During this time, my dad became ill with heart conditions. Our family went to see him because he was not in very good condition. By the time we drove from Orlando to see him, he had gotten much better.

Also in that town was an old friend, Jeff, who used to have an Aeronica.

Another guy had just flown in to show off a gorgeous new, four-place executive plane that he had borrowed. This was a very nice plane with low-wing and retractable landing gear. He wanted to show it to Jeff and anyone else interested, so I went out to the airstrip with Jeff.

The guy who had borrowed the new plane was known around the area as somewhat of a wheeler-dealer. The plane had just been delivered to the new owner and the wheeler-dealer had told him that if he could take the plane while the owner was at work and show it off, he could make a sale for a new one from the factory and there would be a really good commission for both of them.

The guy, not knowing Wheeler-Dealer, consented. This is how the plane was now tooling around Wheeler-Dealer’s old airport haunts being shown off.

Many things transpired that day and I was mostly along for the ride, figuratively and literally. I had not even gone from the hospital to the airport in my own car but left our car at the hospital for Bettie and went in Jeff’s car. It was only to be a short ride there and back – 30 minutes total...likely.

I do not remember many of the details but we ended up in the plane for a quick flight around the strip. Jeff was in the back with someone he and the pilot knew but I didn’t. I was in the front right seat (long legs) and Wheeler-Dealer was in the left seat. We were just to have a quick demonstration ride around the pattern.

This shouldn’t take long.

But it did. And why it did is amusing to some and criminal to others.

We took off and the Wheeler-Dealer pulled up flaps and landing gear and climbed fast. It really was a powerful airplane. The temperature was hot outside and there was no wind but with near full tanks and four large guys, the plane was loaded, yet it didn’t feel like it.

Wheeler-Dealer said that he had had more weight in it than that since he had the airplane, and he figured that he might as well make it pay for gas, so he had been running errands for some oil companies. Some of this involved heavy pieces of equipment. (And this was in a brand new, executive plane on loan to him!)

Then collectively (I had no say) it was decided it would be fun to fly over to the next town that was about 35 miles to the east. This was a little more than I had bargained for but I could hardly say "no" when the other three thought it a great idea. Besides, in that plane, it wouldn’t take long – maybe 15 minutes at the most. It would cruise at 170 mph.

Then at that town it was decided it would be a real lark to fly over to another town and do a touch and go on the old airstrip where two guys in the plane had learned to fly Piper Cubs more than a decade before. This would be 25 miles to the southeast.

By this time, since I was in the right seat, Wheeler-Dealer was letting me fly it. It was nice...it was new...it had a new airplane smell. Though powerful, it had a light, precise touch.

We got to that town and then they argued while trying to decide where that old strip was. I was being told, "Go a little more that direction..." with hands and fingers pointing over my shoulders.

If it had been a high wing plane, they could have found what they were looking for faster.

In a bit they were satisfied that we had located it.

This was all fun. I knew I should not have gone that far away from the hospital...no matter how fast we got there...but the fun was readily neutralizing my sense of guilt. .

Then Wheeler-Dealer said, "Hell! Anyone can fly this thing. Cashion, you're doing fine. Shoot me a touch and go on that strip."

(This cavalier attitude shows how crazy he was!)

I figured that I wasn’t going to, but I didn’t want to wimp out at the on-set so I said, "Let me slow-fly it first. Anybody see any evidence of wind direction?"

We decided what the direction likely was and I saw some dirt blowing and it was right down the strip. So a west-to-east approach would be best.

I throttled back, had flaps and landing gear down, and I saw the barbed wire fence at the approach end of the strip. I tailored my approach to touch down just after clearing that fence...only I had no intentions of touching down. I was just going to fly down the strip at a low speed to see if I thought the field was long enough. From the air, it didn’t look it.

Regardless, I was not going to do a touch and go...or try to.

I saw that fence go under me very fast and we were approaching the fence at the other end like we were in a rocket. Then zip! It was under and behind me.

I gave a little throttle and told Wheeler-Dealer that I could not land it there. He said that I could and it would be fine. I emphatically said, "I cannot land it! I can crash it! But I cannot land it." (Note: many planes can safely land where they cannot take off.)

And I might have made a mistake by then advising that no one try it. This, unfortunately, Wheeler-Dealer considered to be a challenge...he was that dim.

He circled around to start his approach. I was preparing to assume the "ready-to-crash" position. If we didn’t trip on the approach fence, we were going to run through the fence at the other end.

I remembered thinking how glad I was to be sitting where I had a door, but being low wing, if we went upside down, it would not be good.

He cleared the fence and plopped it down; the landing gear sprang back up and we were airborne again. It is hard to slow down when wheels are not on the ground. He had about three seconds to give full throttle. He didn’t.

The wheels firmly settled down about half way to the other fence. I knew we were not going to take off...we had touched the caliche at about 60 mph.

I heard all sorts of bad noises as stuff was kicked up by the skidding landing gear and then we started to veer to the right. I heard Wheeler-Dealer say the classic, "Oh SHIT!"

I was watching "my" wing tip on the right side and it was getting closer and closer to the small but very hard trees that were now bordering this old airstrip.

I put my hands on the instrument panel and kept watching that wing tip. The wing tip hit the limb of a little tree and the tip busted...this pulled us more to the right. I saw about two feet of the wing disappear as we hit another tree and then the whole right wing sort of exploded.

I knew it was a fully molded, stressed plywood skin, and the clearance light wire or a control cable did not break, but just ripped through the ply all the way to the landing gear brace. At that we spun more into the trees and went up on the nose wheel, right landing gear, and the last six feet of right wing still attached to the aircraft.

We balanced there for a second. No one said anything and then in the powdery dust, we fell back onto the tail. The right landing gear must have buckled.

By then, I was well out of the plane and leaving the scene of the crime.

Wheeler-Dealer was honest enough to say that he misjudged the landing strip and that they must have shortened it since he had learned to fly there. It was obvious being down there that it was not used as a landing strip anymore.

I proposed that back then they were flying a lightly loaded Piper Cub, landing at 40 – not in a loaded executive plane landing at 70.

We started walking and talking about who we could call to come get us. Wheeler-Dealer lived nearby and had called a friend to come pick him up.

Since I had a station wagon at the hospital, that would be the obvious choice. We got to a gas station and I called the hospital and talked with Bettie.

"You are where?"

"What are you doing there?"

"There are three of you? What is going on!!?"

I guess me saying, "We have had an airplane accident and it can’t fly and you need to come get me and two other guys," wasn’t making sense to her.

The last she had heard from me was me sticking my head in a hospital room and whispering, "I am running out to the airport to look at a plane...be right back."

And then in short order, it was "we have crashed and you need to come get us."

We were 65 miles to the east of the hospital.

Bettie came and I thought she took it all very well. She was pleasant and upbeat when she came. I was so proud of her.

We were very dirty. That dirt becomes a fine powder when disturbed and if a person is sweaty, and we were by the time we walked to the gas station, the powder sticks to everything...the person and clothes. It does not brush off even when dry.

We let out the other two at the airstrip we had departed from and where they had left their cars.

As soon as they closed our car doors, Bettie’s demeanor changed.

"Yes, Honey, I know it was foolish but it was a developing set of circumstances."

She wondered (aloud) how it was that I could make an emergency drive of over 1,200 miles to visit a father who was possibly dying in a hospital from heart failure and then I go have an airplane crash!

"No...I do not know how he would have taken it if I had been killed."

I was thinking that had I been killed, it wouldn’t have mattered what I thought.

This was a case of extenuating circumstances getting out of control.

My father recovered and we returned home without any more crashes.

*****

There is yet one last bit to this story.

Wheeler-Dealer had disappeared off the map.

No one knew where he went and no doubt the owner of the wrecked plane was not happy. Nor was the insurance company. It was a big financial mess for the guy who had been taken in by the wheeler-dealer, but in truth, I knew what he was, and yet, I still got in an airplane with him.

He was that disarming and convincing. His confidence was without limit and this was infectious.

Many years later, I happened to meet up with one of the other occupants of that plane. We had only had that one day in common. We were laughing about it and how the wheeler-dealer pushed on the brake so hard that he broke the left one and that was what sent us into the trees on the right. It would have been better to have gone straight into the barbed wire fence at the end. This could have been like hitting somewhat gentle arresting gear.

That turned out not being one of our options.

As we continued our recounting of the flight, he said that he was flying way out west and he needed some fuel. There was a small airstrip with fuel and he gave them a call on the radio. A very familiar voice from early teen days came over the radio. He was giving the usual wind speed and direction and runway alignment.

There was a long pause and the flier called back.

"Is this Bill Brown?"

The voice said, "No. Identify yourself, please."

The flier did and the next message was, "Ya’ wanna’ a beer?"

Yep! Wheeler-Dealer had left the state and taken another name. He had been living with an alias but he still wasn’t laughing about the crash. He said that it cost him a lot. It is expensive to get on a bus with only some of your clothes and only the money you could get together in 24 hours. He said that he left to the west and would never go back.

I have an idea that for a long time, the owner of the nice airplane wished that he could have been found.