In 1948, living in New Jersey, I wanted very much to get into flying. My inquiries led me to Secaucus (now a metropolis in its own right, 10 minutes from New York City), where I found the Dawn Patrol seaplane base located on the Hackensack River. The owner-operator was a veteran Navy pilot, who just a few years earlier had engaged in combat flying a torpedo bomber. His name was Cliff Umschied, and the fleet consisted of two Luscombes on floats. I was a kid and didn’t have much money at the time, but it was the beginning of a long and wonderful love affair with aviation. The lessons that my own flight training taught me stayed with me over the years until I eventually became an instructor and a designated pilot examiner.
Hawaii Lessons in an Ercoupe
Key Takeaways:
- The author's lifelong passion for aviation began in 1948 and was profoundly shaped by challenging flight training in Hawaii in 1951, where he navigated rudimentary aircraft with limited equipment and undertook daring cross-country flights over open water.
- These foundational Hawaiian experiences instilled crucial flying skills that proved invaluable throughout his career as a flight instructor and designated pilot examiner (DPE), notably enabling him to prevent a serious incident with an undertrained applicant by recovering from an incipient spin.
- The author's enduring appreciation for the comprehensive training received, especially in critical maneuvers like stalls, is a central theme, with a cherished 1951 sectional chart serving as a constant reminder of how those early challenges provided a lifetime of pilot education.
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