FRANK CLIPS A TREE

by Ron Fox
Having finished my journal entry of thoughts about my first trip
south, I once again attempted sleep. The gentle rocking of the airplane
and the steady drone of engines were comforting, but I couldn’t sleep.
Giving up any further attempt, I returned to the flight deck to find Pete
heartily singing some humorous folk song. It took me back to the Air
Texana days when we would be lounging around someone’s apartment
pool, Pete playing his guitar and singing country songs to the delight of
numerous flight attendants and ticket agents. He would only sing for
the ladies and there always seemed to be an ample supply of them
around to warm him up to it. I could see he was as happy and excited
as I was and I laughed at each bawdy verse.
When he finished singing, he began talking of plans for our near
future: “Next stop, Brownsville Customs for our inbound inspection.
After we park this beauty, we’ll go directly to the Ramada on Boca
Chica Boulevard and check in to our new home. After a little sleep and
some breakfast, we’ll head back to the hangar and find Gus for
payday.”
“I’m with you, Pete,” I responded, amazed at how this new life was
unfolding before me.
Pete greased the empty airplane onto the runway and taxied to the
Customs inspection hot area; an area where no contact with anyone
was allowed. We had called McAllen Radio when we penetrated the
U.S. ADIZ, (Aircraft Defense Identification Zone), and requested a
Customs Inspector to meet us upon our arrival. After a routine
inspection of our paperwork and aircraft, we taxied to the hangar to find
Gus waiting for us to marshal us into our parking spot.
After we parked and Pete set the brake, Gus placed chocks around
one of our main tires and opened the cabin door, yelling to us, “You
made it! Did you have any trouble?”
“No trouble at all, Gus. It was, as they say, a piece of cake,” Pete
yelled back, as we gathered up our stuff and packed it into our flight
kits.
It was not quite nine o’clock in the morning, and Gus had rounded
up practically everyone who worked for him to greet us upon our
arrival.
“Hey guys,” he yelled, as we trundled down the sloping cabin. “I’ve
got the whole gang waiting for us at the airport cafe. I want to buy you
breakfast and have you meet everyone you’ll be working with, if that’s
OK with you.”
Pete glanced at me and replied, “We’d be happy to,” our plans for
the morning now altered.
As we walked to the airport terminal, we were all seemingly talking
at once; Pete and I both in animated conversation describing our
adventure, and Gus shooting us questions.
Arriving at the cafe inside the terminal, Gus led us to several large
tables which had been pushed together at the rear of the restaurant and
began introducing us.
“Guys, this is Peter Knox,” flourishing his hand towards Pete, “and
this is Ron Fox,” doing likewise towards me.
Pointing his finger around the table, he introduced his crew. “This is
Amy Vasquez. She runs the office and will be giving you your pay
each payday. This is Amparo, her assistant, and this is Joe, one of our
loaders. This is Larry Laws, my son-in-law. He’ll be in charge of
loading your aircraft each trip and helping the mechanic take care of
your planes. We all want to welcome you to our outfit.” Each of the
crew nodded their welcome in turn and, after we joined them at the
table, they all began taking turns describing their part of the
organization.
They were all friendly and greeted us warmly. The only people
missing from this gathering were some of the loaders who were
presumably sleeping, the mechanic who was busy taking care of our
plane, and any other pilots in Gus’s employ. It was here that Pete and I
learned about the outfit’s short history and shared our past with them.
During this discussion, Amy told us to follow her back to the office
where she would pay us after our meal.
At the office, situated in a dilapidated corrugated tin warehouse with
peeling paint and no business sign, I was astounded to see Amy count
out ten, one-hundred dollar bills into Pete’s open hand and count out
five into mine. My shock must have been evident to her because she
smiled coyly when she asked me if we could make another flight that
very night.
“We’d be delighted to,” Pete responded with a smile and a wink to me.
I just nodded dumbly with cash register bells going off in my head.
“You can find us in residence at the Ramada on Boca Chica,” Pete
offered, as we left, adding our profuse thanks.
“Follow me out Billy Mitchell Boulevard to Boca Chica where we’ll
check in to the hotel and get some shuteye,” Pete told me as we slipped
into our respective cars.
“I’m right behind you, Pete,” I answered, still smitten with the bills
in my pocket.
After parking our cars at the hotel, Pete and I met in the lobby where
he told me to check in, paying for a week’s lodging in cash, in advance.
“This is how it’s done,” he said.
It gave me an eerie feeling to stand at the front desk asking to pay
for a room in advance for a week using hundred-dollar bills. The clerk
offered what I took to be a knowing smile as I handed him two bills. I
was sure he had me pegged as a smuggler. After all, most of the parked
aircraft at the Brownsville International Airport were old, smuggler
aircraft. Collecting my key, I turned and joined Pete, already heading
down the hallway. Pete had fortuitously asked for ground floor, pool-
side rooms next to each other. He had told me we should spend at least
a couple of months at the Ramada to see if we both were going to like
our jobs enough to stay longer.
In the hall, just before entering our rooms, Pete asked, “How about
meeting me in the hotel restaurant about six for dinner and we can plan
tonight’s trip?” I could now see the tiredness in his face.
“I’ll be there, Pete. Nice flying last night, and thanks for bringing
me down here with you.”
“Misery loves company,” he said and, with a wink, entered his
room.
My room, identical to Pete’s, was nicely furnished with standard
hotel stock; two double beds with a night table between them, a long
chest of drawers on the opposite wall with the requisite color TV on
top. The far wall consisted entirely of a large glass sliding door which
opened up to a small courtyard just off the pool area with a table and
two chairs. It was certainly more pleasant than my previous Beaumont
abode, dubbed the swamp by one of the many Air Texana pilots I
shared it with.
As I opened my door, I imagined it a doorway to a whole new world
and way of life so different from the one I left in Beaumont. There, my
constant companions were worry whether my next paycheck would
provide enough money to cover my meager subsistence, and hope that I
could find the time and extra flying to be able to have some fun. Worry
and hope. I realized they would still be with me. I now had to worry
about survival and hope to make it back to enjoy all the money I was to
be paid. I chuckled to myself as I tossed my remaining three hundred-
dollar bills on the dresser, tickled at my next thought. If I didn’t make it
back, I wouldn’t need the money! The shift in my worry and hope was
a pleasant relief. I was a bushpilot again! The fact that I was also a
smuggler and an outlaw when south of the border only added more
danger and excitement to the adventure. After a long hot shower, I set
my radio alarm clock for five o’clock and tumbled into bed exhausted,
still coming down from the adrenaline high of just a few hours ago.
Soon after slipping into bed, my thoughts dissolved into dreams of the
present state of my aviation career and finally, the movie heroes of my
youth.
Aviation as a career, for those who truly love to fly, is like a heavy,
double-edged sword with a small, slippery handle. It is easy to drop it,
cutting off one’s toes when wielded playfully by the immature; in other
words, those most likely to participate in the profession.
Oh sure, we all have that perceived image of a fit, trim, gray-haired
gentleman, reserved, thoughtful, _serious_ commanding persona in
charge of our airliner and responsible for all those lives in the back. He
_must_ be paid a lot of money if, for no other reason, than we don’t
want him worrying about anything except getting our airliner to our
destination safely. If we didn’t feel that way, we would have to be crazy
to ever climb aboard an airplane.
It’s a common enough perception unfortunately applied to all pilots.
The truth is, most pilots are grossly underpaid for the amount of
expensive training and hard-won experience they must accumulate
before ever being allowed to become professional in the air. Even then,
most first officers at other than the major airlines are usually paid a
salary which qualifies their families for food stamps. With all the
turmoil in the aviation industry since deregulation in 1978, many pilots
have found themselves starting over and over again at the bottom of the
ladder with each new job they managed to get following numerous
bankruptcies.
Had I followed the “correct” career pathway out of the navy, I
would have first become a flight instructor and then gotten a job as a
first officer with a commuter airline, gathering the experience in
passenger operations which would have allowed me to climb up the
ladder to a major airline and the big salaries. Unfortunately, the airlines
weren’t hiring in 1977 and I thought I could bide my time, getting any
kind of flying time I could to add to my experience. Boy, was I wrong.
I should have gotten my instructor’s license and taught other beginners
how to fly. That’s how most new pilots build their time. But, no, not
me. I couldn’t stand the thought of people trying to kill me all day long
in airplanes, so I looked for a job with a different kind of excitement:
dropping skydivers. _That_ experience is a whole nother’ story.
I enjoyed that job while I was working on my Airline Transport
Rating, but I wanted something more. The wilds of Alaska were
beckoning me and I answered the call, driving my antique British Land
Rover all the way to Fairbanks without so much as a clue as to what I
was doing. An operator in McGrath happened to need a pilot while I
was looking and he figured if I could land jets on an aircraft carrier, I
might not be too scared at the small strips his planes had to go into to
deliver the mail. I was, at last, a bushpilot. _That_ experience is a
whole nother’ story as well.
These thoughts actually took very little of my deepening sleep. As I
tumbled deeper, my dreams took me to the plains of Africa, where I
was sitting next to Rod Taylor on the flight deck of an old, worn-out
DC-3, dodging the flying bullets of the bad guys as we tried to take off
from a dirt strip with an airplane full of gold. . .
I awoke with a start to my telephone ringing. Glancing at the clock
radio, I realized it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. I answered it
in a sleepy voice thinking it was Pete, eager for dinner, but a stranger’s
voice came through the line.
“Mr. Fox?,” the voice asked, with what I detected to be a snicker.
“Yes?,” I answered, bewildered, wondering who could possibly
know I was here.
“You don’t know me. I’m one of Gus’s pilots, Harry.”
“Hello, Harry,” I replied.
“Would you mind meeting me in the bar?,” he asked. “I’d like to
buy you a drink and welcome you to our little family.”
“Sure, Harry. Give me a few minutes to dress and I’ll be right
there.”
‘Boy, news sure travels fast around here,’ I thought to myself,
crawling out of bed.
I picked out a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt,
recalling the cold airplane cruising last night at high altitude without a
heater. DC-3 heaters are notorious for catching fire and most border
relics had them disconnected.
With my wide leather belt and cowboy boots, I felt I looked the part
of a border pilot. My standard issue navy brown leather flight jacket
with cuffs and fur collar added a roguish touch to my appearance, even
if the temperature outside was probably over ninety. Most
establishments on the border were air-conditioned into the sixties, so I
was quite comfortable.
As I entered the dimly lit bar, I noticed only a few people at tables
and saw Harry right away as he rose to greet me. He was dressed in
what I would describe as middle-age Florida clothes; polyester pants
with a sansi-belt top and a brightly colored flowered shirt, loosely
tucked, and sandals. he was slightly rotund, my height, near five-nine,
with long brown hair combed straight back from his rounded, friendly
face. He had a slightly red nose and rather bleary, blood-shot, pale
hazel eyes.
“Hello, Ron. Welcome to the border,” Harry said, offering his
hand.
“Ron Fox,” I replied, sitting down opposite him after shaking his
hand.
“What’s your poison?,” he asked as he gestured to the waitress. I
guessed he had already consumed a fair amount of alcohol because his
speech was somewhat slurred.
“Double-Jack Black, coke back,” I replied, making no concessions
on my standard fare.
“With raised eyebrows and a smile, he fumbled my order to the
approaching waitress and I helped him out by repeating it.
“And another gin and tonic for me,” he added.
As most pilots do when first meeting, we had a friendly
conversation, trading flying backgrounds and eventually he began telling
me about Gus’s operation. He was talking rapidly and I just listened,
occasionally nodding my head.
“We lost a DC-3 full of cigarettes just a couple of months ago, down
at Loma Bonita,” he began. “It was a father-son team who had been
flying for us for only a couple of months. They must have become
distracted by something while on downwind because the ground crew
reported seeing the airplane get slow, then making a sharp left bank,
falling to the ground, nose down. It looks like it was a classic stall-spin,
but we’ll never know why.”
“Jees,” was all I could say.
“Just last week,” he continued, “we lost our Beech eighteen, crashed
on the beach an hour’s flight south. The airplane was totally destroyed.
The crew didn’t make it. We don’t know what happened. They could
have been shot down.” Harry was talking in a steady, matter-of-fact
voice without excitement. “It’s been a rough couple of months for
Gus,” he added.
“Sounds like it’s been pretty rough on some of his pilots, too,” I
commented.
He continued reporting various other incidents and crashes Lady
Luck had bestowed upon other hapless crews and operators. Some
pilots dead, others captured and now residing in Mexican prisons. I
began to perceive a distinct effort on Harry’s part to scare me off if he
could. He was obviously enjoying my responses of incredulity.
About an hour had passed since our conversation had begun and I
was on my second drink, realizing I had not eaten since breakfast and I
would be flying in just a few hours. Harry was finishing his fifth; I was
counting. He was knocking one down almost every ten minutes,
encouraging me to keep up with him. I began to wonder whether he
was trying to scare me off or not. Maybe he was trying to get me
drunk. Then it occurred to me that maybe Gus had sent him to see if I
was a lush or wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure. It seemed to me
that Harry was having trouble with the pressure. He was getting quite
drunk.
Alcohol and delusions are lousy rafts on a sea of danger and, likely
as not, to hasten one’s demise just at the moment when Lady Luck has
abandoned you in search of those more worthy of her charms. As
Harry’s alcohol firmly took hold of him, he began to babble like an
escapee from a funny farm.
I was relieved to look up and see Pete coming through the door from
the pool area.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said in a cheerful greeting, joining
us at our table.
“Pete, this is Harry,” I said with a gesture of my hand and a barely
concealed smirk on my face. Harry mumbled something and offered a
wavering hand.
Pete had to chase Harry’s hand a bit in order to grasp it and I had to
look away to keep from bursting into laughter. His alert eyes seemed to
be boring into Harry’s bleary ones, and Harry’s seemed to be looking
somewhere well past Pete’s. I got up and walked to the bar to order a
Chivas and branch for Pete, his current standard. When I returned to
the table, Harry was trying to give Pete much of the same overview of
Gus’s operation he had given me, but fumbling a lot more. Pete was
courteous to him, but I could tell he wasn’t thrilled to be conversing
with him. After only a few minutes he told Harry we had errands to
run, thanked him for the welcome drink and motioned to me with only a
glance that it was time to hit the road.
“Kind of an odd one, wouldn’t you say?,” Pete asked as we went
through the door.
“Maybe now we know why Gus was looking for new pilots,” was all
I could think of to say.
In the next few months I was to learn a lot more about Harry. The
common experience of danger had fomented a closeness among us all
on the border and each of us, warts and all, became more important to
each other than normal life would allow.
Yes, Harry was a drunk, and even occasionally a raving lunatic, but I
would fly with anytime as he would me. Such was the faith we were to
develop in each other, born of survival and tempered by our mutual
history. Unlike many other pilots on the border, we somehow always
managed to make it home.
“Since we’re flying together tonight, we may as well ride together.
Let’s take my car,” Pete said, as we walked to our rooms. “Get your
flight kit and I’ll meet you at the car.”
Riding in Pete’s Buick was like a step back in time. The car and
everything in it were as if they were brand new. It even _smelled_ like a
new car.
“How much money you got in this thing?,” I asked him, running my
hand along the soft, rolled and pleated, gun-metal blue leather seat.
“More than the damned thing cost new, that’s for sure,” he replied.
“Twice the power of a new Lincoln, gas mileage be damned,” he
snickered, obviously proud of his car. I thought of my old 68’ Chevy
Malibu with it’s faded, peeling red paint, it’s dents and scrapes, it’s
cracked vinyl seats and top.
“I need to spend some money on my car,” I said. “It could use some
upgrading.”
“Well, don’t buy a new one,” he cautioned. “The wrong people
might wonder how you could afford it.”
Pete drove to the airport where we had decided to have a Mexican
dinner at the airport restaurant, remembering their excellent breakfast.
After eating a delicious meal, he took me to the U.S. Weather
Service office on the field where he showed me how to request a
plethora of weather reports; surface analysis, prognosis reports, upper-
level pressure and wind charts, sequence reports, terminal and area
forecasts, and satellite photos.
“Get them all,” he advised. “Read the forecasts, but don’t put much
stock in them. You’re better off being your own forecaster than relying
on some Mexican bureaucrat’s guess of conditions down there. The
prevailing trend is more important than anything, so look over at least a
couple of days worth of data. It’s humid down there and a dropping
temperature trend can foretell fog if the temperature is dropping close to
the dew point. Watch for approaching cold fronts on the surface
analysis and back them up with a couple days worth of satellite photos.
If things start to look iffy, call Gus and cancel. It’s that easy. It’s also
real easy to get snookered into pushing too hard trying to get into a
fogged-in strip. You burn too much fuel trying to make it and you
could find yourself in the drink trying to make it home. Or, get yourself
arrested trying to buy gas in a plane with no flight plan.
Pete shared with me all the knowledge he had accumulated as a
border pilot. He cautioned me about flying south in daylight, “Too easy
to be followed out of here and get shot down,” he said. He told me to
watch out for overloaded airplanes, dangerous strips, and unreliable
receivers. “There’s a bunch of them,” he said, “and they can get you
killed.”
We spent the next couple of months flying our DC-3 to various
regularly used strips, including a few more to Vera Cruz International
when the rain washed our regular strips out. He showed me Herrera’s
dirt strip, The Pineapple, the lake strip we called Salinas, next to a lake
south of Vera Cruz. He took me over The Orange Grove once, on our
way back from another strip, just to show it to me.
“Stay away from that one,” he said. “It’s a killer.”
Each trip was pretty much the same, yet they were all different.
Most trips were dawn arrivals, allowing us to travel south under the
safety of darkness, but allowing us just enough light to land safely.
Some were midnight arrivals, especially to those strips closer to
population centers, like The Hacienda, a long, wide strip next to a large
estate on a high plateau surrounded by mountains east of Mexico City.
Our receivers would line the perimeter of the strips and light highway
smudge pots to outline the strip in the darkness. Those landings weren’t
much different than night landings on an aircraft carrier; not much to
see except the lights, only there wasn’t a meatball to keep you on the
glidepath. One had to just aim the airplane at the approach end lights
and plant it firmly to keep from floating in a flare. Smooth landings
were not required, but bouncing was prohibited. The plane had to stop
flying when it hit the ground. That’s why we came in so fearfully slow,
just over stalling airspeed.
With each successful flight, the wonder and excitement never
diminished, but my confidence grew steadily, as did my pile of hundred-
dollar bills. It was a wonderland of adventure and I developed pride in
my growing skills and my participation in an elite group of pilots, many
of which, admittedly were derelicts, paying with their lives for the
mistakes they made, but many also were top-notch pilots, doing
amazing things with airplanes.
When Gus started giving me solo trips in the T-Bone, a 1955, C-50
Twin Bonanza, my pride soared, as did my pay. Now my skills were
being tested and I passed muster. I was on cloud nine. I was being
rotated, flying as copilot with other DC-3 captains who flew for Gus,
still getting plenty of solo trips in the T-Bone and I was enjoying myself
immensely.
Almost three months into my new career, an incident occurred
involving Pete which would, later on, drastically alter my perceptions of
border flying.
Parking a DC-3 in front of the hangar one morning after a trip, Pete
swung the tail around too quickly and ran it into an Aero Commander
parked in the next space. Gus fired him on the spot. Gus told me later
that Pete had become difficult to work with and wasn’t getting along
with our little group. He had moved from the Ramada into an
apartment, bringing his girlfriend from Beaumont to live with him. I
had seen less and less of him after that because, after he moved from
the hotel, if we didn’t fly together, we rarely socialized. I had also
moved into an apartment, asking my girl Charlotte to move from Dallas
where she had been Air Texana’s Dallas Station Manager in its final
three months of existence. So, we were both busy with our domestic
lives, such as they were with our strange work schedules, and our paths
rarely crossed any more. Charlotte had a way about her which often
made me forget there was anything else that mattered besides our own
little world, and flying, of course. Her long, natural blonde hair, olive
complexion, shapely petite body, and almond-shaped brown eyes
couldn’t have had much to do with that, I’m sure. To tell the truth, I
was in love and didn’t have time for anything else.
After getting fired, Pete headed for McAllen and hooked up with an
outfit calling itself Skytrain which was operating much larger aircraft,
the four-engine DC-4. This further removed him from my circle.
My experience was growing and I enjoyed working with most of the
other captains. I always kept one eye on Harry though. He was a very
good pilot and never gave me any reason to doubt the outcome of a trip,
but too often he no-showed for trips for no apparent or offered reason
and I could only suspect what they were, remembering our first
meeting.
One evening, while Charlotte was on one of her many trips home to
visit her mom in Nederland, Gus called me to ask if I’d mind
substituting as co-pilot for another guy he couldn’t find. An old friend
of his from Las Vegas had arrive in town unannounced and he wanted
to “throw a trip or two his way,” was the way he put it.
Still a little green, the concern in my voice as I asked questions about
him must have been obvious, because Gus told me, “Hell, boy,” I
always cracked up when he called me that, “this guy here flew for the
CIA in Southeast Asia for years during the war, and even some after
that. He could fly rings around most of the pilots down here.”
“When do we leave?,” was all I could think to say.
“Tonight, about eight. You got a midnight arrival at the Salinas
Strip. You been in there plenty of times, so this should be an easy
one,” he drawled.
I was surprised to learn that Frank owned a 7-Eleven store in Las
Vegas. At the time I had met him I had made quite a few DC-3 trips
south and yet, internal shivers were still a part of my conscious thoughts
every time I departed on a mission. In those early days I thought that
the only reason I was on the border was because I had nowhere else to
go to keep flying. I naturally thought that all the other pilots who were
flying south were doing so for the same reasons as myself. The
economy was in a nose dive. The airline industry was in great turmoil
due to deregulation. The PATCO strike, with most air traffic
controllers out, had severely curtailed commercial aviation. Flying jobs
anywhere were very hard to come by and, having just left an airline in
bankruptcy, I was here as a last resort, or so was my excuse.
I knew that anyone owning a 7-Eleven in Las Vegas couldn’t be
destitute so I wondered what Frank was doing down here. He was a
large man, (I guessed him to be in his mid-sixties), with graying hair and
a white-streaked goatee. His movements were of a man that was very
sure of himself; slow, calculating, with the superficial appearance of
carelessness were it not for the exacting accomplishment of every move
he made. He noticed things I didn’t think he noticed. He didn’t talk
much but he said a lot when he talked. He had an almost macabre
sense of humor. He wasn’t the type of person who would tell you his
life story at the drop of a hat but, with some prompting, he would open
up.
His last regular flying job, if you could call it that, had been Air
America flying out of Laos in the late sixties. He had seen a lot of
action in the Far East which made this job a cake-walk. Hearing that
made a lot of things I wondered about him fall right into place. He had
made enough money with Air America to retire and buy himself his 7-
Eleven in Vegas. He only came down to the border once in awhile to
remind himself of the good old days. He was doing it for fun. I was
impressed.
Our first flight together was a midnight arrival at the lake strip we
called Salinas. It wasn’t the airport in Salinas, but a cow pasture near a
lake about 20 miles south of Vera Cruz which was used by a receiver
we knew as Mr. Salinas. The receiver’s crew had to pull up a barbed-
wire fence which ran across the pasture and roll it up out of the way so
we would have enough room to land. It gave us about 3,000 feet of
relatively flat, grassy ground and was considered to be one of the easier
strips to get in and out of.
The first time I saw Frank was when we had met for this flight at the
already loaded airplane. I had gotten to the flight line early and had
performed a thorough preflight of our DC-3, including a check of the
tailwheel tire pressure. The tailwheel tire was about half-flat and I was
satisfied that the weight and balance was good enough. If the tire had
been more than half-flat, I would have had to call the loading crew to
take off some cargo; I’d had to do that before. Opening the airstair
door and turning on the cabin lights allowed me to see the stack of TV’s
almost to the ceiling which were neatly stair- stepped down to one layer
as they reached the rear door. As usual, the loaders had left us about a
two foot by three foot tunnel in the top center of the stack which ran all
the way through the cabin to the flight deck. The only way to get to the
flight deck was to climb up the stack and crawl through this tunnel on
our stomachs.
I was sitting in the doorway of the airplane when Frank walked up
quietly and said hello. I jumped down on the ground.
“You Fox?,” he asked in a gruff, seemingly impatient voice.
“Yes sir,” I replied, offering my hand.
Frank had a military bearing which made me feel like a young ensign
meeting the skipper for the first time. I couldn’t tell how old he was in
the dark, but he didn’t look real young. He had short graying hair and
his gray-streaked goatee made him look more like a New Orleans
clarinet player than a tough guy, but the rest of him looked tough;
maybe retired tough. He had piercing dark eyes which didn’t blink
much and a stare that could make you sweat.
“I’m Frank, son. And don’t call me sir. You give this ship a good
preflight?,” he asked, his manner still gruff.
“The oil’s topped off. The fuel’s topped off. The tire pressures are
OK and I think she’ll fly, Frank,” I told him in my most confident voice
with a smile.
He seemed to like that, and slapped me on the back, smiling back at
me.
“It’s a good day to die, Fox,” he cracked as he chomped down on
the cigar butt he had just put in his now grinning mouth. “Let’s do it.”
It was the first time I had ever heard anyone use that phrase in real
life and I was glad that he didn’t wait to see my reaction, although I
suppressed it as much as I could. He turned quickly and jumped up the
stairs and was climbing up the stack of TV’s before I could say
anything. So I didn’t say anything. I followed him up through the
tunnel thinking to myself: ‘I sure meet some strange characters down
here.’
Frank was half way down the tunnel by the time I caught up with
him. He was taking his time crawling through the small space allowed
us.
“This is the hardest part of this fucking job,” he yelled in-between
grunts. He was breathing fast. The small space, already warm, was
increasing in humidity from our efforts.
Reaching the flight deck door, Frank extended his arms into the
flight deck and grabbed the top rack of the avionics bin with his left
hand and the top of the heater with his right hand and pulled himself
forward until he could bend his knees to get his legs out of the tunnel.
Since it was impossible to turn yourself around inside the tunnel and get
your feet in front of you, I thought this was a pretty good way to enter
the flight deck. I copied his method and found it easier than going
head-first almost to the floor, as I was used to doing.
As I belted myself in my copilot’s seat, Frank was busily checking
some switches and flipping others in what was obviously a set routine he
had accomplished many times without the use of a checklist. There was
no hesitation as he moved from panel to panel, switch to switch; much
like the routine I had become accustomed to in my single-pilot freight-
dog days flying Beech Barons out of Dallas. Frank had never flown
with an airline before so he was not used to crew coordination guided
by checklists as I was. He used phrases like, “Gimmee the rollers,” and
“Lose the lights,” and such.
He stared at me without comment for just a moment as I pulled out
my Air Texana checklist and silently checked off each item on the
Before Start Checklist. I wasn’t about to start rattling off the checklist
without him calling for one. He waited for me to finish it and then just
nodded his approval as he said, “You ready?”
“Yep,” I replied coolly.
“Starting one,” he said, as he pushed the starter for the number one
engine on the left side. When he counted 9 blades he turned on the
ignition and, after a couple of wheezes, the engine caught and fired up.
It blew a huge cloud of blue smoke behind us which whipped around us
like a blanket due to the slight tailwind. I could see Frank looking at
the oil pressure gauge to make sure the oil pressure came up. The
familiar smell from burning oil of a radial engine firing up is a pleasant
one for most old airplane drivers. I could tell Frank enjoyed it as I did
because he commented, “Ahhhh, there’s nothin’ like the smell of
burnin’ oil to get the old heart pumpin’.”
After a short warm-up of our number one engine, Frank repeated
the procedure for the right engine. I could tell he was waiting for me to
count the blades in rotation to make sure the bottom cylinder wasn’t
hydraulically locked with oil.
I mimicked his tone, “Nine blades.”
Again, he nodded his approval and turned on the ignition for the
engine, repeating his previous ritual.
After starting, the engine ran a little rough at first, then settled down
into the familiar rhythm of, Chug-a- ta, chug-a-ta, chug-a-ta that was
the trademark of a radial engine. This was the sound that made
uninformed passers-by look up at you in astonishment that such a
chaotic sounding machine could really fly.
As Frank released the parking brake, I called ground control,
“Ground, Douglas four-two Victor, VFR, taxi with Bravo.”
Ground control responded, “Douglas four-two Victor, taxi to
runway one-niner. Wind one-eight-zero at eight, altimeter two-niner-
niner-two.”
Frank applied a little power with the throttles. The engines
responded like growling lions as their speed increased, pulling us out of
line and onto the taxiway. I could tell Frank had many hours in DC-3’s
by the way he jockeyed the throttles and deftly worked the brakes to
direct our movement smoothly out of our parking space and onto the
taxiway.
As he glanced around the cockpit, looked at different gauges and
flipped various switches, I silently went through my Air Texana Before
Takeoff Checklist. I felt almost embarrassed doing this with such an
obvious master of the airplane in the left seat, but I didn’t know Frank
very well. For all I knew, he could have been a boozer on his last legs
and I was determined to make sure the airplane was ready to fly. There
are many errors an airplane can forgive, but, at these weights, the list
was short.
Pulling into the run-up area just off the runway, Frank ran up the
engines one at a time, checking the performance of the ignition
magnetos. He pulled the prop levers through to exercise the props and
replace the cold oil in the hubs with warm oil from the engines.
Satisfied with these checks, he turned to me and asked, “You ready,
Fox?.”
“Ready, Frank,” I replied, in my most confident voice.
This was the point in every mission preceding it’s most dangerous
phase: the takeoff. If an engine faltered too far down the runway to
stop the airplane while we were still on the runway, we would probably
die. If we were trying to carry too much weight, the airplane wouldn’t
fly. If the center of gravity of the cargo was too far forward or too far
aft, the airplane would probably not make it off the ground and we
would die. If an engine faltered very soon after takeoff, we would
certainly crash, because the airplane at these weights wouldn’t fly very
far on one engine. Only after attaining sufficient altitude with both
engines could we begin to relax, only because with altitude we bought
time. Time to control our crash landing into the ground or water if an
engine failed.
The only thing which allowed me to gain any confidence at all was
for me to make sure I had done everything I could to notice anything
out of the ordinary before this phase began. I was the copilot. My life
was in the captain’s hands.
Since we were to arrive at our strip at midnight, it was now only
8:00 p.m. in Brownsville and the airport was still active. I called the
tower for takeoff clearance.
“Brownsville tower, Douglas four-two Victor ready for takeoff,
straight out departure, runway one-niner, climbing to nine-thousand-
five-hundred feet.”
The tower responded with, “Douglas four-two Victor, cleared for
takeoff, runway one-niner, straight-out departure approved.”
After taking the runway at the very end, Frank stopped the airplane
completely and held the brakes. Grinning, he glanced over at me and
asked in a cheerful but gravely voice, “Say your prayers, kid?”
I was thirty-four years old and it had been a long time since anyone
had called me kid. I suppose with my long, non- graying hair and my
lack of wrinkles, I looked younger. I was determined to show a
nonchalant face and, nodding, just said, “Yep.”
Frank slowly and smoothly advanced the throttles to takeoff power.
The engines responded with a growl which quickly turned into a roar.
Frank was still holding the brakes. When the engines reached maximum
takeoff power, Frank and I both intently surveyed the engine
instruments as the airplane bucked like a bronco. Satisfied, Frank
released the brakes and the airplane started to roll, slowly at first, but
with increasing speed. A quarter of the way down the runway, pushing
forward on the yoke, Frank brought the tail up. A short distance later,
he released the yoke and the tail stayed up, indicating the balance was
good enough to fly. We didn’t find out about the total weight until
farther down the runway when he pulled back on the yoke and we
could feel the landing gear struts extending. He let the airplane back
down squashing the struts continuing the takeoff roll, satisfied we could
fly. I was impressed again. This guy was good.
I didn’t bother calling out our takeoff speeds. At this weight, I
didn’t have any idea what they were. I only knew that they were high.
Wanting to attain as much speed as we could while we were still on
the ground, Frank waited until we were going about 110 knots to rotate
the nose up. The airplane shuddered once and began flying, wallowing
just a bit.
“Rollers up!,” Frank called out.
“Rollers up,” I responded as I pulled up the landing gear handle.
I could see Frank’s confidence, the way he handled the airplane with
a light touch. I felt my life was in good hands as we began our slow
climb.
At 500 feet, Frank called out, “METO power!.”
“METO power,” I responded as I pulled the throttles back to
Maximum-Except-Takeoff Power.
As we crossed the U.S. border into Mexico, Frank called out,
“Lights off!”
“Lights off,” I responded as I began switching off the landing lights,
navigation lights and red rotating beacon.
“We’re all dark, Frank,” I told him as I switched the last switch.
I saw him nod once and settle back in his seat, glancing at the engine
instruments. At this point I also settled back into my seat, thinking I was
in for a long, silent trip.
In the relative calm and darkness of the ancient flight deck, with
professional duties at an ebb, my mind began settling into a detached
mood of contemplation, the powerful drone of our engines dropping
into the background of consciousness, much like the receding, above-
water sounds a diver experiences as he sinks into the watery world
below. I was suddenly aware of my thumping heart and the adrenaline
it was pumping throughout my body in reaction to this unfolding
adventure. I turned my head towards the darkening view out my side
window to grin secretly in excitement. We were hurtling through the
sky towards, for me, the unknown; unknown risks and dangers of
uncertain outcome. Scared? I was tingling! This was my first trip into
a new strip, the one we called Salinas just north of a lake south of Vera
Cruz. I wondered in reverie whether the ground would be hard enough
to support a thirty-thousand pound airplane. I wondered whether the
strip’s purported three-thousand foot length would be long enough for
Frank to stop us in time. Would we be met by Federales, armed to the
teeth, lying in wait in the darkness behind bushes and trees?
I had flown DC-3’s long enough to have lost several engines to
blown cylinders or worn-out parts. Would we end up in the Gulf of
Mexico, choice fare for some shark’s late-night snack? Would we have
enough gas? These questions and more, whirred through my mind at
what seemed like the speed of shuffled playing cards. At the end of the
shuffle, the last card read: Frank’s come back from many missions.
He’ll probably come back from this one. . .
“Yo, day-dreamer. You gonna call flight service, or not?” Frank
broke into my reverie, looking at me with eyebrows arched, as if he
weren’t sure of my mettle for this job. Only a few moments had passed
since our takeoff, but I was lost in a breeze.
Having made the call opening and closing our flight plan with
McAllen Radio, I scanned the instruments, embarrassed at my
inattention.
Lighting the cigar butt he had been chewing on, he looked over at
me and asked, “What’s your story, Fox. What brought you to the
border?.”
“I was flying for the Airline of the Golden Triangle, Air Texana, just
a couple of months ago when they went out of business. With the
recession and the PATCO strike, I couldn’t find a flying job anywhere,
so a friend of mine by the name of Peter Knox brought me down here
with him and showed me the ropes. We hooked up with Gus for a trip
our first night here and stayed,” I told him, glad for an opportunity to
talk.
“What d’ya fly there?,” he asked.
“We had a Convair 440, two DC-3’s and two Queen Aires,” I
answered. “I was a captain on the Queen Aires and First Officer on the
3’s. I’ve been chasing DC-3 jobs ever since I flew ‘em in the Pacific
for the Navy. I’d still be in Beaumont, if they hadn’t gone under.”
“I didn’t know the Navy had any more 3’s left. How d’ya happen to
be flying those?,” he asked. I could tell he was genuinely interested.
“I got my Navy wings in February of 1973,” I responded. “At the
same time the air war was finished in ‘Nam. I was one of over 700
excess jet jocks that were spit out of the pipeline in 1973 with no
airplane to fly. After a two-year shore assignment in California, and,
since I had not gotten to fly any airplanes I wanted to fly since training, I
opted to extend my contract with the Navy to fly DC-3’s off Midway
Island. I had always wanted to fly a DC-3, so it was perfect.”
“What is the Navy doing with 3’s on Midway?,” he asked.
“We used them to fly hazardous materials to the island from Hawaii
because the Air Force wouldn’t carry them on their C-141’s they used
for our logistics flights. We carried dependent families’ pets for the
same reason. That’s why they called us the “Doggy Flight.” The DC-3
was the only airplane in the Navy inventory which could haul a decent
load from Hawaii and still deliver the mail to Kure Island. We hauled
the mail to Kure Island three times a week. It’s a Coast Guard Loran
station about 90 miles from Midway with 26 Coast Guardsmen on it. It
has a 3,000 foot crushed coral strip that no other Navy airplane other
than helicopters could land on. The Navy had been wanting for years
to get rid of the DC-3 but couldn’t solve our specific problem, so they
let us keep it. It was the last DC-3 the Navy had. Actually it was a C-
117D, a modified DC-3 with a bigger rudder and 1820 engines, but still
a 3.
“I’m familiar with the airplane. We had a few in the Far East,”
Frank said in a tone that revealed a nostalgia for his past.
After this exchange, the conversation really opened up. I could tell
by the way Frank talked that his estimation of me as a pilot was uplifted
a great deal after hearing about some of my past flying experiences. He
never called me “kid” again.
We were both surprised to find ourselves most of the way to Vera
Cruz in what seemed like a short time. He began to talk about the
Salinas Lake strip after asking me if I had ever been there. I hadn’t.
In a very succinct manner he briefed me on what to expect, “When
we pass Vera Cruz and see our lake, we head right for it, turning to the
north over the lake at about 300 feet. We run north to find the strip
about a mile north of the lake and then make a break over the strip for a
left downwind. I’ll call for gear down and half flaps midway down the
strip and full flaps rolling final. We’ll come down in a high sink rate
with a full-flare landing, smacking her down as early on the strip as I
can. We’ll be real close to stall airspeed, so don’t get nervous. I’ll call
for flaps up and you get ‘em up fast so I can begin max braking. If
we’re lucky and the ground ain’t too wet, we’ll stop before the next
fence. We always land to the north. It’s better to run through a fence
than run into the lake if we can’t get her stopped. If you have any
questions, ask ‘em now, because we won’t have time to discuss things
when we get down to the nitty-gritty.”
“No questions, Frank. I’ll be ready when you are,” I replied. I was
completely comfortable with Frank at the controls. I knew, if he said it
was a piece of cake, for him it would be a piece of cake.
For the first couple of months I was on the border, I had always
been a bundle of nerves before and during a mission. I was always
thinking about all the things which could go wrong and worried that any
of them could occur at any time. My ears would pick up the most
minor, subtle changes in sounds of the engines or vibration of the
airplane and I would frantically look at the engine instruments always
expecting the worst. I would picture in my mind getting eaten by a
shark or crashing in a ball of flame at some strip and any enjoyment I
got out of this job would come only after getting back on the ground
safely in Brownsville having survived the trip. On this trip, however,
Frank’s obvious expertise and demeanor allowed me to relax.
Frank would pay attention to the airplane and glance occasionally at
the engine instruments too, but he did it in such a casual way that you
could tell he obviously wasn’t worried. The way he conversed during
the flight, you could tell he was completely at ease and really enjoyed
every minute of it. The fact that the only reason he occasionally came
down to the border was for the fun of it rang true. He was having fun.
And I started having fun, too.
Frank saw our lake first, looming like a ghost in the distance, and
pulled the throttles back just a little as we started down, heading right
for it. As our descent progressed, he kept pulling the throttles back a
little at a time in order not to shock-cool the cylinders.
Still about 10 minutes out, Frank got out the hand-held FM radio
and spoke into the mike, “Blue Star, this is Blue Star One.”
“Blue Star One, this is Blue Star,” the radio crackled in response.
“The strip is secure. Not much wind.”
“We’re 10 minutes out,” Frank told the strip ground crew leader.
“Bueno,” was the only reply.
The lake was fairly round, about a mile or so in diameter. As we
turned north over the lake at about 300 feet, it looked lower than that to
me and I said to Frank, “Looks like we’re lower than 300 feet, Frank.”
He glanced out his side window and agreed, “I think you’re right,
Fox.” He made an upwards adjustment in our altitude and we
continued north, looking for the strip.
At this point, still over the lake, we saw a strong beam of light
sweeping the sky. “There’s Julian’s Q-beam,” Frank said. “And they
have a campfire.”
“I see it,” I said, as Frank made a slight adjustment to our course to
put us heading right for it.
We passed over the strip, still at 300 feet and I could see the
campfire and Julian’s Q-beam flashlight waving around. I could see
several trucks and cars, some with their headlights on.
As we passed over the strip, Frank made a hard, left-banking, 180
degree turn, lining up in the opposite direction, heading back towards
the lake. Rolling out of the turn, he called out, “Gimmee the rollers.”
Then, “Gimmee half-flaps, props forward.”
“Rollers down, half-flaps, max props,” I responded as I lowered the
landing gear, put the flaps down to half and pushed the prop levers all
the way forward.
Frank rolled left again and, pulling power off the engines, began our
final descent lining up with the direction of the strip, even though we
couldn’t see it yet. The sky was becoming lighter, but it was still
morning twilight and a fine mist hung in the still air. I could see the
ground zipping by underneath us, but I couldn’t see very far ahead of
us.
On spotting the strip environment, I called out, “Looks like we’re a
little low, Frank,” but 300 feet over trees at night always looks low.
Frank pressed on with no adjustment.
As we approached the strip and began our high-sink portion of the
descent, there was enough moonlight and lightening sky for me to see a
clump of trees looming low, right in front of us. They say that destiny
can turn on a dime, but I know that airplanes can’t. We had about four
seconds until impact. When I was sure we would hit them if Frank
didn’t pull up, I yelled, “Watch out for that tree, Frank!”
“What tree!?,” he asked, as we hit it with a thump that shook the
airplane, fortunately only momentarily. He didn’t bat an eye.
“That tree,” I said, with a chuckle in my voice.
“Oh, that tree,” he chuckled himself as he continued the approach
without a flinch.
Just above the ground, Frank pulled the yoke all the way back into a
flare and we hit the ground. “Flaps up,” he yelled and I pulled the flaps
up.
He began heavy braking and the aircraft started slowing. “No
sweat,” he commented, “Looks like we’ll stop in plenty of time.”
About two-thirds down the strip, Frank began to ease up on the
brakes. At the end, he swung the airplane around and set the brake.
Leaning back in his seat, taking the cigar stump out of his mouth, he
looked over at me and, with a wink, said, “Why don’t you go out and
check the oil coolers and make sure we don’t have any leaves or
anything in there.”
“Sure, Frank,” I answered. I crawled out of the flight deck into our
cargo tunnel and met the unloaders halfway down the stack. They were
lined up single-file, throwing TV’s down the line and out the door to
awaiting hands inside a large panel truck.
Dodging flying TV’s, I jumped down on the ground and approached
the left engine from behind the landing gear, mindful of the rotating
prop. I could see branches of a tree and palm fronds sticking in the
landing gear struts and I pulled them out, one by one. Now very close
to the prop, I looked inside the oil cooler and found it stuffed pretty full
with leaves, small branches and more palm fronds. I pulled these out,
one by one, being very careful not to hit the prop with them. When it
was cleaned out, I picked up the biggest branch I had found in the gear
and carried it around the wing to show Frank. It was about five feet
long with many other small limbs shooting off of it and lots of green
leaves still on it. I held it up for him to see. He slid the left window
open and, looking at the branch, put his hand out the window and made
an “O” with his thumb and forefinger, winking again. It didn’t seem to
phase him a bit.
I checked the right engine and it was clear. The ground crew was
finishing unloading us so I was able to walk through the cabin to the
flight deck. It usually took them perhaps only 10 minutes to unload us.
Strapping myself in, I remarked, “It’s all clear, Frank.”
“Thanks, Fox,” he said as he waved to the dispersing ground crew
and Julian and pushed the throttles forward to takeoff power. “All in a
day’s work,” he added.
Frank was cool. He enjoyed what he was doing, no matter how
difficult it was. Brushes with death were part of the fun for him, and it
was starting to wear off on me. I was having fun, too.

Copyright 1998, BUSHPILOT, all rights reserved

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