Wings for Doubting Thomas (1950s)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] so there I was doodling airplanes again my wife Jane said I had an obsession but then she read magazine articles on psychology and she was always saying things like that my brother-in-law said was bugged but then he's a sports car fan and he talks like that it all started a few weeks before when we had the Abbotts over to dinner wonderful dinner Jane Doris we'd better be getting on have to get up early in the morning we're flying up say why don't you kids come along plenty of room in the plane plane what plane oh we have an airplane now didn't you know yikes am I ever out of my class well it makes more sense than that speedboat rig you've got oh come on now sure it's a used plane and it cost me just about the the same to operate as my car does and you want us to fly up to the mountains in it oh no Doris your husband's mad surely you don't mean you'd be afraid to fly You're darn right I would and a little fliver with you as a pilot say when did you become a pilot it's not a little fliver and I've had my private pilot's license for over a month now I thought the ca had regulations about things like that it's the FAA and they do have regulations they licens the plane just like a new one so it's quite safe well I love flying it's a lot of fun you fly too I mean actually drive the plane well sure you fly well I'm just learning but in about two more hours I'm going to solo and we even planning for Steve to learn on his summer vacation the kid too mhm sure Steve and Doris do all my navigation navigation yeah you know Maps they're good at it well come on D it's time to go well good night wonderful evening well if that didn't take the frosting right off of the cake imagine old Sam flying an airplane and I know he's not as good a driver as I am and Doris fly flying too and a kid to learn next summer well that was what started it I'd never known anyone who owned a plane before but suddenly it seemed as if planes were everywhere everywhere I went something about planes popped [Music] up they signed up for Lon Frank's checked out now on the 182 and he's going to fly his whole territory time fishing and so Harry's going to fly us down there and we'll be there in plenty of time for the sailing we got on pretty soon Sam popped up again too in spite of my dire predictions he and Doris made it back safely from the mountains I apologized Jane made me for casting aspersions on his plane and his abilities as a pilot now Sam's a good friend of mine but he's just a natural born salesman when he believes in something he sets out to convince the world but he wasn't going to sell me on that Madness it's logic man said Sam now look he said you're a man of logic and intelligence I complimented him on his astute judgment so then he started quoting some figures so dividing 30,000 by 50 and again by 120 the result is 600 from which you subtract 250 Old Sam can really work with those figures but what it boils down to is he's clipped a neat 350 hours off his travel time now 350 hours is let's see divided by 8 hours uh 44 / 5 over 8 weeks of working time not bad not bad Sam not bad and look Tom that 30,000 Mi of highway driving that are replaced with my plane that's 250 hours of relaxed flying instead of 600 hours of hard driving the next day we went golfing Sam ran out that old refrain again this time between car and plane with gas oil depreciation passenger miles and so on and so on the net effect of this figure Wizardry was a little startling it only cost him 570 bucks and he gained 8 weeks in which he increased his sale several thousand and had time to spare well just between you and me that Sam's pretty sharp of those figures sometimes I wish he weren't quite so sharp the next time Sam started running that same record again I put a stop to it after all there's more to this than just economics I could just see myself flying into the sight of a mountain to save an hour or two or suppose the engine just up and fo on me right up in the middle of the air I might as well admit it frankly I'm a coward well man engines just don't quit and you don't just stop in the middle of the air there are more uncontrollable factors on the highways than there are in the air yet you accept that look at the facts it's a safe investment but I tell you it may be but not for me not yet Sam said I was hard-headed and I said he was soft-headed Jane came in and said you're both headed headed for bed because I had to drive 300 miles the next day well it was that trip that really knocked the feathers off the goose now don't get me wrong I'm used to driving thousands of miles a month because I cover a big territory but the pressure was really on me this trip I was going to make a fullscale presentation that afternoon for a client that might well spend 100,000 a year traffic was unusually heavy and I was behind schedule so naturally that's when the tire picked to go flat [Applause] well it cost me an hour and a half to change that tire and get it fixed I called my client and told him I was going to be late he wasn't happy about it I was late and dirty but I crossed my fingers and dashed to my client's [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] office but it was too late he had already signed a contract with a [Music] competitor well my company's Hot Shot salesman sure did well by himself missed the biggest deal of the Year all because of the lousy traffic and the lousy flat tire now here I was in this lousy motel room with nothing to do but doodle Doodles when I should have been counting my commission if I ever needed an airplane it was [Music] today your heart hard-headed Tom you're hard-headed lons and he's checked out now and he's going to fly his whole territory in less than half glad you got here in time [Music] [Applause] [Music] Tom but that was only a dream the hard reality was that I was headed home without a sail in my pocket so it was then and there that I decided something had to be done I headed home and told my wife now look here something has to be done did I say before that Jane always kept up with things well she does I don't know where she digs up these things but she came up with these little books called who me fly and look who's flying and she was waiting for me with a full report and a big smile she had it all figured out that if I took flying lessons she could take them too on the family plan and it fit very neatly into the budget so around the house we started calling each other Amelia and Lindy but I didn't feel so much the Intrepid Airman the next week when I went for my first flying lesson I had a high regard for my instructor Bill Roberts but then I noticed he had forgotten the parachutes when I pointed this oversight out to him he just laughed and said only military and stunt Pilots wore shoots Bill checked me out on the basic rules pretty quickly like everything else the basis of flying safety is good Common Sense by the end of a couple of hours I realized that my fears were if you'll excuse the pun groundless thanks to Bill I was soon making takeoffs and landings with my heart my stomach and the plane all in the right places it was surprisingly easy modern light planes practically fly themselves learning the Maneuvers took a little concentration but it was fun and there was an unexpected dividend up there in the blue I forgot my problems on the ground sales quotas Factory delivery dates I was feeling better than I had my whole life another nice surprise was the instrument panel you don't have to be a human univac to figure it out in a couple of hours that panel was as familiar as the dash of my car Jane of course was taking lessons too and if I do say so myself she was pretty good after 8 and 1 half hours of duel instruction came the big day when I soloed I think that was just about the biggest thrill of my lifetime and when I set the plane down bill was waiting for me with a trophy he forgot the scissors but when we got inside he cut a piece of my shirt tail autographed it and attached it and said it wouldn't be many more hours before I could take passengers now I've been running planes and have logged a lot of hours and I don't mind admitting I get the same thrill up in the air that I did the first day I soloed I don't exaggerate when I say I opened up a whole new world for myself as I began to cover my territory by plane I saved enough time to make about 20% sent more calls there had been some customers I was only getting to once a year and they were glad of the additional service and they gave me more business but what was probably more important is that Jane and Little Debbie got to accompany me on many trips we got to go to places we wouldn't have had time for otherwise take the last sales meeting it was in Dallas so I rented a plane and flew down taking Jane and Debbie with me they took off on a shopping expedition and I took the boss out to the airport to show him the plane I'd flown down I figured I'd impress him and I really did until he finds out how easy it is to fly he's going to think I'm a minor genius incidentally if I weren't so modest I'd tell you what kind of a showing I made at that sales meeting the day we got back from the sales meeting the Abbotts came over to hear about the trip also my brother-in-law Bob the sports car fan and his wife Betty oh it was wonderful Tom got to attend the sales meaning while I took Debbie shopping and then we flew over and spent the weekend with my folk what did you think of the the airport down there oh man it was terrific I had that Runway all to myself landed just as well as one of those Airlines say your kids are hung way out on this flying business aren't you that's all you talked about all evening man don't you realize you're taking your life in your hands when you go up in one of those things so into the fry again this time though I was on the other side of the fence and I must say that with Sam and I both working on it it didn't take us long to show Bob the error of his ways and now he's come up with a plan for he and and I to go in together and buy a brand new Cessna as for my wife well this is a deal I didn't have to sell her on she no longer quotes the psychology articles at me she's too busy having fun as far as that goes we all [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] are