The Sugar Beet Field – Plane & Pilot Magazine | Aviation

Shortly before my 16th birthday, he drove me to the airport in Sterling, about half an hour away, four times for half-hour lessons in a Cessna 120 and 140. After one of those sessions, before the drive home, I overheard him tell my instructor, Ron White, a former military pilot, “He knows what they’re made of all right.” It made a huge impression on me and whetted my appetite for more. However, Dad gave me a choice: either a used car or flight lessons, but not both. The car was the choice because it could be used every day, and flight lessons could be picked up at a later time.

After graduating from high school at 17 in 1956 and attending two years of college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, there was little feeling that anything substantial was being accomplished in the academic world. My parents suggested that I transfer to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and pursue a degree in education, as my mother had done in Nebraska. What I had to show for two years at CU, however, was a private pilot certificate earned at the Boulder airport (KBDU).

While at Greeley, flight time…