January 2015-
I am proud to say I am a child of the 1960’s.
Who could have had a more exciting time to grow up? We had the Beatles; The Rolling Stones; Crosby, Stills and Nash. We grew our hair long, we ran naked in the woods, we explored philosophy and religions from other worlds.
We were also troubled about so much of the world going on around us. There was the Vietnam War, civil rights, the environment—that’s just the beginning of the list—and we took all of it on.
We marched, we protested, we sang, we voted—and most of all, we stepped up. Many of the changes in and improvements to the world today had their genesis in the 1960s. And that’s a fact.
The 1960s were also a good time for little airplanes. I got to interview Grace Slick, lead singer for the Jefferson Airplane. We didn’t talk so much about rock ‘n’ roll, but instead about a special time she remembered flying in a small airplane in the 1960s.
She and “the Airplane” had been hired for a gig in Alaska, and the final portion of their travel was by small floatplane. Slick didn’t remember her performance that night as much as the exhilaration of cruising the wilderness low and slow, seeing animals, the clouds, and beautiful warm light from the midnight sun. Little airplanes cause very personal moments and special, special memories.
Aviation was a growing concern in the 1960s and the setup for the all-time peak of General Aviation in the 1970s. The idea of finding a General Aviation airplane in every garage seemed like a reasonable goal, and even loftier ideas about folks using their airplanes instead of the Studebaker to commute to work every day were rife.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in aviation. My dad had a red-and-white Piper Clipper when I was a kid. I spent many an hour sandbagging from the right seat, meticulously tracking our path on a chart, boldly pointing out features on the landscape that I’d found on the sectional. Sometimes I even got to steer!
I learned to work the E6-B, how to measure distances with the plotter, and could even figure out magnetic headings if pressed. That period of my childhood infected me forever with General Aviation.
But truth be told, in terms of aviation, I missed out on the 1960s. There was this war going on in Southeast Asia… and well, that was a huge inspiration to stay in college and get good grades. And as a lowly college student, who in the world could afford to run out and pay $14 an hour to fly a Tomahawk?
Then there were all those distractions, like rock ‘n’ roll and mind-altering substances (notice how nicely I said that?) and girls!
But by the 1970s I was back in the cockpit, having worked my way up to flight instructor. I’d taxi out with the student d’heure and ground control would begin their spiel and the student would look at me as if their David Clarks had just caused some sort of spontaneous lobotomy.
“What did that guy say?” my student would invariably ask. By about the sixth sortie of the day, even I was not quite sure what ATC had said.
One time I got home from the airport about midnight (not unusual when you’re teaching night flying, especially if it’s summer) and I was too tired to even speak. I closed my eyes for a moment, but I could still hear the tower:”Piper53hotelmaintainrunwayheadingattheBoysenonefivedegreeradialturnleftheadingtwofivezeroclimbandmaintainthreethousandsquawkfoursevenfourtwo.”
Ugh. I picked up my Sgt. Pepper’s album and it immediately transported me back to the 1960s. My poor little brain was trying to entertain itself by seeing just how many of the faces on the album cover I could identify.
And before I knew it, I was dead to the world, fast asleep… but dreaming like a wild man.
Or a Wolfman.
In my dream I was an air traffic controller, and I was in a busy tower somewhere. Except somehow, I was Wolfman Jack, live on XERB. It was the Wolfman pushing tin!
“Aahhhuuuuuuuu! It’s Wolfman Jack, naked in the tower, playing with my boogaloooooo!”
To my amazement, I was directing traffic and howling like a wolf. And the only words coming out of my mouth were rock lyrics: “Seven-thirty-seven comin’ out of the sky, won’t you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride, you gotta move!
“Piper at the hold short: get your motor running, head out on the skyway!”
When fog began to cover the field, I recorded the ATIS. “Wolfman says breathe deep the gathering gloom, watch lights fade from every room. ‘Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!”
And a quiet little voice came over the radio. “Tower, does that mean it’s IFR? I’m not rated!”
“You’re a real nowhere man, baby!” and then I let go another “Aahhhuuuuuuuu!”
The pilot answered back, “Help me if you can, I’m feeling down!”
Other pilots began to chime in. “You’ll get by with a little help from your friends,” said one.
“If you can’t get home, it’s fun to stay at the YMCA,” someone added.
“There is a house in New Orleans,” still another said.
The concerned pilot replied, “But even if I do make it out of here somehow, there’s standing lenticulars, mountains waves, any way I go!”
“Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world! AAAAuuuuuuuu!!!!”
Then, I continued, “Take it easy; don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. You gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing you ever do.”
“Help me make it through the night,” the pilot pleaded.
“Aaaaaauuuuuu!!!! There must be some way out of here. You’re going to have to make up your mind, pick up on one and leave the other one behind.”
“How did this happen?” the dejected pilot radioed.
“It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe. Aaaaaauuuuuu!!!”
I kept dreaming and moving those airplanes around. When I woke up in the morning, I was still sitting in the chair where I’d collapsed. I took one look at my scary self in the mirror and howled.
But it made me think. You know, air traffic controllers everywhere in the world are required to speak English. But why not try a more universal language, a language that everybody knows—the language of rock ‘n’ roll?
The next day at the airport, I keyed the mic and shared my thought with clearance delivery. “What about speaking rock ‘n’ roll?” I suggested.
There was a long pause before he came back to me. “Piper 53 Hotel, all we are is dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”
There was another pause and then,”Piper53hotelmaintainrunwayheadingattheBoysenonefivedegreeradialturnleftheadingtwofivezeroclimbandmaintainthreethousandsquawkfoursevenfourtwo.”
“Roger,” I said, and read him the clearance back. “See you in an hour.”
A couple of seconds went by and the clearance delivery guy keyed the mic. “You’re invited back again to this locality, to have a heapin’ helpin’ of our hospitality.”
I love it when music brings people together.
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.
