The Cannibal Queen Read online

  I swing the Queen into the grass a little off the mat. The owner and pilot of the plane that landed before me walks over to inspect her. His name is Gary. He has never ridden in an open-cockpit plane. After a bit he asks, “What would it cost to get a ride?”

  “Not a nickel. Would you like to go now?”

  Yes. Now would be just perfect. I strap him into the front cockpit and together we roar off over the town where I grew up.

  Gary and his friend helped me push the Queen into the hangar. While I was installing the cockpit cover, the fuel sight-gauge began to leak. Again. Rotating it counterclockwise 90 degrees didn’t help)—the plastic or Plexiglas is not a screw-in affair—but the leak stopped when I twisted it back the other way a whole turn.

  The next day Dusters & Sprayers Supply in Chickasha, Oklahoma, agreed to send a new sight-gauge in the overnight mail, the whole assembly. Armed with a five-gallon bucket and my meager collection of tools, I went back to the airport to change the Queen’s oil. To my disgust I discovered that the weld that Siggy did on the cowl latch in Poughkeepsie had broken. At least the sight-gauge wasn’t leaking just now.

  With the help of Ernie Samples, who works for my folks, the cowling and left-side inspection panel came off the Queen as my father watched from his wheelchair in the shadow of a wing and a tractor cut hay on the adjacent hillside. Thinking about the busted cowl latch, I stared at the old oil running out of the sump drain. It looked as black and grungy as raw crude. I should have done this a week ago.

  At the hardware store on Main Street the clerk waved away any payment for the four feet of wire he had just cut off a huge roll. “We sell it by the pound,” he said with a smile.

  I used the wire to safety-wire the cowl latch with the broken part. Sweating in the hazy sunshine and filthy with oil, I inspected the job carefully. I thought it looked pretty neat. The baling wire repair didn’t seem to detract from the Queen’s dignity in the slightest. Were the truth known, this was probably not the first time she had been so adorned.

  After lunch, sitting alone in the grass by the wheel in the shade of the top wing, I smoked my pipe and waited for my afternoon joyriders. If I had lived during the Roaring Twenties I would have been a barnstormer, would have kept Jennys flying with baling wire and old shirts cut up for patches, would have sat contentedly in pastures all across America waiting for passengers who could afford five dollars for five minutes aloft in the summer blue. I might even have joined a gypsy airshow and looped and twirled over county fairgrounds. Sure. But it wouldn’t have been any better than this sunny afternoon sitting in the grass, the smoke from my pipe drifting upward past the Cannibal Queen’s yellow wings.

  On Thursday the guys at KCI Aviation in Clarksburg drained the fuel from the Cannibal Queen, installed the new sight-gauge that came in the overnight mail from Chickasha, Oklahoma, then helped me refuel her.

  She took 42.3 gallons, full to the brim. I think the only way anyone could get 46 gallons in that tank would be to lift the tail to the in-flight attitude, which would be impractical to do on a daily basis. With all the gasoline aboard the new sight-gauge didn’t leak a drop. The whole operation took less than an hour. Most of KCI’s employees came over to watch and examine the Stearman.

  The president of the company, Charles A. Koukoulis, led me to a corner of the hangar where his pride and joy was parked. She was a 1956 Cessna 172, the 488th off the production line in the first year of manufacture. With only 400 hours of time on her tach she still had the look and feel of a brand-new plane, resplendent with orginal as-new interior, upholstery, paint, instruments and avionics. Even the paint on the rudder pedals showed almost no wear. It was as if I’d been transported back to the year 1956 and a Cessna dealer was showing off the latest model, ready to carry me through the skies to every adventure I ever dreamed of.

  That afternoon in Buckhannon I got back to the serious business of giving Stearman rides. The next day I gave three more, one to a real aviation enthusiast (read “nut”) named Leon “Buck” Harpold, whom I had never met before today. He saw the airplane at the airport, asked around, then called and asked for a ride. I never say no unless the airplane’s broken and I didn’t this time. Buck owns six planes, one of them a pristine 1947 J-3 Cub.

  I made the takeoff and let Buck fly us to Elkins for gas. I made that landing. Then I let him make the takeoff as I followed him through on the controls, fly back to Buckhannon and make the landing, again with me backing him up. I told him to use J-3 techniques and not to fight the controls if he felt me making an input. The only time I had to do that was on landing, when he needed just a little help.

  Buck’s prowess proved, to me at least, that the Stearman is very similar in handling characteristics to a J-3. I assured Buck he would have no trouble transitioning if he got a Stearman, as he swore he would.

  The Cannibal Queen has that effect on people. Even people who detest small airplanes walk away wearing a wide smile. I described her to one rider as sort of a convertible with wings, and he agreed. There’s really little thrill, not in the roller coaster or motorcycle sense. The Stearman is just pure fun. The strange sensation of the wind playing at you, the snoring of the engine, the feeling of freedom and also security as you take in those bright yellow, art-deco wings arranged around you as she banks and wheels at a stately pace and the earth slides slowly past—that first ride is a sensation to be savored and recalled. I tell riders to stick their arms out, to let the prop blast tear at their hands and clothes, to make them feel the power of the air that holds us aloft.

  On Saturday before the big anniversary party that afternoon I gave seven rides. Sunday I pulled out all the stops. My brother, John, strapped the riders in and arranged goggles over their eyes, then I took them up for ten-minute excursions over town. After John and his family left to go back to Washington, Terry Reed took over as the official strapper. That afternoon I gave seventeen rides and made two trips to Clarksburg for gas.

  When I started flying Sunday the winds were out of the north at about eight knots. It was hard to tell for sure because the metal hoop that holds the wind sock open was frozen—rusted— pointing toward the usual prevailing wind, northwest. But the tail of the sock was streaming and I could feel the wind as I worked to get the Queen onto that narrow east-west runway.

  And I did work. On Thursday with my second rider a gust of wind had caught the plane as I was flaring and I made my second-worst Stearman landing ever, almost dragging the right wingtip before I saved it with right rudder and left aileron. The Cannibal Queen hadn’t lost her taste for flesh.

  Still, this Sunday afternoon in West Virginia I felt my confidence growing as I slipped off excess altitude and airspeed, eased her over the center of the narrow asphalt with a lowered wing, then leveled her with rudder and aileron just as the left main touched.

  When it was time for John and his family to leave for Washington, his wife, Nancy, came over to the plane to say goodbye as John strapped in his last passenger. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me. Now I have been kissed in the cockpit by both the Nancys in my life. Then they drove away waving.

  For some reason the wind immediately died and the clouds dissipated. Kisses are powerful stuff, even kisses from sisters-in-law. Dead calm conditions under a sunny blue sky—oooh boy!

  Back when I flew A-6s I had a trick of setting the power off the 180-degree position and not touching it again until the wheels kissed the asphalt. It took a sure eye to judge the height, distance and wind just right and a bit of skill to set the power just so. But I could really fly that plane.

  Now, with no apparent wind, I gave it a try. About twelve inches of manifold pressure seemed right, and about a third of the time it worked out. My eye isn’t good enough yet. I hope it comes. I do like that sense of satisfaction that I get when it works out just right and I think about it afterward.

  If you try this, keep the airspeed needle exactly where it’s supposed to be, and no slipping—that’s cheating. Just set the power at the 180 a
nd fly a constant angle-of-bank turn at your proper approach speed and reduce power to idle just as you flare. If you’ve judged everything perfectly the airplane will land exactly where you wanted it to when you eyed the landing area from the 180-degree position.

  That night after the folks were in bed I took a walk. The streets were empty. The streetlights cast circles on the lawns and trees; the empty swings on the porches awaited the morrow. Even the dogs seemed to be asleep.

  Tomorrow these sleeping people would swarm out of the well-kept little houses and charge off on the business of making a living. And tomorrow evening the swings would once again be busy, the lawnmowers buzzing, the neighbors talking back and forth. Tomorrow.

  This visit to my hometown was a perfect one. My parents spent two hours shaking hands and receiving friends and relatives, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Cousins with grown kids, aunts and uncles, long-time friends of my parents, they all helped make this a delightful, memorable occasion.

  I doubt that I’ll make it to a golden wedding anniversary. If I get married sometime this next year, I’ll have to live to the age of ninety-five.

  The way I feel tonight, I just might make it.

  18

  THE FIRST 60 OR SO MILES WEST OF THE TOWN OF PARKERSBURG on the Ohio River the country looks like a continuation of West Virginia with heavily wooded hills that run in random directions. Then 60 nautical miles west of the river the hills end abruptly. So do the trees. From this point westward as far as the eye can see in this haze every square yard of the land below is devoted to growing crops. Strangely, the land is not set off in the neat north-south, east-west sections of the Midwest and plains. Here the boundary fences seem to run northeast-southwest, northwest-southeast. Odd.

  Today the Cannibal Queen carries me westward toward Colorado. There she will receive a careful look from Steve Hall, the royal mechanic, before she and I go on to the West Coast. That’s the plan, anyway.

  And today the sky is clear, the wind out of the southeast, a nice quartering tailwind. Visibility is about twenty miles and I am flying at 4,500 feet to enjoy it. I wish I knew what I did to deserve flying conditions like this so I could do it more often.

  I am still glowing over the thirty-one rides I gave this past week in West Virginia. Cousins, friends, people I never saw before, I took everyone who wanted to go in the time I had available. Several of the strangers wanted to pay for their rides but I refused. The look of wonder on their faces when they got out of the plane and thanked me was payment enough.

  Symbols of flight abound in contemporary society. They are everywhere, ubiquitous.

  Yet humans used symbols of flight long before powered flight became a reality. Throughout history people dreamed of flight, drew pictures of it and speculated about it. They left us myths of Icarus and Daedalus, drawings by Da Vinci, paintings of the blessed ones—the angels—with wings upon their backs. The Greek gods flitted around Mount Olympus. Jesus ascended into heaven in a white cloud. Mohammed rode up mounted upon a white stallion. Notice where heaven always was—up. Up there where man could not go, up where only birds and gods, prophets and angels are allowed.

  When I was a boy I had recurring dreams of flight in which I could raise myself off the ground and soar because I willed it. People whose only experience with aviation is riding in a window seat on an airliner tell me they have had similar dreams. I suspect many people have.

  Flight has a subconscious, almost instinctive attraction for members of our species. To break the bonds of gravity that tie us to the earth and soar freely is an image that stirs us in unexpected, profound ways.

  I have yet to carry a passenger in the Cannibal Queen who is unmoved by the experience. To see the ground dropping gently away as the yellow wings carry you sedately upward and the wind swirls against your face, to fly above the countryside at an altitude that allows everything below to be distinguished plainly, to see the clouds up close, to watch a hawk circling at your altitude, to truly be a part of the sky, and then to return to earth in a gentle, controlled glide—this experience moves even people who thought they would hate it. People with an active fear of heights enjoy this without a twinge. Nobody complains of feeling queasy.

  The Stearman’s wings allow one to feel contained and safe, yet the openness of the cockpit allows one to feel the sensations of flight in a unique way that appeals to that subconscious instinctive urge to fly that is fundamental in all of us.

  I like to give people rides. It’s a gift they’ll carry with them all of their days.

  Passing just south of Circleville, Ohio, I keep the Queen’s nose pointed straight west toward Washington Court House. When Dayton is visible off to my right the power comes back and the Queen drops into Dayton General, a general aviation airport in the southern suburb of Miamisburg. Airborne again, it’s pretty much straight westward across Connersville, Indiana, over Rushville, Shelbyville, Franklin, and Martinsville to Terre Haute.

  The southeasterly wind holds all the way across the intensively farmed state of Illinois as the sun marches westward and I fly over Mattoon, Assumption, Taylorville and Auburn to Jacksonville. This is Stearman county, where good airplanes dusted for the fathers and sprayed for the sons until even the most cunning mechanics had to admit that their working days were over.

  At Jacksonville I get out and take a good stretch. I’ve been flying for six hours today, all in the bright sun, and I’m tired. To quit or go on?

  Tomorrow will be a long day flying the Great Plains, especially if this tailwind doesn’t last. Really, how much luck can one guy have? I resolve to fly another leg.

  Just west of Jacksonville I see the village of New Salem depicted on the chart. I am already cruising at 4,500 feet, but I can’t resist. New Salem is the village where Abraham Lincoln came when he was twenty-one, when he left his father’s house. He clerked in a store in New Salem, studied surveying, did odd jobs, even got himself elected to the state legislature. I pull the power and head down. New Salem I have to see.

  It is just a tiny village. From a thousand feet I estimate that New Salem contains no more than 150 people. The houses are not concentrated, but spread out, only three or four to a block. The streets run precisely true north-south, east-west. I wonder if Abe Lincoln helped survey the town. I can see one church and a cemetery. No obvious tourist attractions, yet from my experience with American entrepreneurs, I have no doubt that there’s at least one log cabin Abe Lincoln museum.*

  Stephen Coonts, the flying fool, in the rear cockpit—the captain’s seat—of the Cannibal Queen.

  With his son, David, in the front cockpit, the author practices wheel landings for the photographer at Billard Field, Topeka, Kansas. This method of touching down on the main wheels and holding the tail off as the aircraft slows is fun to practice, but it is not the recommended method for getting a tail dragger safely down on strange airports in gusty winds.

  The Cannibal Queen as drawn by the author’s daughter, Rachael. This surrealistic interpretation of the aircraft in flight without people seems somehow symbolic of the dream—you put yourself into the cockpit surrounded by yellow wings, above endless vistas of summer landscape, flying in an infinite summer sky.

  (OVERLEAF)

  Newspaper photographer David P. Gilkey rigged a camera on the left wing strut of the Cannibal Queen to capture this view as she soars around the Flatirons, a rock formation near Boulder, Colorado. That’s Gilkey in the front seat, triggering the camera with a remote control. He chose to shoot the left side of the plane so that the feminist editors of his newspaper would not see and be offended by the nose art on the other side.

  Skid Henley, the artist in steel, wood, and fabric who totally rebuilt the Cannibal Queen, poses with the author. Skid logged over 15,000 hours in Stearmans, spraying from New Brunswick to Nicaragua. His restoration of the Queen took thirteen months of intense effort.

  The Cannibal Queen on the ramp at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. She started her flying career as a mi
litary primary flight trainer during World War II, so this is not the first military ramp graced by her presence.

  The Canadian side of Niagara Falls as seen from the Cannibal Queen on a hazy summer day. What can’t be seen in this photo are the suds caused by industrial chemicals that coat the river below the falls.

  Mount Shasta as viewed from the rear cockpit of the Cannibal Queen. This monstrous old volcano dominates the northern California landscape.

  The author and son, David, pose for the camera. This shot captured David's infectious grin and the zest with which he approaches life.

  The author and the Cannibal Queen, nose art created by photographer/artist David Zlotky, a man of many talents. He refused to reveal the identity of his model.

  I add power and climb westward for the Mississippi, which lies just a few miles ahead. Hmmm, Hannibal, Missouri, is dead ahead, Mark Twain’s hometown. Should I stop?

  Mark Twain grew up in the 1840s in Hannibal, I know, just west of New Salem where Lincoln was keeping a store. How many miles? I use my pen on the chart to estimate the distance. About 25 nautical miles. There’s an odd fact—the young man destined to become America’s greatest political leader and the savior of the republic tended store just a few miles from where the boy destined to become America’s greatest writer was fishing in the great river and playing robbers with his chums.

  The river doesn’t look as if it drains half a continent, but it does. I cross above Hannibal at a thousand feet, craning my neck. Not too crowded.

  The airport lies northwest of town. I had planned to fly on to Kirksville, Missouri, and spend the night. When I see the fuel pump at the Hannibal airport, I change my mind. After a squint at the wind sock I announce my intentions on Unicom and make an approach to runway 17. The crosswind is about 90 degrees, right out of the east at eight knots. All that practice yesterday in West Virginia pays off now: I settle the Queen onto the runway and taxi in feeling like Lindbergh after landing in Paris.