Robert Klenk

As a young man from Mt. Healthy, I worked at the airport, took flying lessons there, and got my private license there. I also made two parachute jumps at the airport.  I had quite an affiliation with the airport.

At one time the airport was about half re-seeded. Apparently the runway was not properly marked where it was seeded.  A plane came in for a landing hit a soft spot, and flipped over on its back. Thank goodness no one was injured. About the mid-forties, the airport had a cinder runway, which lessened this kind of problem.

Another time, I was flying with my instructor, when the instructor mentioned that we were a bit low and that I should give it some gas. Instead of giving it gas, I gave it a burst and the tail end hit the top of a tree. It was a canvas covered plane, and hitting the tree sounded just like a drum. Needless to say, I caught the devil.

On another occasion I was on a flight without an instructor or a parachute. I thought I was in a spin and I passed out. I woke up in time as I was nearing the ground.  I couldn’t find the pedals, but I finally got out of the spin and lived to tell about it.

I reluctantly told my instructor about the incident, and the instructor told me it was not a spin but a tight spiral.  All the blood rushed out of my head. I landed the plane all right, but had my license suspended for two weeks for flying without an instructor or a parachute. This really hurt the instructor more than the student, because the instructor didn’t make any money off any students during the suspension.

If you landed from the west at the Mt. Healthy Airport, you had to come low over the old Colerain High School because of the short runway. One time a fellow took off from there and had a little bit of air in his gasoline filter. Every time he’d pull up the nose, the engine started coughing and he had to keep the nose down. He just cleared the trees and made a downwind landing. It was later discovered that if you work on gasoline filters, make sure they have no air pockets.