westward into the fog - marquart ma-5 chargermarquartcharger.org/articles/westward into the...

July 2005 • (c) Paul Berge www.ailerona.com 1

The journey playsout as a mind moviewhere the reels are runin no particular or-der...

Westward Into The FogBIPLANING

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Paul Berge’s biplane Journey of Discovery from Ailerona, Iowa toMonterey, California (originally published in Antique Airfield Runwaymagazine)

by Paul Bergeike blackened teeth in the lowerjaw of a long dead titan, themountain ridge northeast of El

hours later on the same turf but witha changed pilot re-educated by a trulyamazing biplane.

About the BiplaneIt’s a Marquart Charger (MA-5) andwas designed by Ed Marquart of Riv-erside, California’s Flabob Airport andbuilt 25 years ago by Dr. Roy C. Wickerof Quitman, Georgia. Not many werebuilt over the years, perhaps a hun-dred, but at every stop on my trip,someone would slowly walk towardthe biplane with that respectful I-think-

I-recognize-it look.“Is it a Skybolt?“Nope, Marquart Charger,” I’d an-

swer while unbuckling the four-pointharness and pulling myself out of thecockpit by the handles on the upperwing, a maneuver that, by itself,makes owning a biplane worthwhile.

“Marquette, huh?”“No,” I’d say and swing first one

leg then the other over the rim to climbdown the wing. “Marquart—‘quart,’”and spell it out to drive the name deepinto the stranger’s consciousness. Af-ter that, I’d list the specs: “Four wings,four ailerons, two seats, but I’m usingthe front seat for baggage,” pointing tothe metal lid with the compass on topcovering the front cockpit.

“Aerobatic?”“Yeah, but I’m lousy at it.

“What’s it got for an engine?”“Lycoming O-360,” and I’d pop

the cowling open so heat rolled pastus.

“Hundred and eighty horsepower,swinging a McCauley fixed-pitchprop.”

“Inverted fuel?”“No.”“Smoke system?”“Only where oil leaks onto the

exhaust.”“Fast, is it?”

“For a biplane, sure, but speed’snot the selling point. Cruises about ahundred and five knots at sixty-fivepercent power, faster if you wannaburn more gas, which since it useshundred octane costing more thansingle-malt scotch, I don’t alwayswanna do.”

“Burn about twelve gallons anhour?”

“More like ten, stop-to-stop,” I’dsay. “Makes the math easy enougheven for me.”

I’ve never liked math, so roundnumbers work best, and in roundterms the Charger flies at Cessna 172speeds—the old straight tails, not thestuffy new ones at a quarter mil each—while burning Cherokee 180 fuel rateswith the advantage of having only halfthe Cherokee’s range and load capa-bilities.

Advantage? Absolutely, becausewith a Charger you make lots of stops,and if you arrive in Lordsburg, NewMexico in a Cherokee no one walksthrough the ramp’s furnace to ask youabout your airplane. They don’t standbeside it while their sneakers melt intothe hot pavement and stare at thestacked wings laced together withshiny flying wires and bug-crustedstruts. They don’t ask the Cherokeedrivers where they’re from, are theymad, or what’s it like to ride across the

Paso, Texas blocked what I’d thoughtwould be a shortcut to Carlsbad, NewMexico. But, whatever I’d thought inmy former life before departing on this4000-mile biplane ride rarely matchedwhat the mountains and desertsviewed from an open cockpit had toteach. In short, there was no way I wasgetting over that ridge without a seri-ous handshake from the ghost ridersdancing among the craggy peaks. It had begun two weeks earlierwhen I left Iowa in a Marquart Chargerheaded to Watsonville, California forits annual Memorial Day fly-in andspaghetti fest. I’d worked at that air-port in the 1970s, and this was my firstreturn flight. Doing so in a biplaneseemed the perfect way to fly acrossboth miles and time, only I didn’t re-alize how broad both spectra were.The miles, I could measure on chartsthat ripped apart in the cockpit’s wind,but above landscapes so wide themind was sucked into unseen hori-zons that reworked all concepts ofplace and time.

Looking back, now, the journeyplays out as a mind movie where thereels are run in no particular order—a mountain landing in Ruidoso, NewMexico with density altitude at 10,000feet shares the screen with a hellishfire bog called Blyth, California wheretriple-digit heat on a deserted air fieldmade me feel as though I’d flown offthe planet and into a place whererattlesnakes complained about theheat.

Still, when all these disparate im-ages are raked together, sorted, andlaid end for end, the trip begins witha cool morning take-off from a smallgrass strip in Iowa and ends 45 flying

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(c) 2005, Paul Berge www.ailerona.com)

2 (c) Paul Berge www.ailerona.com • July 2005

sky with nothing above their brains buta coat of SPF 500 sunscreen and acanvas flying helmet?

When I landed in Kansas afterdodging Toto-eating thunderstorms,the owner of a Hawker bizjet that’dlanded behind me rushed over tocircle the biplane in awe saying howmuch better it must be to see the worldfrom my machine than from his kero-sene tube-o-comfort. I offered to swaphim even, but guys who own jets andwear dreamy dot.com smiles havemore sense than biplane pilots like mewho’ve been too long in the air and arein need of a bath, real food, and aclean rag to wipe the oil leaks drip-ping from the cowl.

He smiled, climbed into his jet,and ordered the two pilots up front towhoosh him back into his worldwhere, no doubt, that night over whitewine in Aspen he’d retell his friendsabout the gray-haired, smelly bi-winged bum he’d met in Kansas,“Pass the brie, please, Clarissa…” and

the Marquart would fade from hismemory.

For 25 years this Marquart—builtfrom plans, no kits—has turned headsand brought smiles to flyers and non-believers alike. Ed Marquart appar-ently spent years designing what wasfor him the best of all biplanes, and I’d

Marquart. It’s a funny name to say(sounds like the Aflack duck clearingits throat), but it’s a good biplane to fly.

Structurally, it’s nothing exotic andthat adds to its charm. Wood wings—spars and ribs—with a welded steelfuselage lined with aluminum string-ers form its Lauren Bacall waistlineabove a tight tail, all covered in cot-ton and dope that’s still tough after 25hangared years. N645’s US Navy paintscheme is a tribute to its builder’s(Wicker) wartime career as a NavalAviator.

The tail looks too small, and in thatmomentary transition from tail-highwheel landing to tail-down taxi, it feelsbriefly inadequate especially in cross-winds. While it wheel lands assweetly as a Citabria, AeroncaChamp, or Cessna 140, it’s easy tooverreact to the turning tendencies atslow speeds—at least in this Charger,I can’t speak for others.

Since I routinely operate from a2200-foot grass strip in Iowa, the mile-long runways so common out Westseemed like child’s play, but at thehigher density altitudes—routinelyabove 5000 feet—my touchdownstended to be hard. Until I got the hangof higher altitude ops an embarrass-ing whiff of burning rubber accompa-nied each arrival. With faster touch-down groundspeeds and the lack ofsoft grass to correct my sloppy tech-nique, landings were, well, spirited attimes.

Where I’ve been used to a softrumbling touchdown on dewy turffollowed by a short roll as the tailwheelacted like a hook in the grass, the heat-soaked pavement in Benson, Arizonasquealed as scrub raced past, runwaylights threatened to clip the lowerwing tips, and coyotes ran for the hills.

The temptation is to bring the taildown too soon, which simply in-creases the angle of attack, adds lift,and makes the arrival even squirrelier.Full-stall landings might be better, but,hell, I like wheel landing. The secretis to trust in Ed Marquart’s design andallow the biplane to roll without toomuch pilot-induced interference.Properly rigged and aptly flown—

Below: Thad Fenton (on left) and au-thor (at cowling) in front of the EAAChapter 119 hangar at Watsonville, Ca(WVI). (Photo by Curtis Kelly.)

say he got it right.Walk around one and study the

shapes. As your eyes pass the imagesto your brain you’ll see a Great LakesTrainer, or perhaps just a hint ofBucker in the swept wings. Many seea Steen Skybolt until the Chargerowner explains how Rubinesque inthe waist and tail Skybolts are by com-parison.

Others see Starduster or Hatz—allgems in their own ways, but in the endthis biplane with so many influencesin its pedigree is a unique item—it’s a

Guys who ownjets and weardreamy dot.comsmiles have moresense than biplanepilots like me...


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meaning don’t get too aggressive—theCharger rolls straight. Thankfully, ithas the old Goodyear brakes, whichare so crappy there’s little chance ofaggravating the situation with ama-teurish braking.

Takeoffs can be a directional chal-lenge, too, at high altitudes with fullfuel and light winds. That little bit ofextra runway needed before lift-offgives more exposure to stupidity (aka:Pilot Induced Stupidity Syndrome).

The trick is to feed the throttle insmoothly and anticipate the left-turn-ing tendencies both from normaltorque and p-factor as the power in-creases and from the gyroscopic left-turn tendency induced as the tail rises.Then, gently correct with the merestbreath of right rudder while holdingaileron against the crosswind—allbasic stick-and-rudder techniqueused at sea level but magnified some-what by heat, altitude, and the self-induced anxiety of knowing that athousand miles from home is a dumbplace to drag a wing tip.

The Marquart was never overgross even with two on board, andwith many of its 180 horses availableon take-off (assuming you lean prop-erly), if all else fails just squeeze backon the stick to coax the whole bundleof wires, wings, and sweaty ownerclear of the ground. Lower the noseinto ground effect, and as the speednudges 85 knots, climb away. Onceclear of the taller cacti, oilrigs, andcowboy hats, a 95-knot climb givesdescent cooling but never good for-ward visibility.

Although never over gross, the CGdoes shift aft with weight, which aidscruise speed but took all nose-downtrim from the biplanes screw-jack trimsystem. While stalls in this swept-wingbiplane are somewhat benign, prac-ticing them at low altitude when fullyloaded isn’t advisable, so close atten-tion to airspeed and coordination—asin any airplane—is a must in the pat-tern.

Limiting FactorsThe Marquart is blind over the noseto the rear seat pilot in command. My

beginner’s tendency was to lower thenose too much for cruise. The resultwas a 200 foot-per-minute descent—good airspeed, but down you go.

Properly trimmed you won’t seemuch past the cowling in level flightso occasional pitch dips or gentlebanks are in order throughout cruiseto spot traffic and TV towers. In aCherokee or other traveling machinethis might be considered a design flaw,but the biplane mind knows thatstraight-and-level is not a goal here. Infact, it’s nearly impossible to travelmore than two minutes without roll-ing left, then right, while tilting yourhead back to watch for Fokkers, or togaze over the cockpit’s rim in envy ofthe buzzards circling through nearbythermals.

The biplane’s mission is to fly notto travel. Getting to a destination is ahappy byproduct of the adventure.Before taking the biplane plunge youhave to ask yourself, “Do you want toget somewhere or do you want to besomewhere?” In open-cockpit, you’realways somewhere even though itmight be nowhere near your intendeddestination. Time, somehow, loses itsearthly grip in flight.

Still, my destination was northernCalifornia along the Monterey Bay,and en route I stopped in Van Nuys topick up Curtis Kelly, a friend who’s

also a tailwheel pilot. From Van Nuys,where I’d irritated just about every airtraffic controller with my microphone-in-the wind voice, to Watsonville,Curtis rode in the front seat while Idiscovered how miserably windy itgets in the back when the front holeis open. The problem is the wind-shields.

A quick look at the two cockpitsshows each with a windshield equalin size. Both were transplanted froma Ryan PT22—classy but that frontscreen generates hurricanes in theback. Picture the slipstream flowingalong the fuselage when the front seatis buttoned up; it hits the rear screenand coils into space leaving the solopilot grinning in relative calm. I canfly alone from the back seat wearinga baseball cap turned ‘round and apair of sunglasses without fear of los-ing either.

But when you open the front seatfor guests and tack on the forwardwindshield things change. The windnow smacks the front glass, which, be-cause it stands so tall, deflects the blastinto the under side of the upper wing

Above: The Marquart Charger on theramp in the 100-degree heat atBenson, Az (E95).



where it ricochets down onto the rearpilot’s head. The sensation is like los-ing an hour-long pillow fight. Thefront-seater, meanwhile, sits in com-fort, confused why the guy behind himis so punch drunk on landing. Thesolution, I’m told, is to cut the frontwindshield down by a third to reducethat deflection. Since I can’t bringmyself to damage a 60-year-old air-plane part, I’m having a smaller wind-

shield made from Lexan®. We’ll seehow that fits and report back. Eitherthat or you’ll see a Lexan windscreenfor sale on e-Bay in a month.

Despite the backseat pummeling,I found that by wearing gogglesthroughout the flight with a front seatpassenger I could survive with onlyminor brain damage, which my neu-rologist assures me isn’tpermanent…isn’t permanent...isn’t

per…(Thwack!).I’m fine, really.Engine heat was another issue

even before the journey. With theLycoming turning money into power,a lot of heat needs to escape and usu-ally through the firewall and into thefuselage, where with the front cock-pit sealed shut, it quickly flows to therear seat to cook the pilot’s feet. Beingopen cockpit does nothing to cool

When planning your next vacationtrip don’t ask me for help, becauseI can’t draw a straight line let alonefollow one. Over two weeks and 45biplaning hours, we coveredroughly 4000 miles from Indianola,Iowa (IA66) to Watsonville, Califor-nia (WVI) and back again. Along theway, I smoked the tires at 34 differ-ent airports, several of which I vis-ited twice. Some stand out as excel-lent stops while a few have alreadyfaded into heat-soaked blurs.Lordsburg, New Mexico, for in-stance, conjures wavy images ofcrushing heat and the sudden ap-pearance of Border Patrol wagonsfull of temporary visitors about to beprocessed back to Mexico. All in all,a depressing stop.

The route from Iowa wanderedsouth to Lubbock, Texas taking ad-vantage of a slot of clear air betweentwo cold fronts. Lubbock (LBB) Air-port is about the size of Delawareand home to the WWII Glider PilotsMuseum next door to Aero Lubbock,a descent FBO that—oddly—doesn’tallow you to camp overnight on itscouch.

From Lubbock we pushed westat dawn into New Mexico. It wascool on the ground and had I stayedlow I could’ve enjoyed a smooth rideall the way to Lovington. Instead Iclimbed into the inversion layer ofheat. When descending back intoLovington 100 mile later, I discov-ered the mistake and stayed low forthe next leg to Roswell where aliens

invited me into their mother ship forrefreshments and what I thoughtwere rather probing questions. I re-fueled, gawked at the dozens ofghost airliners parked nose totailpipe on the ramp awaiting theguillotine, and launched in the latemorning heat for the high countrywhere up the mountains west ofRoswell is Ruidoso, New Mexico.The name means “Noisy River,” notterribly clever but a pleasant enoughtourist trap with a great airport at the6800-foot level. The temperaturewas in the 80s making the densityaltitude 9600 feet, my highest den-sity altitude operation of the trip. Thebiplane handled it fine, both land-ing and the cool morning departurethe next day.

The short trip from Ruidoso toAlamogordo was marked by con-trast. At Sierra Blanca the air wascool, the scenery stunning withsnowy mountain peaks and rollingforests—most of which catch fireeach summer to clean out all themansions built over the winter. Drift-ing down the slopes towardAlamogordo, the land turns dryagain with the White Sands moon-scape and missile range stretchedout as far as I could see to the west.At Alamogordo I asked advice aboutheading to El Paso and was told,“Stay close to Highway 54 and youwon’t get shot down in the restrictedareas that straddle the highway for70 miles.”

Next stop, Dona Ana County

(5T6) west of El Paso with 8500 feetof wide runway. From there Inter-state 10 shoots north than west, so wetook a shortcut along a railroad to-ward Deming, New Mexico. Fuelstatus was good, and we pushed onto Lordsburg, arriving in time for theborder festival. Then, off to Benson,Arizona, where it was so miserablyhot (“But a dry heat”) that we spentthe night. The Benson FBO wasgreat. They loaned me a van to headinto town and the next morning Ireturned it to depart at dawn whenthe desert is beautiful, and all thescorpions and snakes are too tiredfrom a night of eating each other topester you too much.

Casa Grande (CGZ) is a must forany AAA member. Not because theairport is exceptional—it’s niceenough and has some cool air-planes—but just because the peopleare, well, they’re some of us. In par-ticular, there’s a small shop near theself-serve pumps run by a mechanicnamed Sonny. I think he’s beenthere since Goldwater bought theland from Spain and was tremen-dously helpful clearing up a plug-fouling problem. The problem was Iwasn’t leaning properly. I was lean-ing like a wimpy Easterner, and inthe hot highlands the Lycoming de-mands aggressive leaning as soon asthe engine starts.

From Casa Grande I attemptedto fly direct to Buckeye, Arizona(BXK) with radar service through the

The Good, The Bad, The Hotter ‘n Hell Stops


(continued on next page)


things below the belt. In fact, the opencockpit acts like a chimney drawingheat onto the pilot. A pair of NACAvents at thigh level brings in some air,but still the heat persists, and know-ing I’d be headed to places namedDeath-By-Heatstroke, Arizona, I cuttwo vents into the boot cowling andpadded the firewall on the passengerside. The results were good; heat wasgreatly reduced. Still, near the surfaceon scorching days it’s bloody hot inany airplane.

Sadly, in winter that heat isn’tthere, so you’ll freeze your butt in theMarquart in January. Its detachablebubble canopy helps on sunny winterdays, but the key word is detachable.On a particularly cold morning I triedto taxi with the bubble canopy par-

tially latched only to dis-cover how easily it be-comes detached from theairframe, taking rivets, eye-glasses, and my choicestswear words with it.

All the comfort issuesfrom wind and heat wereminor and in no way over-rode the tremendous joythis open-cockpit biplaneoffers. I’ve been flying and teaching intailwheelers such as Champs andCitabrias for years, but the step into thebiplane life unlatches and demandsa whole new appreciation of the sky.

Biplanes are made for grass, butthe Marquart mixes well with the bigstuff. Returning to Van Nuys fromCamarillo, the tower growled at me to

proceed direct to the end of the run-way and keep my speed up because

Above: Pilots Curtis Kelly (left) andPaul Berge pre-departure mug shotsat Van Nuys, Ca. (VNY). (Photo byStephanie of Hollywood.)

Phoenix Class B airspace, but Phoe-nix Approach was highly uncoop-erative, so I flew west of the SierraEstrella range and into Buckeye,which is infested with gyrocopters.No FBO, but self-serve 100LL wasavailable and I was soon headed tomy favorite desert vacation spot ofall—Blyth, California, elevation 397feet MSL and located equidistancebetween nowhere and nothing.

This is one bleak place whereyou don’t want to land after the FBOcloses, because even the gila mon-sters won’t talk to you. I fueled therein late morning on the way to VanNuys, and it was a good enough stopfor fuel, ice cream, and runningwater. But on the return trip, Itouched down at 5:30 PM, thirtyminutes after the FBO had lockedup and left. The place was desertedand miserably hot without muchshade—a truly dangerous place tolinger. There’s no outside phone, nowater, and nobody within survivablewalking distance.

Luckily, my cell phone workedand a less-than-enthusiastic motelierpicked me up. Blyth, too, was aWWII military field and still retainstraces of the old ramps and hangars.Strangely, the city built a sprawlingpower plant off the end of runway 8

when they had the entire desert toput it elsewhere.

From Blythe we crossed PalmSprings to land at Banning Airport(BNG) in the Banning Pass where thewind always blows straight downrunway 27. Little traffic for an airportso near to L.A., but the FBO wasfriendly and I refueled and launchedfor the final leg into Van Nuys, whereI displayed to all on several ATC fre-quencies just how little I knew aboutsouthern California landmarks by re-marking to tower that there was noway I could tell the Ventura Freewayfrom the Four-O-Five, at which pointhe sighed and asked me to make ashort approach to get out of his hair.Marquarts can make short ap-proaches, so honor was saved, andwe taxied to Million Air, which to mysurprise, was one the best FBOs ofthe entire trip. No doubt, they mis-took me for Harrison Ford, becausealthough I bought only ten gallons ofgas they gave me a free covered tiedown spot and let me use the indoorplumbing. Way better than Blyth.

Other good stops on the trip in-cluded: Camarillo and Paso Robles,California. The former (CMA) has agreat café and loads of war birds; thelatter (PRB) has pretty scenery andgreat wines within tasting distance.

Watsonville has a good Mexican res-taurant (Zunigas) on the field.Guymon, Oklahoma (GUY) was anunplanned escape from fog butturned out to be a terrific airport witha smattering of Beech 18s and a DC-3 on the ramp. There’s also a goodMexican restaurant in tow. Anotherfog stop was Marysville, Missouri(EVU) run by Kevin Rankin, whobent over backwards to help.

The cheapest avgas en routewas at Lovington (E06), a skid markof a town in the New Mexico oilfields. A former TWA pilot whodoesn’t fly anymore but does hisbest to keep the rest of us aloft runsthe airport.

My favorite airport of all,though, was Hooker, Oklahoma(O45). No FBO, no traffic, but a greatname for their local baseball team:“The Horny Toad Hookers.”

You don’t learn things like thisfiling IFR in a Cessna 210; real va-cation gems only come fromtaildraggin’ around in an opencockpit biplane looking for a placeto refuel, grab a cheap meal, andskirt whatever weather, mountains,or government-restricted airspacethreatens ahead. Just don’t call meif Hooker doesn’t live up to yourexpectations.



a jet was to follow. Debates over shock-cooling aside, the Marquart can giveATC good climb and descent rates anda decent speed to short final, wherewith power back you gently lift thenose to bleed off speed to make therunway and a reasonable turn-off.

Several times when wheel land-ing at towered airports, I had to ignorecontrollers asking me to make a turn-off while the tail was still in the air.Landing at Salina, Kansas, for in-stance, the tower controller—swamped with two airplanes—harped at me to make the first inter-section, but with one wheel barely onthe ground at that point, I ignored him(I’d been a controller for 17 years, so Iknow how to ignore authority). Whenhe repeated the request and told meto “expedite my taxi,” I lowered thetailwheel and politely explained thatunless he wanted to call the wrecker,I’d need to be a little more cautious inground ops.

Inexperienced line personnel ex-hibit a similar lack of understanding

when directing tailwheel airplanesinto tie-downs. They’ll signal me to aspot and then wave at me to taxi di-rectly toward them until I can no longersee their arms. They get the messageand step aside when the spinning propkeeps coming despite their signals tostop.

EnduranceThe Marquart Charger, like many bi-planes, isn’t known for its range. It’sdesigned to run about the sky on prettydays having fun. Cross-country tripsare best planned with the knowledgethat you’ll make lots of stops.

The Charger holds 28 gallons, 27of which are usable, divided among

gauge on the rear instrument paneland is accurate to within 15 gallons.Two five-gallon aux tanks are in thetop wing. Each tank has a tiny fillerneck, so the airplane was regularlyflushed clean with avgas at each re-fueling. Reaching the upper tanks isan awkward balancing act whenstanding on a stepladder’s warningplacard: Do Not Sit Or Stand…

With 27 gallons burned at ten gal-lons per hour, the Charger gets roughlytwo-and-a-half hours range if you don’tmind landing in the desert. I plannedone to one-and-a-half-hour legs, net-ting from 100 to 200 miles dependingon winds.

Drinking bottled water en routeassured that I wouldn’t be tempted tostretch that, although, over Santa Bar-bara when that extra cup of morningcoffee called ready to leave, I seriouslyconsidered standing up to relievemyself while Curtis flew.

The fuel selector is located in therear cockpit. I’d normally take off onthe main tank, climb, and then leveloff and set power and mixture. Then,I’d switch to aux and hit the timer. Fiftyminutes later—about one hour into theflight—I’d switch back to main whereI knew I had at least an hour left plusa few gallons sloshing around in theupstairs tank. The longest leg I flewon this trip was 1:40.

I did run a tank dry over the Okla-homa panhandle. It’s surprisingly easyto do when you’re not paying attentionand, instead, staring at a wind turbinefarm below. The sound of coughing si-lence, however, gets the messageacross and with boost pump on it wasonly a few agonizing seconds beforethe engine growled back to life. A fewmore and my heart did the same.

The RouteHeaded across country you’re goingto cross mountains at some point. Ichose the southern route for severalreasons, but mainly because in yearspast I’d flown two northerly routes viaInterstate 80 and even further northalong Interstate 90 through Missoula,

three tanks. The main holds 17 gal-lons in the fuselage forward of thefront cockpit. It has an electric fuel

Below: Guymon, Oklahoma (GUY).An unplanned stop for thunderstormsand fog turned out to be one of the best.

I followed a high-way across a vast ex-panse of dryness lead-ing to Carlsbad, NewMexico


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Montana. Foul weather blocked theseroutes for the entire time.

The southerly route from Lubbock,Texas (home of the WWII Glider PilotsMuseum) through El Paso, Lordsburg,Benson, Arizona, Tucson, Phoenix,Palm Springs, Banning, and acrossLos Angeles offered lots of fuel stops,easy-to-follow Interstate 10 (a comfortif the engine quit), plus lower terrainwhen compared to routes throughWyoming or even via Albuquerquealong the old Route 66. High tempera-tures were a concern but just a fewthousand feet above most terrain theair was smooth, and wearing tee shirt,shorts, and cloth helmet I was com-fortable.

The scenery from up there wasmind bogglingly stark yet beautiful,and I’ll admit at times it felt intimidat-ing since I was used to lush greenIowa. I carried lots of water but I’dmade the mistake of not drinking regu-larly on the first legs and found my-self dehydrated—a syndrome that’snot automatically recognized but eas-ily prevented.

Unto the MawSo, somewhere northeast of El Paso,Texas, after a week and a half in theMarquart Charger, I followed a high-way across a vast expanse of drynessleading to Carlsbad, New Mexico mynext fuel stop. On the map, the roadbowed to the right but looking aroundthe biplane’s nose I saw a wide valleydotted with green circles from pivot-point irrigation.

The desert literally bloomedthrough here and beaconed for me toshave a few miles off my safety routealong the highway and go direct. Iveered away from the concrete ribbonand felt good following the lily padsacross this sea of brown. To my rightwas a giant salt flat, a place that woulddrain all traces of moisture from anyill-fated traveler who landed there. Tomy left were miles of a New Mexicothat routinely ate up conquistadors,silver prospectors, and Iowa lamebrains like me with no respect for its

harsh immensity and ourown insignificance.Ahead, the lily pads quitat the base of a mountainridge where at the southend the blackened teethof the long dead titan of-fered a foreboding spec-ter. I checked the gasgauge and timers know-ing I had plenty of fuel,especially with thetailwind, but the closer I came to thehills, the louder the ghost riderslaughed until the lily pads disap-peared and I saw I’d need to climbeven higher to cross the last few dozenmiles of earth that looked as though ithadn’t softened since whatever volca-nic heave that created it had cooledmillions of years before. And it wasthen I chickened out and turned to-ward the highway I’d abandonedmiles back.

Green gave way to salt flats andthen climbed into the rugged teeth ofa ridge that loomed well above myhead poking out from my tiny biplaneshell. The wind pushed me along atgroundspeeds over 150 knots, amaz-ing for a boxy old pile of cotton, wood,and wire.

As I paralleled the ridge headedfor the left turn that would reconnectme with the relative comfort of thehighway the thought dawned thatwhatever wind pushed me sosmoothly along this ridge would likelyprove amusing when I made the turnto the leeward side. It was then theghost riders laughed, and the windhooked me around the mountain’spoint like a scrap of litter swirlingdown a storm drain. Still smooth, theair seemed to reach a giant envelop-ing arm that turned me over the high-way, and as I accepted the shove I feltthe biplane sink—and not just a little.

The VSI pointed down 500 feetper minute and I cracked the throttle,which only amused the mountain, asthe winds now tumbled in a waveacross the ridge and sat like acrushingly soft weight on the biplane.

No lenticular clouds, no dust, no mo-bile homes swirling past, just a bluesky dying over me, taking me towardthe desert floor despite the biplane’snow full power climb and prayerfulutterances from the cockpit.

Finally, when the ghost riderswere fully amused and I’d turned tothe safety of the flat lands to my right,the sky seemed to wink, as in, “Got yerattention, now, didn’t we?” And I nod-ded politely toward the toothy ridge,giving a quick salute from a sweatypalm, and said, “Hey, I’m just learn-ing.” And the mountain let me, andthe biplane, pass.

It would be three more days ofdodging Kansas thunderstorms, scudrunning beneath foggy decks, andturning back when I was only 30 milesfrom home before the journey decidedI’d learned enough…

For now.

The End© 2005, Paul Berge

All rights reserved. No part may bereproduced without permission.

Contact Ahquabi House Publishing,LLC for permission to copy.

www.ailerona.com

Ahquabi House Publishing11872 G58 Hwy

Indianola, Iowa 50125


Above: Lost in time (and in what fewthoughts might be had) somewhereover California’s Salinas Valley. (photoby Curtis Kelly)

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