By Charlie Briggs

Aviation buffs read a lot of flying stories from pros who write articles on a regular basis. While often entertaining and informative, hearing from professional pilots sometimes lacks the real world experiences of the hundreds of thousands of aircraft owners and flyers who were never professional pilots, but simply lived with an airplane as a permanent family member. Such is the case with Charlie Briggs, a pilot for more than 65 years, having a career that included ranching, agricultural services and consulting, computer technologies and business concept development. In Flight USA invites readers to join Charlie as he reminisces about flying and life. You will experience a side of aviation that is informative, entertaining and personal. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, there came to this earth, a Billy Goat. This was no ordinary goat.

This one was destined to achieve what no other goat on earth had or likely will do. In fact, it couldn’t because the adventure of “Elmer” was the first. Now when you are the first of anything, that’s it. It’s the first. Elmer’s home was a nice roomy pasture lying in the winding river bottom carved out of the flat western Kansas prairie being the “Smoky Hill River.”

In the regular world, Billy Goats are not known as aviators. Well, neither was our pet goat “Elmer.” His “jump” into history was definitely not of his choosing. Just fate. Here is how it happened.

My wife and I were married in December of 1949. In the summer of 1951, we were “selected” to move to Logan County, Kansas to assume the operations of the families’ 25-section ranch and farming project. We left college and really went to “school,” leaving the security of our homestead country and friends to be 25 miles from the nearest town, living in a mobile home, with no phone, portable electric power, and having to haul all our drinking and household water from municipal sources many miles away. Now married for 63 amazing years, I had developed a plan of compromise. It has worked. If my wife wanted something, if I could get it for her, I just did. Well, here the early plot thickens.