Family Stories
Into the Wild Blue Yonder
When my father was 18, before the War, he worked at Anderson Air Activities at McBride, Missouri. His job, which paid 40 cents per hour, was to guide the planes out of the hangers to the runway, one man on each wing. Many of the planes were biplanes, still used in those days for cropdusting. Maybe that was when he got the idea that someday he would like to learn to fly.
He started flying lessons on August 1, 1970 in Farmington, Missouri in a Piper Cherokee 140 and on Sunday, October 4th, 1971 (after five attempts at taking the written exam,) at the Farmington Municipal airport, he was awarded his pilot's license. It didn't cost anything to take the written test. The actual flying test he passed on the first try...while nursing a hangover!
Dad owned three airplanes in his life. His first plane cost him $600 and, in his words, was "a piece of junk held together with bailing wire." Upon take off one day, he blew the engine and had to land in a cornfield. After being given a new engine, Dad put it on himself, commenting that he "didn't know a damn thing about putting on an engine" then flew to Farmington. Once there, he was asked who put on the propeller because, apparently, propellers had to be "timed." What Dad didn't know about putting in an engine was apparently equal to what he didn't know about putting on a propeller. He had to take it off and put it on the correct way.
James J. and Rose (Gibbar) Bohnert
We all have memories of Dad taking us flying many times. I remember one morning Mom, Dad, Lois and I flew to Kentucky Lake for breakfast. It was exciting to be woken up early on a weekend morning to be told we were going flying. Once in the air, however, I was terrified and I remember holding on tightly to Mom but realizing, even at a young age, that she would be absolutely no help whatsoever if that plane went down!
The plane that I have the most vivid memories of was Dad's Piper Tri-Pacer. It had wings that went across the top of the plane and was the first plane to have a nose wheel instead of tail wheel landing gear. The nose cone was black with a spiral painted on it. He paid $3,800 for the plane at a time when he had eight children and no money. His friend, Louie Sexauer found it for him in Marion, Illinois. Another friend of his, Leo Gephardt, apparently had a lot of money in the Bank of Festus and therefore, a good deal of influence with Tommy Hager, the banker. Dad asked Leo if he could get Tommy Hager to loan him the $3,800.
Together in a torrential rainstorm, Dad and Mom flew to Festus where, amazingly, Tommy Hager held the bank open for him. Apparently Tommy had never made a loan for a plane before but Dad said that he had to because "he had already written the check for it!" Eventually, Dad sold the Piper Cherokee because, according to him, it was always spraying oil. Just before he sold it, he found that it had had a cracked cylinder the whole time.
We're all lucky to be alive.