My Career as a Stunt Pilot

Jacks father Sigurd flying his Trimotor Ford enroute to Tejeria, Veracruz

         For a brief moment in my life I wanted to be a stunt pilot. In my senior year at Palo Alto High School I decided that I would like to learn to fly as my dad had recently bought a Cessna 170 taildragger airplane. My father was a captain flying for Pan American Airlines in Mexico and Central America in the late 1920’s until 1935 when my mother became pregnant with me they decided that I would be born in the United States. Their plan was to return to my dad’s boyhood home of Halcyon, a religious community that practiced theosophy where my grandfather was the minister of the church, near the town of Arroyo Grande, CA. I was born in the San Luis Obispo County hospital on September 7, 1935.

         Let’s fast forward to my 17th year and I’m a senior at Palo Alto High School and after school and some weekends I would drive out to the Palo Alto airfield to Jim Duncan’s flying school as I had decided I wanted to learn to fly. I had just soloed in my dad's Cessna and was ready to do my cross country flying. With aerial map in one hand, the stick in the other, and an eye on my compass I found California to be an easy place to not get lost as you had the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east and the coast range to the west. I found that flying by yourself could get to be rather monotonous until turbulence would alert me to the fact that I needed to pay attention. The day soon arrived after I think it was 20 hours of flying time to take my flight test with my instructor Jim Duncan. I passed with a few words of caution like the saying that says “there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots” with that little refrain in my brain I was off to the wild blue yonder. My dad let me borrow the 170 so I could now fly from Cal Poly college that had its own dirt air strip to Palo Alto. I was getting a fair amount of flying time in enough that I was bordering on being a little to “razzle dazzle” after being called down by the airport manager of the Paso Robles airport called me down saying “that you don’t taxi to the tie down area at almost take off speed.” Paso has a long main landing strip for somebody in a hurry. 

          One day at the San Luis Obispo airport I was getting ready to fly to “I don’t remember” but what caught my eye was a guy that was perhaps in his thirties and was flying a single engine Pitts two seat stunt plane that was designed to do all sorts of stunts. I was able to catch him before he taxied to his hanger. Say there, do you give stunt flying lessons? He replied “I surely do.” I decided right then that this was what I wanted to learn. Two days later I found myself sitting beside my instructor. He said “I like to take my students out over the Huasna Valley where we will be the only ones there.” I can’t remember his name but I sure remember the next hour as he said “let’s start with some tail spins,” that’s where you close the throttle pull the nose up and when the plane quits flying you keep pulling back on the stick and push right or left rudder and hold your ailerons in the directions you want to go now your pointed nose down at the ground descending like a corkscrew which my memory will never let me forget. I think the instructor said “Let’s count the rotation as we spin, we’ll do three then pullout.” What a thrill but I’m not sure my stomach was ready for this as he said “now it’s your turn, I want you to do two turns.” What I remember was him saying “I thought you were going to do two complete turns that was barely one.” I replied it felt like forever and my stomach was beginning to feel a little queasy. This guy knew right off that I was not going to be a stunt pilot so he said how about a loop and a barrel roll and will call it a day. It was easy to say okay. As he finished the barrel roll and loop I thought I was going to vomit all over his plane but I concentrated on keeping my stomach out of my throat till we were on the ground and I was standing upright did the urge to barf go away. Well that episode completely cured my desire to be a stunt pilot and my flying time would now be on the straight and level. 

         I think a year or two has passed and I’ve graduated from Cal Poly got married. My dad loaned me $70,000 which I used to buy 2,800 acres of mostly brush and a house 15 miles west of Paso Robles. It didn’t take but a year to realize that this brush pile was not going to support me, my wife, and our first born in 1959. I had found a ranch that I could lease for 5 years located in the Huasna Valley where I started and ended my stunt flying career but it was almost a two hour drive to get there. In those days you could buy a used Cessna 172 for $8,000 which I did, that would get me to my now leased 3,000 acre ranch in half an hour. There was about a 300ft cliff that separated my house on top from the valley below and at the top there was a spot where I could level a 1,500’ landing strip. It was important to come in over the Cantinas valley below me slowly and with a little power on and full flaps on and as soon as I was over the end of the runway power off touch down then get on the brakes. After a few landings and take offs it no longer seemed daunting. With where to land and take off now solved I had a new problem to solve. It seemed that most trips to the Huasna ranch I needed to take more things to the ranch than I could carry in the plane also I had just leased another ranch called the McCallister Ranch which is now the Montana De Oro Beach State Park and my Cessna 172 was getting less and less use and looked almost sad tied down when I know it should have been up there in the “wild blue yonder.” I sold my Cantina’s Ranch for the princely sum of one hundred fifty thousand dollars and after spending a couple of weeks looking for a replacement ranch and hearing about the winter cold and the six months of feeding hay to the cattle Zee and I looked at each other and in only a moment I could see the high desert of Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah in my rear view mirror. 

         Home again home but not for long as the phone rang and a friend of mine was telling me that his brother was a realtor and had a listing on 8,000 acres near the town of Parkfield but it had no house, no corrals, just land. Two days later Zee and I found ourselves riding with Mr. Taylor in his Jeep. We were looking at mountainous land that was mostly grass covered with lots of trees and a little spring water and it was drop dead beautiful and after our two hour Jeep ride I looked at Zee smiled and I said to Mr. Taylor “We would like to buy your ranch for your asking price of $400,000.” Now I had to find a lender with $250,000 in his back pocket. Paso Robles was a smaller town back then with 6,000 people so word spread fast that I needed $250,000 to go with my $150,000. Shazam and a gentleman from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. appeared and said we will meet your needs plus closing costs to close the escrow.

We’ve been here 61 wonderful exhilarating and sometimes scary years with no regrets. So what happened to your Cessna 172 Jack? Because we had no water to drink, not for family or livestock, I had to drill a well, simple enough I thought, as Mr.Taylor had a well just over the fence. But for me his location was not the best. So I decided to drill a test hole to see how much water I would find nearer to my house and corral’s? I hired a reputable well driller and in one day he was down to a blue clay bottom that there was no point in going deeper as the driller said I’ve found a good well and I will start casing it up tomorrow. I don’t know why I went over to the well rig but I did and ran my finger down the wet drilling rod but I did and proceeded to take a taste it was salt water. Thus began a time in my life that put quite a dent in my confidence when I asked myself did I buy a ranch with no water on my side of the fence? Mr. Taylor was going to be of no help as I was the one who bought a good share of his ranch and he didn’t like that. I ended up drilling eight test holes that were either dry or salty or the smell of rotten eggs indicating sulfur was present. By now I decided to pipe a spring that was about two miles from my house and corrals. Mr. Well Driller how much do I owe you for drilling these eight holes in the ground? He replied that he would knock some off the bill as he was looking at my Cessna 172 and said “Ya know I used to fly and I thought I might start again how about you give me your plan and I’ll tear up the bill.” I answered with a sigh and some regrets and said yes thus my life in the sky was over and I know longer have to think whether I would be an old pilot or a bold pilot. 

                        See Ya,

                           Jack