Tag: pilot

A monument to the ‘taste of flight’

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –1519), Renaissance artist and inventor who documented theoretical flying experiments.

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As a licensed pilot, granted one who hasn’t taken the controls of an aircraft in many years, I can still feel da Vinci’s intoxicating longing for flight.

Even as a kid, my young eyes were turned skyward. Dreaming of a day that I might taste the feeling of flight.

That same longing obviously lingered in two little-known, long-ago aviators from Shelby County in East Texas. Their flying adventures were reportedly the subject of family reunion stories for many years—into the 1980s, for sure.

Standing for a long time as a “monument,” of sorts, to their tastes of flight was the abandoned frame of an old airplane in the Southern part of the county known as the Dreka community.

I first saw what was left of the rusty remains in Florence Duncan’s yard on a dirt road some 40 years ago. A stop at Mrs. Duncan’s house, while visiting family friends nearby, introduced me to her and to the fabled stories of the flying machine. Even then, it was already slowly succumbing to grass and weeds.

“It’s been there since ‘bout 1947,” she said of the old airplane’s skeletal parts. “I keep it there for sentimental value.”

“Two of the boys (family members Ernest Duncan and Duncan Rolland) bought the airplane and wanted to turn one of our fields in front of the house into a runway for it,” Mrs. Duncan reminisced. “My husband, Dean, and I told them ‘No.’ But you know what? They cut my persimmon tree and flew it there anyway.”

“It was an old airplane,” she continued. “Duncan said he gave $150 for it.

When they lit it out there that first time, they hit a terrace and broke one of the wheels.

“They fixed it with bailin’ wire before they decided to go to Center in it,” Mrs. Duncan continued. “They came back in a little while, but they didn’t set down on the field quite soon enough. The wheel they wired up didn’t hold, and the airplane crashed, almost flipped over.

“I was scared to death,” Mrs. Duncan recalled. “I went runnin’ out toward the field. The whole family was right behind me. When I got close enough, I heard Ernest say, ‘I told you we should have lit it down in Center.’ That’s when I knew they were all right. I couldn’t believe they crawled out of that airplane and walked away from it.

“After the crash,” she said, “Van Bertherd, a young man just down the road, thought he could do better. He worked on it and headed down to the corn patch with it. The corn was just coming up at the time, and the plane got stuck.

“We wound up havin’ to take the mule down to the field,” Mrs. Duncan continued, “then towed it to a level stretch on the road. Van got it off, just barely clearing the fence and the pine trees, but came right back. Said it needed lots more work.”

According to Mrs. Duncan, the wrecked aircraft was eventually dragged to a corner of the yard where children climbed and played on it. “Pretending to fly,” she said. “I went out there once and asked where they were flyin’. ‘Way up high over Dallas,’ they said.

“Duncan was shaken up for a long time by that wreck , but he admitted later to wishin’ the airplane had been salvaged,” Mrs. Duncan recalled. “Said it would be an antique now, worth a lot more than the $150 he paid for it.”

When I saw it in the 1980s, the wreckage of the Dreka flying machine had reportedly  spent years serving as a kid’s playground, target practice, and neglect. By then, little remained but the bare frame, which had once been covered in fabric that had long since rotted away. There were no wings or motor. By appearance, it was a small plane with a cockpit just large enough for a pilot and a passenger in tandem.

A visit to the area last week revealed no trace of the old airframe. I couldn’t even locate Mrs. Duncan’s residence in the heavily forested region. She reportedly passed away in the early 1990s.

I do remember her closing remarks during our visit back then, however.

“I’m glad Duncan and Ernest weren’t hurt in the crash,” she said. Then added, “About the only thing I’m still mad about is my persimmon tree.

“It never did come back.”

—Leon Aldridge

(PHOTO ABOVE — Mrs. Florence Duncan standing next to the Dreka airplane wreckage in her yard about 1981 or ’82. Photo taken by Patricia McCoy, a reporter for the East Texas Light during my first tenure at the newspaper as publisher.)

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Friends we haven’t yet met

There are no strangers here, Only friends you haven’t yet met.

— William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) Irish poet

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Friends come from everywhere. Some we have for a short time, some for a lifetime. And a few, it takes a little longer to meet.

I used to ride motorcycles. I used to fly airplanes. Both have taken me to many places where I’ve met many friends.

Like the time about 1978, give or take a year. I left out of Mount Pleasant, heading south on a motorcycle. Harlingen in the Texas Rio Grande Valley was the destination. To an air show. Not just any airshow, but the annual October event staged by the Texas war plane preservation group known today as the Commemorative Air Force. Their trademark was, and still is, a realistic reenactment of the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. Flying authentic 1940s vintage combat aircraft.

At the Harlingen airport, I dismounted my bike and walked toward the entrance gate, camera bag over my shoulder. I saw a small portable building off to one side bearing a sign simply saying, ‘Press.’ So, I pulled out my Texas Press Association card. I was not preregistered for credentials, but as my grandmother always told me, “It doesn’t hurt to ask, all they can say is no.” In this case, the young lady at the desk said, yes. “What publication are you representing?”

“The newspaper in Naples, Texas … The Monitor,” I reported. Then waited for questions.

“Here’s your credentials.” She shoved a lanyard across the table and added, “There’s a golf cart outside. Someone will take you to the media bleachers.” I was disappointed that she didn’t ask, “Where’s Naples, Texas?”

The cart stopped at a grandstand on the flight line and center stage for the show. “Take any seat not marked VIP,” instructed the driver. From where I stood at the moment, it all looked like VIP to me.

Spotting an empty seat just aft of the designated ones, I settled in as a black 1941 Lincoln convertible pulled up. “Ladies and gentlemen …” the PA system blared. “Featured announcer and celebrity guest, Tennessee Ernie Ford.”

Ford, popular singer and television host known in country and western, pop, and gospel musical genres from the 1940s through the 1970s, served as a navigator and bombardier in World War II leading to his involvement with the CAF from 1976 to 1988. He was seated in the VIP section. Right smack dab in front of me.

I would attend many CAF air shows in the years to come, but that first time was memorable for several reasons. Sitting near Tennessee Ernie Ford. Meeting Greg “Pappy” Boyington, the World War II fighter pilot Ace portrayed by Robert Conrad in the 1970s TV show “Baa Baa Black Sheep” about Boyington’s wartime service. And learning the perks of a press card.

I also remembered the Pearl Harbor dramatization. Fighters, bombers, pyrotechnics, smoke, sirens blaring. And that pause in the middle of it all clearing a Southwest Airlines commercial flight for landing.

That trip, and the events of that day, I would remember for a long time. Some 30 years later, in fact, when I was at the EAA Air Venture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin watching the CAF reenactment again. Working an outdoor trade show at the largest airshow of its kind in the world. Where every July, aircraft take-offs and landings total 21 to 23 thousand in 11-days. This time, working with Portacool colleague, Jim Altom.

A guy stops and greets Jim as a longtime friend. Jim turns to me and says, “Leon, meet Randy Henderson … best pilot you’ll ever meet.”

We quickly became acquainted as airplanes buzzed overhead. I learned that Henderson was a championship aerobatic pilot flying airshows worldwide and a captain for Southwest Airlines.

I related to my newfound friend, the story of that first CAF event down in Harlingen where the show paused for a Southwest flight to land. “I couldn’t help but think,” I laughed, “what an experience it must have been for passengers looking out the window and seeing WWII “war birds” and a full-scale “battle” underway.

“You were there, too,” Randy smiled? “I was a rookie pilot on that Southwest Flight. And I remember that day.”

Sometime after that simply-by-chance meeting, Randy performed his Texas T-Cart flying skills at a Center, Texas airshow on a Spring Saturday afternoon. We visited again, laughed, and talked about Jim Altom.

Randy is retired from Southwest now, but still dazzles spectators with airshow performances. I haven’t talked to him since our mutual friend, Jim Altom, passed away three years ago. Maybe I’ll catch Randy at a show. Soon.

I don’t ride motorcycles anymore. I don’t fly airplanes anymore, either. Both activities best left to those who keep their skills sharp.

But I do still believe that God sends people into our lives, turning strangers into friends. Some we meet right away. And some we come close to, but have to wait a while for the meeting.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.