Herodrome
by Peter Bradford
Ballet and burlesque have been held over at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome for more than 40 years. In a pastoral setting on a grass runway that appears far too short, aerobeauty and musty comic dreams live forever.
As anyone can tell you, these flimsy constructs don't belong up there. It just ain't fittin'. But there they are, circling above us every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, these loud and heavy machiney things with jutting struts and wiry fins, burping clouds of blue oil, floating on skimpy air that couldn't raise a balloon. Look at me, they say, I weigh a ton, but physics be damned, I'm up here and you're not. In time they stop showing off and soundlessly sidle back to earth, slipping sideways down an invisible slope, showing a bit of saucy tail. In a suspended moment they poise over the grass, then gently alight, en pointe, engine ticking, then roaring with glee.
(Thrumming, chugging flybys, whistling rockets, surprisingly melodic national anthem) Goooood Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! We're ready to go here at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome...High in the sky is a couple of old barnstormin' bi-planes. On your right is the red and silver DeHavilland Tiger Moth, the primary trainer of the Royal Air Force in 1931, and built in larger numbers than any other bi-plane over there in Europe. Still about 60 of them in the United States, about 30 still airworthy. And right behind him, the Great Lakes, one of the most popular bi-planes in the Golden Age of aviation...This is the experimental Speedster version, powered by a 200 horsepower Ranger engine, six-cylinders in-line, air-cooled. Aaaand, a little aero-ballet up there...they circle in formation and dive together, sticking the nose down to gain a little air speed, hopefully, simultaneously, oooooozing back on those sticks...and then!...breaking off to each side.
WHAT was that? Did everybody see that? He threw something out! It's...Yes! It's a roll of Dulcy toilet tissue, the light and fluffy brand from 1931, a 1000-sheet roll, two-ply. It's...the famous, fantastic, death-defying, upside down and Yeeeeeoooooh!...right side up DULCY DIVE. How many times can he cut that toilet paper before it hits the ground?
Snarling, riffing, revving as they wheel about, the boxy things race to the twisting white streams, tip on a wing and charge back through the paper again, performing the silly trick with obliging dash. One thinks of stately lions, perched on their tiny podiums and jumping when told, tolerating the whims of man and his peevish whip. Tom Daly, the director of the air show, used the word "majestic" when we talked about these winged contraptions. They are a grand sight. When they escape the grasp of the earth and breathe the air they need, they rise to splendid heights. I have thrilled to them since the early 40s, when I would spend my days hidden in the high grass at the end of the runway at Hascom Field near Boston, ducking as the Army's shiny warrior planes drummed over, around, and into me.
(Bap! Bap! Urpa Bap!) "A little hiccup there...and Heeere they come once again folks, our Dulcy-diving, ribbon-cutting, barnstormin' biplanes... (Bap! Buurpity Bap!)...we tip our hats to 'em. The wind, it's swingin' around, coming from the west now, see the flag? Aaaand, on final approach, see the Tiger bounce on the wind?...it plants its feet firmly on the ground. These planes have no brakes, you know, they're a little hard to control on the ground...Now folks, we have something special for you today at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome...we are going to have a wedding. Yessir, after 20 years of trying, Trudy Truelove and Sir Percy Goodheart are finally going to tie the knot. That is, if he doesn't...but there he is! I don't believe it! The Black Baron of Rhinebeck is here again! He's been trying to steal a kiss from Trudy Truelove for 44 years. Now kids, get ready to Boooo. A lowdown, international rascal if ever there was one...Booooooooo! Uh oh, it looks like he...He wants to join the ceremony!
Amid the ensuing, scuttling, popping din of a Great War motorcycle, 1917 Renault tank, Model T ambulance, and a squad of the Baron's Keystone Huns in a vintage Brewster, the farce plays out before a thousand or so kids and camera-clicking parents on plank-board bleachers. Poor Trudy Truelove is pursued, captured, and carried off by the black-caped badman. Boooooooo. Ommigosh, look at that! There'll be no wedding today, folks. Somehow, in the lulls of the chase, shoe-horned between the rocket-powered bike and the whistling smokers dropped on Madame Fifi's Lingerie Shop in the false-front French village across the field, the astonishing grace of the creatures from aviation's first three decades prevail. Cameos are flown by the last original World War I airplane, the 1918 Curtiss JN4H Jenny, bought by the founder of the Aerodrome, the revered Cole Palen (note the broad, broad wingspan and the slender fuselage, it flew only 60, 70 miles an hour), and the 1916 Spad 7 (faster than most and see all those struts bracing the wings?--very strong). The engines are specified, the builders, the handling peculiarities--a gentle rain of odd and fascinating detail falls down, an obbligato serenade to the wheeling, buzzing aircraft. Whether they pilot, narrate, repair, or run about in Hun suits, the Aerodrome people love these things. The very strange 1910 Hanriot lifts itself briefly off the field, lands on its wood skiis, and pirouettes in front of us to show how its wings and tail could be warped to improve its performance. The square-ish 1918 Fokker DVII takes flight, then the sleek, torpedo-shaped Albatross, to do fly-by battle and drop bombs on the Lingerie Shop. Whole engines actually rotated with the propeller, we hear; interruptor gears allowed the firing of machine guns right through the spinning propeller. The theatrics on the field and serenade of detail spin on, throwing a mash of corn and meat to every fantasy.
Yessir, it's the 1931 QCF Waco, a great name from the barnstorming era, when these planes buzzed little towns all across America. They planted seeds of eye-poppin' adventure in the minds of little boys who had never looked up to see such sights before. Now folks, we're going to roll out one of the great airplanes of all time, the old Piper Cub. You talk about...Wait, who's that? Oh, no!...It's that Farmer Gugliani again. He cuts our grass, keeps it nice and trim, and now 'e wants his ride home. Hey! Get away Farmer, we got a show going here. What's he doing? Uh oh...he's...watch out! He jumped in...he's stealing the Piper Cub! And he doesn't know how to fly!
Well, as we quickly see, this man most definitely does know how to fly. Stan Segalla, the Flying Farmer, has performed the same hayseed theft at air shows for 40 years, and he alone is worth twice the price of admission. He climbs his little yellow plane at impossible angles, he hangs it in the air like a coat on a hook, he wriggles, swoops, and spirals straight down, pulling up just in time to make a silent, dead-stick landing. Magical. He doesn't so much master the Piper, as the two of them, pilot and plane, master the act of flight. Watching them, you grasp the near-organic joy of riding air, and you grasp early fliers' delight in exploring a realm of nature for the first time. I like to reflect on that, so I visit the Old Aerodrome more often than I care to admit. Let's say it's my exercise in focus. How long can I hold myself in that time, riding those lumbering machines, before I am dragged back to real time, to the honking cars behind me and the contrails of jets high above?
Long ago I thought I was meant to be in an open cockpit. But, now I know I'm not, just like I know I'll never run that four-minute mile, or kick extra points for the New York Jets. I'll never get to wear that head-hugging, goggle-crowned leather helmet, and that hurts. Those goggles. They mark the intensity of a warrior: the mud-spattered jockey, the cool downhill racer, the raccoon-eyed Indy car driver, and, especially, the distant, horizon-staring pilot.
At the Aerodrome, emerging from their ancient warrior planes, pilots are the elementary bold riders. Looking close at the Flying Farmer, painted by his act as a trespassing crank, is looking into the heart of an unshakeable icon--the tanned and weathered, crinkly-eyed pilot, the voice you hear on the intercom: "This is the captain speaking..." I dearly wanted to be like all of them, a warrior goggle-person, but I don't anymore. Not since my two short and very sad flying lessons, when confusion after paralyzing confusion shot my dreams full of panic and spread howls of hysterical laughter in the airport control tower. Never again. I have to leave that dream in the hands of the good guys like Stan Segalla and Tom Daly.
The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and Museum, Stone Church Road, Rhinebeck NY. Call (845) 752-3200, or visit www.oldrhinebeck.org. Open May 15 through October 31, Last show October 17. Weekend rides are available.
