Family legacies

Even though they had the same flight instructor, Gene Fodor, they didn’t know each other.

The same year the 17-year-old boys earned their certificates, their fathers—Frank Steinberg, who was a pilot, and George Nagle who was taking lessons—bought Piper Cherokees. The Nagle’s bought a 1966 Cherokee 140, and the Steinbergs bought a 1968 Cherokee 180. The two Cherokees ended up next to each other at Somerset across the runway from the office. “It wasn’t until we were tied down side by side that we met,” George said.

“We were two guys from different areas, and we both had our pilot’s license,” Bill remembered. “We kind of struck up a friendship then.”

Forty-eight years later, George still owns N6342R, and Bill still owns N6557J. The two airplanes are together again, in adjacent hangars at nearby Alexandria Airport (N85).

When the young pilots would hang out it was usually at the airport. They even did an air-to-air photo shoot with their Cherokees. When they weren’t flying, they’d talk about going to college. Every now and then they would go over to each other’s house or to Buxton’s, a restaurant close to Somerset.

“I can tell you what I had back then,” Bill remembered recently over lunch at Blairstown Airport (1N7). “I had the bacon cheeseburger, fries, and the Buxton’s milkshake.”

“I made many of those milkshakes,” George said. “I worked there as a busboy, then a cook, before I got the job at Somerset as a line boy.”

George worked at the airport for six years during the summer and on weekends, beginning as a junior in high school and through all four years of college at Rutgers University. Bill worked at Somerset briefly as well. During the oil crisis, his college, Davis and Elkins in West Virginia, had to close because it didn’t have oil to heat its buildings. While he was home in New Jersey, his dad suggested Bill ask for a job at Somerset Airport.

That winter, Bill did all kinds of things from fixing the roof of an old shack to sweeping the runway. George remembered having to do the same work. When he wasn’t sweeping the runway, he would be busy fueling aircraft or moving them in and out of hangars. That’s when George and I first met, although I was too young to have any recollection of it. My dad, Jack Elliott, owned a Cherokee Arrow that he based at Somerset for 34 years before passing it on to me.

“I remember your father. I fueled him up many, many times,” George said to me. “I remember kids being with him, you guys all got out of the plane when you got back from wherever you were that day. I’d take care of fueling the airplane and would bring it back to the cinder block hangar.”

Like Bill and George, I earned my certificate at Somerset when I was 17—just a few years after them in 1989. I spent most Saturdays as a kid tagging along with my dad as he flew around the northeast to interview people for his column Wings Over Jersey, which ran each Sunday in New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, from 1963 to 2001.

While I didn’t know Bill or George, they knew my dad through his columns. “I remember reading the Wings Over Jersey column every week,” George said.

“The only reason I got the Sunday Star-Ledger for all those years was for your dad’s articles,” Bill added. “We both have his book, too.”

By the time I was taking lessons, George had graduated college and was no longer working at the airport. In 1981, his parents moved to a house near Sky Manor Airport (N40), about 15 nautical miles due west of Somerset, and George’s airplane got a new home.

“Once we went to college and then George’s airplane moved away to Sky Manor, we completely lost touch,” Bill said. “I would fly in and see the plane occasionally tied down at the approach end of Runway 7, and then all of sudden, one day it’s gone.”

Together again

Fast forward a few decades. In 2006, George became
the owner of 42R, and I became the owner of my dad’s Arrow, N4858J, while I was living in the Midwest. Meanwhile, in 2007, George moved his Cherokee to Alexandria Airport, about three miles away from Sky Manor. Bill took ownership of 57J in 1997 after his dad had a heart attack and stopped flying. He kept it in the same tiedown spot at Somerset until he decided to move the airplane a little closer to his home in 2009. He chose to move to a hangar at Alexandria.

In 2012, I moved back to New Jersey. My dad had a stroke the previous fall, and when my position as senior editor of EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine was eliminated a few months later, I chose to come home to help care for my dad. Somerset didn’t have any hangars available, but Alexandria did.

As luck would have it, my hangar was next to George’s, which is how we met. The three Cherokees that had last been together in 1981 at Somerset were together once again, 31 years later at Alexandria.

Bill and I have since moved to new hangars. He is now in the T-hangar behind George. Had I stayed in my original hangar, the three Cherokees would be in adjacent hangars today.

A familiar face on final

“One day after I had moved to Alexandria, I’m waiting to take off and I see George’s airplane come in,” Bill said. “It’s been 25 or 30 years. I call on the radio, ‘George is that you? It’s Bill Steinberg.’”

“I saw his airplane and thought, ‘I know that plane,’” George said.

“I went around the patch, landed, and we talked like it was yesterday,” Bill said. “We picked up where we left off.”

Bill couldn’t believe George had three daughters and the oldest was 25, and George was surprised to learn that Bill had a son and daughter about the same age as his younger kids. When they last spoke, neither one was married.

The two quickly realized that they both had Honda Gold Wing motorcycles. Bill had been doing motorcycle trips, and George said he was interested in doing some as well. “We’ll go on motorcycle trips, and it’s all because of flying,” Bill said.

They’ve been taking motorcycle trips together every year since they reconnected 15 years ago. One trip they went to Canada, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. On other trips they’ve gone to historic sites, such as Gettysburg, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Piper Museum in Lock Haven.

They fly together too, but mostly to local destinations for a $100 hamburger. It was on one of those flights that I was reintroduced to Bill.

I was coming in for landing at Alexandria and put the gear down, but didn’t have three green lights. I saw a Cherokee 180 waiting to take off and asked if they could confirm my gear was down as I did a low pass over the runway. Bill responded, “Steve is that you? It’s Bill Steinberg and George Nagle. We’d be happy to.” They confirmed my gear was down right after I realized the panel lights were on.

Bill and I had met a year or two earlier. He had recognized my N number from when my dad had the airplane at Somerset. I was taking my sister and nephew for a ride, and we talked briefly.

What cemented my friendship with Bill and George was a flight the two took in 2017. George saw that the Commemorative Air Force’s (CAF’s) B–29 Fifi was coming to Trenton-Mercer County Airport (TTN) and suggested they go for a flight.

When they showed up to check in, I was working the ride desk. I’ve been a crew member on Fifi since 2012. I’m qualified to fly as a scanner in the back of the aircraft and work the ride desk assisting passengers. For the past few years, I’ve served as a tour leader, organizing the operations and crew at various stops.

The CAF’s mission is to honor the men and women who built, maintained, and flew these aircraft in World War II, educate the public on the sacrifices made by the Greatest Generation, and inspire the next generation of pilots, mechanics, engineers, and those who may want to serve their community or country. One of the reasons I volunteer with the CAF is to honor my dad who served in the Army during World War II, although the only flying he did was in a Waco glider in southern France.

Bill’s father also served in the Army during World War II. He had applied for flight training but was denied, he thinks, because of an issue with depth perception. He never lost his passion for aviation and would take Bill, along with his brother and sister, to the airport to watch planes when they were young, instilling a passion for aviation in both his boys.

George’s father also had a love of aviation, which started with building RC models before deciding to learn to fly himself. He passed that passion on to his son. The same could be said of me and my dad.

“Your dad inspired you to be in aviation,” Bill said. “I don’t think I’d be in aviation if not for my dad. If they could see that now, they would be so proud and so happy with us.”

The fact that Bill, George, and I are all legacy aircraft owners, flying airplanes that have been in each of our families since we were kids, is not lost on us. We realize the privilege it is to own our dads’ Cherokees and how those bonds connect us in a special way.

“I would never think of getting rid of the airplane because it was my dad’s and there are so many memories that are attached to it,” Bill said.

I feel the same way. I grew up in 58J. My dad bought her before I was born, and I often joke that Juliet has been a part of our family since before we had a family.

“I think it keeps us close to our fathers,” George said. “My father always loved airplanes. I think having the same interest brought us closer together. Even at 94, you can still see his face light up when we talk about these airplanes.”

Bill had the same experience with his father, who died in 2000. “We actually became quite close after I learned how to fly. Up until that point, he had always been my father. After that point, we were friends, too, like best friends.”

Although my dad died six years ago at the age of 94, I am still very much my father’s son. He was an aviation journalist and flew our Arrow in pursuit of the stories he wrote. All these years later, I fly Juliet for stories that I write.

“We are the next-generation caretakers of these great planes,” George said. “Aviation is a neat enabler. We remember the history, and it’s been a lifelong, common interest. What other activity is like that? I can’t think of one.”

Steve Schapiro is a private pilot with complex, high-performance, and tailwheel endorsements. He owns a Piper Arrow.