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by Vicki Dauth |
There is
something magical about flying. Maybe it's the stories we were raised on
--- Aladdin's Magic Carpet, Peter Pan, Superman --- but the first time you
actually "break the bonds of earth" you know you'll never forget
the feeling. For Paso Roblans the first experience of flight may
have come in the 1920's when barnstorming pilots landed in the field near
the old Reif Store at the intersection of Union and Golden Hill roads or
at the north end of Riverside offering a flight for $2. An adventurous
young Edith Leisy was eager to go for a ride with one of these itinerant
flyers. Her beau, later her husband, Roy Bethel, was not so sure he liked
that idea. Edith, however, passed a hat to collect the price of the ride
and took off on her first flying adventure.
The first real airport in Paso Robles consisted of a dirt strip in a hayfield owned by T.A. Osborne a mile and a half east of the downtown area. Through the late 1920's and 1930's, flyers would circle the city before landing to alert families and potential passengers of their arrival. Former Roblan, Darwin Fox, remembered driving to the field in his Model T touring car to ferry pilots back to town. By 1940 the City of Paso Robles had acquired the airfield from Mr. Osborne and had qualified for funds from the Civil Aeronautics Administration to improve the field. A small sheet metal hangar, light beam, radio signal tower and weather station were installed. The field was weeded, graded and oiled as well. Also in 1940 Bruce Denham, a flight instructor from southern California, arrived in Paso Robles with a 1933 Great Lakes open cockpit biplane and a high-wing, enclosed-cabin Luscombe. Among Denham's first students were Dr. Fred Ragsdale, Betty Lyle and Lester Dauth, who had taken his first flight about ten years earlier with local pilot, Augie Sauret, who was flying out of Oakland at the time.
Ground instruction in Paso Robles was given by H.R. Martinson who was a professor of aeronautics at Cal Poly. Other instructors were Carl Von Sosten and Johnny Hibbard. The cost of flight instruction was about $100 for ten hours. Planes like the Great Lakes and the Luscombe were relatively unsophisticated by today's standards. They had skids instead of tail wheels, no brakes; and instruments commonly consisted of an oil pressure gauge, an altimeter and a compass. In the open cockpit craft, the instructor and student had to communicate by speaking through a rubber tube. These planes had the advantage of being able to land almost anywhere. Lester Dauth remembers a time he was out for a ride in the Luscombe when he spotted his cousin Squid Rougeot, driving a tractor on the Nacimiento Ranch. Lester landed in the field, visited with Squid and then took off to resume his flight. |
