In those days we flew from a 1900-foot grass strip, uphill north toward tall oaks and downhill south toward barbed wire, tall weeds and scrub growth. We had scraped it ourselves on a John Deere with a blade and anchored the tie-downs up near the truck stop restaurant run by a guy named Kelly, who had lent us his acreage for nothing.

Those were the days.

There was in our fleet a Supercruiser that "Shorty" fitted with extra tanks under the seats and flew to South America. An Ercoupe; a Cessna 140 that the same "Shorty" once taxied into the left wing of my Ercoupe, chopping the leading edge with his prop while I was on my back working in the cockpit (but that is another story), a Cub, and a Piper Pacer - all were tied down in the open, rain or shine, winter and summer.

The oldest among us was in his fifties, the quietly determined owner of a bruised-red Taylorcraft that had seen better days. Naturally, we called him "Pop."

Most notably, "Pop" did a lot of his own maintenance and upgrading and he practiced, practiced, practiced every known way to land a light aircraft. On weekends, we watched him land upwind, downwind, crosswind, wheel landings, three-pointers and even very steep forward "slips" that hurled him downward in a rather violent maneuver that produced a short field landing. "Pop" was getting ready for anything, but we younger guys thought he was becoming a Saturday morning joke."

Photo courtesy of Bob Ollerton and the Taylorcraft Foundation.

One cold, gray, slightly misty November day "Pop" bolted a beautiful new wood prop to his T-craft and then asked me to sit in the right seat while he ferried his treasure to Franklin (Indiana) Airport, a twenty-minute flight, for some engine work. "She backfires," he said. "A lot, even at cruise." Still short of his private license, he said he wanted some company because of the low ceiling and the threat, maybe, of freezing rain. So I said yes.

Sure enough, the 65-horses backfired on startup, but they all do that don't they in the cold? She coughed a couple times checking the magnetos, but ran strong on takeoff and up to about 1800-hundred feet where I suggested "Pop" put us right up against the overcast so that we would have all the VFR altitude we could grab over the hills and woods of rural Indiana on a day of chancy weather.

About halfway to Franklin I turned from my side window and saw that the windscreen had turned a thick light gray. We must have climbed a bit into the cloud layer. But, no, my view to the side was clear. So, I reached up and ran a finger up the plexiglas and the stuff came off looking like a fine-grained sludge of cold breakfast grits.

I tasted it. Gasoline.

With an even quicker swipe at the glass, I brushed the mess aside and stared straight into a jet of aviation fuel spraying from the pitot sticking upright from the nose tank cap. "Pop" had failed to spin the cap all the way to lock and the tiny tube was obeying the laws of physics. At that moment, some of the gray grits turned to liquid, ran down the panel and onto the magneto switch lever. That's when old "Pop" saw our problem and, so help me, I saw his knees shake so hard that his feet bounced on the rudder pedals.

We were flying an ancient, ragwing aircraft with a possibly sick engine and we were becoming soaked in gasoline. How much soaking? Was it blowing away from the fuselage and the wing roots? If we simply kept cranking along would we wet all the fabric? And wouldn't we have to throttle back to land in Franklin and what if.. what if she backfired hot enough to leave us sitting very briefly in a naked airframe? Or was I not thinking straight, losing my cool?

When I sometimes rode backseat as a favor to student pilots who needed some reassurance, I followed a strict rule: Never would I take the stick. Sweet talk the other guy into flying out of trouble. Unless, I always concluded, he simply let go. And no one ever did that to me.

So, with all the nonchalance I could muster under the circumstances, I told "Pop" to ease back on the throttle as slowly as he could so that he might not tease a backfire and ease back on the wheel to maintain altitude and slow the aircraft until she shook. Which he did and a merciful God forestalled a backfire.

I wanted that engine dead as a doornail. Whether it was the best idea at the moment, at about 45 mph indicated airspeed I pulled off my sweater, mopped the panel and took hold of the magneto switch. From both to right, one click. No flare. From right to left, click two. And from left to off. I told myself I could actually hear those clicks when I felt them in my fingers.

To this day, one of the most beautiful sights my eyes ever have captured was the slow unwinding of that new, slick-finished, gloriously fine-grained, blond and brown wood prop until it stopped, its blade standing straight up like a welcome benediction. I can see it still.

"Pop" banked left and a few hundred feet below, raked out of all those trees, we saw a narrow pasture cut left to right at its middle by a small creek and on the other side several Holstein milkers munching away, unmindful that we needed their cooperation. A long flat approach would find us jumping the creek, but also bouncing off the cows. And a short field landing would find us dropping steeply over a line of trees and most probably losing the landing gear in the creek or slamming the rudder into a ground loop that might have torn off a wing.

It was so quiet in that old Taylorcraft that I don't even remember wind noise. "Pop" and I said nothing. He used that long sweep of graceful wings to keep us on a high approach to the trees. Then he kicked left rudder to the floorboards, twisted the wheel all the way right and pulled. We were over the trees in a steep, steep slip. Then the "old" man kicked right, skidded right, caught the rolling right wing with aileron, and popped the nose down, all in a few seconds, and then I felt the gear touch the short grass. We stopped 'way short of the creek. The cows barely noticed.

We got out. "Pop" set the fuel cap. I drained the carburetor bowl for a full minute just to make us feel good. We waited. After a time we decided to pull the T-craft back to the barbed-wire fence under the trees and make one hell of a run for the creek and the cows.

Brakes and full throttle and let 'er go. She bounced along for a couple hundred yards and took off like a bird. I looked back at that tiny field of grass and the trees, the creek and the cows and said to my heart of hearts: practice, practice, practice may not make perfect, but it sure as hell comes close. And it's no joke.

Mrs. "Pop" was waiting for us with the car at Franklin Airport. "I thought you'd never get here!" she said with a certain relief.

Her husband cast one of those looks at me that comes from right under the eyebrows and so, naturally, I said we'd taken our own sweet time and done some sightseeing.

"Not much to see today," she said.

"Not much," I said. "Not much."

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