TERRE HAUTE — Fifty years ago today, at the age of 16, Steve Brown made his first solo flight in a Cessna 172 around Hulman Air Field, now called Terre Haute International Airport-Hulman Field.
Today is also Brown’s 66th birthday, a day he plans to fly “a time or two” around the airport to once again to mark his big day, then later join family for an Italian dinner.
Brown has been around planes all his life. His father, Herman Brown, who turns 89 next month, developed Sky King Airport in 1960 north of Terre Haute. The airport houses Brown Flying School, which first started in 1951.
“I actually learned to fly at the old Paul Cox Field, which is where Terre Haute South [Vigo] High School is now,” he said.
By the age of 14, Steve Brown said he had already learned to fly from his father. He recalls a friend of his father, who was a licensed pilot, getting permission to allow Steve Brown to fly with him to give some pointers on landing.
“That’s something I’ll never forget,” Brown said.
Brown earned his private pilot license at age 17 and commercial pilot license at 18.
“I grew up in it and that’s all I’ve ever done,” Brown said, who still instructs would-be pilots and provides a charter flight service at Sky King Airport. Until four years ago, he also operated a pilot service, flying for various corporations, some of which housed planes at the small air field.
Brown said he doesn’t have the airplane he soloed in 50 years ago, but still has a photograph showing him inside the plane, while his father, his mother, Virginia, and sister, Janice, stood by.
“It is still flying. It was almost a brand-new airplane my dad had bought when I flew it. It is now up in Wisconsin, based on the federal registry,” he said.
Brown and his wife, Amy, now manage Sky King and regularly fly, often taking trips to Colorado or Florida.
For 18 years, the Browns owned a WACO [Weaver Aircraft Company of Ohio] open cockpit biplane, built in 1940. It was Amy’s favorite plane before it was sold. Yet in 1990, on a spur of the moment decision in April to fly south to Lakeland, Fla., it wasn’t such a popular aircraft for the couple.
“It was 17 degrees on the ground when we left and it was very cold in the air,” Amy Brown said.
“It wasn’t one of her brighter ideas,” Steve Brown said. “It had been warm up until that day. The weather was clear. We only flew at 2,500 feet, but with a 110 mile-per-hour wind blowing around your neck, it was awfully cold. Just south of the Ohio River, there was an airport, and I said I had done all about what I wanted to do, this is not fun no more, so we landed and got warmed up a little bit.
“We decided to press on and it got a little warmer. It was bearable, you might say, after we got past Nashville,” he said.
While weather affects flying, pilots may also face challenges from mechanical problems.
“If there’s a mechanical problem, you just pick out a good place to land,” Brown said.
He pointed to another photograph of a rare aircraft, built in 1929 with a radial engine.
“It was one of my dad’s first airplanes he ever owned. Sometime in 1978, I was taking a guy for a ride in it and the engine quit, so I landed in a bean field over by Burnett …
“It was a carburetor problem with the airplane. We ended up fixing the carburetor and put it back on and flew it back out of there that day,” he said.
About six years ago, Brown was flying a two-engine aircraft at 15,000 feet over Nashville, when one engine failed. “Why it happened I don’t know, but it threw a rod out if it. The engine blew up, so we landed in Nashville, Tenn. I didn’t declare an emergency. You can, there is no reason for it. I just told them it was an interruption of the flight plan and told them I had an engine out,” he said.
Amy said she has taken lessons to know how to land a plane.
“That’s something you don’t have to worry about, the plane will come down,” her husband joked.
“Yes, one of our mechanics here said you don’t have to worry, we’ve never left one up there yet. I just wanted to know what it took to put it down,” she said.
Brown said he has logged more than 20,000 hours of flight time.
In 2006, Brown Flying School filed a lawsuit against Terre Haute’s airport, where Brown took his first solo flight. “It is not resolved yet,” Brown said of the lawsuit. “I know they are trying to sell the flight school. We just didn’t think it was right for taxpayers to pay for a flight school and compete against the private sector.”
Brown said flight schools, like many businesses, are feeling the impact of higher fuel costs. Also, flying is much more expensive. “The plane I first flew solo in was about $7,000 new. Now that same plane is about $300,000,” he said.
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com
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Valley man started flying at 16, hasn’t stopped
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