El Mirage Airport

My best High School Buddy's name is Mike. He can't really carry on a conversation anymore because he has early Alzheimer's likely from the stress of being in the Viet Nam War and just the wear and tear of life in general. So I'm writing this to remember my old friend. He was always a year older than I so I guess he is 61.

El Mirage Airport was(is?) on a dry lake near, I think Pearblossom in the deserts near Palmdale and that area. We lived in Glendale in Los Angeles County nestled between Burbank, Eagle Rock Pasadena,Montrose, Hollywood and Los Angeles then and Mike and I attended Glendale High School and even watched it burn down when a classmate of ours burned down the main office at Glendale High School because he didn't want his father to beat him for not getting an "A" in one class. (Some parents were incredibly strict back then). I know, the whole thing didn't make any sense to me either even though I knew who this student was.

One weekend my friend and I went to El Mirage Airport by driving over the Angeles Crest Hiway to Palmdale in the desert(the angeles Crest goes up to over 8000 feet).

When we got to El Mirage we saw that there were gliders for hire for lessons. I think my friend and I were maybe juniors in High School and by then my friend had owned 3 or 4 cars.(since he was 12). But I think that day we took my surf wagon, a 1956 Ford Stationwagon that I bought to carry buddies and surfboards to the beach mainly for surfing.

However, that day we wanted to get glider pilot lessons. From about the time I was about 12 years old I had been working after school and summers so I always had money for fun stuff like cars, surfboards, motorcycles and dates with girlfriends after I was about 15.

That day we each took a lesson in the glider. First they put a parachute on us. When my father was a gunner for a Hellcat Bi-plane when he was in the Marine Corp. Reserves during the 1930s he told me he wore a parachute and the seat was metal so the parachute padded the seat. Well. Then when I went up in a glider it was like that. I was taught that it was very important that I pull this red ball when the instructor behind me(two passenger glider) told me too. So, when we were pulled up to about 5000 or 6000 feet in altitude he touched me on the shoulder and told me to pull the red knob.

If you have never been in the air without an engine before pulling that knob and not having any engine pulling you anymore is quite an experience on many levels. The first thing you notice is that it sounds a lot like being out in your backyard in about a 30 mile per hour wind. But aside from that there is no sound. And I noticed before we took off that there was only one wheel under the passengers and only wire draggers on each wing and tail. Since the glider lands very quickly, the wing will drop and one of the wire spring like devices will drag almost immediately.

Anyway, I think I was first because I was always a little bolder than Mike. So, I'm up there with an instructor and I took the stick and we went and found an upward venturi. So what was fun was that even though the nose was slightly down so we could move forward and not stall the wings and fall out of the sky, our altimeter was going up. We did this while I slowly circled the venturi until my time was up. I thought this was really great.

Next, Mike went up and did the same thing. I was really glad I brought my sunglasses as it would have been very difficult otherwise that day. But it was very hot waiting for my friend on the ground as there was no shelter then to get out of the sun unless one stood under a Joshua tree(a large desert cactus like tree)(you can see one at google images under joshua tree. If you have never seen one I would say their average height is about 10 to 15 feet high but watch out for the needles if you go near one.

Mike and I had such a great time in the glider that we brought my parents back within a few weeks as there was a glider race and rally starting at El Mirage Dry Lake to Arizona. The object was to glide all the way to Arizona and back on updrafts without any engine and the first person to complete the round trip won. I sort of wondered how they made this work at night because I didn't see how they could get all the way to the middle of Arizona and back without an engine in a glider within the normal 12 hours of daylight and I had never heard of glider pilots flying IFR at that time.

So, as you can see I still have questions about all that. Oh, by the way, some guy who was sponsoring the event took a rope and tied the propeller on a Cessna 152 and had his 152 towed up into the air. This little 152 could glide with the best of them and even catch thermals and stayed up there a long time.

It was fun back then surfing, and exploring all the fun things within about 400 miles of Los Angeles County back when I was 17 and gas was about 17 cents a gallon and the minimum wage was around $1.05 an hour and a brand new VW Bug was around 800 dollars and even later in 1968 my new Camaro was only $3500.