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

Part 2-
Continued from 2/09/2013

The concept of mentoring and decision making was used as part of the Certified Flight Instructor’s mantra, at least with the flight instruction that I received in the 1960s. 

While my first lessons were with Mike Dewey of Dewey Aviation at the Santa Paula( KSZP) airport, and he was good…he soon became too busy. Dewey’s business was like this...flying from 7 a.m. on the weekends until dark.

As my father was getting his license I was hanging around the Dewey’s Fixed Base of Operations (FBO) during his instruction.

All the students were watching their wrist watches to see if it was their time to fly. When a plane landed and was five minutes late it backed up the schedule. My first lessons were only half-hours and this put a crimp in Dewey’s days.

Once my friend Tony, the son of Sammy Mason turned 17-years old he got his Private License and immediately started on getting his Commercial license and Certified Flight Instructor ratings.

He did both all in one day…on his 18^th birthday.

This thrilled my other airport friends Johnny, Harrison and Pete and my bother Vince as we spent our free time riding bicycles all over the airport checking each hangar to see what new was going on, or who was getting ready to go flying.

This meant that we could go flying, get instruction by renting a plane with fuel and pay our buddy now a professional pilot for our dream of learning to fly.

I mowed lawns, cleaned yards, raked leaves and pulled weeds every weekend to earn money to go flying. Once my lawns were done I hopped on my 10-speed bike and peddled down Ojai Road to the airport south of town.

Tony was professional, ethical and was a mirror of his father, dark complexion, bushy blondish eyebrows six feet tall wearing Ray-Ban aviator’s glasses. While he didn’t wear white dress shirts with epaulets, usually blue jeans, and a T-shirt with tennis shoes, his instruction style was thorough to the point and well explained.

Flying lessons with Tony were discussion before we flew, and after each lesson then he would sign his observations and pass you your logbook.

He posted progress and what we were going to do next on every entry in my logbook.

“Air work practicing power-off, power on stalls, slow flight…good recovery. Next lesson landing approach work. Anthony Mason, CFI #XXXXXX 1/29/68”

Tony had the inside scoop on everything airport at Santa Paula as not only was his father connected but his older brother was also flying almost daily.
 The Mason’s hangar was close to Dewey’s outfit and we used to all gather in the hangar and talk flying while we were challenged by Tony to questions about aeronautics.

One time we entered the Mason’s hangar and found two or three wooden crates in the back of the hangar covered with a foreign language shipped to a M. Slovak.
This piqued our curiosity and became the center of conversation...what aircraft could be in those huge wooden crates?

Growing up around this airport was like reliving the different stages of aviation from the 1920s to the apex of general aviation’s aircraft manufacturing in the 1900s. DeHavilland DH-5 mail plane, Travelair, Curtiss Robin, Monocoupe, Curtis PT-19, PT-22, Ryan STs, Aeronica Bathtub, Staggered Wing Beechcraft, Howard DGA, Stearman Biplane, Cessna T-50 “Bamboo Bomber,” AT-6, SNJ-4, Pitts Special S-1,2, Thorpe T-18, Cosmic Wind Goodyear Racer, Cassutt Racer, etc.

All these wonderful aircraft on one airport and all flown by professional pilots many who flew during the week at Van Nuys, Burbank, or Los Angeles International airports, keeping their personal aircraft at Santa Paula.
Soon we would find out what was in those boxes and what new aircraft would join our bevy of flying machines at the airport.

To be continued...Next: Our Brother in Flight Joins the Angels