The two give Necedah school children a chance to experience something they never had — a chance to see airplanes up close in their elementary years.
“When I was a kid, the only time we saw an airplane was when it went over, so it was kind of an oddity,” said Jack Jasinski, who runs the Necedah airport with his brother Jake.
Combined, the brothers have nearly a century of experience in aviation. Jake, who spent decades as a corporate pilot flying business jets, also has been a flight instructor. A plaque at the airport’s office shack bears the names of hundreds of pilots who trained under Jake.
Jack too has had a pilot’s license for decades; he served with the 101st Airborne in the Vietnam War. But he spent much of his life as a railroader with the old Chicago and North Western railroad. He was one of the last people to work on the trains that passed though Wisconsin before the lines that run from Reedsburg and Elroy were dismantled and abandoned. Eventually, those lines became the cross-state bicycle and snowmobile trails that span the heart of the state.
The brothers’ flying lives are in the world of general aviation, where small propeller planes use small airfields such as Necedah’s village-owned strip. The strip has 2,721 feet of asphalt, long enough to handle the single-engine planes that are the heart of private flying.
The airfield was carved out of 93 acres of woods north of downtown Necedah; it began as a military operation. The only reminder of those days is a stone with a barely readable military insignia in faded and flecked paint.
The Necedah school children who visited the airport this past week took a close look at a Piper Cherokee, a low-wing, single-engine airplane that’s been one of the most popular in history. More than 32,000 have been manufactured since 1960.
The children were given a chance to briefly sit in the airplane and learn how the controls work. It was an opportunity for them to experience something that many who have lived a long aviation life never had when they were young.
“I didn’t think about starting flying until I was in my late twenties,” said Gary Williams, now 67 and one of the instructors for the Jasinski’s Country Flying Education.
As school kids climbed in and out of the Cherokee, they stood under a reminder of an earlier era of flying. Hanging from the hangar’s ceiling is the tube frame of a Piper Super Cruiser, a 1940s airplane. It was designed in an era when airplanes were commonly covered with fabric rather than metal skins.
That frame could still be restored to flying condition. It’s one of Jack Jasinski’s collection of equipment; it’s only waiting for a buyer to take it back into the air.
Story and photo gallery: http://www.wiscnews.com
Necedah flying brothers Jake Jasinski (left) and Jack Jasinski keep their dreams alive.
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