Trailing Clouds of Glory - Highlights from Ralph’s Flying Experiences

A 1946 Luscombe 8 Silvaire

As mentioned in a previous blog post (1), sometimes it seems as though Ralph was truly born “trailing clouds of glory” (2), that he came down to earth and into his mother's arms via a helicopter rather than a stork. Hah! After all, many of the professions he’s had have been related to flying in some way.

But where did his interest in flying first begin and then grow into a lifelong passion, filling up 10 flight logbooks with 10,000-12,000 hours over the past 60 years? 

As an answer to that question, Ralph has shared the following experiences with us.(3) This is how the story begins...

An Aeronca 7AC Champ, the same type of plane
that Ralph would eventually teach
his own students in.

Beginnings

As a young boy living in Lomita, California, in the early 1940s, one of Ralph’s favorite activities was lying on the grass in his front yard and watching the planes fly overhead. The army airfield in Torrance was close by (then called the Lomita Air Field)(4) and was used for training during WWII, so there was no shortage of this airborne spectacle of Lockheed P-38 Lightning pilots flying over their house on their final approach. Ralph traces his initial interest in flying to this time. 

Later, now 12 years old and living in Mesa, Arizona, in 1946, Ralph loved to ride his bike to the Mesa Airport that was just a half mile from his family’s farm.(5) There, he would sit and watch the airplanes coming and going. 

Mesa Airport (along with the nearby and
similarly named Mesa Airpark) (Image Source)

This was one of two airfields in Mesa at the time, but this one was unique: It was started by two local veterans soon after World War II, and it was located at the site of a former city dump. The junk had been hauled away, the ground leveled and packed down, but the runway was left unpaved.

The two veterans-turned-flight-school owners were teaching flying in four small, fixed-wing airplanes: An Aeronca 7AC Champ, an Ercoupe, a Luscombe 8 Silvaire, and a Taylorcraft.

One day while Ralph was watching the planes on the sidelines, one of the owners, Owen Straddling, came up to him and said, “Hey kid, want a ride?” Yeah! Of course he did! “Pick up a tub of glass off of the airport and we’ll take you for a ride.” This runway was previously a city dump and was littered with broken glass and sharp corners that were cutting the tires of the airplanes. So he said, “Go pick up a tub of glass.”

Ralph recalls:

So I ran home and got one of Mom’s washtubs, set it down, and I got a coffee can and a screwdriver, and I was dodging airplanes! I’d run out, dig up pieces of glass, fill up the can, go dump it. And then when the tub got full, he said, “Ok! Let’s go!”

An Ercoupe

He continues: 

Owen Stradling took us [Ralph and his cousin, Don Johnson] up [in the Taylorcraft] and we were strapped in the seat together beside him. And I think now, how did we get in? We were just 12 years old at the time, just young kids. So we sat there and he flew us around Mesa and we came back in and I said, “Man! That’s for me. I’ve got to figure out how to do it.” And I asked him, “Can I pick up another tub of glass?” And he said, “Yeah, knock yourself out.” So I got a ride in the Ercoupe, the Aeronca, and the Luscombe by picking up glass on the airport.

And so it begins!

..........

Notes and Sources: 

1. Blog post featuring an article by Cathy Free of the Deseret News, detailing some of Ralph's flying experiences: https://greatflyingscots.blogspot.com/2014/05/they-skys-limit.html.
2. An allusion to the poem Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth (1770-1850), which can be read online here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ode-intimations-immortality-recollections-early-childhood.
3. From an interview with Ralph and Ella on 9 February 2014, recorded at their home.
4. The Lomita Flight strip in Torrance, California, was completed in March 1943 and was used by the United States Army during WWII and was used as an emergency landing field for training flights. It was closed for that purpose after the war, and it was later renamed Zamperini Field on 7 December 1941. More information here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamperini_Field) and here (http://www.militarymuseum.org/Lomita.html).
5. More info about the Mesa Airport (not to be confused with the Mesa Airpark), here: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Phoenix_NE.htm