First published in The Record on Oct. 11, 2019

The Intimate Joys of flying old and slow

What can a person learn flying in a plane that just turned 90? Plenty. A plane this old flies low. From a thousand feet, a person can see the slack shallows of the Passaic River covered in green algae scum, watch the black deep water hustle down the channel toward Paterson's Great Falls. From here a person can track autumn's  uneven southerly advance, Ramapo ridgelines running red and gold, the trees in the valleys still defiantly green.

From a first-row seat, a person can watch Bill Sleeper force this old plane to follow his command. His seat vibrates. The padded steering wheel hops in his hands. As the plane bounces across the sky, Sleeper resembles a farmer plowing a rocky field.  

A plane this old makes one remember the earth's gravitational power. Such a plane reminds us what a miracle it is that we ever pried ourselves free.

“It requires a fair amount of arm strength to get the airplane to move and turn,” said Sleeper, who retired after spending 40 years of flying jets for United Airlines.

The plane he pilots now is a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor. It has three engines, naturally. Its wings are fat as clams, with a boxy fuselage wrapped in corrugated aluminum. 

The thing resembles a flying shed. 

With this humble, clattering contraption, the Experimental Aircraft Association hopes to get people excited about flying again. The Tri-Motor spent 1949 barnstorming little airstrips across America.

Seven decades later, it's back. 

Last week it took people for rides in Lancaster, New York. Next week it flies to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This weekend it'll fly dozens of 20-minute loops above North Jersey, departing from Essex County Airport in Fairfield. Adults pay $77, children $52.

“Everybody just loves the thing. It’s unlike any experience a modern plane can give,” said Sleeper, who moonlights for the association when he’s not flying chartered seaplanes in Seattle. “I’ve never had anybody come off the airplane with a frown.”

Modern air travel sucks. Airport security lines erode our will to live. Airlines invent new ways to deprive us of legroom and dignity.

With every flight, the Ford Tri-Motor reminds us that a more humane life in the sky is possible. The first examples rolled off the assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1925. They were the first airplanes made exclusively of metal. Early models had open cockpits because pilots believed they couldn't fly without feeling the wind in their faces.

The Tri-Motor's cabin is small, but luxurious in its way. There are nine seats, each with a window, all on the aisle. Legroom is ample. The walls are fashioned from mint green metal, plus wood veneer with ornate reading lamps and geometric accents painted in gold leaf. The low ceiling forces a person of medium height to stoop, except as one enters the cockpit, where the glass canopy doubles as an emergency escape hatch.

In modern planes, most controls are assisted by hydraulic boost. Position is often calculated by General Electric flight management system computers, which connect via Draka Fileca Star Quad KL24 high-transmission-rate data cable, all of it programmed using customizable human-machine interface (HMI) menus.

On the Tri-Motor, the rear tire is held in position by six bungee cords. Steering is controlled by Sleeper's hands on the wheel. This connects to the fat tail rudder via cables that pierce the plane’s skin and run the length of the plane.

The cables flap in the wind.

“The landing gear don’t go up and down. There’s no flaps,” Sleeper said. “It’s a very simple airplane.”

Histories of calamity

Sometimes things happen to break the romantic spell of old planes. Last week a World War II-era B-17 bomber left Bradley International Airport in Connecticut for a tourist flight. The plane was owned by the Collins Foundation, a nonprofit group in Massachusetts that promotes knowledge of history by hosting events with old planes, cars and tanks.

One of the B-17's four engines appeared to fail. The plane crashed. Seven people died, and seven more were injured. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

The Tri-Motor operated by the Experimental Aircraft Association was built 16 years before the crashed B-17. It has witnessed calamity, but no deaths. Built as an early airliner, it ferried passengers along the East Coast, then across Cuba and Central America. It became a crop duster, a smoke jumper, a barnstormer and a movie star, appearing in the 1965 Jerry Lewis comedy “The Family Jewels” and the 2009 drama “Public Enemies,” with Johnny Depp.

In 1973 the Tri-Motor was tied to the tarmac at the airport in Burlington, Wisconsin. A thunderstorm broke its tiedown straps and tossed the plane 20 feet in the air. It landed on its back, in pieces.

Volunteers spent a dozen years making the Tri-Motor airworthy again.

“It was turned into shredded aluminum foil,” Sleeper said.

Joy reborn

On the Essex County runway this week, such wreckage was impossible to imagine. The Tri-Motor’s wavy skin shined in the patchy sunlight. A few dozen people gathered to look. They discussed the B-17 crash, but none seemed dissuaded by it.

“It appears we have a full flight,” Sleeper said.

Ten journalists from various New Jersey newspapers bent to enter the plane's rear door. (The Tri-Motor does not require a co-pilot, so the seat next to Sleeper was occupied by a lanky, wisecracking photographer.)

Sleeper yanked a black knob. This applied choke to the left outboard motor, as if starting an ancient motorcycle. The engine gargled to life. He repeated the procedure twice more. All 27 pistons coughed and buzzed, a chorus of chainsaws singing out of tune. We taxied, turned, and accelerated. The plane covered just a few feet of runway before jumping into the sky.

“And I was holding it down” with both hands against the steering wheel, Sleeper said. “This plane really wants to fly.”

Sleeper flew north. He held steady at 1,200 feet. It's an intimate altitude, experienced by airline passengers only in the last frantic seconds of final approach. When he intercepted the Passaic, Sleeper banked right, following the river to the narrow falls. He lapped Paterson twice. We saw the algae, gathered up in the river eddies. We saw the old brick factories, some still standing, others smashed to the ground, as if by a giant.