The old days.\u00a0 What is the definition of \u201cthe old days?\u201d\u00a0 It depends on your point of view, that point of view being age.\u00a0 If you are young, the old days were back in kindergarten, perhaps.\u00a0 If you are in your 80s, who knows when the old days were.<\/p>\n
For me, the old days, more specifically the good<\/em> old days, included the summer I was teaching at the St. Augustine airport. \u00a0It was there that I met a great group of people over at Jim Moser\u2019s Aerosport.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jim was a great guy.\u00a0 Jim and his father, Ernie, and the rest of the family were responsible for building the St. Augustine airport into what it is today.\u00a0 Colonel Ernie Moser, a retired Air Force officer, took over the airport in 1966.\u00a0 At the time, there were only six airplanes based on the field.<\/p>\n There was a group of aerobatic pilots based at the field and they were always practicing in the box just to the east over runways 15-33.\u00a0 It was like going to an airshow on the weekends, without having to sit in the sun and deal with the crowds.<\/p>\n Aerosport had a green Great Lakes 2T-1A at the time that they rented to properly qualified pilots.\u00a0 It was affectionately know as \u201cKermit\u201d because of the color.\u00a0 A group of us was loyal to the airplane; it almost seemed as though it was ours, and not a rental unit.\u00a0 I never believed I would get checked out in such an expensive airplane – $75 per hour.\u00a0 But I did for only one reason (see The Summer of ’86<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n One day, I was standing with a group of people watching a pilot practice some of his airshow maneuvers in Kermit.\u00a0 His girlfriend was among us and we watched as he accidently scraped the tail of the airplane on the runway.\u00a0 It was not such a big deal, but she was mad because he was, at the time, making an inverted pass.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, one day a rental pilot from somewhere else came in, lost it on landing, and destroyed the airplane.\u00a0 It was a sad day at the airport.<\/p>\n Some very interesting pilots hung around the airport.\u00a0 For those of you who fly, you know how it is.\u00a0 There is a cadre of very loyal people including flight instructors, charter pilots, student pilots, and others.\u00a0 They seemed to live for nothing more than sitting around the FBO, talking airplanes, and drinking coffee.\u00a0 This was how I had the opportunity to meet Jim Holland.<\/p>\n Jim was a former airshow pilot and one of the most experienced Pitts pilots ever to fly.\u00a0 He was retired, those days I hung around the airport, and that is how I got to meet him\u2014talking airplanes over coffee on the couch at Aerosport.\u00a0 Saturday mornings were wonderful.<\/p>\n The airport has changed now.\u00a0 Some of those I used to hang around with back in the old days are still there, and I run into one or two of them occasionally.\u00a0 Every other July when it is time to renew my CFI certificate, I choose to renew through AOPA\u2019s weekend FIRC in Jacksonville, just to meet up with a couple of the old gang from St. Augustine.<\/p>\n I miss the two Jims and all the other flyers from St. Augustine.<\/p>\n -30-<\/p>\n \u00a9 2011 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The old days.\u00a0 What is the definition of \u201cthe old days?\u201d\u00a0 It depends on your point of view, that point of view being age.\u00a0 If you are young, the old days were back in kindergarten, perhaps.\u00a0 If you are in … Continue reading