Somebody asked me one day what kind of an airplane I flew. I told him
any kind anybody was willing to pay me for flying.
"But don't you own an airplane?" the man asked.
"No," I answered. "And furthermore," I added, "I have never owned an
airplane, although I have been a professional pilot for eleven years."
Why?
Well, I can best explain that as I explained it to a little boy once out
in California.
I was at the Lockheed factory. I had been there several months,
supervising the construction of an airplane I had sold to a rich
sportsman pilot in the East. It was a Lockheed Sirius plane and at that
time a ship which was taking everybody's eyes as the latest and sleekest
thing yet developed by the engineers. Lindbergh had just popularized it
by flying himself and his wife across the country in it and establishing
a new transcontinental record.
They rolled my ship out on the line one bright, sunny day and I must say
that in its shiny new red-and-white paint job and its clean, sweeping
lines it certainly was a beautiful sight sitting there glistening in
that California sunshine.
A little boy who had crawled over the factory fence despite the "No
Trespassing" sign evidently thought so too, for he was standing there
gazing raptly at it with eyes as big as silver dollars when I stalked
out toward the ship to make a first test hop in it. He intercepted me
neatly as I rounded the wing tip and approached the cockpit.
"Ooh, mister," he said, "do you own that ship?"
"No, sonny," I answered. "I merely fly it. I find that that is less
expensive and more fun."