May 2014- Thanks to Hollywood, I grew up in a world filled with cowboys. They had great names like Chance and Colorado and Paladin. And these cowboys always had a special horse, one that stuck with them through thick and thin, often saving the cowboy’s life while he was chasing rustlers.
At night these cowboys would gather round and talk wistfully about the horses they once rode, and the gals they once knew, remembering them all with unwavering affection. These conversations would sometimes go long into the evening, with the cowboys huddled close together around the fire with their backs to the wind—a risky behavior for men who ate mostly beans.
Pilots are unquestionably the cowboys of the 21st century. We head out over the horizon in search of lost beeves (well, hamburgers) and develop bonds with our 100 LL mounts that rival anything resting on Boot Hill. We love our airplanes and will do just about anything to keep the life they give us. Like horses are to cowboys, our airplanes are our freedom.
Now, some of us aviating cowboys own our mounts and have a nice little hangar to keep them in. Like cowboys who fed their horses bit of apple to reward them, the hangar keeps all the things our mounts will need: fresh cans of oil, degreaser, and maybe even a crisp new Sporty’s catalog.
Some of us borrow our steeds by the hour, paying the local FBO that feeds and cares for a small remuda. We might ride them all at one time or another, but more than likely, we renter pilots have one particular plane we prefer over the others. One way or another, we are kindred to our aircraft.
Cowboys would sign up to take some mighty cross-country trips (like, from Texas to Wichita) driving cattle to a railhead. And come the end of the cattle drive, all cowboys wanted to wet their whistles.
It’s not too different than the groups of pilots who fly from all over the country to attend EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh. Just watch the aircraft taxing in and you’ll soon see a group of modern cowboys who want nothing more than a cold beer, de rigueur on many postflight checklists.
As with flying, cowboys faced some remarkable dangers. There were hostile forces along the trails, and these folks had as much interest in sharing their Great Plains as, say, air traffic controllers care to share their Class Bravo airspace.
There were gunslingers, rustlers, Native Americans defending their territory… and none were impressed by a group of men who were having a great time together riding en masse and singing camp songs.
There were also thunderstorms, rattlesnakes and stampedes of wild-eyed longhorns, just to keep things interesting. (Sounds like my last trip to Sun ‘n Fun, excepting the cows, of course.)
The freedom of traversing wide open spaces by horseback was a big part of our yesteryear. Daniel Boone once said, “All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse and a good wife.”
More recently, Ronald Reagan remarked, “I’ve often said there is nothing better for the inside of man than the outside of a horse.”
After three failed marriages, even Groucho Marx was thinking of horses. He noted that “alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.”
Now airplanes won’t nuzzle up to you for a carrot, but they are nevertheless an item of extreme emotional attachment for most pilots. You won’t hear them talking about “the airplane I fly,” but instead reference “my airplane.” Mine. Just like a little kid that wrestles his toy away from a playmate. Mine. Cowboys had their own special horses—mine!—and if anyone took that horse without the cowboy’s permission, they were likely inviting themselves to a hangin.’
So nothing is as sad as when an airplane comes to the end of the trail. Sometimes in the movies, a cowboy won the day only to find his horse down, victim of an arrow. On his knees, the cowboy strokes his horse’s mane. One final whinny and his best friend is gone, something even cowboys are allowed to be emotional about.
While Hollywood could take those kinds of liberties with horses, they didn’t dare illustrate the untimely death of an airplane. Can you imagine an episode of “Sky King” and his Cessna 310 where Penny runs to her uncle and says, “Uncle Sky, Uncle Sky! The Songbird has a broken landing gear!”
“Yes, Penny, the right main is busted up pretty good,” Sky King would say. “Best thing for her at this point is a bullet through the cylinders.”
And as Penny sobbed, her uncle would turn to her and whisper, “It’s going to be all right, Penny. Look, the Songbird has a foal!” while the camera would pan over to a frisky little C-152 taxiing in a nearby pasture. That’s Hollywood, but not the real world.
For pilots, it might go something like this…
You’ve taken your airplane in for its usual annual and a few days later the phone rings. It’s your A&P. He’s found big problems with the spars; there’s a new AD that requires the empennage to be removed and reinforced; and despite his best effort, he cannot get three of the four cylinders to come up to the minimum compression.
There’s usually a long pause at this point in the conversation, a polite hesitation offered to allow the pilot to realize what the mechanic is saying: without some luck and a monumental intervention, this airplane’s flying days are over.
Of course, the first reaction is denial. We tell ourselves that we’ll spend whatever it takes to get her up and flying again. And sometimes we do. But for most of us, this news is only the first step down a road that leaves us with the reminder that, like people and horses, even airplanes have a destiny.
When Roy Roger’s horse Trigger died, he had him stuffed. That’ll probably never be big with pilots.
“Say, Lyn, is that your Tri-Pacer hanging from the ceiling there?”
“Yep. Had her stuffed. Looks almost like she’s really flying, doesn’t it?”
Though we may never be comfortable with the decision, most of us ultimately get to a place where we know it’s best to put our airplanes out to pasture. That can be the moment where we become overwhelmed with sentiment. Suddenly we forget about all the times she cost us a fortune to repair, that day we had to have a magneto flown in lest we remain stranded at some godforsaken outpost, or the night we had to buy an airline ticket just to get home when our mount was a little under the weather (literally).
Horses are at least flesh and blood; why are so emotional about something that is just aluminum and upholstery and wire? Because in the end, we all love the things that touch our heart. And if airplanes do anything, they surely do that.
Screenwriter, philanthropist and good guy Lyn Freeman has been writing aviation articles since before John Glenn joined the Marines. He is the former editor of Plane & Pilot magazine, founder and current chairperson of the Build-a-Plane organization, a master scuba diver, a championship table tennis player and an all-around Renaissance man. Send questions or comments to editor@piperflyer.org.
