Barnstorming in Atwood
Back in the late 70’s a group of pilots around Atwood in northwestern Kansas purchased a 2-33 and affixed a tow hitch to the back of a Cessna 182. For several years they flew the 2-33 with a few guys getting their glider rating, but from what I can tell nobody ever really made any attempt to do much soaring. I’m not really sure they even knew that one could do such a thing. They eventually got bored with gliding, sold the 2-33, and went on to other things.
For the past ten summers or so, I have been working for Gary Worthy who runs Sunflower Aero in Atwood. Gary was one of the pilots that instructed in the 2-33 back in the day. When I told him about my soaring experiences he was initially uninterested, as he remembered soaring as kind of boring. But as I talked it up some more — and especially how great the soaring potential is in Atwood in late summer — he took more interest. Gary is the kind of guy who loves aviation in any form and particularly likes having aviation people around. This year he offered to install a tow hitch on the AgWagon in the hopes that I could convince some of my soaring buddies to come out there and fly. We acquired a tow hitch assembly from K&L Soaring and with help from Mitch Hudson, we had a signed-off and perfectly legal tow hitch installed on the AgWagon. Tony brought his Cirrus out in July to test it out, and he came out one other time to fly.
The soaring weather wasn’t great either day, but the sight of Tony’s beautiful Cirrus soaring over Atwood did generate a great deal of interest. We even made the front page of the local paper. Meanwhile, Gary was promising everyone in town that he was going to get a bunch of gliders out here for a meet of some sort and maybe even a two-seater to give rides. If you know anything about small towns in rural Kansas, you know it doesn’t take much to generate a lot of excitement — and the locals are always looking for some way to get people to come to their town. Due to conflicts with other activities, the earliest we could arrange anything was the weekend of October 20/21. Soaring is pretty much dried up by then and I knew it would be a stretch, but I figured we could get a two-place out there and give rides. We had hoped to take the Grob out there with its new paint job. However, the Grob was not ready by mid-October and, in what turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events, we ended up taking the 2-22 instead. Thanks to help from John Clark and his friend Derald Wright, Mike Warbington, and Jerry Martin, we were able to get the 2-22 disassembled and on the trailer Thursday evening before the event. On Friday, Tony and Leah picked up the 2-22 and trailered it out while I flew the AgWagon to Atwood. We assembled the ship Saturday morning and launched our first customer at 11:00 AM.
I made a point to tow the glider right over town just to let everyone know we were there. By the third tow, I realized that this was no longer necessary. There were numerous vehicles parked on the tarmac and at one point I counted about thirty people standing around. There was no lift to speak of, so it was just up and back down. In the 2-22, Tony was landing shortly after me; his passengers would be swapping out as I was back-taxiing from my landing.
On Saturday, we flew until sundown, giving 25 rides. Gary treated us to a great supper at the local restaurant. We had to turn quite a few people away on Saturday, so we tried to get an early start on Sunday. The first tow was about 9:20 AM. Once again, we had a good crowd at the airport on Sunday. We told everyone that we had to shut down no later than 1:00 PM since we still had to disassemble and trailer the glider, plus drive 5 hours back to Wichita. By our last tow on Sunday (just a bit past 1:00) we had given 40 rides total for the weekend. I think there were several people who didn’t get a chance to ride, and many more who said they would have taken 2 or 3 more rides if they could. Once again, we got our picture on the front page of the local newspaper and I understand people have been asking Gary when he was going to bring the glider guys back.
I should mention that Gary very generously donated the use of the towplane. We were not charged for the tows and he wouldn’t even take any money for fuel. So, in addition to introducing our sport to a soaring-deprived community, we were also able to make a few bucks for the club. Also worth noting is that there is now a towplane available in western Kansas for anyone who would like to sample the soaring out there next summer.
Tony had told me a while back that he was re-reading The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh. In the book Lindbergh mentions how he got his start barnstorming in Kansas. In fact, the first town he barnstormed was a place called Bird City — just a few miles west of Atwood in the next county. I thought about that as I saw the growing crowd on the tarmac Saturday afternoon. Flying over town to attract attention, Leah collecting twenty dollar bills and strapping the passengers into their seat. Yep, this is barnstorming in 2018 — with a 2-22 no less.