Four Years Above the Earth: A Memoir

By Field Morey

When his student and close friend Oliver Smithies accepted his Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, he singled Field out as someone who was important in his life, saying, "Field Morey, a distinguished flight instructor taught me to fly…but he taught me something more important than flying. He taught me that it is possible to overcome fear with knowledge."

During his four years above the earth, throughout fifty-eight years of teaching more than one thousand pilots, Field overcame fear, faced weather, set records, had abundant fun…and as he puts it, "learned from my students…probably more than I taught."

Since he grew up in an aviation family, it was expected that Field would fly. A contemporary of Charles Lindbergh, his father, Howard, taught him about airplanes, about operating an airport, about character and responsibility, while Lindbergh inspired him to imagine more and aim higher. Twice the FAA named Field Flight Instructor of the Year. Later, his name was added to the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. Along with Oliver Smithies, the pair set a world record, and when the Aviation Hall of Fame inducted him, it was a career highlight.

In this memoir, Field recounts his coming-of-age in aviation and relates stories of memorable flights and remarkable adventures. With an awareness that his story is also his students' story, he recognizes the privilege of having been born when he was and pays tribute to his father, Howard Morey, an exemplary aviation pioneer, by thanking him every day for guiding him in the right direction.

Yes, this is a story about flying, but it is much more. It is a study of how excellence evolves, not always in a linear progression, but with passion and vision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662422997

Book preview

One

SHOOTING FOR THE RECORD

My single-engine Cessna 210 was twenty-three thousand feet over the North Atlantic, two hundred nautical miles from land, somewhere off the eastern shore of Labrador, beyond gliding distance to land, and out of radio contact.

Does anyone read Cessna two niner two three three? No reply.

The year was 1980. The actor Ronald Reagan had been elected fortieth president of the United States, Mount St. Helens had erupted, and John McEnroe had just defeated Bjorn Borg at the US Tennis Open. I was forty-one years old, intent upon breaking a record while breaking one of my dad’s cardinal rules about flights over open water.

Flying the Atlantic had been a dream of mine ever since I moved from the back-passenger seat to the ranks of a pilot up front and learned to love flying. My dad, Howard Morey, had ridden with Charles Lindberg in 1927 during Lindbergh’s tour of the United States after his epic flight, but never had, to my knowledge, any aspirations to duplicate Lucky Lindy’s adventure. Dad would have said, Lucky was a good nickname for him, referring to the times my father had been forced to land due to engine failure in his early open cockpit years of flying. Because of his experience, he strongly advised me, as a fledgling pilot, not to fly over any open water greater than the ten-mile span of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. But I knew better. I had over twelve thousand hours of flying, more than most airline pilots, and I had never had an engine quit on me…yet.

Two

BUILDING AN AVIATION FAMILY’S HERITAGE

My parents named me Field, after an airfield, so my destiny determined that I live up to that name. I’ve now spent four years of my life, which translates to over thirty-seven thousand hours, off the face of the earth in an airplane. Why? Partly because I was born into aviation, but mostly because I learned to love it.

The first time I flew solo, I was underage, in a foreign country, flying a Cessna 195, flirting with fear. My knees knocked together like a Rastafarian’s rain-sticks, but it was that taste of courage that helped shape my future—that and a strong-willed dad.

My course in aviation was charted one day in August of 1953, in western Montana. Dad had invited me to join him and a friend on a fishing trip on the Madison River. I was eager to make the outing, and from what I had heard, the Madison River was a blue-ribbon trout stream. I was fifteen at the time and hadn’t spent much time alone with Dad. He had always been more of an authority figure in my life. As a result, I felt a little awkward discussing personal issues with him.

It was a warm, sunny day, and we had just finished a sack lunch sitting on the bank of the river after a not-too-productive morning’s catch, when I started the conversation: Dad, what do you think about my becoming an airline pilot?

In addition to running our general aviation airport in Middleton, he had just finished a two-year stint as the CEO of Wisconsin Central Airlines, so he was certainly qualified to answer my question. During the last few years, I had observed many instructors who worked for him leave their job to become airline pilots.

Son, you don’t really want to be an airline pilot. His response came as a surprise. You’ll be flying the same routes with different copilots, some of them unhappy with the boredom of the routine. The government and unions will be involved, and you won’t like that. He was referring to his two years of dealing with bureaucratic issues and passing his feelings on to me.

He continued with this advice… You should stay in general aviation teaching people to fly and helping them satisfy their dreams. Your students will all be happy, and that will rub off on you.

This time I listened, and that turned out to be the spark that ignited my career in general aviation. Looking back, he was dead-on, and every day I remain grateful for his advice.

The genesis of his love of aviation came in 1915, when as a young boy he first took to the sky as a passenger in a worn-out open-cockpit biplane.

Something sparked within him that year, and that eternal flame in turn passed along to me. It is as if there was some sort of aviation DNA that was genetically given to me. To this day, I cherish the freedom to fly and savor the sheer joy of being amid clouds, aiming for a new destination. It all started with his first airplane ride only twelve years after the Wright brothers made their historic first flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

Howard Morey (Dad) was raised in Birchwood, a town of fewer than five hundred people in far northwestern Wisconsin. Since 1846, the lumber mills had run the town and people worked hard to make a living. That included my grandfather, James Morey, who operated a veneer mill in town. The definition of fun in Birchwood was fishing, and the town had earned the nickname the Blue Gill Capital of the World. Until one day a biplane flew through the skies above Birchwood, low and slow, a ripple of excitement coursed through the townspeople—including twelve-year-old Howard.

A barnstormer, one of the old guys observed.

Hanging from the side of the plane flew a sign advertising Rides for Sale at nearby Rice Lake Fairgrounds. Suddenly, a flurry of paper flyers swooped out of the plane and floated to the ground. The townspeople below rushed to scoop them up to catch the details being advertised: a man was flying a machine across the country. In 1915, that was about as close to magic as one could get. Howard ran home with the news, and not long after the biplane cleared town, the word spread from one neighbor to the next.

The following morning, young Howard dusted off his shoes and decided to hitch a twenty-mile ride to Rice Lake, a fairly good-sized town, compared to Birchwood, where the plane had landed. In his twelve-year-old mind, he probably thought he’d be the only one there. To his dismay, he found himself part of a long line of people waiting to pay for rides in this new-fangled contraption.

Undaunted, he went up to the pilot, a gentleman by name of Walter Bullock, and asked, Is there some way you could give me a ride, sir?

Bullock glanced down at the boy, then beyond, to the long line of paying passengers. With a rough hand, Bullock brushed him aside. Wait until the end of the day, son. Maybe I’ll fit you in then.

Howard waited patiently, and at the end of the day, when the sun was setting, Bullock looked at him, still sitting on a rock nearby. You wanna go for a ride, boy?

He jumped right into the worn biplane, either a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny or a Standard J-1. They taxied to the end of the runway, and right before takeoff, Bullock noticed that the airplane had a flat tire.

My dad’s heart sunk.

Sorry, boy, you gotta get out, Bullock said. The airplane had to be repaired, so that was the end of his first ride, but Bullock could see the disappointment on the young boy’s face, and fortunately he said, Listen, you come back early tomorrow morning, and maybe we’ll get a ride in before I head for my next stop.

Though my dad didn’t get his ride, somewhere deep inside him, a fire had been lit. He still had to hitch the twenty miles back home to Birchwood, a trip made palatable by his dreaming of that flying machine. The next morning, he rose long before dawn and rode his bicycle the twenty miles back to Rice Lake.

In the dark field before sunrise, Bullock was waiting for him. Dad climbed into the plane, the cool mist making his hair curl against his forehead. His heart beat hard against his chest as the plane lifted off the ground. He held his breath for a moment and then looked through a big hole in the plane’s fabric between his feet as Bullock climbed out over the city. The houses shrank away as the pilot flew higher into the pearl-pink morning sky. Though he had to wonder if the plane would hold together long enough to land, Dad knew, at that precise moment, that he would fly airplanes.

The dream to be a pilot stuck, and while in high school, he realized he would have to earn a nest egg to get him to Chicago for flight training. He went to school and worked for my grandfather in the veneer mill, saving every nickel and penny that he could. He knew that when he got out of high school, he wanted his life’s journey to be in the air, not on the ground. At graduation, his savings weren’t quite what he needed, so to stick with his goal, he had to work another two years in the veneer mill. By the time he was twenty, he had finally saved enough money to launch his aviation career. He sold his motorcycle and sent all his funds for the flight training to the Heath Flying School in Chicago, owned and operated by a gentleman named Edward Eddie Heath. Unknown to Dad, Mr. Heath also ran a successful business producing kit airplanes called the Heath Parasol. Yes, build-your-own-airplane kits. Throughout the late 1920s and ’30s, Heath sold approximately one thousand of these FAA-licensed, home-built planes.

In the summer of 1924, Dad left Birchwood, hopping on a train bound for Chicago. He had already paid Heath his $350 tuition fee, ensuring he would be enrolled in Heath’s aviation course. Being a hayseed from northern Wisconsin who’d never before traveled outside the state, he followed a friend’s advice upon arrival in Chicago: When you get into Union Station, just get off the train and go straight through the station, out the front door and you’ll be on Madison Avenue. Just keep going on Madison Avenue until you get to the Heath Flying School.

Howard Morey before leaving for the Heath Flying School in Chicago 1924

There was only one problem. The Heath Airplane Company was not on any sort of airfield; it was smack in the middle of Chicago. It was just a dilapidated warehouse-type building, not a lively flying school at the edge of an airfield.

No hangars.

No engine sounds.

Nothing my dad knew to be part of an airport.

As he entered the building, there was just the unmistakable smell of wood and aircraft dope. Dad climbed the stairs to the second floor, all the while thinking he might have made a devastating mistake. Instead of going to an airport, he was inside a dark shop-like structure where airplanes were being built, not flown.

Undaunted and eager to fly, he approached a man busy covering a wing with fabric. He was a short man, hardly five feet tall, not much more than a hundred pounds, and dressed in leather riding breeches, with high-laced boots, a black leather cap, and a bowtie.

Excuse me, sir, Dad said, reluctant to interrupt the man from his job, my name is Howard Morey from Birchwood, Wisconsin, and I’m here to enroll in your aviation program.

The gentleman set down the brush he was using and dusted his hands. He shook my dad’s hand and said, My name’s Eddie Heath, son. Here, we offer two kinds of aviation courses: the first is three months in the woodworking and metalwork shop learning to build airplanes. That course includes four hours of flying time. The second is one month of woodworking and you’ll get seven hours of flying time. What’ll it be?

Dad thought for a moment and then quickly snapped up the second offer. He wanted the most flying time he could get for the little money he had to get a start on his flying career.

He dutifully completed his one month of woodworking, building wing ribs and spars, and learning how to cover the wooden wings with fabric. He was not at all thrilled to be doing more woodworking after earning his way in the veneer mill in Birchwood, but in those early days of flying, when airplanes were nothing but wood, fabric, and an engine, the need for repairs was expected. To Heath, as well as other seasoned pilots, knowing how to do those patch-ups was a necessary part of being a good pilot.

Heath noticed that Howard was a very hard worker, a dependable and eager young man of sturdy build who was quite adept at the many kinds of tasks to be performed in the shop. One of those tasks was driving an old stake-bed truck outfitted to carry airplanes. During his one-month shop duty, Heath paid him ten cents an hour to deliver parts and airplanes in Chicago. He spent these extra earnings to cover his living expenses and saved what he could for his future training.

With his shop duty completed, it finally came time to go out for his first flying lesson.

He had spent many hours wondering just how glorious actually flying an airplane would be, and this was his moment. It was a hot and muggy July morning on the south side of Chicago near where Midway Airport now stands. It was a little after six in the morning, with the sun, a giant red-orange ball rising behind them, magnified by the smoky haze on the horizon.

Heath stood next to a Standard J-1 biplane parked next to a corrugated tin hangar. A couple of other planes were parked near the hangar, but no one else was around so early in the morning.

Dad looked over the biplane, thinking it was much larger than he had expected. Perhaps because Heath was such a small man, when standing next to the plane, he made the J-1 look enormous. The time had come. He was about to learn to fly, something he’d dreamed about since that first airplane ride above Rice Lake.

He sat in the Standard’s front cockpit, Heath behind him in tandem seating, the typical arrangement for biplanes of the era. Heath took off and climbed the Standard, then shouted from the back seat, Okay, you can take over now.

A husky young man weighing about two hundred pounds, Dad’s grip had been strengthened by years of manual labor. His perception of how to fly an airplane was that you needed a firm grip on the control stick with both hands to exert maximum force. He even put his knees together around the stick to further assure his ability to guide the airplane. When Heath gave the it’s all yours command from the back seat, the nose of the airplane immediately started to rise due to my father’s death grip on the control stick, which he happened to have in the nose-up position.

Over the roar of the slipstream from the prop, Heath shouted, Get your nose down. Get the nose down!

Dad was a little timid in his movement of the control stick and didn’t react quickly enough for Heath. As the nose came up higher and higher, the airplane slowed abruptly, and the engine stopped.

Jesus Christ, let go! Heath yelled, yanking the airplane’s controls, and pushing the nose down to gain some airspeed and avoid a stall. As the airspeed increased during the dive, the propeller started to windmill, and the engine sputtered and started back to life.

Eddie Heath landed the airplane, and with that, my Dad’s first flying lesson was over. However, the brief excitement of an engine out situation did nothing to deter him from his growing anticipation for his next lesson, and every one after that. He now knew the thrill of what flying an airplane felt like, and it was better than he could have ever imagined.

His lessons progressed quickly. He soloed the Standard J-1 after just four and a half hours of instruction. He was fortunate, in part, to being chosen to be Heath’s paid truck driver because he could afford two lessons for every one that the other students received. He progressed so quickly that Heath himself took notice and promoted him to flight instructor after only seven hours of dual training. Later, that summer, when Heath flew off to an air race in Dayton, Ohio, he made my father his chief instructor in his absence. Aviation was the Wild West in those days—it was long before the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), so there were no regulations, no need for aircraft insurance, and no set training curriculum to become a pilot. It was just trial and error, nothing more.

Even in his early adult years, Howard was always on the lookout for new opportunities, earning a reputation as a shrewd entrepreneur. Though he worked for someone else up to that point in his life, the thought of going out on his own was always present. While working for Heath in 1924, he became friends with J. W. Leech, a fellow trainee from Texas. During the summer of 1925, he convinced Leech that they ought to buy a World War I surplus Curtiss JN-4 Jenny with a reliable OX-5 engine and begin a flying service. The two of them took the plunge to start their own business, found a used Jenny, and purchased it on a 50/50 basis for $600. Optimism was running high, but reality was right there, ready to take the wind out from beneath their wings.

Bill of Sale for Curtiss JN-4D

Curtiss JN-4D Jenny, Dad’s first airplane

As soon as they finished their schooling, Howard and Leech set off in their new airplane headed for northern Wisconsin to visit family. As darkness approached, they were forced to land in a farmer’s field near Madison for an unexpected stay. Overnight, a big snowstorm dropped piles of snow in the field, preventing them from leaving the next day to continue their flight north to Birchwood.

The kindly farmer agreed to store the Jenny in his barn, and the two of them headed north by train. The temperatures during the winter in northern Wisconsin can easily reach thirty to forty degrees below zero with wind chills stretching to sixty and seventy below. Soon, the bitter cold was too much for Leech, so he sold his half of the airplane back to my father and hopped a train south to a warmer climate. Dad had no choice but to remain in Birchwood for the winter, reluctantly biding his time working in the veneer mill while his thoughts were on flying his Jenny out of that farmer’s field come spring.

Shown here with Father James and Mother Elizabeth after returning to Birchwood 1925

During his brief stopover in Madison, Dad had a chance to visit his cousin who introduced him to her husband, who went by the name of E. N. Pim Quinn. Enamored by aviation, like so many people of that era, Pim soon became his first flight student in the Jenny when Dad returned that spring. Pim became infected by the flying bug, and it wasn’t long before the two became fast friends.

In 1926, along with Quinn and two other partners, they formed Madison Airway Corporation, and Dad moved the Jenny to a busier field nearby. Always looking for a way to increase revenue, Dad struck a marketing deal with the Pennsylvania Oil Company to paint their name on the side of his airplane, as well as on the side of the hangar for a monthly fee of $150. In fact, the field was renamed Pennco Field due to this business arrangement. It’s important to note these airports were called fields because they were literally nothing more than open farm fields. Think of Meigs Field in Chicago or Boeing Field in Seattle, both of which started out as patches of dirt carved out for flying.

Dad continued to give rides and teach students in the Jenny, working as a one-man operation. When there were no students around to teach or the weather wasn’t suitable for flying, he maintained other airplanes on the field by replacing engines or covering the old biplanes with fabric. As the popularity of aviation grew in 1927, he began to get steady work.

A sideshow aspect accompanied the popularity of aviation in the late twenties. It was the age of thrilling aeronautical feats: loops and barrel rolls, wing walkers, and parachute jumpers. The crowds would flock to county fairs and air shows featuring spectacular exhibitions, like stunt men or women dangling below an airplane while a speeding vehicle attempted a midair transfer from plane to automobile.

Pennco Field, south side of Madison, Wisconsin, circa 1927

Dad’s training planes at Pennco Field

During this time, the Goodyear Rubber Company had developed an improved inner tube and launched a sales campaign to introduce this new product to the public. Flat tires were a common nuisance in those days, and Goodyear felt they had the answer; it was just a matter of spreading the word.

One day in the spring of 1927, a young man from the Goodyear Company was driving by the Pennco Airport and noticed the sign on the tail of Dad’s Jenny. It read, Get Off the Earth with Morey. Long Rides $5.00—Time Rides by the Hour. He pulled in to inquire about a taking a ride. Dad agreed to fly him over the city and around the Capitol building. But there was more to it than just a ride around the city. The brave young man had contracted with Goodyear to hang from the landing gear of an airplane on one of the new inner tubes to demonstrate just how strong it was—while flying low over the streets of Madison.

The plan was this: once airborne and near the city, Dad would throttle back, allowing the stuntman to climb out of the front cockpit of the biplane, down over the leading edge of the lower wing, and onto the landing gear axle to where the inner tube was affixed. The stuntman would then grip the inner tube tightly and dangle in the air while Dad made two low passes around the Capitol building before returning to the airport. Then he’d throttle the engine back to allow the stuntman to climb back over the wing and then back into the cockpit… Easy.

Dad made the two low passes around the Capitol, with the rubbernecking crowds below gawking at the exploit, and then headed back to the airport. He climbed to a higher altitude so he could cut the throttle and slow down enough to allow the man to climb back into the plane…but no one appeared.

After closing the throttle several times, Dad feared the man had slipped and fallen to his death. On the other hand, maybe he was just having difficulty and wasn’t able to climb back up on the wing. Hoping this might be the case, he decided to fly over Lake Monona as close