rough draft of my book, "Have Goggles, Will Travel"

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Each day, during my journey, I would call my mother in Ohio and tell her where I was, with whom I had flown, and some of the highlights of the day. She would always listen with great interest and usually had one or a few new phone numbers to add to my list of pilots who had called, offering a ride if I got near their state.

My journey wouldn't have been possible without Mom's continuous daily assistance and encouragement. Not only did she talk to all of the people who called, but she wrote several in-depth reply letters every day. My mom has been my best friend forever.

I have 68 pages of my Mother's hand-written notes she kept on many of the details of my journey. She added to it daily, writing down the details as I would tell them to her when I called in from wherever I landed. My additional comments will be added in [brackets] within Mom's Telephone Log. I'm not sure if lacing our notes together like this is the way to do it, but it's the closest way I can think of to try to cover the whole story and keep it somewhat chronological. Perhaps an editor will think it is too much information for one book, I don't know. Everything previous to this I consider the introductory and preface sections of the book. So, here comes page one. Drum roll, please...


From Mom's Telephone Log ~
Day 1
Saturday, May 28, 1988
Florida
9 a.m. At Rosie O’Grady’s hangar at Orlando Executive Airport, Channel 6 CBS was there, filming Church Street Station's Dixieland Band - a banjo, tuba and trumpet accompanying a 1920’s vaudeville-style singer, Spats Donovan, while he serenaded Martha with “Blue Skies.”

Joe Kittinger called for the crowd to gather around them in the big hangar. He had arranged months ago to be Martha’s first pilot. In front of the crowd, he announced, “I hate to tell you this Martha but we have an engine problem with the Stearman and I’ll have to bow out. Like some women, airplanes are unpredictable! Can I still get one of those silver wing pins you’re giving your pilots?”

Martha replied, “Well Joe, if you can’t fly me somewhere, I can’t just give you a pin, but if you’d like to buy one…”

Joe Kittinger then pulled out a ten dollar bill from his pocket and offered it to Martha.

“Uh, Joe they’re custom-made and solid, sterling silver.”

“Will you take a check?” Joe asked.

“Can I see your driver’s license, Joe?”











9:30 AM. Mac Barksdale arrived from Orlando County Airport in his 1946 Champion, and they took off on the first flight for Zellwood, Florida. Three planes escorted them at the beginning of the flight: Johnnie Vincent in Rosie O’Grady’s (one seat only) Ag–Cat they use for skywriting and banner towing; a Mooney with TV cameraman in it; and Ralph Wainwright, a local Orlando pilot in a 1946 Aeronca Champ.

Steve Prindle, a pilot from Washington, D.C. who has offered to help Martha with publicity, talked with reporters.
Day 1 continues...

[cfgray]

Martha,

The structure you have outlined here is solid, I think, but a suggestion... lead with your strength, which is story-telling. The data mine, the travelogue, can be added as appendices.

I know this will be a great read and very well received, keep chipping away at it, it will be another great adventure once it is published.

Best,
cfgray

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 1 continued

Al Kimball from Tangerine Airfield in Zellwood, Florida flew Martha on the second leg in a 1941 Stearman from Orlando Country Airport (Plymouth) to Tangerine Field, where Martha’s friend, Jim Kimball and his son and brothers have an antique plane restoration facility.

Then Al flew her on the third leg to Eustis, Florida where Ralph Wainwright was waiting, who flew her to Ocala in his 1946 Champion.

The fifth, sixth and seventh legs she flew with Mac Barksdale again in his J-3 Cub from Leeward to Ocala to Perry, Florida.

At 12 noon Mrs. Bassett called from Live Oaks, Florida asking Martha’s arrival time. The person picking Martha up (Jack Hurdle, II) was making a two-hour flight and she could not change plans at this time. Martha told Mrs. Bassett she would try to stop in a few months on her way back to Orlando.

At 7:30 PM Martha called from Perry Foley Field, in Perry, FL while she was waiting for Jack Hurdle in a Cessna 195 to take her to Harold, Florida.

Then, her last flight of the first day was at dusk, from McCutchan Field in Harold, Florida to Coastal Airport in Pensacola with Earl Caudell in his 1951 L-19 Bird Dog.

Alabama 7:10 PM. They arrived at at dusk, landing at Coastal in Pensacola and drove to Alabama to have dinner at Quincy’s and spend the night at the home of Major Charlie Streit and his wife, Joan from Perry Foley and Harold, Florida.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Telephone Log
Day 2
Sunday, May 29
Florida
Joan Streit drove and Martha from Alabama back to to coastal Pensacola where the last flight landed last night.

[Joan's husband, Charles Streit picked me up at Coastal Airport in Pensacola and flew me to their private airstrip, called Streit's Strip in Robertdale, Alabama where the have their home.]

From Pensacola, Earl Caudell (Aero photographer and real estate business) with son, daughter and friend flew in to Streit's Strip and took Martha on an air tour of Pensacola in his 1951 Cessna Birddog (Vietnam observation plane) flew 30’ over water – very exciting!!
[But, first, Earl flew me over to meet some of his friends nearby at Dan McConnell Airfield, also known as "Pleasant View Farm."]






Local television film crew photographed them. Martha is staying the night with the Caudell’s and will tour “Golden Wings Museum, in Pensacola tomorrow with Mr. Caudell.
Alabama 8 PM.

Mac Barksdale called to see how Martha is doing and if she has been to Tallahassee.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 3
Monday, May 30
Florida to Alabama
At 9 PM Martha called. She said she was dropped off this morning at Roy E. Ray Airfield in Irvington, Alabama by Ray Braswell, an electrical contractor who flew her from Pensacola to there in his 1946 Piper Cub. He is a friend of Caudell family. They took off at 10:20 a.m. and arrived 11:40 a.m. He gave her a great tour, pointing everything out to her, including a huge, old mansion she took a slide of along Mobile Bay and tall cliffs along its east shore.
The hangar talk back in Pensacola yesterday was that Roy E. Ray Field, about 25 miles south of Mobile, Alabama was having an airshow or a fly-in of some sort today, so Mr. Braswell and Martha assumed it would be an easy place for her to find the next ride.

When they arrived, there was no flying going on and no one around. Mr. & Mrs. Grice who have their home on the field and are part-owners of the airfield came out of their home to greet Martha and Mr. Braswell and told them that the airshow was yesterday!

[They told Mr. Braswell and me that everyone had flown out by early this morning! Then they went back inside their nice, cool home. (It must've been 105 degrees outside.) Mr. Braswell offered to take me back to Pensacola, but I declined his offer. I did not want to backtrack. I told him not to worry, that I'd figure it out and I waved him goodbye and thanks as he made his take-off run down the grass strip into the hot, humid noon air.

So there I sat with my bags on the hanging bench by the little, lifeless EAA club office on just my third day into it, in my second state of 48, for the first time (of many, many times) on my journey - alone - and not knowing with whom I would get my next ride out.


An hour or so later, I knocked at the Grice's door. They generously offered me the use of their phone to try to call some pilots on my list as well as their guestroom, dinner, and a swim in their backyard pool. I gratefully took them up on all of it.

I called a TV station in Mobile, Alabama to tell them my story, hoping it might be a way to get my next ride out if an aeroplane owner happened to see it on the news. An hour later, a solo television reporter, who doubled as the cameraman showed up to interview me. He looked pretty competent when he was interviewing me, but the editors back at the station must not have read his notes too well. When the ten o’clock news segment was aired, Mr. & Mrs. Grice and I watched it and the completely misconstrued Mobile news report. It showed me walking around an old plane, while the newscaster’s voice-over said:

“Martha Esch is an airshow performer who is flying all over the USA, but she arrived at the air show at Roy E. Ray Field a day late and the airshow she was to perform in had ended.” That was their whole quick, incredibly inaccurate news synopsis. Oh, great, I thought. Now I look like a complete fool. Airshow performer - missed my airshow. Geesh!]

Back to Mom's Log (Mom's words are not in brackets)...
Tomorrow, Martha will fly to Meridian, Mississippi, located halfway between New Orleans and Tennessee on the eastern border of Alabama.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom’s Log
Day 4
Tuesday, May 31
Alabama to Mississippi
Martha calling from Mississippi 10 p.m. Jay Smith flew Martha from Mobile, Alabama at 11 a.m. to Meridian, Mississippi in a 1954 Cessna 170. There she learned about Al & Fred Key and their historic endurance flight over Meridian, Mississippi in a Curtiss Robin monoplane.



[In June of 1935, the two brothers named Fred and Al Key set a world record for endurance in the air, by taking turns sleeping and flying in shifts in a borrowed Curtiss Robin monoplane, named “Ole Miss” that they re-fitted with a 150 gallon fuel tank and a catwalk framework around the front of the plane. While aloft, one of them would do the flying while the other would actually brave the wind and elements a few times a day, walking outside of the cockpit on the catwalk, adding oil to the engine and fueling the tanks from a gas hose that was lowered down to them from a similar plane. Food and other supplies were also lowered to them by a rope. The two brothers remained in the air over Meridian, Mississippi doing this for 27 days and nights! When they finally landed on July 1, 1935 at 6:06 p.m., a crowd of thirty to forty thousand people on the ground cheered them and the Meridian Airport was re-named “Key Field.” Their world endurance record still stands today.]

TV Channel 11 taped Martha at Key Field at 1 p.m. and a woman newspaper reporter interviewed her. Mark Blackwell, pilot gave Martha a tour of downtown Meridian and they had dinner at an 1870 restaurant called Weidmann’s famous for their Black Bottom pie!



On the six o’clock local news, the television station in downtown Meridian did a 3-minute live interview of Martha in their studio.

She and Mark Blackwell returned to the airport and met with Donald Fairchild with his 1961 Cessna 172 Skyhawk. Mark sat in back and they flew to Pontotoc, Mississippi. It was a very hazy, calm flight at dusk into dark. It was a bit scary on their short final approach. It was a night landing and Martha thought the plane was much higher in the flare-out than it actually was.

[My eyes were playing tricks on me and it looked as if the plane was about ten feet above the ground during the flare, judging from our angle to the runway lights going by. I braced myself for a hard slam of a landing and had a very spooky feeling, thinking we were about to drop it in from a high flare. I was very relieved, though puzzled at my misjudgment when Mr. Fairchild greased the landing. That night-time optical illusion of thinking we were much higher than we actually were happened to me only once before – when I was a student pilot practicing some of my first night landings with my instructor, Steve Hale, at Akron Municipal Airport back in the summer of 1978.]

Day 5
Wednesday, June 1
Mississippi to Arkansas 11:15 PM
Left Pontotoc –Ch 4 news crew and 4 reporters interviewed Martha giving four pilots Air Adventurers Wings (silver) and taking the AAC pledge. Pilot Fred McCall flew from Pontotoc to an airfield called Twinkletown Municipal in Walls, Mississippi (near Tennessee-Arkansas border) in his 1946 Aeronca Champ.




Newsmen were there taking photos. Steve Prindle sent a fax to news people. James Reeves was waiting and he and Martha and Fred McCall went to lunch at a little hometown café with home cooking and talked planes. James Reeves flew Martha to Little Rock, Arkansas in his 1956 Champ.

Martha had dinner at Red Lobster with Emmy Hall and couple that owns FBO on field. Martha is staying the night in Mrs. Emmy Halls’ condominium. She is feisty lady in her 60’s who owns a plant that manufactures pressure oil tanks. Emmy Hall was a pioneer aviatrix who taught many WWII pilots to fly together with 10 other women instructors. She is a 99 and has many antique aviation contacts in Bartlesville, Okalahoma. Her friend Kay Newth organizes air races.

[Mrs. Hall shared her wonderfully interesting aviation scrapbook with me on her front porch the next morning, before I left. She had an old invitation to a banquet with her name printed nearby Roscoe Turner’s on a list of dignitaries.]

Day 6
Thursday, June 2
Arkansas and Oklahoma
Bob Perry - 1946 Fairchild - flew Martha from North Little Rock to Fort Smith, Arkansas on border of Oklahoma. It was a one and a half hour flight over river at approximately 400’ above ground level with hills on both sides. Fantastic ride. David Taylor KPOM Channel 24 Fort Smith, Arkansas and landed at 10:30 AM – 3 network news channels were there and 3 newspaper reporters, approximately 10 people on ground. (They arrived 45 minutes late) (Bob and Martha) William Moore, an original correspondent, a quadriplegic pilot and instructor welcomed her. He designed and had patented controls (aircraft?) for quadriplegic individuals. Martha presented him with one of the ten pins reserved for extraordinary support people. He gave the next pilot $35 to buy her the “best lunch in Tulsa” since the weather was deteriorating and he encouraged her to fly on soon. He gave her roses at the airport and said that he had a cake at his house he had baked for her, but suggested she keep flying in order to beat the weather.

Wolf Grulkey, an editorial cartoonist and printer in his Aeronca 1946 flew Martha to Tulsa, Oklahoma to Harvey Young Field. On the ground to greet them was one TV station, two newspaper people and Mike Huffman, an acquaintance of Martha’s from EAA’s Sun ’n Fun Florida fly-in.

[insert photos of wolf grulkey, kent felkins and harvey young field]
also photo of tulsa fbo - window guys waving]
Martha met Kent Felkins, a fireman for a late lunch. He will fly Martha to Bartlesville tomorrow. Kent drove Martha to dry cleaners where she dropped off her antique jacket, skirt, blouse and jodhpurs. No charge for dry cleaning - donation of services for Martha from any member of the International Fabricare Institute. The clothes will be ready in the morning. A woman employee there is sewing the rip in Martha’s skirt. Martha said she is thoroughly exhausted and put on her blue jeans, t-shirt, and plain shoes to take a rest from having to explain to everyone why she’s dressed in vintage pilot clothing.

[After dropping off my clothes at the dry cleaners, Kent took me to a sports bar. The news segment filmed earlier in the day at Harvey Young Field when Wolf Grulkey dropped me off there in his Aeronca came up on the TV set over the bar – it was sort of funny to see myself on TV while we ate our sandwiches. I'm usually gone to the next place by the time the news stories come on. Afterwards, I asked Kent to take me to nearby Tulsa International Airport so I can make more phone calls from their pay phone because I'm meeting Mike Huffman for breakfast there in the morning and Kent thought the FBO there might have a pilot lounge where I could sleep.]

She made several calls to next possible pilots from the lobby of the Tulsa International Airport. One man at the airport asked her if the phone was stuck to her ear. Kent will meet Martha in the late morning back at Harvey Young Airfield. Tonight she is sleeping on a couch in the locked office of the manager who runs the FBO at nearby Tulsa International Airport. But he doesn’t know she’s in there. The line crew told her it would be okay, and that the manager wouldn’t mind if she slept on his sofa. She said she feels safe and comfortable, but completely exhausted.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 7
Friday, June 3
Oklahoma
Kent Felkins flew Martha from Harvey Young Airport in Tulsa to Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Martha was on the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news last night in Tulsa. A woman receptionist from the FBO was about to drive Martha to meet Kent at 9:30 a.m. Before they drove off from the parking lot of the airport where Martha phoned from and slept last night, approximately thirty men in a large meeting room on the second-story were waving at her from the windows and then began clapping as she was loading the truck with her luggage. She was taken aback and did not know how they recognized her in plain clothes. The woman told Martha to go upstairs and meet them, so she did. There were approximately a hundred people in the room who were attending a maintenance class for Boeing 767 mechanics in training. One of them explained that some of them had seen Martha on the news story the night before and had recognized her. They said they thought what she was doing was neat. She swore them in to the Air Adventurers Club as a group and passed out an inch stack of membership cards. This was one of the best thrills of her adventures so far.

Kent Felkins flew Martha in J-3 1940 Cub to Bartlesville. Charlie Harris, the chairman of Bartlesville Biplane Association Fly–In greeted them when they landed. Martha is staying the night in a hotel six miles away from the airport with Joy and Hal Owens from Yukon, Oklahoma. Joy is an artist and she drew a caricature of Martha at the fly-in. (see letter and photo and poem in the photo envelope).

At the Biplane Fly-In, Eric Freidebach 21 years old, dynamic person, who sells Stearman parts and has a business in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, took video of Martha and Lea Abbott, an 81 year-old pilot with the replica he built of a 1910 Curtiss Pusher from Texas. Martha and Mr. Abbott were dressed in the same era aviator clothing. Lea towed his flying machine from Texas behind his motor home and flew it at the fly-in. The pilot sits out in the breeze on this primitive airplane.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 8
Saturday, June 4
Oklahoma
An exhausting day. M took many photos and talked with many of the antique airplane owners at the fly-in to gather possible leads for rides. She rode in 3 planes today. Martha met two astronauts, Ken Cameron and Marsha Ivans at the fly-in. Marsha flies a Stearman and autographed a special page in the back of Martha’s logbook, as well as her silk scarf which has the signatures of a few of the famous pilots she has met.

The awards banquet was $12.50 and they had a “People’s Choice Award” for the best plane. Martha saw Jim Kimball and his wife, who she knows from Florida. They arrived at the event in the Stearman that Martha lettered with gold leaf a few months ago. Martha flew with Jim today in this plane.

[Jim Kimball and his wife, Jane flew in from Zellwood, Florida in the beautiful, maroon 1943 Stearman which Jim recently restored at his world-class restoration facility, located on his own grass airfield in Tangerine, Florida. Mike Danforth is an orthopedic surgeon who owns the Stearman which he has named, “Amazin’ Grace.” There is a powerful sound system inside the biplane. A cassette tape plays a haunting bagpipes rendition of Amazing Grace as it flies through the air. It can be heard from the ground and the biplane is really something to see and hear.

A couple of months ago, before my journey began, I did some lettering jobs on three vintage aeroplanes at Bob White Airfield in Zellwood, Florida. They have a great motto on the sign there, "a grass strip forever.” One of the most difficult gold leaf jobs I ever did was on Mike Danforth’s Stearman. In a hot, humid, corrugated tin hangar, I lay on my back in midair on a twelve inch-wide plank positioned between two ladders just beneath the upper wing, gilding fancy flourishes on the upper wingtips in 23 carat gold leaf as well as the words “Amazin Grace” on the sides of the fuselage. Today, this Stearman won the People’s Choice Award at the Biplane Fly-in. Jim Kimball is well-known for his perfectionist standards in antique airplane restorations. I feel privileged and proud to have had a part in that Stearman's final appearance.




Tomorrow, in Iola Kansas Martha will attend a Chamber of Commerce celebration in her honor, 6 to 8 p.m. at Iola Airport. This evening Martha stayed at Hotel Phillips $61.00 Room 528. [A nice hotel, but a sterile, claustrophobic experience and too expensive for my budget. In hindsight I wished I had stayed at the airfield under a wing.]

Bob Carpenter, Lee Spencer’s friend from Oswego, KS called here at 9 p.m. He flew to Bartlesville with Don Garen in his 1983 Beech. He talked to Martha and said she is doing something very worthwhile that will develop into something very big. His daughter toured Europe and is now settled in Kansas. He is the man with the short haircut.

Day 9
Sunday, June 5
Kansas
Martha spent the night at Lee and Lois Spencer’s home in Iola, KS. (L-4 Piper?) She made a lot of phone calls to try to find next rides.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 10
Monday, June 6
Kansas
Iola, Kansas Chamber Of Commerce reception for Martha-very exciting! Five planes, and pilots Dan Murray-1928 Travel Air, Jack Greiner-1929 Travel Air, David Lamb – 1942 Taylorcraft, Gordon Conger – 1956 Piper Tri Pacer from Coffeyville to Chanute in a loose formation flight. Martha was in [Greg Shelton's Harvard,] the last plane, smoke system trailed and the take-off was almost straight up. TV cameras caught the whole show and showed two minutes of it on air at 11 p.m. Met 4 pilots from Texas. One invited her to stay at the hotel he owns when she gets there. He said she could have the best room and it is one of the top ten-rated hotels in the world, in Fort Worth, Texas, the Stockyard Hotel. The pilot(s) were Greg Shelton 1952 Canadian Harvard just like an AT-6 military WWII trainer, a powerful old warbird.




John Pierce, a corporate pilot with a 1948 Ercoupe, flew Martha from Chanute to Iola, Kansas. He called here on Wed. 6-8-88 to say there are no Spartan Executives (airplanes) in Tulsa. Vernon Foltz has a list of owner and addresses. It was manufactured in Tulsa before WWII and none are left in Tulsa.



Day 11
Tuesday, June 7
Missouri to Kansas
Martha stayed at an FBO – Fixed Base Operation –where she slept overnight in a tiny, dark room at the airport made for a napping place for corporate pilots. They call it the “snooze room.” It had a twin bed with navy blue sheets and a reading lamp over the bed. Down the hall, was a large bathroom (w/ shower) that was twice the size of the snooze room. At Kansas City, Missouri – downtown field where “Super Connie” a four-engine transport is being restored by a group of volunteers. Paul Pristo, original owner of the Lockheed Super Constellation. A 1940 huge passenger turbo-prop. Constellation volunteers are getting ready for Oshkosh this July. Cost of restoring is $90,000. The group is called “Save a Connie.” Some are retired stewardesses (flight attendants) aged 45 to 60 yrs old.

Gerald Griggs flew Martha to Wichita from Beech North in Wichita, KS.

Martha stayed in motel near the airport $26 in Wichita, KS. USA Today and Associated Press wire this morning “Barnstorming Zellwood woman artist calls first leg ‘magical.’” Orlando local paper and radio Wednesday morning.

Flew to Beech Factory in Wichita – no reception – cool – did not expect her or hear of her. Got a ride to Mac Donald’s then drove her to her motel.

Paul Pristo flew Martha from Kansas City, Missouri to Wichita, KS in a 1963 Cessna 310.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Mom's Log
Day 12
Wednesday, June 8
Kansas
TV and newspaper people met at Beech Factory and landed five planes. Martha in 1939 Tiger Moth - Sid Tucker pilot. Beech Factory people very excited – all joined in the pledge etc. At the Beech Factory a very tall student pilot veterinarian – came into to TV scene with Martha, after Martha approached him and found out he was lost. He took the pledge and she interviewed him on TV. Great fun and color!!



Much different reception from yesterday’s tour. Gerald Griggs in his 1937 Aeronca K flew Martha to Riverside Airport to see Lear Jet pilot training facility called “Flight Safety” where jet pilots are trained to fly at $300/hr. Gerald Griggs teaches here. Martha used the Learjet simulator $3,000,000 computer generator for 45 minutes –no charge – she did loops – rolls – buzzed towers and runways and crashed. She logged the time in the back of her logbook.

Kay Alley a 99 and corporate pilot from Kingman Airport, Kansas who also flies for Angel Flight, which donates their flying services to cancer patients and their families for necessary hospital treatments. She met Gerald Griggs and Martha and Gerald Dowd at the Learjet Factory and all went to lunch.

Kay took controls of simulator for 15 minutes. They talked with John Holmes – head of Flight Safety at Learjet. Kay is sending me a tape. Kay drove back to Riverside, Kansas and Gerald Griggs flew Martha to Pond Creek, Oklahoma in his 1937 Aeronca K. Temperature outside was 110º. The little 65-horsepower plane put-putted to Pond Creek, Oklahoma 80 miles south of Wichita. (1/3 of Wichita population is employed at Boeing 727, Learjet, Beechcraft or Cessna.)

At 70 mi./hr. until 5,000 [feet altitude] where it was cool. They landed at Pond Creek after flying over 100 miles past huge farms in Kansas and landed in a grass strip. A Grumman Ag Cat spray plane – pilot 31 yrs old – and 5 farmers asked what they were doing there. Martha asked if this was David Kirk’s place. They said he was their competitor crop duster and that he was in Nebraska. Jim D. took Martha to town and treated her to a soda pop and ice cream cone. Martha showed the farmers the Flying Mag. article and they said “wow” a celebrity! Martha was given the use of Jim’s pick-up truck and his sister’s house for the night. His sister was a still at work but the house was open. The town is quaint-night out of a 1950’s movie. 1950 cars, old signs-ghost town atmosphere. Tomorrow Jim is going to teach Martha to cropdust and she will fly to Will Roger Airport at noon and go to Amelia Earhart’s Memorial in Oklahoma City – home of the 99’s.