Martha Lunken

On a cold night in ­early spring, I took off from Lunken Airport in 72B, my beloved (I think) Cessna 180. I came back to climb power at 500 feet agl and the engine began running rough, missing and losing power — which sort of caught my attention. So, I pulled on the carburetor heat […]

Recently a friend sent me a blurb from another aviation magazine about the restoration of a Beech Staggerwing — arguably the ultimate classic airplane — by the Kansas Aviation Museum. He knew I’d be interested in this particular D17S because it belonged at one time to my ex- and late husband, Ebby Lunken. Unfortunately, when […]

I hadn’t seen Jerry Kemp in a while, but an email from him recently brought a flood of memories and a delightful (in retrospect) reminiscence about this hero and friend, an FAA safety meeting and a place called Bristol Village in rural southeastern Ohio. By the late 1980s, I’d swapped my job as principal operations […]

It was past 10 o’clock, and we were beat after eight hours grinding around Illinois and Wisconsin on check rides for a new Part 135 air-taxi company. Goldie and I were sitting in the dark, deserted terminal building at Rockford Airport while Don went back out on the ramp to see if the mechanic was […]

I should probably stick to telling flying stories, but ­occasionally I get so worked up that I can’t resist taking off on what I see as some new wacko FAA-mandated requirement or procedure. So it’s no surprise that the agency’s current ­“initiative” (in Bureaucratese) of replacing the Practical Test Standards with the Airman Certification Standards […]

I borrowed this title from a documentary about Pete Seeger and the Weavers because the phrase “wasn’t that a time” always comes to mind when I ­remember an airfreight company operating out of southwestern Ohio for nearly 30 years — first as Hogan Air and then Miami Valley Aviation. When I came back home to […]

When St. Mary’s Church asked Cincinnati bishop Joseph Binzer to officiate at a “Blessing of Aircraft” ceremony at Grimes Field in Urbana, Ohio, Bishop Joe demonstrated remarkable faith in divine providence and flew with me in 72B to this central Ohio town. It was September 18, the feast day of a 17th-century Italian monk famous […]

The atmosphere in our normally gray conference room was, well, colorful, and the manager was wishing he hadn’t OK’d my idea for an informal meeting with local traffic helicopter and fixed-wing pilots after a recent and highly publicized accident. On that frigid, foggy morning, a pilot and a female ­reporter lifted off in a Bell […]

John Mugavin is made of rare stuff. This stocky, hugely talented, successful and gutsy guy is also as friendly and “old shoe” as they come. Mugavin is a familiar name around here for both the primo auto-body shop he owns and operates, and his fame as a dirt-track driver. Twenty-five years after building his first […]

A longtime pilot and savvy airplane broker at Lunken Airport named Jerry Swart used to say, “Sooner or later, every crook ends up at the airport.” When you think about it, airports do seem to be a magnet for an array of colorfully shady characters — maybe more so in the days before the “benefits” […]