The Adventures and Misadventures of Ace the Pilot

By Butch Childers

The Adventures and Misadventures of Ace the Pilot chronicles the deeds done right and deeds done wrong that the featured pilots lived through with sheer luck and by the grace of God. The stories included in this collection are trueat least as true as you can expect from pilots who are not reliable sources So Ace the pilot will take some of the blame and all the credit for these stories.

Author Butch Childers was a pilot for over eighteen years. Some of the tales are about him; some are about pilots he had the pleasure, or in some cases, the displeasure of sharing a flight or two with over the years. From First Ride in a Chopper to Ducks in the Flap, this collection of stories provides an inside look at the ups and downs of being a pilot, private or commercial. Whether you are a pilot or not, these stories are bound to pique the interest of anyone who has an interest in flying.

This realistic collection of stories will resonate with pilots and civilians alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491739150

Butch Childers

Now retired, Butch Childers lives in Newark, Texas. He was an executive pilot for nearly twenty years and holds commercial, multiengine, instrument, instrument instructor, and airline transport pilot certificates. He now passes his time with his grandchildren, Caulin and Caitlin, and greeting customers at a local Walmart.

Book preview

37604.png About Me

I was born on August7th 1941, in Frederick, Oklahoma. I lived on a farm with my parents and my three older sisters. As a young boy, I would hear the china in the china cabinet start to vibrate. It was coming; I had to get to the yard to look for it. I had a favorite place in the driveway, clear of the trees, that I could see the southeast sky. I would sit down and strain my eyes till I could see the contrails. Then I would hear the sound of those mammoth engines. Then I would see it, a small silver dot that was the mighty B-36. I would watch it till it was directly overhead—without blinking or taking my eyes off it—lay back, scoot around, and sit up and watch it till it was out of sight, and then go back in the house and wait for the china to stop vibrating.

What a thrill! On a good day, two would fly over. I didn’t even know what it looked like. All I had ever seen was the silver dot in the sky, but I knew that it was an airplane. There were people in it, and one of them was making it go. I wanted to be him. That never happened, but the incurable fever that lasts a lifetime was alive inside of me. It has taken me to heights that I had only dreamed of, nearly killed me, and given me more pleasure than anything I could fantasize.

37604.png A Flight with Reverend Bunch

Ace and his family went to church in a small town in Southwest Oklahoma. The preacher, Bob Bunch, lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, and was a pilot. The family went to Wichita Falls one Sunday after church, and Bob took them all for a ride in a small, single-engine, two-seat aircraft. He didn’t know what kind it was, but he knew that he loved it. His two older sisters were big enough that they each got separate rides. He and his other sister were small, so they had to share the seat. Ace got the window seat and never forgot the sight of the wheel leaving the ground. He was flying! He wondered, Are we leaving contrails? Was someone’s china rattling? Was some other young boy straining his eyes to see them? It didn’t matter to him that they were only a few hundred feet up. He was, for that moment in time, in a B-36 at forty leven million feet. All too soon, the flight was over, and he and his family went home. A lifetime memory had been burned into his mind. Reverend Bunch taught Ace at a young age how to pray, much more important than how to fly, and a very handy tool when a pilot finds himself or herself in a situation deplete of altitude, airspeed, and brains at the same time.

37604.png Airmail Sunday Morning

Ace lived eight and one half miles out in the country. As the crow flies, it was more like six, but Southwest Oklahoma is laid out like a checkerboard, a result of the 1907 Oklahoma land rush. The state was laid out in sections. A section was one square mile. The new landowners did not want a road through their property, so roads were made along the edges of the sections, thus the checkerboard appearance, and the distance home was measured from Fifteenth Street in town four miles east on Highway 5 then four and a half miles south on a gravel road. Nothing much exciting happened out there till Billy Holly, a hometown pilot, started delivering the Sunday paper. He delivered it by air. Ace was hard to get up in the morning, but on Sunday morning, he was the first one up. He would go to bed on Saturday night, thinking of the delivery of the paper the next morning. At first light, he was out of bed and out on the porch, listening for the sound of the approaching aircraft. He would hear it, then it would appear from the southwest. He would see an arm emerge from the window with paper in hand. He would let go, and the paper would plop down about three feet from the corner of the house, then he would turn, and Ace would watch that plane till it disappeared then go back into the house and begin his wait for the delivery next Sunday.

37604.png First Airline Ride

A new era was opening in his life. He had grown up and joined the army. He had had his basic training at Fort Chaffie, Arkansas, had his first army leave back home, and was now going to report to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was going to travel by air from Oklahoma to North Carolina. This was going to be the thrill of his life. It was over three hours in a DC-3. It was a fifty-five-mile trip from Frederick to the airport in Lawton, Oklahoma. The trip was filled with anticipation of the plane ride. When they arrived at the airport, there it sat, a bright shining DC-3 gleaming in the sunlight. Ace could hardly wait to get on board. His seat was just aft of the wing trailing edge. Taxiing was akin to the carnival ride, Tilt-A-Whirl. He liked the Tilt-A-Whirl, so he liked the taxiing. The takeoff run was another thrill. Ace was not expecting the tail to come up first. He thought the plane was starting to cartwheel, and he was going to die right there in front of his parents, but it only came up a few feet, then the whole airplane was off the ground. Ace was caught in a state of stark terror and grand excitement at the same time, a state that would not be matched for many years to come. The flight was fairly uneventful except for the coffee. He was given a cup of coffee, and there was a vibration that caused little balls to form on top of the coffee and roll around on the surface. He spent most of the ride just watching the little balls dance around. The plane landed in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A sergeant was there to meet Ace, and big changes were in store for poor Ace.

37604.png Life at Fort Bragg

Ace was assigned to the Twenty-Eighth Artillery, which was based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Twenty-Eighth was deactivated after World War II and had just been reactivated and was to gyro to Germany in November. The officers and Noncoms (NCOs) were transferred from other units, and the enlisted were recruits fresh out of basic training.

The recruits trained hard and played hard and made friends with GIs from all over the country. Ace had made friends with James, a GI from South Carolina. They both got weekend passes, and Ace hitchhiked to South Carolina with James. That was when it was safe to hitchhike and people were glad to pick up GIs. James’s family was very hospitable and made Ace feel right at home. James had a little sister about six years old and was fascinated that Ace was from Oklahoma and asked, in typical little girl fashion, if he was an Indian. Ace replied that he was only part Indian. Her eyes widened and very excitedly asked, Do you eat snakes? Everyone in the room began laughing uncontrollably. That alone was worth the trip. Too soon, the weekend was over, and it was time to hitchhike back to the sergeants and marching.

37604.png What the Heck Is Airborne?

Time passed since Ace had completed his army artillery training, and military life was becoming routine. At one of the many daily formations, the sergeant asked if anyone would like to volunteer for airborne take one step forward. Ace was the first to step forward. The sergeant asked Ace if he had ever jumped from an aircraft. Ace told him that he had not. The sergeant then asked him why he thought he would like it. Ace told him that he did not want to jump out of them. He wanted to fly them. The sergeant laughed and told him that airborne were paratroopers and that they jumped from aircraft. Ace got back in ranks and wondered why the hell anyone in his right mind would jump from a perfectly good aircraft anyway. Remember a couple of months ago, our hero was on a farm in Southwest Oklahoma.

37604.png Off to Germany

The day finally came when the CQ came through the barracks, screaming at the top of his voice to roll out and pack bags. Ace and about a thousand other GIs rolled out of their bunks and started packing all they owned or what the government had issued them into their duffel bags. They put on their dress greens and fell out on to the parade field. What a sharp-looking bunch of soldiers. They were then loaded in busses, not trucks, but in real busses. The gyro had started. The Twenty-Eighth Artillery Battalion was under way to relieve the Fourteenth Artillery battalion in Bad Kissingen, Germany. They took the busses to the train station and the train to New York City. Ace had never been to New York City and was very excited, but he had never ridden a train before either. The big deal was the dining car with linen tablecloths and flatware that shone like new money. After dinner, he returned to the berth. The beds had been turned down. This was real service. He thought he could ride trains the rest of his life and crawled into the bed and went to sleep to the sound of the steel wheels rolling over the tracks. The next morning came, and the yelling started again. They were