An Early Trip to Texas and a Unique Grass Seeding System
By Charlie Briggs
The year was 1946. The plane was small. The hour was early. The weather was good. The destination was Seminole, Texas. For me this was like going to another country. I looked it up on the map. It was 420 air miles. Going another direction we could have been going to Denver or Kansas City!
My father’s plane was a new Luscombe 8E. All metal and sturdy, it boasted a continental engine that purred along at a neat 100 miles per hour from the efforts of the 85 horses stored in the four dependable cylinders up front. No big appetite for fuel either, and using a miserly four gallons per hour at less than 30 cents per gallon, it was a real bargain in transportation.
The pre-flight was quite simple and took all of about five minutes. Check the controls, drain the sump, check the oil, make sure no owls made a nest under the cowl, and it basically was time to get cranking.
The 8E was well equipped, relative to the standards of the time, with a two-way, low-frequency radio and a “loop” which helped give you your position. Without radio you were left to use “dead reckoning.” That means you determine the direction direct to where you want to go. You determine the compass heading necessary to get there. Then you note the geographic features along your path, such as major lakes, towns, bends in rivers and railroads and so on. You noted check points you should cross or be close to all along the route. Then you just took off and headed that way, and flew.
To say this was really living was a total understatement. Clearing the little grass strip at Protection, Kans. we set a heading I was to duplicate many times during the next 35 years, about 210 degrees. As we reached our cruising altitude of 1,500 feet the world as most see it just changed. Instead, now I could see miles ahead. Visions of Texas, the Palo Duro Canyon and much more were in my mind. Little did I know or suspect then, that most of my adult life would be invested in the Lone Star state.
It was hot and windy when we landed at English Field in Amarillo, Texas. The runways were mostly grass and sand, with one paved that I remember. Parking was simple. We just taxied up near the little gate on the east side of the terminal, (which is still there) and tied down.
Things were great and going too smooth. The next leg was right over the north end of the Palo Duro canyon. I was excited! So to fortify myself for the next two-hour flight, I quickly downed one of my favorites, a chocolate milk shake. Good nutrition and tasty. Meantime Dad was checking with the Weather Bureau. With the headwinds we encountered we were behind schedule. Once refueled and refreshed we were back in the air and onward.
It was so hot and so rough that I was actually hanging onto my seat. Just as we were over the middle of the canyon, and I was taking it all in, my milkshake did the “shake” and it was quite awhile before I was feeling “un airsick” again! Oh well, I thought, I saw the Canyon and was seeing the Texas plains up close and personal.
We were flying between 1,000 and 2,000 feet msl. It was like having a grandstand suite on a tour of the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains). It was hard to think of traveling over the treeless plains on horseback. What would take us barely two hours (with a significant headwind), would have taken days or weeks on horseback or on foot.
The commission man in the deal, one A.C. Key, was waiting for us. There was a nice safe hanger arranged. Good thing too, as a major West Texas dust storm came blowing through during the night. Being from the heart of the dust bowl, we from Kansas were used to dust. But this was fierce by any standards! The storm blew a railroad cattle car off the tracks!
The next day was spent receiving the cattle. “Receiving” meant sorting, counting, weighing, and, of course, paying. After settling up we “saddled up’ the Luscombe and headed back home with the prevailing Southwesterly flow giving us a generous tail wind.
Little did I suspect then that 60 years of my life would be spent in the “staked plains,” in Amarillo, Texas, and I’m still here!
Dad’s Unique System for Seeding Grass
It was spring in the late 1940s and new grasses were being introduced to supplement the native Buffalo grass in some areas. Dad had obtained a blend of these new grasses, including Blue Stem, Canadian Wild Rye, Western Wheat Grass and others. He got the idea to try an experiment of seeding a ranch patch that was being converted from farming to pasture, from the air.
He flew repeated passes in a linear pattern. When the grasses came up in the spring there were neat stripes from one side of the field to the other, just like stripes on a flag. The pasture was so prolific it provided forage for three times as many cattle as the native Buffalo Grass areas.
For more than 30 years the “stripes” were still visible, then, gradually, all varieties blended together with the strongest species surviving. (Sounds kind of like mankind.)
