32 Soaring • August 2019 • http://www.ssa.org
totally off topic, so back to becoming
a tow pilot.
The first evidence of my having
towed a glider was on April 4, 1965
when my log book shows I was flying
a Piper J-3 with a 65 hp motor. It must
have been an interesting tow (it was a
SGU-2-22) as even at 300 or so feet
field elevation, and spring time in LA
(that’s Lower Alabama), I suspect it
took a while to get to altitude.
Although I have no recollection of
the specifics of being checked out to
tow gliders, I’m confident that I was
thoroughly briefed by then president
of our glider club, Colonel Raymond
Johnson, who had pulled me aloft
a number of times with an Army
L-19. Or perhaps I was briefed by
Carl Bosen, another member of our
club who had been towing us with a
PT-17 and with whom I did a bit
of crop dusting out of the Headland
Airport.
Within a matter of weeks, the club
gained access to an 85 hp J-3 and then
later yet another Piper with a 115 hp
motor. By this time, we had relocated
our club to the Headland, Alabama
Airport as the Army felt that our use
of its stage fields, which dotted the
surrounding countryside and were
used for training both fixed-wing
and rotary-wing pilots, was no longer
a place from which the club should
operate. Because the war in South-
east Asia was building rapidly, the
need for Army Aviators was in high
demand, so we were banned from
landing on government property. No
matter, the Headland Airport worked
out quite nicely.
We would also fly our gliders from
the Ozark Airport, which was 25 or
so miles west of Headland. One of
the fixed base operators, J. D. Ball,
purchased a TG-3, which was used
for instructional flights along with
the club’s 2-22. In 1968, the club
purchased a 1-26, which we also flew
from the Ozark Airport. One of our
club members wandered out of glid-
ing range from OZR and landed at
a stage field between the town of
Ozark and the Ft. Rucker complex.
This was not the first time one of the
club gliders had landed at this stage
field. No, it was not, as I had ventured
a bit too far from the airport at Ozark
a year earlier in what was then the
club’s high-performance single-place
... an SGU-19, which is essentially a
single-place 2-22.
There were about half a dozen H-34
helicopters parked on the stage field.
Fortunately, none had their engines
running and their main rotors spun
up. You can imagine the look on the
face of the South Vietnam Air Force
student pilot’s face when he glancedout from the right seat of his chop-
per and saw me sitting beside him in
the glider. We were instructed to derig
and vamoose, which of course we did.
No aerotow retrieve that day. At that
point, the powers that be at Ft. Rucker
stated in no uncertain terms that they
did not want to see a repeat perfor-
mance of my ignominious arrival at
their rotary-wing stage field.
Fast forward to about a year later.
Our intrepid 1-26 pilot, who had just
landed there, had called me to see if I
might retrieve him with the Cherokee
we had been using as yet another tow-
plane. As you might imagine, I won-
dered if that was a really great idea,
but I instructed him to move the 1-26
to the far north end of the somewhat
short runway and be ready.
I landed, shut down the Cherokee,
and tossed one end of the towrope to
said pilot while hooking up the oth-
er end to the towplane. With engine
running and slack coming out of the
towrope, I noticed an Army sedan full
of MPs, lights a-whirling, just enter-
ing the stage field from the south end.
“Hang on,” said I, as I applied maxi-
mum enthusiasm and started the take-
off roll.
By now it was clear that the MPs
were going to play chicken and were
heading down the runway in our direc-
tion. With about a thousand or so feet