Helicopter flight proves learning controls harder than Piper Cub

By Hank Billings

Writing last week’s column about never riding in a Ford tri-motor reminded me that a fellow staffer was assigned to ride in one.

In the 1930s, Lucile Morris Upton was sent on the TWA (then Transcontinental and Western Air) inaugural flight from Springfield to St. Louis.

“Did you notice the wicker seats had no seat belt?” she asked a fellow passenger.

“That’s nothing. Our pilot only has one eye.”

Good grief, could that be Wiley Post, killed with actor Will Rogers in a crash at Point Barrow, Alaska?

No, a call to St. Louis confirmed that Post hadn’t flown for TWA.

American Airways, forerunner to American Airlines, also operated a Ford tri-motor through Springfield.

Jimmy Adkins was co-pilot for the Assembly of God B-17 after WWII.

Adkins also flew for American Airlines. He spent a summer flying a reconditioned tri-motor to American cities, including Springfield, but I missed the boat, or rather, the plane

Flying or riding in a variety of aircraft, over a span of 30 years, eased the pain of missing the Ford tri-motor.

There were blimps advertising Stag Beer and Goodyear Tires.

The takeoff and subsequent steep ascent left me sweating. Trying that in a fixed wing plane (except for a jet) would be asking for a stall and/or spin.

But the blimps leveled off at an altitude where their ads could be read from the ground and blimp riders could have a liesurely (40 to 50 mph) look at the countryside.

The Missouri Highway Patrol gave me and son John (then about 2 years old) a ride in its helicopter from its headquarters on West Sunshine Street to what is now the Springfield-Branson National Airport.

I don’t recall who owned the helicopter. I do remember the pilot let me take the ’copter controls long enough to learn that a whirlybird is a lot harder to fly than a Piper Cub or even a B-17.

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