By Rex Gray, EAA Lifetime 608447
Ron Faulkner was not shy about identifying himself as a VIP. He had heard of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, but had never attended. I was to assume the duties of a VIP guide for his two days at AirVenture 2018.
Ron and I had flown together some 40-plus years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska. A pipeline was being built and Alaska needed pilots. It was a boom time for young aviators. Our days were filled with flying and our evenings with flying stories, sharing the day’s adventures. The missed approach at Galbraith Lake due to caribou on the runway, the low visibility nondirectional beacon (NDB) circle approach into Happy Valley, the midnight medevac into the snowstorm at the Paxson pipeline camp, and on and on till late in the evening. We happily repeated the cycle for days, only taking a break when the FARs required us to.
We were flying a lot, having fun, and trying to rack up enough hours for that coveted airline job. I eventually made it to the airlines. Ron, while he maintained his passion for aviation, took a different track. He became, as he likes to call it, a VIP — a visually impaired person — after a motorcycle accident that severed both of his optic nerves.
Ron’s world went totally dark 40 years ago. It was a sudden change of course for the former Marine C-130 navigator and young airline pilot hopeful.
Over the years, we stayed in touch via the very occasional phone call. Age, though, has a way of putting relationships with friends in the proper perspective. The calls became more frequent. Last year I was in his area on a tour stop with EAA’s B-17, Aluminum Overcast. Ron had a friend drive him to Caldwell, New Jersey, so we could visit and he could “see” the B-17. That was to be our first “touch tour.” Ron, being a baby boomer, had built plastic B-17 models as a kid and grew up with 12 O’clock High and other World War II stories. He had a visual memory of the B-17 but had never been close to the actual airplane.
When my air and ground tour commitments were finished for the day, I took Ron out to the B-17 for a touch tour. We started on the outside, near the tail, and worked our way around the old bomber. He’d touch with his hands on the places he could reach, and with a white cane on places he couldn’t. As he touched, I would describe. A touch tour of the B-17 is not a clean experience. At first I gave him paper towels, but finally realized it was pointless. He’d scratch an itchy cheek with an oily hand. He was oblivious to the mess. It was exciting though to see him getting it — seeing it through his hands.
Inside, touching the .50 caliber machine guns, we both tried to imagine what it must have been like for those young crews. He sat in the pilot’s seat and carefully moved his hands around the cockpit. I unlocked the flight controls so he could get a feel for the ailerons and elevator. He was still an aviator and was enjoying every moment. Ron wanted to see more aviation. That’s when our 2018 AirVenture plans were hatched. I would be there camping and volunteering on the B-17. He planned to come midweek for a couple of days.
So, how do you describe AirVenture to a VIP? One word at a time, and with passion. As I looked around that first day, Monday, I started describing the many scenes, and the passion came easily. Being the eyes for a VIP, I saw things that were always there, but I never really noticed. Just Camp Scholler alone is overwhelming. How do you describe something so uniquely huge? Walk and talk. Ron realized immediately a couple of days was not going to be adequate. He adjusted his plans and decided to stay until Sunday.
One day we visited a roped-off section of the Homebuilts area; on the other side of the ropes was the 1/3-scale B-17 Bally Bomber. I was trying to describe it to Ron. I kept giving him details, but I could tell he was having difficulty picturing the baby B-17. Until then I really hadn’t thought about doing the touch tours. I was more focused on the forums that I thought would be interesting.
I asked Ron what airplane he would really like to see. Of course, he picked a crowd favorite.
“Do you think I could get my hands on a P-51?” he asked, without hesitation.
We walked the Warbirds area until we found one, Old Crow, being attended to by a mechanic and his wife. They were more than willing to let us feel the airplane everywhere — and we did. Ron visualized through his hands while I explained. The P-51 crew answered Ron’s technical and historical questions. We both listened, touched, and learned.
Ron had a few specific airplanes he wanted to see, like the Corsair. Many times, though, we’d just walk the flightline, his left hand on my shoulder and his right hand rhythmically waving his white cane back forth in front of his feet. I’d be describing the planes and then he’d ask if we could stop and take a closer look. I’d find a pilot, mechanic, or owner and ask permission for the touch tour. Everybody was excited to share their airplanes and answer Ron’s questions. In between touch tours we attended forums and demonstrations.
Over the course of a week, we laid hands on a wide variety of airplanes, including the
P-51 Mustang, an A-1 Skyraider, an F4U Corsair, a Van’s RV-7A, the Bally Bomber, a 1917 Standard J-1, a DH-4 Liberty, a Cessna Caravan, a Cirrus, a Diamond diesel twin, Terrafugia’s Flying Car, EAA’s B-25 Berlin Express, a B-1 bomber, a Stearman, some drones, and the TG-8 and TG-6 gliders.
Waking was our main mode of transportation, supplemented by the trams when we got tired, and on occasion a golf cart would give us a lift. Ron is an independent VIP, but he felt AirVenture was a bit too big and unfamiliar to roam around by himself. By midweek, though, he was making his own way from the campsite to the showers and porta potty.
He doesn’t bring attention to his VIP status, which sometimes causes confusion. When someone is talking to Ron he looks directly at them with his eyes open and expressive, but yet he sees nothing. On a couple occasions, while visiting with newfound aviator friends, they would produce a smart phone and attempt to show him photos of their airplane projects.
The trip wasn’t always perfect. Ron explained to me the noise is a distractor for VIPs. His sense of hearing is more acute and he depends on it more than other people do. That, at times, was a problem. During a Warbirds in Review interview, I could see him trying to concentrate on the speakers while the air show in the background was demanding audio attention. He realized, though, that the noise was a part of the AirVenture experience that couldn’t be separated out.
Words are very important to a Ron, and, I suspect, to other VIPs as well.
“[But] words go only so far,” he said. “Touching an airplane gives me a mental picture.” And he had sound advice for all of us.
“People have dreams,” Ron said. “Don’t overlook anybody’s interest in aviation…. Share your passion; share your interest with anybody and everybody.”
Ron’s two days at AirVenture turned into a full week. Thanks to my VIP guide status I was able to see things differently than I had at other AirVentures. Life had taken each us down different paths, but after 40 years they had intersected again at AirVenture. Our days were filled with touching and listening to airplanes, and our evenings sharing flying and life stories with new friends. It was the true essence of AirVenture.