I am grateful to my many mentors in the aviation field.
“Would you like to see our jet?” I asked.
“I think so.” Mr. Lovell smiled and answered quietly, and we walked slowly to the beautiful blue and white Gulfstream GV with the United States of America painted on its six oval windows.
We climbed a short folding staircase and turned left to see the modern glass cockpit consisting of six screens in front of the cockpit and an overhead panel consisting solely of black push button squares. It was a very smooth and clean cockpit.
I then led the Lovells down a narrow, blue-carpeted hallway to a VIP cabin decorated with mahogany wood and a dozen blue leather first-class-sized chairs, each with a wide window. The Lovells each sat down and looked around the room.
“what do you think?” I asked my old mentor.
Mr. Lovell answered, sitting down with his cane between his legs. “Well, they all fly the same. “Put the shiny side up and the wheels on the floor.” He was trying not to sound impressed.
Reach out to an old mentor
One of the last trips of my 20-year career was to visit Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve bases in the southeastern and south-central United States with Air Force Gen. Ed Eberhart, commander of NORTHCOM. Our final planned stop is Ellington Field, just south of Houston, Texas, my hometown. While flying to New Orleans, I told my good friend, Major “Ice” Icenhour, that I had learned to fly at LaPorte Municipal Airport, not far from Ellington. He said, “That’s great! I need to call my old flight instructor!”
I told him that my instructor, Richard Lovell, was from the Korean War Navy and that I wasn't even sure if he was still alive. The last time I saw Richard and Sylvia was in 1990. Then we took our son Daniel to visit Pasadena, Texas. Ice said I should call him and tell him we would be in Ellington tomorrow. I was really afraid to call because I was afraid Sylvia would pick up the phone and sadly tell me that Mr. Lovell had passed away. Ice's continued messages gave me the courage to call his number. When the second bell rang, Mr. Lovell answered the phone. What a relief!
I told Mr. Lovell that I would be flying the new Gulfstream V (Air Force C-37A) to Ellington the next day with a four-star general on board. Without my prompting, Mr. Lovell asked, “Can we have dinner together?”
I smiled and told him. “I think it would be really great! And I’d like to show you the plane after we land.”
Ellington Field is a joint civilian and military air base that is open to the public and allows visitors to park near base operations. We took a taxi to the GV to the painted cement “red carpet”, where the colonel’s entourage waited to greet the visiting four-star general. The group took General Eberhart to visit the F-16 squadron that escorted President Bush's Air Force One flight 747 on 9/11.
The man who made my dreams come true
As the passengers left, I walked along the red carpet and saw the Lovells sitting on a wooden bench outside, looking like Ma Kettle and Pa Kettle. Mr. Lovell's once curly hair was now thinning, and he leaned on a bench, leaning on a wooden cane.
I credited Mr. Lovell with my flying career. I never called him or knew him as Richard, just Mr. I only knew it from Lovell. He was the owner of a beautiful 1973 Piper 180 horsepower Challenger, a white four-seater with black and gray stripes on the side. Mr. Lovell served in the Navy during the Korean War, but was not a pilot and did not deploy overseas. He wasn't going anywhere and he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, he laughed. He was a short, tough old man. There's a Navy boxing champion with a permanently crooked nose to prove it. He soaked and swallowed Copenhagen every day. While giving me instructions during a flight lesson over the Texas Gulf Coast, he suddenly belched and filled his cockpit with the smell of Copenhagen. Today too, my Pavlov's response is to equate the smell of smoking tobacco with the Piper Four-Seater.
A demanding mentor who made me a better pilot.
When Mr. Lovell landed, he asked me to “fight for the center line.”
This explains if there is a crosswind and the landing spot is a foot or two off the center line. As tough as he was, he was also very kind. Mr. Lovell donated his instructor time free of charge as a way to give back to the Air Explorer Scout program. From 1978 to 1980, my flight lessons started at $22 per hour and eventually increased to $25 per hour. In those days of high inflation, CD profits were 13% and I was making about $3 an hour at a restaurant.
It's been 26 years since he took the helm of the Aviation Explorer Post in south Houston. It's been 24 years since I last flew with the 5' 6″ former Navy boxing champion, who has a permanently crooked nose. The tough old swearer no longer dipped and swallowed his Copenhagen chewing tobacco, but habitually sucked the inside of his lower lip.
As is the case with many young pilots, my training stalled even before I got my license. Sometimes it was a family vacation, sometimes it was because I had to spend my restaurant paycheck on car repairs instead of flying lessons. This lack of consistency led me to start taking lessons again to regain my flying skills, which is common in private flying.
The FAA requires students to have 20 hours of flight instruction, including cross country, and 20 hours of personal time to undergo a private license inspection. In the summer of 1980, after high school, I was approaching 60 hours of flying time and was scheduled to leave for college in mid-August.
He was hard on me, of course he was.
Mr. Lovell was the one who kicked me into completing the assessment, saying, “If you don't get it done before college starts, you'll never get it done!”
He was right. He would have regretted it for the rest of his life if he had not finished what he started. Thanks to that kind and strong old man, I became a pilot today.
After a quick tour of the jet, we changed and the three of us headed out for some seafood along the Kemah Boardwalk between Houston and Galveston. We spent the evening having a fish dinner. I told them all about my family and my international flights since September 11th. I graciously treated Lovells to dinner that night as a very small repayment for his patience and grace as a teenager.
full circle moment
After dinner, while I was waiting with Sylvia, Mr. Lovell brought his large four-door Ford sedan up to the restaurant door. I opened the passenger door for Sylvia, and as she started to get in, she squeezed my elbow, leaned in close to me, and whispered, “You will never know how much this means to him.”
My flying career was in full swing. As I was getting out of the Air Force and preparing to become an airline pilot, I happily expressed gratitude to the gruff old man who taught me how to fly.