Powder Puff's Flight Story

When I was 19, I went to California and was not there to long until we started to take flying lessons. Giff Alloway worked for Douglas Aircraft, which was along side the runway at the Santa Monica Airport where we took our lessons. After 9-1/2 hrs. of lessons, they gave me my solo flight. One day while at the field a few of us were just hanging around and someone said, "why don’t Shirley take her Solo Cross Country".

So my Instructor and I plotted my course for 2000 ft. as there were no mountains higher than that between Santa Monica and Oxnard CA.. Being from the east we did not have smog. I remember some of them saying something about on top, meaning that you could see better through the smog if you where on top of it instead of flying in it.

Anyway I took off and was climbing out and I start to hit the bottom of what I though was smog, but, right after I entered the bottom of it I knew it was an over cast and I held my position and I ended up going from 2000 ft. to 4000 ft. through the clouds. Don’t ask me why I just didn’t let down when I hit the bottom of the over cast, I guess I was thinking about what they had said about on top. That it is easier to see though the smog on top of it than in it.

Anyway, when I broke out on top, it was the prettiest sight you have ever seen. It was a blanket of soft white clouds with the sun shinny on them. Of course, I knew what I had done and I was so upset with myself, but, that was only secondary at this time, because here I am on top of an over cast and I have not had instrument flying yet. With the Santa Monica mountains on my right I made it a point to keep bearing to the left so that I would go out over the ocean and not into the mountains. I did a 180 and flew back down through the over cast.

I went back to the airport and landed and they wanted to know what was the matter, as I was crying, because I was so mad at myself. I think my instructor knew what happen and all of them said I should have spun out. Without any horizon indicator to fly by, I could have been upside down or in any position and not know it with out the horizon to go by.

The other thing was, when I was making sure to keep away from the Santa Monica mountains, I could have ended up in the L.A. airport pattern. After it was all over, I would get a little cocky about going up and back down, then my Instructor would say to me, "OK, lets put the hood on you", He wanted to show me how lucky I was to have gone up and back down without spinning out..

That was the first time I tried to go to Oxnard.

The following week we plotted my course and my Instructor said, "mind your compass, it is usually is right". I took off for Oxnard and my first check point was a beacon light (this was in the day time) and I didn’t find the beacon light. So, then I started looking for my second check point which was a lake, and I never saw so many lakes that look alike and was the shape of the one on my map. But, each time I found a lake that I thought was the one on my map, I would take a new heading and of course not realize I was going more and more inland. The thing of it was, I knew that all I had to do was go to my left and get to the coast line then I could go back to the airport up the coast line. But, I didn’t want to give up, so I kept going and like I said we had no mountains that were as much as 2000 ft., but, as I was going along this one mountain, it kept getting bigger, and bigger, and there were not any mountains that were that high going to Oxnard. So, I said to myself, "don’t just sit here and fly into to them, just because there not suppose to be any mountains that high", so I turned around and went back (I was a lot closer to the tree top than I like being when making my turn).

I flew back until I got to 5000 ft. and then I went back and went over that mountain, because each time I went over a mountain I just knew that Oxnard would be on the other side of the mountain. But, it was not there. Not realizing my time. I looked at my gas gauge and it was bouncing off of the zero. I started looking for a place to land, like an X-out airport or a good field. The terrain started to get worse, so I came back and one field had cows in it, and all I could think of, is that the cows would stampede me and this little paper plane all to pieces (Aeronca- tandem). So, I went on and I saw another field but it had power lines at one end of it and thought I would be out of gas any minute, so, I tried to go in for a landing, and I was afraid I would run off end of the field. I gave it power and went around again,(while holding my breath in fear of running out of gas). This time when I came to the wires, I slipped the plane so I could use all of the field that I could. Then I flared out and sat it down with a 3 point landing. The plane sat right where I landed, as the field was a bean field and was just soft sand. Sand went in my shoes when I got out of the plane. The people from the farm house came to meet me, and they took me in to Lompoc, California. I stayed at the La Purisma Inn as it was to late for anyone to fly up from Santa Monica before dark.

Giff, back at Santa Monica airport, said for 2 cents I would drive up there, so Hank handed Giff 2 cents, and they did drive up. They woke me up so I could show them where the plane was, but there was not enough day light yet to be able to see the plane, we did go right by it. Come day light, the man from Lompoc Airport came to the bean field, and my instructor tried to take the plane off, and couldn’t because of the sand. So, they all took a hold of the plane and walked it down about 10 rows where the sand was a little more solid, then the man from the Lompoc Airport took it off and flew it back. He was use to taking the planes off of sand as some of his student would fake a force landing on the beaches.

We drove to the Lompoc Airport, and we gassed up the plane. By the way, I didn’t know these little planes had 15 min. of gas after it hit zero. Anyway, Hank (my other instructor) and myself got in the plane to fly back to Santa Monica Airport. Hank had set the heading for us to go back to Santa Monica, and guess what, he had to keep changing heading or we would have ended out over the ocean. So, we found out that the compass was 20 or so degrees off. Hank was pleased to see that I did not panic and made a good landing. It was good that I had not been taught wheel landing yet. The 3 point landing just sat right down in the sand.

That was the second time I tried to go to Oxnard. The third time I finally made it.

One other time I was flying in that area near (Point Magu) and I guess I cut across the corner of their air space, and these 2 small jets came from nowhere and they flew in a circle around me for a little while, I though they were going to shoot me down. I guess when I was out of their area, they left. Giff Solo'ed in 6-1/2 hrs. My instructor had taught me how to slip a plane. Oh what fun we had while learning to fly.

Shirley P.S. This was 1952 and we ended up living in Lompoc from 1958 for about 8 years. In 1952, if we would have known that Lompoc was going to be a "boon town", we could have bought land then, and made out really good in 1958. It was because of the Vandenburg Air Force Base, formally Camp Cook.