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| Ralph Next to an Aeronca Champ September 2019 |
- Dreams Take Flight - More highlights from Ralph's Flying Experiences
- Trailing Clouds of Glory - Highlights from Ralph's Flying Experiences
- Santa Claus is Cleared for Landing
- Ralph Pilots Helicopter to Save Boy Scout Troop
- The Sky's the Limit
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A favorite flying story that Grandpa Ralph shares is about the time he was so excited when he jointly bought an airplane with a friend. It was early 1957. They knew its engine was in disrepair, but they replaced it with one they picked up from a junkyard. Should be just fine, right? The plot thickens when the replacement engine went out mid flight. What happens next required some fast thinking and resourcefulness on Ralph’s part, and then followed by additional fast thinking...he had to be to work by 3pm!
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I took off from Torrance airport in a plane that I owned a partnership in [an Aeronca Champ]. We bought the airplane - a big deal! $700! But it had a sour engine. He bought the airplane - it was Dean Dagonia, up on the hill. He said, I can’t fly it because the engine had gone bad, so I said, “Ok, if we can be partners, I’ll buy an engine to put on it.” Ok! So I shopped around. I went to this airplane junkyard and got a used engine, supposedly in good shape, and we put the engine on the airplane and we flew it a couple of hours.
Well, this one day I took off and was flying around. This was when there was a lot of open space in southern California, around Wilmington, just north of us was what they called the Dominguez Farms, and there was a whole lot of farmland.
So I used to use that - you can see in here that in some places it says “Rectangular course flying,” I drew a picture where you just fly around a course - so that was my plan that day, to fly a rectangular course around this pattern, this open farm.
I got over there and everything worked fine, and when I throttled back to come down, because we always did that about 500 feet above the ground, so I throttled back and got it all set up at 500 feet, I put the throttle back in and it goes CLUNK, and it starts shaking. By that time I had 8 or 10 hours, 15 hours, something like that. And I said, Uh-oh. So I pushed the throttle in and I could only get about 16 or 17 hundred RPMs and it would shake. I couldn’t climb. And I didn’t dare head back to Torrance because I had to fly over houses. So I thought, “Ok, there’s a nice little road in this field.” So I went around and landed on a little road between two fields. Then I turned on another road and taxied over to the highway.
All this time I’m putting a plan together. I had to be to work at Carbide at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and this was about 10 or 11 in the morning that I was doing my training. So I had an airplane in a field. No cell phone. There wasn’t even a pay phone close to me! So I ran over and parked it, shut it down. And jumped the fence and hitchhiked a ride. Got back to Torrance airport, picked up a mechanic, and we drove back in our old ‘52 Studebaker to the field and there’s 15 cars lined up alongside the road. And there’s a sheriff’s car sitting there with the light turning.
We pulled up and parked in front of the sheriff's car - I didn’t think anything of it. I thought, “What are they doing here?” I had business to do with the airplane! So we jumped the fence and went over to the airplane, and this guy [the mechanic] is checking the prop, and there’s oil leaking out onto the ground, and he said, yeah, you’ve got a problem.
The sheriff followed us across the fence and said, “Hey, what are you guys doing? Is one of you the pilot?” Yah, I’m the pilot. “What happened?” Well, the engine quit on me and I landed and I had to go get a mechanic. “Oh.”
Then I saw, there was a trail, there was a guy plowing in a field, and he saw it, and he just turned his tractor and come straight over and here’s this big ditch right across the field. I wish I had pictures! He pulled his tractor over right about the time the sheriff showed up, and he said, “What’s the airplane doing here.” “I don’t know. It must be some kind of a deal going because the guy landed, stopped, jumped out, and there was a car waiting for him!”
So the sheriff kind of sat there and he’s filing his report and we show up, “La, la, la, where’s the beach?” Once they found out it was real innocent, he signed [my logbook], Sheriff Griggs. Here it is! Right here. “Engine failure, I can’t even read it now, forced landing. Sheriff Griggs, LA County Sheriff.” April 19 [1957]. Landed in an open field. [Ella chimes in: Needless to say I was hoping that would be the end. But he got back in! Chuckles.]
So here we are, trying to figure out what to do with the airplane. So the guy said, “What are we doing? How do we get it home?” And I said, “ I live about 2 miles down here.” He said, “Could we put it in your driveway or garage?” I said, Yeah, we can put it in my garage.
So we took the wings off, I hauled the wings home, one at a time, on the top of the roof of the Studebaker. I got a blanket and I laid it up there and tied it down and took the wings home. Then I took the deck lid off of the Studebaker, the bonnet in the back. I took it off, and figured out a way to build up blocks or something - I think I used suitcases! - stacked them up in there, and I put the tail wheel on that so that the elevator wouldn’t hit the fender, and then I tied it down, braced it through the back, and then I towed it home backwards. People were looking and pointing, and here I am driving down the road with an airplane towing backwards. We pulled it up the hill and put it in the garage. I made about 3 trips - the wings first and then the body of the airplane. And it sat in the garage for two to three weeks until we figured out I couldn’t replace the engine.
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| A 1952 Studebaker, light blue, just like Ralph and Ella's. Imagine a car like this towing a dismantled airplane down the road! |
I got my money back on the engine. I told him, “That thing didn’t even last 10 hours.” So I argued with him a little bit and got the money back. Then Ella talked me out of airplane ownership. She said, “Why don’t you just rent airplanes and get your license. So we towed it back to the airport and put it back together for somebody.
KF: Do the wings come off pretty easily?
RM: Oh yeah, there’s just two bolts in the base of the wing, and there’s a bolt in each strut.
KF: And that’s all that holds the wings on?!?
RM: Well, that’s the way they built them. That’s the way they still build them! It took less than an hour [to dismantle the plane] because I made it to work on time! That was a day when we were so broke we couldn’t pay attention. We only had one car so anytime she needed it she’d take me to work.
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From an interview with Ralph at his home.
