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Contrails: A Hand Me Down Flying School
By Steve Weaver
When I think about the aircraft that populated our flying business in the late ‘60s, I realize what an eclectic mix of airplanes it was. We had two, four, and six place airplanes, very old airplanes, one almost new airplane, and even a twin in the person of an old Aztec. Each had a role in the business, and each one had a distinct personality that I still remember.
At birth, except for colors and optional equipment, airplanes are pretty much identical to the brethren that share the production line. In 1977, while working for Cessna, I parked my new 310 demonstrator on the ramp at Allegheny Airport in Pittsburgh while I went inside to meet with someone. I returned a half hour later just in time to see a gentleman thoroughly pre-flighting my 310. I watched from a distance while he did a textbook preflight inspection. He drained all the sumps and inspected the fuel sample for dirt or water, he checked the oil in both engines, then slowly circled the airplane, poking this and wiggling that.
Contrails: Looking for Bubba
By Steve Weaver
He was, way country. I was a West Virginia country boy too, back there in the late ‘60s when I met Bubba, but this guy was light years ahead me. He exuded the aura of his mountaineer heritage, and you could hear his roots in his speech and see ancient times in his countenance.
In age, he was a few years beyond my own late 20s when I met him. He had been raised by his grandparents on a mountainside farm, where the folds of the Appalachians first rise up out of the foothills of Central West Virginia and begin their march to the Piedmonts.
He had enlisted in the service after high school, more to have a job than as a career choice. In those opportunity-starved years, the old West Virginia saw of ‘coal mines, moonshine or movin’ on down the line’ applied to almost every boy unable to go on to college after high school. And so Bubba moved on, into the blue uniform of the U.S. Air Force, and after basic training was stationed at a Strategic Missile site in North Dakota.
Contrails: The Winter of Our Contentment
By Steve Weaver
Morro Bay, California. (Steve Weaver)’m having the same problem with time that you often hear older people complaining about. It seems to pass faster each year than it did the year before, and about a dozen times faster than it did when I was in school. Then, a school year stretched ahead like a life sentence and once winter arrived it seemed that it probably wouldn’t leave until I had passed away from old age, still seated obediently at my desk.
Now I’m looking at the end of my six-month sojourn in California and in terms of elapsed time, it seems as if I arrived from West Virginia only a month or so ago, and that I should still be settling in for a pleasant winter on the Central Coast.
Contrails: Escape From Plenty
By Steve Weaver
Autumn in West Virginia. (Steve Weaver)Autumn has worked its way down the slopes of the Appalachians and colored the leaves in the foothills of West Virginia, the place where I was born and where I now spend the six warm months each year. Looking down the bank outside my window into the slow drifting waters of the Buckhannon River I can see flotillas of gaily colored leaves making their way downstream to the place they will come to rest and slowly turn to soil.
It’s said that autumn is a time to reflect and I think that must be so, because I find I do most of my deep (deep being a relative word here) thinking about life in general, and my life in particular, during this time of year.
A few days ago in such a state, I started pondering how the business of selling airplanes has changed in the last dozen years or so and about how completely my life has changed during the same period.
Contrails
Living Without Wheels
By Steve Weaver
Instructor Russ Weaver (no relation, Billie Sue Nester, student, Steve Weaver and friend David Austin. (Courtesy of Steve Weaver)Stopped at a traffic light this week, I noticed the car in front of me sported a license plate holder that proclaimed that the owner’s other car was an airplane. I thought back to a time when I could have used a license holder that said “My other airplane is an airplane,” but then I wouldn’t have had a car to attach it to.
There have probably been other aviation zealots, who have owned two airplanes without owning a car, but I’ve never met another one and it was a strange set of circumstances that caused me to be in such a position.