It was the spring of 1979. Robert Parke, then FLYING’s editor, was in Los Angeles. His next stop was Reno, and of course I offered to fly him there. My homemade airplane, Melmoth, had by then successfully crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and so the intrepid Parke, who had piloted B-17s over Europe in World War II, was willing to chance it.
It was a clear, calm day. We climbed out of Whiteman Airport (KWHP) and through the Newhall Pass, turning northwestward toward Gorman. I leveled out at 10,500 feet. Mount Pinos crept past our left wing and the vast flatness of the San Joaquin Valley lay fading into the haze before us.
