered up to the top of the hill behind the airport. A deer startled and bounded out of the sagebrush, which was greener than Nevada’s. I heated up some clam chowder on my camp stove and drank in the view from my perch—nothing but freedom in all directions. The wide open space was full of birds singing. There’s a song Glen Phillips sings that says, “I’ve got a roof over my head, or sky if I choose.”


With the thunderstorms still rolling around, I zipped into my bivy sack and draped the poncho over my backpack rather than using it as a ground cloth. I woke up to rain falling and flashes of lightning. Suddenly being on top of the tallest hill around seemed like a dumb idea, but the storm wasn’t quite bad enough to make me willing to get all wet by moving somewhere else. The bivy sack covered my face with only mesh, so I had to roll onto my stomach for the rest of the night to keep dry. The flashes of lightning lit up the darkness of my little cocoon through the fabric, but the rain rolled off into the sand.

The sunrise heralded clearer skies. I made my oatmeal on the camp stove while my poncho dried out on the sagebrush. My sleeping bag was only wet from the condensation on the inside of the bivy, and that dried quickly too.

The density altitude at Rock Springs, my first stop, was 8,800 feet, but the Mite performed admirably climbing out. I could certainly feel the difference at higher airports, but I had yet to experience any real problems reaching a cruise altitude comfortably above the terrain.

I had several friends who lived in Denver, so I pushed quickly through Rawlins, Laramie, and Fort Collins Downtown (3V5) to Erie Municipal just north of the city. One friend turned out to be out of the country, and the other couldn’t get away from work. That’s the way it goes when you’re making it up as you go. It was too late to make it down to Durango where some other friends of mine lived, so I turned back north to Fort Collins, which turned out to be my favorite airport of the whole trip.


I don’t remember the Fort Collins airport dog’s name, but he was a brownish black mutt-looking dog. I’d been curious to check out the town, which was about a three-mile walk from the airport. A Dixieland band was just finishing a great music set at Avogadro’s Number, where I had dinner. Posters on the walls advertised shows by some of my favorite bluegrass bands. I was sorry to miss them. Not far away was the New Belgium Brewing Company, another tempting stop, but I just explored the town and wound up topping off the day with Dutch chocolate and Reese’s peanut butter cups from a local creamery.


My feet got pretty tired on the way back to the airport, so I caved in and took a cab the last couple miles. Chris, the cab driver, peppered me with questions when he found out I was flying and camping around the western states. He asked if I could sleep in my plane. I laughed and said there was no way to sleep in a Mooney Mite, though one certainly could in larger planes. That reminded me that I hadn’t figured out where I actually was going to sleep that night. Unlike all the previous airports, Fort Collins was in a suburban neighborhood, and the relatively well-lit ramp didn’t leave many places I could hide away without being visible and looking suspicious. The FBO was locked, otherwise I might have slept on the large battered couch.

After looking around for a while I still had no good ideas, but I pulled my pack out of the baggage space behind the folding seat to get out my sleeping bag and camp pad. “Wait a minute,” I thought to myself. What a breakthrough it would be to figure out a way to sleep in a Mite! I climbed in feet toward the tail. It was no good. My feet were too scrunched up against the aft bulkhead, and my head hit the stick. And yet there was so much more room down toward the rudder pedals if only I could remove the stick. But that was impossible.

I gave it a few minutes’ deep thought. This had to be done. To be able to sleep in a Mite would make it the ultimate travel craft. It’s a small enough airplane just to sit in. Some people are too big for even that. The luggage area, while relatively spacious, housed the battery, which protruded from the floor in a big metal box. Then inspiration struck. All I had to do was lay something down around the battery to make the floor level, and I could lie with my head back there and my feet down against one of the rudder pedals. That would let me utilize the full length of the available space.

I pulled some clothes and stuff out of my pack and made the luggage space as level as possible, then I laid my camp pad down on top of that and the seat, with my sleeping bag over the pad. The trick was getting in. I couldn’t scrunch up small enough in the cockpit to be able to get my head back into the luggage space. The only way to do it was to go head first. Not wanting to bump any of the instruments or knobs on the panel with my legs, I slithered slowly, inch by inch, twisting sideways as I went so as to end up on my back. My torso just barely fit into the space, but fit it did. Before climbing in I’d stashed my pack under the plane so it wouldn’t get wet if it rained, which looked very likely. Stretching out my feet, I smiled with satisfaction and happily ate my words that there is no way to sleep in a Mite.

Of course I had to get the canopy closed, and there was no way I could reach it with my hands, but it was easy enough to catch the rim of it with my toes and slide it shut. Fitting so snugly into the fuselage also blocked out the annoying airport lights. I had a perfect, cozy little space to sleep cleverly disguised as an airplane. Suddenly no airport, no matter how urban, was off limits for camping. I’d always have a place to stay. In the following years I made a regular habit of sleeping in the Mite. Once at an airport in Oregon I heard a couple guys wandering around the plane early in the morning marveling at its design. They must have stared right at my sleeping bag in the cockpit and never even suspected there was a person inside it.

Listening to the rain patter on the fuselage that night at Fort Collins as I lay snug and dry was one of the best feelings I experienced on the journey. Not a drop got inside, and I slept like a baby.

I was rained in the next day, and since there was nowhere I really had to be, I let myself sleep in. When I eventually did emerge from my cocoon, I wandered into the FBO to make some oatmeal and take a sink shower. I spent the morning reading, then was invited to join the guys for lunch for an awesome feast of burgers and sausage from the grill.

They were all nice guys, and knew I slept in the plane overnight. They told me the airport was being shut down soon, something to do with the city I guess. It’s a very common story for little airports, which usually predate the neighborhoods around them. People build their houses next to a runway and then complain about the noise. If there are enough of them complaining, it gets shut down. One of the guys named Steve had been flying there since the 1960s and got to be the first one to take off on the runway. Pat gave me a stack of postcards that showed an aerial view of the airport, with the mountains in the background. He said nobody would miss them. Knowing I was kind of stuck there till the weather improved, he also gave me the keys to the courtesy car to have overnight. He said he’d get in trouble if Sharon the boss found out, but that I could give them back discretely to Brian in the morning. Steve offered to let me stay at his place, but I was happy just hanging out, and the Mite really was surprisingly comfortable.


There was a gardener who came occasionally to mow the lawn and tidy things up, who just loved dogs. He talked a mile a minute about them. He had a dog that was 17 years old, and she had a brain tumor. She walked around awkwardly staring at the ground while he trimmed the hedges. She squatted to go to the bathroom but seemed to be having trouble, so he went over and held her by the sides so she could get the task done properly. “Well, that’s one part of her that still works,” he said.

When the guys had closed up the FBO and gone home, I took the courtesy car into town and journaled for a while at Starry Night Coffee. While I was in town, I ran into Chris the taxi driver. He had several people in the back but stopped to chat. “I see you’re still in town,” he shouted out his window, grinning ear-to-ear. I told him I was leaving in the morning, and he said to have a safe flight. It’s funny how quickly strangers can become friends. I find that to be particularly true when you’re doing something sort of interesting to people. They open up about their own lives and dreams. Inspiration is like warmth. It draws us together out of the cold to share whatever we have to share, and we leave filled up and recharged.



The rain beat heavily on the fuselage all that night, and was still going strong when I awoke in the morning. I was able to squeeze down into the cockpit without opening the canopy. The inside was a little fogged from my body heat, and droplets of water streamed down the outside. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and managed to pull my jacket on before clambering out into the rain.

It was a Sunday, and Brian was the only one manning the FBO. I thought about checking out a church in town, but decided to just hang out with Brian, who was all alone, save the dog, who belonged to him. Hardly anyone came in because the weather was so bad. He made us a pot of coffee, and we sat out under the eaves and mulled over life and the universe and God while he smoked a cigarette. He was from Texas originally, but had moved up to Fort Collins to get his a & p. The rain droned on and on. I tried to learn Bach’s Prelude to Suite Number 1 in G Major on my mandolin, with limited success. Brian and I talked periodically, but mostly just killed the time.

At 6:00, he was allowed close things up and go home. He told me he was going to leave a door unlocked, implying I could sleep on one of the couches if I wanted to. He said it might be cold that night, but that I shouldn’t get caught inside when people came to open up in the morning, or he would get fired. He would never normally do that for someone he’d just met, he said, but that I seemed like a cool guy. I really didn’t want or need to sleep inside, but I was touched by his trust in me, and I thanked him and said I would be sure not to let him get in trouble. Before he left, he came out to see my plane. The rain had let up, and I was sitting by the wing cooking some beans and rice for dinner on my camp stove. He really liked the Mite. He wasn’t a pilot yet, but really wanted to learn to fly. He shook my hand and said it was really nice meeting me.

Like Pat had done, Brian also left me the keys to the courtesy car, which I drove back to Starry Night and bought a half pound of coffee to thank the guys for letting me hang out. Steve had given me his card and said to call him any time, day or night, if I ever needed a place to stay or anything else.  I journaled over a cup of hot chocolate, and decided to head north to Driggs, ID the next day to visit my uncle and his family. That night in the Mite I discovered that the wooden rib that ran along the wall of the fuselage made a perfect little shelf on which to set my cell phone. The lateral brace above me was a perfect place to hang my headlamp to light up the whole compartment so I could read or do whatever required being able to see.

The weather was clear that night and the next morning, but the flight to Driggs was only about 350 nautical miles, so I didn’t need to hurry. I let myself sleep in till 8:00. When I wandered into the FBO again, Steve joked that he thought I was going to sleep forever. I was just on the line with the weather briefer when I saw that my brother was calling. He told me I was an uncle, which I couldn’t believe. It was ahead of schedule, but I couldn’t very well argue with him, since he knew much better whether I should be an uncle that week or the next. My nephew’s name was Kennon, the same name as my dad.

“Hey guys, I’m an uncle!” I shouted. They all congratulated me. I bought Phoenix and Los Angeles sectional charts and hastily planned out a route to San Diego, where Kennon was waiting to meet me.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Panhandle piloting: 3,000 miles in a Mooney Mite (Part 1)



July heat baked the tarmac, which responded with rippling mirages. In the hangar, I dug into the small space behind the seat of the Mooney Mite to swap out a battery I figured wouldn’t hold a charge anymore. That was exactly how I felt—drained of emotional energy and unable to pull any back into myself. Less than six months earlier I had watched my dad’s coffin go down slowly into the ground. The following afternoon my grandmother, his mom, died of a heart attack. In less than a month, and just as unexpectedly, I would lose my other grandmother too. The attention had been hard. I was grieving, but no longer in the way that anyone could understand. I probably looked normal, perhaps even happy at times. Every condolence came with the expectation I would show some appropriate emotion, a sign of comfort, appreciation, or some indicator of “how I was doing." It was well-intended, but exhausting.

Silence was what I needed. Space.The desert. That was where we used to go in the summers, Dad and I. When I was little I used to lie in the shade under his glider wing and smell the sagebrush. I was free to just be. The only sound was the wind, or the occasional radio check on the ramp. I’d sit in the cockpit of his glider while he rolled it out to the runway lineup for the day’s race.
By the time I was 16 I knew the sky over Quincy like my own driveway, and the Mite and I had become good friends. Girls fall in love with a pony, guys get a crush on a car. I had a little plane of my very own to explore the thousands of small airports all over the west. Dad called it a motorcycle of the sky. A Mite only has one seat. It would go a hundred miles, on three gallons of gas, in one hour. With full tanks, I could fly longer than I could sit in its hard seat. I remember Dad and I flying wing-to-wing, chatting over the radio about thermals to catch or coyotes to chase.


That evening we went up to the lake to watch the Fourth of July fireworks like we did every year. It didn’t feel the same. The next morning I stuffed my backpack with a sleeping bag, camp stove, and a few books. I also grabbed my backpacker mandolin, which would just barely fit behind the seat with the backpack. There were a few other things I had to do, not knowing when I’d be back, so it was mid afternoon by the time I made it back out to the airport. I ran my hand over the nimble wings and tail, giving it a good preflight. Maybe I would go to Denver. I’d heard good things about Colorado. The prop sputtered into a windy hum with an easy flick of my hand on its metal edge, then I climbed in. My flight briefer said there were thunderstorms past Fallon, so I figured I’d put down there for the night and get an early start the next morning. The plane floated off the runway like a boat lifted by the tide. There were plenty of strong thermals in the hot afternoon, so I let them carry us up to 9,500’ and watched Quincy disappear below.

Fallon’s unicom was silent, and
the airport seemed empty as I eased the throttle back and let the Mite sink down over top. A line of big thunderclouds stretched from north to south beyond the airport, and underneath them a curtain of gray rain veiled the hills on the horizon, decorating them with a hazy desert rainbow. The FBO walls and ceiling were covered with shirt tails, cut off of new pilots and marked with the date of the their first solo flight. Dad had mine framed, and I hung it in my room.

The man who ran the place filled up my tank and then drove me into town so I could get some soup and oatmeal for the trip. Back at the airport I found a nice spot in the sagebrush by the runway to lie back and enjoy the last of the evening light. The gentlest breeze breathed warmly through the brush. I pulled out the mandolin and played something absent-mindedly, my bare feet on the sand. As the sky turned pink, occasional jackrabbits loped through the pastel browns and greens around me. I was glad not to have any particular plans. It wasn’t the kind of adventure you could plan, I thought to myself. It was the kind you just had to discover.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Trip Mooney Mites Were Designed For, Or How the Sheas Discovered Quincy

This post is by Dan Mckinnon, a long-time friend of my dad's who passed away last year, also from cancer. He must have written it in the 80s. I discovered this story by chance on an aviation website dedicated to Mooney Mites, the planes Dan and my dad flew. To my surprise, it turned out to be the story of how my dad discovered the little town of Quincy, where he and my mom moved the year I was born. In an upcoming post, I'll share my own Mite adventure to Colorado and back.

~~~

One of the great things about a Mooney Mite is the ability to strip away all the sophistication of flying and enjoy the basics of the old days.
 
We (Ken Shea and myself) did just that by making a long weekend trip—August 8-11—a Friday through Monday.

We knew we were going north from San Diego and left without any real itinerary except we knew we’d make stops at Big Bear Lake and somewhere near Oakhurst, California near the entrance of Yosemite where I had two kids working at a summer Christian church camp.

N485M, aptly painted for Dan, a former Navy pilot
My Mite [N485M] had just finished having all the AD notes completed and a variety of other repairs and a complete paint job patterned after a P-51 Mustang, including invasion stripes. The friendly folks at Southern California Aircraft Repair at Gillespie Field just east of San Diego did a terrific job. Of course, they ought to, they maintain the four Mites located there.

Friday morning we were up at the crack of dawn—only to greet fog and low clouds—but it burned off by 10 a.m. We loaded our Mites with sleeping bags, spare clothes, survival kits and some food and were off.

We climbed out of Gillespie to avoid the TCA and then let down to enjoy the back country of San Diego weaving around mountains to spot all the dirt airstrips and little ranches as we wound our way up north towards Hemet. Then we started a climb in order to have enough altitude to land at Big Bear.

A big forest fire in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains darkened the skies and caused us to fly west to avoid the dense choking smoke. 

Dad and N4152 in his 20s and 50s
Then we flew up ridges to gain additional altitude. Ken Shea (N4071) led the way and started us using soaring techniques which (we're both glider pilots) helped us gain altitude that our 65 horsepower engines wouldn't give us fast enough.

Then a landing at Big Bear for a quick lunch and refuel.

Then off again and over Lake Arrowhead for a low pass where Roger Shea (a Mite owner and Ken's brother who was supposed to go on the trip with us but had to work) was working. We rocked our wings and headed northwestward. Roger even saw us.

Ken and I had radio contact with each other and we flew with our canopies open most of the time. An old flying helmet and goggles added to the feel and safety.

Near George Air Force Base we avoided some dust devils and the turbulence picked up. Then we spotted a dry lake bed in the vicinity of El Mirage glider port. We dropped down for a closer look and landing — each of us landing in different directions.

It was a real sensation—no runways but every bit as smooth and thousands of feet of room. We got out, took a couple of pictures and climbed in to head towards Mojave airport.
As we lifted off, we looked down at the far end of the dry lake and saw some sail lake boats on wheels speeding along on the dry lake. We circled for a closer look, waved back to the greetings from the ground.

Then skirting R 2515 [restricted airspace] protecting Edwards Air Force Base we headed to Mojave. We refueled in 110 degree heat. Had an interesting chat with the airport manager Dan Sabovich and he shared his office walls of unique airplane pictures and then we took off towards Inyokern.

We met a Citabria pilot who was returning home so we all flew in formation with a little chatter on the radio about the sights. After Inyokern, we headed for Lone Pine at the foot of Mt. Whitney—the highest point in the 48 States at 14,495 feet and a peak I had climbed as a youth.

Ken and I refueled and talked about our Mites with admiring tourists. Everywhere we went on the trip our planes were instant attraction and conversation pieces.

Dad taking a rest
We couldn't decide whether to continue to Bishop or spend the night Lone Pine. After everyone gave us their thinking, we decide to spend the night at Lone Pine because there was more grass for sleeping bags and the town was closer to the airport. The airport manager couldn't do enough to be helpful.

We walked into town and had a good dinner and walked back out to the airport for our first night under the stars.

Such a night gives you a greater appreciation of the freedoms in our country. We watched shooting stars crisscross the heavens on a clear night unclouded with city lights and small talked about flying until we fell asleep.

Dawn came and we awoke but when the sun spotlighted us after rising over the mountains to the east we hopped out of the sack, loaded up and took off for some smooth early morning flying.

I wanted my picture with Mt. Whitney and Ken tried. But after getting the pictures back, it was too far in the background. Next time we'll spend a morning climbing up to nearly 14,000 feet near the top and get close-up shots.
 
Dad placed 9th in the world in his Nimbus 3 "Sierra Lima"
We climbed up to a thousand feet or so and circled around town heading north to Independence. After clearing the populated areas we dropped back down to the ground of the Owens River and a close-up look at some of the most beautiful and scenic valleys in California.

We kept a close lookout for two rows of high-tension lines.

We passed over Tinemaha Lake and Ken spotted them.

He called over the radio, "Look at those elk—there's herds of them.”

We circled taking pictures. Later, in the photos we could see the huge racks of the bull elk as nearly as clearly as we saw them in person. Then we spotted several herds of doe elk with just a few bulls. It was exciting—especially for hunters. However, the elk were in a protected game preserve.

We joined up again and continued formation and zigzagging our way up to Bishop—enjoying the patch work vegetation scenery all along the way.

Dad, me, Mom, and JK with "Sierra Lima"
Bishop airport was full of soaring talk. And the weather was perfect for soaring. We refueled and decide to head for Mammoth Lakes airport. I wanted to check it out for skiing trips in the winter. It was a bumpy ride and turbulent at Mammoth but a relatively short hop.
We refueled again and tried a section takeoff. We had full power but at 7128 feet those 65 horses don't seem too powerful.

We kept grinding down the runway together and I began to wonder if we would ever get airborne. The runway sorta peaks in the center and it looked short. I instantly vowed that was the last formation takeoff at altitude. Finally we pulled back and we both struggled into the air and fought rough turbulence.

After takeoff we realized we had only used half the runway.

We climbed out to go on the longest leg of the trip. The mountains were high and it was rough air. It started to get cold. I closed my canopy for the first time on the trip.

Wow. My airspeed was on 60 mph. What had happened?

I still had 2200 RPM or so. Finally, I discovered my airspeed indicated about 20 mph slower with the canopy closed. And climbing through 10,500 felt like sitting on the head of a pin after being at ground level the whole trip.

Ken led and we moved to the eastern side of the mountain ranges and used soaring techniques again for lift. At times we could get our Mites to indicate 2000 feet-per-minute climb when we hit pockets of lift.

I checked out the rugged scenery from about 11,500 feet.

Dad years later over Quincy in N4071, the second Mite he owned
Ken, somewhat braver and more familiar with the area from glider competitions, checked it out from about 9,500 feet. We headed for Lake Tahoe and on over to Truckee Tahoe airport.

As we passed over the lake, I yearned to have enough fuel and time to fly at water level around the entire lake. But it wasn’t to be this trip.

We landed in gusty winds at Truckee Tahoe airport and eased off the strip to look over the gliders and then cranked up again and headed for the airport proper.

Gansner Airport, with the town of Quincy in the background
There we ran into F.C. Rechenmacher who had a beautifully maintained but out of license Mite. It was a 1955 Mite with a large cockpit and variable pitch prop. He was a friendly guy and even helped us polish up canopies and dust our planes. After checking out his Mite and refueling, we headed north for Gansner Airport at Quincy.

We wandered around in the valley on the way there. We even spotted a dirt strip amongst some trees with a man on the ground beckoning us down. We thought we could stop, but it wasn't long enough to get airborne again.

From our first home in Quincy I could climb trees and see Gansner
We made a full stop landing and take off from Beckworth and then cruised over to Gansner. It is a tight airport in a valley surrounded by high mountains. After carefully sizing it up we dropped in for the night.

As usual, everyone was cheerful and inquired about the Mites.

We plugged in our radio batteries for a recharge, and explored an adjacent park for a place to sleep. No luck. Signs posted all over the place—no camping.

Next, we walked along the freshly cut and baled field adjacent to the airport for a soft spot. No luck. We also checked out a creek next to the airport but not enough room and too many bugs. So we decided to camp out on the grass right along the airport building.

JK and me with Dad at the county fair after moving to Quincy
We heard everyone buzzing with excitement at the airport about the county fair and the big show for the evening—The West Coast Lumberjack Championships. It sounded different so the airport people gave us a lift in the back of a pickup to the fairgrounds about three miles away.

And what a show we enjoyed—axe tossing at targets, log sawing contest, tug of wars and the usual fun of a true county fair like fresh cooked fudge.

And then the long walk back in the pitch black of late night.
Dad and me in our 4-seat Mooney at Gansnser


That was the night I learned always to bring a tarp to put under your sleeping bag to keep the moisture from seeping through and keeping you cold enough for your teeth to chatter most of the night. Boy, did morning feel good.

Peanut butter and honey sandwiches for breakfast along with fresh sweet Thompson seedless grapes. A swig of water and we were off on the next leg of adventure.

As we headed south to get on the west side of the High Sierras there was no place ---absolutely no place to land for an emergency. Just tall beautiful pines.

Ken's Lycoming and my Continental didn't miss a beat. But your imagination sure can play tricks with noises when you have no place to land.

Then occasionally we spotted lakes that were the only flat areas around. We might have lost our planes—but not our hides in an emergency.

One of my birthday parties we had at Gansner
Then we dropped in at Nevada City, and on down to Placerville. At Placerville, the gas man said there was another Mite—red and white. We tried to find the owner, but he wasn't on the field then.

Then it was down to get our first view of Columbia and a longing wish we could have arranged our personal schedules to be there on the Labor Day weekend to be with all the other Mite owners.

On a lark we wandered south and landed at Pine Mountain Lake. What a unique airport.
We soon discovered all the roads in this development are taxiways and all the garages in the homes are hangers. So we taxied through the trees to have a look and bumped into some friendly residents who shared some facts about the development with us. What a unique mountain hideaway for pilots. That's a fun trip for exploration.

When I soloed, I got to add my name to the family prop at Granddad's
Then we headed south to Mariposa Yosemite. It was bumpy but no problems.

While waiting for my kids to pick us up and take us into Oakhurst area and Camp Sugarpine, the big thrill was watching student pilots from the San Francisco area on solo cross-countrys try to land in the turbulent air.

Incidentally, on the counter at this airport they have this unusual horseshoe puzzle and ring. See if you can get the ring off the horseshoes on your next visit.

Then Monday about noon we made it back to the field in time to race the sun to get home in San Diego before dark. Ken had no lights and Gillespie controllers are strict.

Dad and me at a Mite fly-in in Porterville with N4071
At first we climbed for altitude and then decided the Mites were meant to provide ground level views in flat areas. So in this case we went IFR—I Follow Railroads all the way to Porterville. We identified towns from names on water tanks.

A refueling stop and some cold ice tea in Porterville and then south over the Tehachapi where a stunt aircraft was practicing an airshow at ground level over the runway—smoke and all. It looked more scary to watch from the air than a show does from the ground.
It was a day full of thermals and the glider pilots kidded us throttle jocks for ignoring the beauties of soaring as Ken and I chatted on glider frequencies.

Dad teaching my sister Anna how to fly at Gansner not long before he died
The sun was setting fast. Up over the San Bernardino Mountains. It was 5:45 p.m. and we were anxious about one more fuel stop. We called on Unicom to Pomona. No answer. We called on Unicom to Corona. No answer. We called on Unicom to Cable. No answer.
We got a little panicky at the prospect of getting stuck overnight so close to home because we couldn’t find fuel. We decided to try for Cable. Touchdown and the fuel pits. They were open. The Unicom frequencies had just changed.

A tankful of the fuel that raised the total used for the trip to 54 gallons and then we just followed I 15 on down to Gillespie.

As we neared home, you think about the fun of flying, the freedom in this country to fly virtually anywhere, just the pleasant feeling of being airborne alone—yet together with a friend—and started thinking about the next adventure in the Mite.