The sign on the fence at the Flying W Airport near Medford in South Jersey said, "See for yourself what it was like as an old-time barnstormer — Sky-hops in 1943 open-cockpit biplane — $35."
And people were doing just that on this warm July Saturday, six or seven of them by early afternoon. Now the pilot, who flew for Pan Am on weekdays, was taking a breather in the shade of the Stearman's stubby wings. Since he and his wife had been offering hops in this yellow biplane with the original Navy markings, he'd had all kinds of riders, from fragile grannies to tiny kids. Nearly every one had loved the wind-in-the-wires flying of the old Stearman.
But the passenger coming in just now was going to be something else. Pilot Terry Rush could see him being guided through the entrance gate by a friend and noticed him leaving his white cane there. The man, burly and gray-haired, was blind.
The passenger reached out and took Rush's hand in a firm grip. "Lead on, MacDuff," he said with a laugh. The aircraft sat nose-high on the apron next to the main runway at the country airport, waiting. Rush halted by the front cockpit, but the passenger, touching the wing, urged him forward. "Take me right up to the prop." At first tentatively, then with growing assurance, the man traced down the propeller from tip to hub, then passed on to the bulbous Pratt & Whitney engine cylinders, his ten fingers making light, rapid movements on the hard metal.
He moved down the body of the airplane, touching and responding to the fabric skin and aluminum skeleton, feeling the life in it. The passenger almost encircled the fuselage with his open arms, twirling thumbs in a sweeping parabolic around the ovals of the two cockpits, all in silent concentration. Nearing the tail assembly, the blind man began to smile as he sorted out in his blackness the verticals and horizontals of the rudder and elevator. He had his hands on them as the pilot demonstrated the way they moved. The man felt it and nodded.
Time to fly. With the help of the one-woman ground crew, the passenger swung himself up into the forward cockpit and was strapped down in the harness. He knotted the white silk scarf provided to the riders and turned up the collar of the leather jacket, also furnished. Ready.
In a series of rising staccatos the engine fired, and the old biplane rolled forward, fishtailing down the side of the runway. A turn into the wind, and with the surge of full power and rising slipstream the Stearman gathered speed down the white centerline, then suddenly lofted into the air as if coming out of a slingshot.
The passenger hunched forward in his seat, then slid back, face straight to the front. When the airplane dipped to the right or left, as Rush bade it to leave the takeoff pattern, the blind man made no effort to remain artificially upright in his harness, but leaned with the turns. The pilot glanced over at the mirror forward of the passenger cockpit, a kind of spyglass mounted there to check on front-seat reactions to this kind of primitive flying. He was glad to see the smile spreading behind the goggles of his rider. Encouraged by this, he did a modest wingover. Another smile, broader this time, and the passenger gave a thumbs- up sign, then made a quick palms-up gesture, obviously requesting an upside down maneuver. Rules forbade this — or, in fact, any maneuver of unusual attitude — but Rush did put the biplane through some vigorous turns and contortions, enjoying the flight himself, as he always did with a game passenger along.
Rush looked back at the face in the mirror again. "Blind," he thought. With one wing down, the pilot saw the open fields and sleek wooded stretches of Burlington County flashing by below, houses and farms like colored pushpins sticking up from the green, heat waves making a waving kaleidoscope of the distance. "Beautiful. All this: the roar of the Pratt & Whitney, the wind and motion of flight — and everything in blackness for him."
And the pilot could only wonder what his passenger was thinking there in the front cockpit … 10 minutes after takeoff: the young American of the Lafayette Escadrille was patrolling the trenchline near Arras, looking for targets of opportunity. A German machine dove at him out of the dawn sun, sputtering rapid fire. The Yank dropped to the right and wrenched his airplane around, the horizon spinning, just making it before the Fokker also turned. As the German flashed across the Nieuport's gunsight, the American gave him a three-second burst, watched the wings come apart and the airplane spin down in flames. "Number five for me; I'm an ace now," he thought in wonder ….
"Bad weather over the Alleghenies, as usual," the dispatcher said. The lanky mail pilot, suited up in bulky coveralls, helped to heave the last of the sacks into the Pitcairn Mailwing's forward bin. It was going to be a full load this close to Christmas. "Maybe," he laughed, "but you know what must go through, whatever." He took off and headed due west, into a darkening storm. The rain began to batter his helmet, and as a flashing snake tongue of fire showed ahead, he hummed "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in a monotone ….
Flying over broken terrain toward Dawson, where a good-looking waitress waited for him, the bush pilot noted the temperature read minus 20 on the thermometer fixed to the wing strut of his Canadian-built Beaver. He was over empty country: no sign of habitation or anything friendly for as far as he could see, maybe 50 miles. "Nasty place for a forced landing" went through his mind and, as if on cue, the engine started to falter and red warning lights illuminated the instrument panel. In a trice the propeller was windmilling slowly, the nose began to drop, and there was no sound except for the wind ….
The half-hour hop was almost over, and the Stearman turned back and circled the field. Making a rectangular approach, the biplane turned on final and touched down, slowing as the brakes took hold, rudder steadying the craft against a slight crosswind. Back on earth.
A group of the passenger's friends was gathered at the fence as he climbed out of the cockpit, goggles high on his forehead, silk scarf trailing down his front. Hurrahs, cheers, and shouted questions came at him from disembodied voices. "Great going … Were you scared? … How was it? … Tell us!"
The blind man rolled his stone eyes to heaven, still stunned by the immediacy of the experience, reveling in the arrant profligacy of the mind's eye owned by all sightless. How could he tell them? How could they understand? Why should he even try?
When he could speak, the blind passenger said, "Yes, it was everything I expected it to be," then felt for his cane to get through the gate.
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