Chapter 54

It was noisy but our pet pussy kept the pimps and drunks at bay. I must say we accumulated a nice collection of Saturday Night Specials and genuine Italian switchblades. The LMDP (lettuce, mayonnaise, dill pickle) fella from the tower did stop and pick us up. The plane was waiting, full of gas, oil and magnetometer. Sans blood, which was very nice of them ... at least I thought so. Both evil guys survived which didn't suit Piper at all.

There was a nice letter from Uncle Captain Crossman taped over the compass asking the family to the ceremonial base closing August 15th, 1955, and, incidentally, Navy Captain Crossman's elevation to Rear Admiral Crossman and his subsequent retirement. General Uncle Bleeker will not be the only family with a star.

Now, this may sound a little strange, we are now volunteer scientists for the USGS GLEE (United States Geologic Survey Great Lakes Exploratory Expedition. And the first thing they want us to do is overfly the area where the paddlewheel aircraft carriers landed planes and lost them over side, over bow, over hill, over dale and outta gas. It seems that numbers of fledgling pilots learned the true meaning of 'controlled crash.' Land, takeoff and "Oh Shit." ... not necessarily in that order.

(Excellent website for the Paddlewheel Carriers: Paddlewheel Carriers. I recommend it.)

The Survey wanted us to quarter the Lake allowing our recording magnetometer to record the magnetic anomalies with precision. As Federal Volunteers we would receive all our fuel, oil. parts and a stipend along with a daily renumeration. All we had to do was fly the lake east and west from Gary Indiana, to Milwaukee like crop dusters. Concluding that operation we were to fly a north-south pattern using the Grand Haven Michigan - Milwaukee Wisconsin line as a turn around.

"One of you flies and one of you looks out for ships," we were told by a USGS bigwig. "Please don't hit any ships."

It has been claimed that the 200 aircraft in the lake were all from missed landings and that no planes were "tossed" overboard. Can't be so. Neither Carrier had a hangar deck let alone an elevator. I can not imagine the captain returning to base after every fuck up to deliver the results of said fuck up to a repair facility. Ain't happening.

"Clear the flight deck" means clear the flight deck and if you can't fix it good enough to fly away, throw it away. I suppose that everybody spouted propaganda during the war ... just don't expect me to believe it.

According to the literature EVERY navy aviator during the war trained on the paddlewheel carriers. Splashing along training carrier pilots in the U-boat infested waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean is a very good way to make a U-Boat captain extremely happy. Every operational carrier was needed in the combat zone.

End of Rant.

We accumulated hours behind the stick at a phenomenal rate. Rather than suffer through the hundred hour teardown, the Navy replaced our tired engine with a brand new one every 99 engine hours. Our hundred hour check out was done by a dozen Navy air dales in no time flat and the thousand hour looked like ants swarming an open picnic basket.

Our old engines went to school and came back educated to a fare thee well in new crates. All the receiving officer wanted from us was a destination and they'd ship them by military convoy. Ben Franklin received them for us.

The stipend was a dollar an hour apiece, 24 hours away ... a buck an hour to sleep. We took a week off ... read our mail, which took all one day ... well, four days for a crash course with the Beech and the hood. Tricycle landing gear is really different. Grace did very well ... I passed. Then it was back to flying the lake, now we could fly from dark thirty to dark thirty at five knots above stall speed.

The hours were beginning to tell on us both. Grace snapped at me ... I snapped back. I called Meigs, our base of operations, and requested a face to face with the boss.

"You guys are volunteers ... work when you want. Just get it done before your sailing."

We shipped the boat by flatbed, wide load, front and rear pilot cars. It cost less than the sail would have cost.

We were heartily sick of the south end of the lake by the 15th of August. We took our family and every one else we could cram into the Beech and flew to Rock Island for the coronation. The 18 has seating for six plus two. Daddy, WSM, two babies, Carole, Pete and the cats ... and the pilots.

Candy was in OCS flight training and we never even got to say goodbye.