For My Old Friend, Hylton

While perusing the History Channel webpage the other night, I happened to notice that it was Orville Wright's birthday. This got me to thinking about a trip that I took several years ago to Marfa, Texas. By the way, the name Marfa came from a character in the Jules Verne novel, 'Michael Strogoff'. Marfa Strogoff was the mother of Michael, who defied the Tartar chieftain Ogareff when she lied and denied that Michael was her son. Great story, if you have the time. You can even read it online at Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1842

Marfa, Texas was the location used for shooting the movie Giant. How many of you remember Giant? This movie, based on a book of the same name by Edna Ferber, featured Rock Hudson, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and one of my old favorites, Chill Wills. This epic from back in the mid 50's provided the platform for James Dean's second Academy Award nomination and was released soon after his death. The movie is about ranching, oil, greed and jealousy, with a good bit of racism thrown in from time to time. If you go back and watch this someday, you'll notice a very young Dennis Hopper (from Easy Rider and Hoosiers fame) as Rock Hudson's son, Jordy.

Back during the Second World War, the Army opened up Marfa Army Airfield to train pilots on twin engine planes. The airfield was closed after the war, but was still used for several years for local air traffic. So why did I go to Marfa? Hang in there folks, I'm getting there.

At the time of this trip, I was living in Seminole, Texas and had become friends with a fellow by the name of Hylton Nolen. Hylton was a farmer who had lived around Seminole all of his life. This arid farm land in West Texas is constantly in need of irrigation, so I learned a lot from Hylton about how to grow cotton and thrash peanuts and how to maintain circular irrigation systems. Hylton was also a pilot and operated a crop dusting business. His love for flying took him into the field of soaring and this is what eventually took me to Marfa.

Hylton taught soaring at a little airfield over at Hobbs, New Mexico in a little 2-seat glider. At this field in Hobbs there was a powerful winch with an extremely long cable that they would attach to the gliders to get them airborne. There were several times that I helped Hylton run out the cable and then crewed for him after he took off. As his crew, I just drove his truck around the countryside, pulling his trailer around, so that when he had to land somewhere, we could just load up and bring it on home. I would cruise around listening and sometimes talking to Hylton on the radio as he rose through the uplifting thermals and then soared across the sky.

On one slow day Hylton decided to take me up for a flight in the trainer. Sitting in the front of the trainer, just soaring above the earth, I was mesmerized by the sheer quietness of the motor less flight and the spectacular beauty of the sky. Soaring provides a sense of freedom which is so unique from anything I've ever done. It seems so amazing to remain aloft with no onboard means of propulsion. You keep thinking that gravity should just return you to earth, but there is this strange invisible force that can keep you aloft for hours. It is an odd feeling to see the earth fall away as you spiral upwards in a thermal draft. These thermals are just columns of hot air rising into the sky. They are created by the sun's heating of the earth's surface in an uneven pattern. It's really pretty simple...the sun warms the ground and the warm ground in turn heats the air directly above it. This less dense warm air expands and rises through the surrounding colder air mass. Quite often you may see large birds, even around here, with their wings out just floating in circles. They are just floating on these thermal columns as they rise into the air. Soaring pilots often look for these birds to locate the needed thermal lift to keep them aloft. The experienced pilots can read the clouds and many other indicators to also find this lift.

I don't think that I have ever experienced a more relaxing sensation with such a complete meditative silence. After several minutes of being in awe of the beauty and the eerily quiet absence of sound, I was shocked when Hylton tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to take the controls. Those moments of peaceful serenity had almost made me forget that he was sitting right behind me.

Another friend of ours, Bob Cosby, who was the President of our local bank in Seminole, also became interested in soaring and eventually bought his own glider. I spent several afternoons crewing for either Hylton or Bob and truly enjoyed the experience.

In the summer of 1984, I traveled to Marfa with my younger brother Paul for a huge soaring meet at the old Marfa Airport. Bob and Hylton were both attending this meet to fly their soaring ships and Paul and I tagged along to crew for them. When Bob got ready for his first flight at this meet, I talked the pilot of one of the tow planes into letting me ride along behind his seat and film Bob's take-off. There wasn't any seat to sit on and it was very cramped, but it was just enough room for me to get crunched in and aim my video camera out the back window. It was a bumpy ride, but I provided Bob with a good video of his take-off and had a heck of a good time doing it.

The Marfa trip was an event that I will always think of with fond memories. I had the opportunity to meet so many different folks through our association with Bob and Hylton and even learned a little about soaring from some very experienced pilots.

While writing this article, I decided that I would get in touch with my old friends out in Seminole. It had been such a long, long time and I wanted to go see them again. Sadly, I waited too long...I found out this week that Hylton Leon Nolen passed away last June at the young age of 61.

That one beautiful flight in that trainer with Hylton was my only soaring experience. For about an hour and a half on that wonderful West Texas afternoon, thanks to my friend Hylton, I flew with the birds.