A Passion for Flying...Where are Aviation Safety Ethics Today

 Teaching us to fly right!

               Sammy Mason


by Rob Stapleton

Its not hard to imagine how those of us who have been watching birds fly while growing up and admiring nature would yearn to fly ourselves.

It was not just the flapping of wings, or the circling above that first caught my eye it was the precision and exactness of a birds landing that interested me.

The glide into the area, the change in their wing's angle of attack, and then the back winging motion to set down in an exact spot.

Amazing, truly amazing, to see small and large birds land on telephone and power lines high above the streets were we were playing below.

Later I took this fascination to the local airport where I grew up.

Santa Paula, California had a family owned airport and once I could break away from my weekend chores it was a race to head to the airport. I rode my bicycle down Ojai Road as soon as the chores were done, once arriving it was pure joy to watch aircraft taxing for take off, rotating for take-off and the engine at full power climbing above.

Of course I always imagined that it was me, pushing the rudder pedals, checking the mags and then fire-walling the throttle to thrust forward and lurch into the sky.All the time adjusting the pitch for climb and soaring above my home town toward the clouds above.

This would become a passion that witnessed pilots from all over the world coming to our airport. Mira Slovak, Rex Wells, Mike Dewey, Steve McQueen, Cliff Roberts, others and then there was Sammy Mason.

Mason was a quiet man, religious balding with caterpillar bushy eyebrows, and a quick smile... a man of precision and decisive action.

He was the father of my friend, later to become my flight instructor Anthony "Tony" Mason. Named after Tony LeVier a aviation racer, and test pilot for Lockheed.

Tony's father Sammy was also a test pilot for Lockheed, and well known for his flying from his days when he led the Hollywood Hawks barnstorming group to aerial antics over California.

Has I transitioned from a nameless boy on a bike to a boy who liked to help clean aircraft and polish wind screens, conversations about aviation safety were easily heard in the hangars among aviators that used my talents.

My style was to work hard, act like I wasn't listening and then focus on what they were saying. This way they wouldn't stop, thus continuing the conversation about airspeed, engine settings, short field take offs and landings. Just the stuff any teenager would love to know, and do and do it I would.

What does any of this have to do with ethics or aviation safety you may ask? Most conversations rallied around the topic of flight safety. Be it aerobatics, racing or flying cross country it seemed that safety was the key word, and objective of these professionals.

Sometimes the rumor mill (which all airports possess) would be how one of the more experienced pilots would talk to another less experienced pilot to give him or her an idea of how close they were coming to their demise with their manner of flying.

Those of who feared and admired these pilots, and Mason was one of these were our idols.
To be continued-