|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Every time I saw this stamp, I would feel myself plunging into a fantasy of flight.
I have always been passionate about aviation. Looking back at the earlier part of the 1950s in Brooklyn, New York when I was a few years old, there was a US postal stamp with a drawing of a then modern four engine Constellation. Every time I saw this stamp, I would feel myself plunging into a fantasy of flight where I pictured myself as the pilot of that aircraft. In those days I would also dream of flying old WWI biplanes. Back then I would buy balsa wood airplane kits, but unfortunately, I had no building experience, and those first kits turned out to be disasters, but I never gave up hope. Fortunately, as the years passed, I gained quite a bit of experience and became a good R/C builder and flier.
It wasn’t until 1964 when I was 15 years old that I joined Civil Air Patrol, New York Wing, Manhattan. In August of that year, I got my first taste of flight in a Piper Cub (PA-18), N233NY at Miller field, Staten Island. I’ll never forget how excited and nervous I was. It was a chilly day, and I was scared to death especially seeing the cadets that were before me come back from their initial flight with a bag full of barf. When it was my turn, the pilot, Captain Bloom, handed me a motion sickness bag and I didn’t blame him. I guess he saw how my knees were knocking against each other. As I climbed aboard and got strapped down, Captain Bloom started taxing to the end of the field, aligned the aircraft down the grass runway and applied full power. At this point I realized that there was no turning back. So, I was committed to flying. Captain Bloom swiftly applied full throttle, the engine roared to life with a deafening sound and vibrations as the aircraft started rolling and bouncing down the grass runway. As we picked up speed, so did my nervous state.
I was now at the climax of this precarious situation with my heart pounding and crawling up my throat. Can you imagine how I felt? But low and behold, as I was clenching onto my seat for dear life, the aircraft lifted off the ground and as I looked out the right window, I saw my cadet buddies waving at me. And to my surprise, all my fears completely disappeared into the air as if someone had pulled an imaginary plug in the kitchen sink and all those fears went down the drain. For the first time in my life, I experienced a feeling and sensation that I had never felt. I wasn’t nervous anymore, my knees stopped knocking, my heart calmed down, and a powerful feeling of security, well-being and confidence took over me. This confirmed my boyhood love affair with aviation, a love affair that through the years has not dwindled but has grown more intense as the years have passed.
Now Captain Bloom flew over some clouds that where close to the Statue of Liberty, then he flew over one of the clouds and yelled “let me show you how we used to fly in the war.” He pulled the control stick back and then brought the throttle to idle. The Cub came to a stop in the vertical position and started to slide down tail first. Within seconds we were in the clouds and the aircraft started spinning. My head began banging on the right and left side windows. I didn’t have time to wonder what was going to happen next. Within a few seconds, the Cub broke out of the bottom of the cloud and Captain Bloom applied opposite rudder to stop the spin and after breaking out. He then applied full power and leveled the aircraft. He asked me how I was doing and I said that I was good, now he let go of the control stick and put his hands up in the air and yelled “ok, she’s all yours.” Immediately I grabbed the stick to control the Cub, at the same time he started to give me instructions, “Make a 360 degree turn to the left and then to the right and after that a Cuban Eight”.
Before returning to Miller Field, we did a few more maneuvers and then we landed. I was surprised that I was one of the few cadets that didn’t vomit. At that moment I realized that flying was for me. I felt a deep desire to become a pilot. Back then an hour of flight instruction in a Piper Cub cost about six dollars, but at that time, I couldn’t afford that much money and neither could my mother.
In October 1968, I enlisted in the Marine Corps and after six months of basic training and ITR, nine other Marines and I were selected for a special assignment of three months at sea school training. We were selected out of ten thousand Marines that had orders for Vietnam. I spent a year and a half aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CVA-42, aircraft carrier. After my discharge in 1971, I returned to Puerto Rico and in 1972, got married and started to raise a family. Today I am the proud father of four boys who have blessed me with six grandchildren. After a few years, I started a business and in 1987 I was able to pay for my flying lessons. In three months, I got my private pilot license. Since then, I’ve been the proud owner of two Piper Colts, a Citabria, a Tiger Moth 82A, a Wilga PLZ, two Trikes, two Piper Cubs and at the very moment, a 1940 Piper Super J-3 Cub, N32587.
As I look back at my aviation journey, I must admit that It has been good and fulfilling. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
After he was discharged from the service in January 1971 he returned to Puerto Rico.
In 1985 Norris founded a company called Future Products Corp. manufacturing high tech anti-friction metal treatment lubricant called METALLUBE. The company has been in business 40 years.
- A Love Affair with Aviation from CAP to Piper Cubs - April 16, 2025
This is a wonderful story. Thank you for writing it, William Norris. May you have many more blue skies. Your J3 is a beauty. We pilots are the luckiest!
Hello Julie, once again I want to thank you for being instrumental in publishing my story. I noticed that not only are you passionate about aviation but also sports cars. Back in 2002, I had the privilege of owning a 1942 biplane, de Havilland Tiger Moth DH82a which I flew for 300 hours in 10 years. I must say that was the pinnacle of my aviation adventure. Now like you I also have been passionate about sports cars, for over 55 years I’ve had a number of convertible sports cars. As you can see by the photo I bought an Audi TT convertible 225hp sports car which I still own. Now the interesting thing about this combination is that I was able to change the license plate of the Audi to the registration number of the Tiger Moth “A17-177”. Shortly after installing the license plate while driving on the roads of Puerto Rico I was stopped by traffic police a number of times, they would ask me where did I get that license plate that is not registered in the car registration of the government (the government is very slow in putting these things to date) I would say to them that was my biplane. Of course they would look at me as if though I was some sort prankster. At this point I would take out a photo of the Tiger Moth flying and tell them, you see the registration on the side of the biplane “A17-177” well it’s my Audi with the wings on. I know you guys stopped me because I was flying low and fast, but remember it would have been illegal and dangerous if I would have been driving with the wings on. Well they would have loved to clobber me with their night sticks but they had pity with me and let me go.
(I need to send you the photo of my Audi TT)
I feel very honored that AirfactsJournal has published my story. Till this moment, 76 years old my passion for Aviation has not dwindled. Thanks
Love it! Thank you for helping me relive my flight training. I earned my ticket in March of 2021..
For the first 25 hours or so of flight training (longer than you!) I was very nervous. We’d take off, the ground would drop away, and I’d gulp; “here we go again!”
But then magic happened. I began to feel confident in my ability to control the airplane, confident that I knew (pretty much) what to do if something untoward happened, and started to really enjoy that feeling of piloting an airplane.
You might ask what I was doing in that plane if I was that nervous–well, my tendency is to run toward my fears, not away from them. I was always a very nervous commercial flier, I have a fear of heights; despite this, I always wanted to learn to fly. Doing stalls, before I learned how to recover, scared the hell out of me.
But those fears (other than standing on the edge of a tall building!) dissipated. I no longer am concerned flying commercially. I know what the plane can take, know how the pilots are trained. But going up in the St. Louis Arch? Never again! :)
But turning left in the pattern, looking straight down 800 feet? Doesn’t bother me at all.
I’m glad to know the nervousness wasn’t just confined to me!
Aha! A parallel life! I started my interest in flying at age 6 (now 88!), when I understood I could use the radio transmitter if I were a pilot! It was 1943…. I subsequently became a Lt Colonel in the CAP, with a commercial pilot’s ticket, an instructor, and a car racer – with a Formula One license. What fun! (And my personal favorite aircraft was a Partenavia P68C). Again, what fun! I even tested a car (once) at Indy. Yipes! Such fun!