An airplane adventure

Flying has always fascinated me. I’m the kind of guy who will stare skyward, slack-jawed, at the contrails being etched across the ether by those streaking silver points.

I have often envied the people riding in those streaking silver points. I imagine them floating along up there in the sky, casting an occasional haughty glance down at us lowly earth-dwellers, never mind that airline food is frequently deemed by many air travelers to be a form of punishment.

There was a guy I knew whom I’ll call “Oscar.” Oscar was a hay jockey and, therefore, somewhat shady. Even so, I always considered him to be a fairly decent fellow. Oscar once owned and operated a 1-man, 1-plane crop dusting service. I thought this was electrifying.

Oscar and I would chat for a while after he delivered a load of hay to our dairy farm. I often asked Oscar about the exciting world of aviation, and he would always wax enthusiastic. He said he had a Piper Cub and that, if I ever wanted to go for a plane ride, I should stop by his place sometime. (The fact that Oscar had a freshly cut hay check in his pocket during these chats may have had something to do with his enthusiasm.)

I should mention something about Oscar. He was very much a “make-do” kind of guy, the type of operator who tended to rely heavily on duct tape and baling wire.

For instance, I had heard that Oscar pranged his crop duster plane when he snagged a barbed wire fence with its landing gear. The mishap left the propeller quite crooked, which is not a good situation for that particular piece of equipment. Oscar knew the engine and prop assembly needed to be taken to the nearest flight service station to be rebalanced, or else his plane would jiggle itself to smithereens.

And what did Oscar do? He put the prop in a vice, straightened it as best as he could and flew his plane the 200 miles to the flight service station. It must have been like riding in a paint shaker.

This gives you an idea of how badly I yearned to take to the sky when, one summer Sunday, I decided to take Oscar up on his plane ride offer.

As I drove onto Oscar’s farmstead, I couldn’t help but notice the unkempt appearance of the place. I found myself stifling a vague sense of unease as I chatted with Oscar. When I brought up the subject of his proffered plane ride, he replied eagerly, “You bet. We can go right now.”

We walked out to the pole shed where Oscar kept his Cub. Like the rest of the farm, the interior of the shed was in a state of disordered disarray. The Cub sat in the midst of it all, looking out of place.

Oscar mumbled something about the Cub needing fuel and began to rummage around in a far corner of the shed. He soon pulled out a 2-gallon container of avgas, a jug whose label seemed to indicate it had previously contained herbicide. As Oscar poured avgas into the plane’s tank, I wondered what effect that particular herbicide might have on the engine of a Piper Cub. Whatever it might be, I assumed that it couldn’t be good.

We pushed the Cub out of the shed, and Oscar got in and told me to climb aboard. Those familiar with Piper Cubs know what I mean when I say that you don’t ride in a Cub; you wear it. A Piper Cub is just one step above a weed whacker motor that’s been bolted onto a chunk of plywood.

Oscar fired up the Cub’s engine, which, to my relief, purred reassuringly. We taxied out of Oscar’s farmstead and onto a nearby alfalfa field. Oscar pointed the Cub down a dirt path that ran alongside the field and opened the throttle.

The Cub hopped over several pocket gopher mounds, then clawed its way up into the air. Before long, the landscape spread out below us like a full-color 3-D Google Earth map.

Oscar took me on an aerial tour of my neighborhood. When we flew over our farm, I wondered why anyone would bother to keep such lilliputian cows and live in such a tiny house.

As we bounced along in the bubbly summer air, I looked down with pity at the lowly people scurrying around on the planet below. Oscar Air didn’t offer any meal service, which was just as well because I was feeling somewhat woozy. I must have had a case of haughtiness.

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar.com.