Many memories of airline adventures

Now that I’m officially an old guy, having reached the ripe, old age of 65, I feel I now have the right to inform the young’uns about the “way it used to be.”

One of my favorite topics is transportation. My mom grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, so we would make periodic trips to visit my grandparents in Duluth. That usually involved a long train trip – and sometimes a flight.

I’m old enough to have flown on an actual DC-3, which Frontier Airlines used in those days. I was little more than a toddler, but I remember it well because the famous Douglas airliner was a tail-dragger, so I remember walking “uphill” to get to my seat. Why I remember this particular detail, I have no answer, except that I always loved airplanes.

My father told stories from his World War II days about the great P-38 pursuit fighter. Even flying high above my dad and his comrades in the infantry, the P-38 was instantly recognizable with its twin boom configuration. The Nazis called it the “fork-tailed” devil. And since my dad loved the P-38, I did, too, and when I moved to Lovell, I was thrilled to discover that Bill Powell flew P-38s in the war as a photo reconnaissance pilot. I had the distinct privilege of seeing Bill’s photo albums of images he took from the sky including Paris and the Arc de Triomphe and the beaches of Normandy just before D-Day.

I could talk to Bill about airplanes for hours, if I had the time. What a swell guy!

When I was young, we didn’t face the security we do now at airports. When my father or a relative was arriving at Riverton Regional Airport, we would step outside the back door of the airport and into an open, fenced area and watch the planes land and taxi, waving to whoever we were picking up as they exited the plane.

My favorite airliner was the Convair 580. The Convair had a remarkable sound with its huge, Allison turboprop engines that powered four-blade propellers. To this day, I will seek videos of the powerful plane just to hear the sound of those engines with their distinctive sound. Sadly, there are few flying around the world today.

My father would often regale us with airplane stories during long drives across Wyoming, from his war experiences to belly landing on foam when an airliner’s landing gear wouldn’t deploy. But perhaps my favorite involved him missing a flight and playing catchup.

One time, Dad missed a Frontier flight in Riverton, the plane taxiing away as he arrived at the airport. It was a trip he had to make, so he got his boarding pass and ran next door to the air charter service. He booked a flight with charter company owner Tim Coleman, and the two of them took to the air to intercept the Frontier flight.

Fearless Frontierless, as my dad called the airline, had to land in Casper first, so Dad and Tim headed for the next stop, Laramie. The charger plane, a Cessna or something similar, was far slower than the Convair but didn’t have to make that first stop. As Dad told the story, the two “birds” were in the air together as they approached Laramie, and after they landed, Dad hopped out of the charter plane and, ticket in hand, climbed the steps into the Convair to continue his journey.

Man, you couldn’t pull a stunt like that in this day and age.

But flying was an adventure in those days. As a kid, I would tape record with my little cassette player the sounds of the airplane I was riding in, and I would take to the air with neighbor Roy Norman, who would fly us around the area for a bird’s-eye view.

Now, however, flying seems like such a chore, a hassle. The airlines cram everyone together like sardines, everybody seems crabby, security is a pain and it just isn’t fun anymore. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Then there’s train travel and tracks that go under Boysen Reservoir, but that’s another column for another day.