By Paul Hollingworth, EAA 769031
A few weeks ago, I saw a story in the local paper of the Silicon Valley town I live in about a local inhabitant who had just turned 100 and was planning to celebrate by doing a tandem skydive. He was a B-17 bomber pilot in World War II and flew 38 missions. I emailed the author to see if she could put me in touch with him so I could ask him if he’d like to do a gyroplane flight as his next adventure. I promptly got a great email back from him saying he’d love to. I went to his house to say hello and meet him, then flew down the next weekend to watch his skydive. On April 14, 2019, I picked him up and took him down to my airport to do the gyro ride.
He is just amazing. He’s pretty deaf — partly due to damage caused by the B-17’s guns over many missions, which blew out his right eardrum — but although he struggles a bit to hear, he speaks vibrantly and intelligently and has a spectacular wealth of amazing stories. Aside from the experience of flying 1,000 bomber raids over Germany, Belgium, and France as part of the 8th Air Force, there’s the story of the time he took his wife up for the first time — she’d never been in an airplane before — and after strapping her into the AT-6 and taking off, he promptly went inverted and “had her hanging in the harness for a while.” On her first-ever ride in an airplane!
She nearly wasn’t his wife, but ended up marrying him anyway. Apparently while he was flying B-17 missions, he was also training to fly the P-38 Lightning and managed to get some 30 hours in it, as he’d really wanted to fly fighters but they needed bomber pilots more at the time. After he finished his tour, he volunteered for another as a fighter pilot in the P-38. His then-fiancé heard about this and promptly put her foot down, saying he’d done his bit so come home — or it’s good bye. He said it was a tough call as he really did want to fly the P-38.
After the war, he joined United Airlines and his first captain was a man named Hamilton Lee, who had seniority No. 1 and whose flying license was signed by Orville Wright! (Chuck said he was useless at knowing how to use radio aids though.) Chuck spent four years with United flying DC-3s and DC-7s, and then left to work in his father’s furniture making business, which he eventually took over. He was passionate about skiing and sailing and flying, and fortunately, his wife Donna-Beth felt the same way about them all, eventually becoming a pilot herself.
Donna-Beth died a few years ago, but Chuck still lives on his own in the house he bought in 1957. The entire time in the car to and from the airport, he was either telling me amazing stories of the wonderful life he’d had, or asking questions about me. It has been a true privilege to meet him and to fly him in the gyro. And as the photos show, the gyro grin is a thing that happens even when you’re 100.