I do not have a yellow sheet of paper torn from a legal pad tacked to my wall with a bucket list of things I want to do before I ride the final comet. I do have a list in my head of approximately 242 more places I would like to visit in this lifetime. Along the way I am trying to do as many cool or adventuresome things as I can.
Robin and I have been parasailing in Florida. A few years ago I took a hot air balloon ride in Sedona. While we were in Costa Rica we did several things of this nature. We went white water rafting on class 3 and 4 rapids. We did what they call canyonering. Essentially you are rappelling down a mountainside and occasionally going through small waterfalls. The last part of that experience was a 150 meter vertical drop using only rappelling ropes to do so. Just to put that in perspective the St. Louis Arch is 192 meters. I also spent an amazing afternoon there doing a zip line course through the canopy of a rain forest. I had only been dating Robin for 3 months when I convinced her that the entirely sane thing for us to do was to jump out of a perfectly good airplane at 12,000 feet. I have backpacked several extraordinary places including down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon twice along a different trail each time. My brother Jeff and I spent 5 days backpacking a slot canyon in Utah and Colorado, walking in shallow water most of the way. I have channeled my inner Hemingway and gone offshore fishing a couple times. I did gross Robin out a bit once when I ate a grasshopper taco. She passed on my crocodile burger in Costa Rica too, but she did eat alligator with me in Florida? Louisiana? Somewhere down south.
Today I checked another activity off my non-bucket list. I did something I have wanted to do for years. I took a ride in an open cockpit bi-plane. Across the river at St. Louis Downtown Airport is a gentleman named Kevin Kegin doing business as AmericanWarbird.com. He flies a couple of different planes from there, a T-6G Texan and a Waco UPF-7 bi-plane. It was the bi-plane that had my interest. As a kid I was fascinated by stories of the WWI dogfights in bi-planes. And don’t let us forget Snoopy going up against the Red Baron.
I could not have picked a more perfect day to do this. It is practically summer again here in St. Louis with today’s temperature being 86 degrees, light winds and very few clouds in the sky. After taking a few pictures and getting a pre-flight briefing from Kevin we took off. We flew north going over downtown St. Louis. We circled around my old office building, The Metropolitan Building, the tallest structure in St. Louis. We peered into Busch stadium from 2000 feet. From there we flew north along the Mississippi River flying over the Chain of Rocks Bridge. I have memories of this bridge as a child driving from the east coast to visit relatives in Oklahoma. The bridge bends in the middle! As a kid this absolutely fascinated me. Our next stop was a fly over of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. It was not exceeding impressive, but it fascinated me as a history buff. I could just imagine Lewis and Clark and their various boats starting on their legendary journey.
Turning back south we flew along the Mississippi River some more. Once we got out of the airspace of Lambert Field we could climb from 2000 feet to just short of 3000. Just before the climb Kevin gave control of the aircraft to me. He had told he was going to do this, but driving there it was not something I expected to do, to actually fly a vintage bi-plane. Fortunately for both of us Kevin was there to land the plane. I have landed one before, but I was getting a lot of coaching while I was doing it. He actually let me fly the plane for around 20 or so minutes. We flew over the golf courses I go to most. We did try to do some aerobatics, but one of my changes with old age is sinus problems. With the sinuses throwing off my equilibrium it was upsetting my stomach. First time I really noticed this issue was in Mexico when we went on a sailboat/snorkeling tour. The sea was so choppy they should have stayed in port. I did not throw up, but there were several folks that had problems too. Anyway we did a couple minor maneuvers and called it quits. That was a bit disappointing as I had wanted to do more. Obviously, not Kevin’s fault. He is very cautious and touches base with you all the time to make sure what is going on is not causing you discomfort. I just did not want to throw up in that beautiful plane.
This is obviously not an inexpensive excursion. I had their flyer hanging in my man cave for a while, and every once in a while I would comment that I would like to do this but it is so cotton pickin’ expensive. Robin had actually given me about half the money necessary to do this about 2 years ago for my birthday. I am not remembering why the ride did not happen that year. The next year when the weather got nice, he had mechanical problems with the plane. Then the weather got cold, then COVID hit with a vengeance. Rather than let another year go by with this money burning a hole in my bucket list, I decided to go ahead and go despite COVID. Which brings up an interesting exchange I had with Kevin on the phone when I was scheduling my flight.
He said to me, “I don’t know what your political persuasions are, and I do not want to know. But initially getting into the plane and getting you settled we are going to be very close. I am going to be wearing a mask, and I am going to require you to wear one too. I hope you do not have a problem with that.” That was obviously no problem for me. I am exceedingly grateful he has that attitude.
If this is your sort of thing, I would highly recommend a flight with Kevin in either of his planes. He has flights of various durations and thus varying costs. Kevin is an exceedingly nice guy, I could easily see me sitting around drinking a few beers with him and chatting about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything (42). We passed a good portion of the flight talking about books and history. Kevin seems to be a big history buff, especially in regards to St. Louis, aviation and military history. I imagine Kevin could find something to talk about to most people.
Below are my favorite pictures from the EXPEDITION. Click on one to see it bigger. IF you are a real glutton for punishment follow this link to see all the pictures taken that day on another one of my sites: Red Baron Rides Again Just scroll down until you see that header. And just for overkill, the photogenic Señora Weinhaus took a video of us taking off: Video of bi-plane taking off
Keep well.
What an awesome way to spend a beautiful day.
Way cool!