AFTER ARRIVING IN DETROIT AND SETTLING IN WITH HIS FRIEND from Tuskegee, his first priority was to get a job. He didn’t anticipate what a difficult task this would be. Although there were scores of small automobile manufacturers scattered around the country (there was even an attempt to start one in Gulfport), Detroit was the center of the growing automotive industry. As a result, job-seekers, white and black, were pouring into town.
By 1924 Detroit had a large black population. Most were migrating from the rural South and were unskilled. John discovered that blacks in the North were expected to “know their place” pretty much the same as in the South. There weren’t “colored only” and “white only” signs posted, but there were restaurants and hotels that simply turned away black customers. He had grown up around that sort of thing. He hadn’t let it bother him much at home so he determined to ignore it “up North.”
John spent every day looking for a mechanic’s job. Many of the places where he applied had openings, just not for him, or at least not jobs where he could use his skills. Johnny was determined to get a job as a mechanic and turned down offers for work as a “sweeper” or “errand boy” or “clean-up man.” But he found himself a minority within a minority: a black man college-trained in automotive technology. Try as he might, he could not convince garage bosses that a young black man from Mississippi had arrived in Detroit already highly trained in the field of automotive mechanics. He wasn’t arrogant or uppity when he applied for a job, but the fact that he had a diploma proving that he had learned his trade in college was often resented by white men who had learned the trade in the school of “skint knuckles” or spent long hours with little pay as apprentices. The truth was that Robinson was more knowledgeable than many of the people to whom he applied for work. He knew and understood internal combustion engines backwards and forwards—engine blocks, cylinders, pistons, valves, rods, crankshafts, carburetors, magnetos, generators, oil and water pumps, clutches, gears, axles, radiators, gages, electrics, etc. He could read engineering drawings and diagrams.
Finally, even with free room and board at his friend’s house, what little money he had ran out. He took the best offer he was given, that of mechanic’s helper.
There were three mechanics and a manager who doubled as a tire and parts salesman. There was also another young black man that pumped gas, swept floors, emptied trash cans, and washed cars—the kind of job John had often been offered. Robinson found that of the three regular mechanics—all white—one was friendly, one ignored him, and one was openly hostile toward him. He also discovered that the new “mechanic’s helper” got to do a lot of tire changing and was mostly called upon to do work on the automobiles of occasional black customers, members of the small but growing black middle class. He spent most of his time as a “pair of extra hands” and “tool fetcher” for the other mechanics.
After several months on the job, the mechanics in the shop began to admit two things about John Robinson. The first was that he was good at what he did. The second was that they were learning more than a few things from him. There was never a complaint about his work. Customers, including a growing number of whites, began to ask specifically for him to work on their cars. Eight months after he started work, the word “helper” was dropped from his job title and he discovered more money in his pay envelope.
Things were looking up for John C. Robinson. He now owned a car, or rather a lot of parts he had bought from wrecking yards, repaired, and assembled into a car. He moved from his friend’s house, thanking the family for putting up with him and offering them money, which they refused. He took up residence at a boarding house, which cost four dollars a week and included breakfast.
One day, a man stopped by the garage and asked to speak to the black mechanic.
John walked out front, wiping his hands on a rag. “I’m Robinson.”
The man was dressed in work clothes, wore a leather coat, and looked to John a little on the rough side. “I’m told there’s nothing you don’t know about engines.”
John stood quiet for a moment. He wasn’t sure the man wasn’t being sarcastic. “I’m a good mechanic.”
The man handed him a slip of paper. “Here’s an address. My boss has heard about you, been looking for somebody that can keep his taxis and trucks running. Stop by after work and talk to him. You get the job . . . it’ll pay a lot more than you make here.”
Robinson thanked the man. After work, he looked up the address he had been given. It was an old, brick building in the warehouse district. Centered in the front was a vehicle entrance with tall, wide double doors. Loading docks ran along the street on both sides of the entrance. Except for the street number, there was no sign on the building. Johnny walked inside and saw a few taxis and two large delivery trucks.
“Hey! Hold it, buddy! What you doing here?”
John saw a heavyset man wearing dusty wool pants, a dark sweater, and a grease-soiled driving cap. He had a thick neck, a big nose, and bushy eyebrows.
“I was told to stop by here to see about a mechanic’s job. My name is Robinson, John Robinson.”
“Oh, yeah. The boss is expecting you.” He didn’t offer his name.
John followed the heavyset man through the cavernous building into an office with glass windows overlooking the garage floor.
“Boss, this here is the mechanic you sent for.”
The boss sat behind a large oak desk. He had gray hair, was overweight, and wore wire-frame glasses, a white dress shirt, a tie, loose at the neck, and suspenders. A suit coat matching his trousers and a felt hat were hung on a clothes rack in a corner. There was an electric fan mounted on the wall to the left with a calendar hanging below it. A large blackboard showing some sort of scheduling was on the wall to the right. A gas heater was against one wall. Robinson stood before the desk. The boss remained seated. Papers were scattered over the desk and there were several cigar stubs in a large ashtray.
“A couple of people I know say you’re not a bad mechanic, better than average. That’s saying something in Detroit, especially you being black.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I could use somebody like you.”
John remained silent.
“How much they pay you over where you work?”
John told him.
“That’s an honest answer. I already knew what you make. You told me something different trying to jack me up, you’d be outta here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need a mechanic that really knows what he’s doing. I got one good mechanic with a helper, but they can’t keep up with the work no more. Business growing, see? I got three trucks and eight taxis. I plan to add on another truck and four more taxis. When they need fixing, they need fixing right and fast. Trucks and taxis don’t make me a dime sitting in this garage, see?”
“No, sir. I reckon not.”
“I tell you what. I’ll pay you twice what you been making. You keep ’em running and you got a solid job, provided you show up on time and do the work eight till five, six days a week, and maybe nights sometimes if I need you. You want the job?”
“I’ll take it, Mr. . . . ” John paused.
“You just call me Boss.”
“Yes, sir. Boss. I should give my old boss two weeks notice.”
“I like that. Loyalty. But if you want the job, you start next Monday. One more thing. I don’t like my business getting out on the street. My people keep their mouths shut. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir.”
John’s old boss said he would be sorry to see him go, but that he could not compete with the pay. Then he said something John thought was a little peculiar.
“Johnny, I know the money’s good, but don’t do nothing for Fitzgerald other than keeping his taxis and trucks rolling. Don’t drive for him, don’t poke around in his business, and don’t ask questions. Just keep a tight lip and do your job.”
John had not known that his new boss’s name was Fitzgerald, but he was quick to understand the advice. After he went to work, he learned that Mr. Fitzgerald’s trucks worked mostly at night. The drivers that brought them in for work or picked them up didn’t have much to say. It was pretty easy for John to figure things out. Prohibition had been passed in 1919. Whiskey was illegal in the United States but not next door in Canada. He knew that bootleg whiskey flowed south across the Canadian border through Detroit—boat and truckloads of it. Around the garage no one gave him any trouble. He did his job, got along, rarely spoke. That earned him the sobriquet “tight-lipped Johnny.” It also kept him out of trouble.
John put most of his pay in the bank. He moved into a three-room, cold water flat that had a bedroom, a tiny kitchen with a sink and an icebox, and a small sitting room. It was equipped with electric lights and had an oil stove for cooking and heating. There was a bathroom in the hall that he shared with the flat next door.
Robinson was not all work and no play. The girls knew Johnny was in town. On Saturday nights, in certain quarters of the town, John gained a reputation as a smooth dancer. In the flashy age of flappers, jazz, and speakeasies, the ladies were not slow to notice the tall, quiet, confident man who had nice manners, dressed well, and could make a girl look good on the dance floor.
For those who knew him, there was a certain restlessness about Johnny, a restlessness that seemed more than just the desire to succeed in his trade. He continued to learn and study. He built a bookcase in his flat and filled it with books and manuals on mechanics and those he could find about managing a business. A few books and magazines on aviation began to appear. John knew what was eating at him. During his years of school, he had put away what his mother had referred to as “that foolishness,” but there was little he could do to keep his heart from jumping whenever he heard the sound of an engine overhead. He would look upward with the anticipation of a child at Christmas in the hope of catching a glimpse of an airplane winging its way across the sky. Now there were more airplanes and frequent news about aviation records being made—planes flying higher, further, and faster. John knew what was driving his restlessness. He just didn’t know what he could do about it.
From what he read in the newspapers, only army-trained, barnstorming air-gypsies from the Great War, a handful of government and business leaders, and wealthy white playboys actually worked or played with aircraft. How could he learn to fly? He had asked around. Word was there were no black men even working on airplanes, much less flying them. There were plenty of people, black as well as white, who would tell you a black man wasn’t capable of adjusting to the unnatural environment of flight or acquiring aviator skills—meaning they weren’t smart enough to learn.
John first took his money out to Detroit City Airport where he was told “not a chance.” The next weekend he drove out to the corner of Oakwood and Village Road where Ford Field was located. He couldn’t get in the big hangar where they were assembling Ford tri-motor planes. He went down the line of private planes and begged to be taken for a ride, said he would pay, wash the plane, anything. He found that his daddy had been right when he said that the South was not the only place where a black man’s money wouldn’t buy the same things as a white man’s money. It looked to John that what his momma had said years ago, what he had refused to believe, was true: Aviation was closed to blacks. All his life, ever since he could remember, Johnny Robinson longed to experience the joy and excitement and freedom he was sure was part of flight. He could not, would not, go all his life without somehow getting up there to find out for himself. Somehow, I’m gonna fly.
Despondent, John was walking past the Ford hangar when a man called to him, “Hey, boy.” The man was wearing a pair of white, grease-stained overalls.
John didn’t much like the term “boy,” but he stopped. “You calling me?”
The man walked up to John. “I overheard you asking for a ride out on the line,” the man said. “You’re not likely to get a ride around here, but you might have a chance at one of the small fields out in the country. That’s where barnstormers operate, away from government rules and regulations. Maybe you’ll catch a fellow short of cash—most of ’em are. A guy like that might look more at a man’s money than the color of his skin.”
“Why you telling me this?”
“Because I used to be one of ’em, and because maybe I can still remember how I used to ache to get up in the sky.”
“Couldn’t you give me a ride?”
“I could, but I’d take a lot of flack around here for doing it. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Well I ain’t gonna give up,” John replied.
The man smiled. “I wish you luck.” He turned and walked off toward a Model-T roadster.
John asked around. One of Fitzgerald’s truck drivers mentioned that he had seen a sign about flying on the road out past Willow Run or Ypsilanti, but he couldn’t remember which.
Early on a Sunday morning in April, John dressed in work pants, a sweater, and jacket—spring was laboring to push winter’s chill from northern Michigan. He drove out of Detroit toward Ypsilanti on a claygravel highway. Out past Willow Run, he found what he was looking for: a sign pointing down a farm road that said “Airplane Rides.” He turned off the main road and after traveling a mile or so came to an open field where a faded red, white, and blue banner strung on a drooping, barbed-wire fence invited one to “Take an Airplane Ride with an Ace.” He pulled off the road, parked by the fence, and got out. A motorbike was parked under a tree but he didn’t see anyone around. John followed a well-worn path leading through a gate and around to the front of a large, weathered barn that had been converted into a hangar. The roof sagged a bit. He could see three airplanes inside, or rather two and a half since the one on the right, shoved toward the back, was disassembled. The fuselage was standing alone, missing its engine. Its wings were propped on edge against the back wall. John recognized that one and the one nearest him, which had all its parts but didn’t look much better. They were both Curtiss JN-4Ds, better known as Jennies.
It was the third plane, bright red and clean as a whistle, that caught his eye. It was the most beautiful thing John had ever seen. He called out and got no answer. Nobody was around so he walked into the hangar to get a closer look. John moved carefully around the wing tip and stood by the rear cockpit of the red plane to look inside. He surveyed the instruments, the rudder bar, control stick, seat belt, everything so different from an automobile. The name WACO was painted on the vertical part of the tail. He walked back to the front of the plane. From pictures in one of his books, he figured the engine as an OX5 watercooled model, the same engine that powered the Jenny beside it only this one was mostly hidden by a streamlined cowling. Well, at least airplane engines are not so different from automotive engines I’ve worked on. While he was admiring the plane, he heard a car drive up and two car doors open and shut.
“Hey! You, boy! What the hell you doing fooling around that plane?”
Startled, John swung around to face a short, heavily built, redheaded man with grease stains on his face. He was dressed in soiled khaki pants and a leather jacket. Walking up behind him was a younger man, cleanly dressed in polished riding boots, riding britches, and a blue sweater over a white shirt and tie. He was holding a jacket slung over one shoulder. The young man had a smile on his face. The redheaded man did not.
“Well, boy?” The redheaded man spoke with an Irish brogue.
“I came out here to get a ride. I didn’t see anyone around. I was just looking. I didn’t touch anything.”
“A ride, eh? You come all the way out here to get a ride did you, boy? Would that be because they don’t give rides to niggers at big city airports?”
The fact that what the man said was true hurt John as much as the grossly offensive word “nigger.” John, outwardly quiet, had never been one to look for trouble (friends later couldn’t remember a single fight he had been in except when in the boxing ring at school), but he did have a temper once provoked. He struggled to hold it now. “Look here, mister. I just came out here to pay for an airplane ride. I got the money same as anyone else. I want to see what it’s like, that’s all.”
“Aw, come on, Percy. What the hell you being so grumpy for?” the young man asked. Looking at John, he said, “Percy here has had a bad week. His engine is down.” Turning back to the redheaded Irishman, he offered, “Come on, Percy, drop the whole thing. This fellow didn’t mean anything. Follow me back into town for a beer.”
“Why not? I won’t be making a dime standing here.” He turned to follow the younger man, then turned back to Johnny. “The field’s closed. You came for nothing. Don’t you be messing with anything, boy. Time you be going back where you came from.” He once more turned and walked away, following his friend.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” John called after them. “What’s the trouble with the engine? Maybe I can fix it. I’ll do it for a ride.”
The two men turned to face Robinson. The one named Percy asked, “Now what would you be knowing about an airplane, boy, seeing as how you never been around one before?”
“I got a name and it ain’t ‘boy.’ I’m John Robinson, and I don’t know anything about flying, but I know something about engines. I’m a trained mechanic.”
“Sure you be.” Percy started walking again and rounded the corner of the hangar.
“Percy,” the younger man said with a laugh. “My father’s opinion of all Irishmen is that they are butt-headed, rude, and think with their fists instead of their brains. You trying to prove him right?”
“I’ll tell you what, sonny. I’ll be buying me own beer and you can take your new toy and shove it in someone else’s hangar.”
John hadn’t moved. He could hear them talking though they had disappeared around the corner of the barn.
“Come on, Percy. You can’t afford to buy a beer or anything else. You’re down to one worn-out Jenny with an engine problem. You’re too Irish proud to let me help you out. You can’t get a flying job around here because you got drunk and took your boss’s daughter flying . . . under a bridge for Christ’s sake. And now you won’t even find out if maybe this guy is telling the truth and can put you back in business in time to make a few bucks this afternoon.”
Percy stopped, looked at his companion. Without a word, he turned and walked back around in front of the hangar. “All right, Robinson. Tell me what kind of mechanic work you do.”
“Automotive,” John replied.
“And just how did you get to be a mechanic?”
“Three years of college. I been working nearly two years in Detroit. I put together that car parked out there by the fence, rebuilt the engine.”
“Have you done any brazing work and can you get an outfit?”
Johnny nodded ‘yes’ and answered, “I can borrow an outfit from the shop in town.”
Percy picked up a stepladder leaning against the wall, walked over to the engine of his Jenny, and set the ladder up. “Climb up there and look real close at the neck of the radiator under the filler cap.” Johnny climbed up as he was told. “You see that hairline crack right there near the top?” Percy pointed at the spot.
Johnny nodded. “Looks more like a scratch than a crack.”
“That’s why it took me so long to find it. You start it up and everything works fine. You taxi out, take off. About ten or fifteen minutes into the flight, the engine runs rough and then quits. You glide down and land somewhere, get out, and look it over and find nothing. You prop the engine, it starts right up like nothing’s wrong. I found I had to add a little water the next day. That made no sense. Next day it quit in the air. It was a real thrill for the passenger, I tell you. I could start the engine again, takeoff, and ten minutes later it would quit again. I couldn’t get out of gliding distance from this cow pasture. Finally, I tied the tail to the fence, cranked the engine, set the throttle at about eight hundred revolutions per minute, and let her sit there and run. That’s when I saw the trouble. As soon as this thing gets good and hot, that tiny crack opens up and water spews out of it in a fine spray that blows over the engine from the prop wash. It shorts out the spark plugs, and then the engine starts missing and quits. When it did that while I was flying, by the time I got it down the water had evaporated, the engine had cooled, and that hairline crack was closed up. That’s why I couldn’t find the trouble. Anyway, boy, you get that brazing outfit out here and fix this thing and I’ll give you the ride you want. But you mess up, burn a hole in the radiator, I’ll put more than a hairline crack in your water jacket. You understand me? You better know what you’re doing or don’t fool with it.”
John didn’t care much for the ill-tempered Percy, but he figured he had a chance to do two things. One was to fly for the first time. The other was to show the redheaded bastard that a black mechanic could put him back in business. He looked at Percy.
“It’s a deal. It will take me a while to get to town and back, but I’ll fix it for a chance to fly.”
It was three-thirty in the afternoon when they rolled the faded yellow Jenny out of the hangar.
“Well Robinson, your work is pretty enough. Now we’ll see if it holds. You stand there while Robert gives the prop a twist. You’ll do that for me, will you, Robert?”
While working on the radiator, John had learned that Percy’s friend, Robert Williamson, was fresh out of Harvard and had returned to Detroit to work for his father. Percy had taught him how to fly, a fact Robert’s father still did not know. Robert had paid for his flying lessons and bought the red WACO-9 with money his grandfather had left him, also without his father’s knowledge.
Robert walked up to the prop. “This is your first lesson, John. This is the end that will bite you if you’re not careful. Watch and learn.”
He called out, “Switch off! Throttle closed!”
Percy called back, “Off and closed.”
Although the Jenny’s tail skid would generally hold the plane in place while the engine idled, the plane had no brakes. Should the throttle be inadvertently left open while cranking, the plane, even with a wheel chocked, could easily run down anyone standing in front of it. The results would not be pleasant.
Robert pulled the propeller through several times. “Switch on! Contact!”
Percy cracked the throttle open a little and repeated, “Contact!”
Robert put both hands on the big wooden propeller, swung his right leg up toward the plane, and, in one fluid motion, swung the leg back as he sharply pulled the prop blade down. The momentum of his right leg swinging out behind him twisted him around and carried him away from the propeller. From there, a couple of steps and he was safely to the side. After three attempts, the engine coughed, burped, and roared alive with a belch of blue smoke, then settled down to a more or less smooth rumble, idling at around 450 revolutions a minute.
Robert pulled the chock from in front of the left wheel and grabbed hold of the outer wing strut. He motioned for John to do the same on the right wing. Percy, after checking to see that his “anchor” men were all set, advanced the throttle. The engine roared, the grass behind flattened in the prop wash, dust and loose leaves swirled behind while the plane shook from wing tip to tail. Robert and John had to dig their heels in to keep the plane from dragging them forward. After what seemed to the two “anchor” men a lot longer than ten minutes, Percy closed the throttle, pulled the fuel mixture control to the Off position, and switched off the magneto. The field was suddenly quiet. Percy jumped down, grabbed the ladder, and ran around front to check the radiator.
“Dry as a bone. ’Tis a good job, Robinson.”
John hardly had a chance to break into a grin before two carloads of chattering young people drove up.
“Hey, Percy! Quit fooling around over there. I’ve brought my Sunday School class out to take a ride with you.”
The voice belonged to a young lady waving from the running board of a shiny touring car that had parked by the fence.
“Come on, Percy dear, all six of us want a ride.” She stepped down from the car and came through the gate followed by three other girls and two young men.
“Sue said you shot down a German in 1918. Is that true, Mr. Percy?”
Percy tried to not look embarrassed. The more he tried, the closer his face came to matching his flaming red hair. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped at the oil stains on his face and hands. “Young lady, ’tis too pretty an afternoon to talk about such things. Sue, why don’t the lot of you draw straws to see in what order you’ll be flying while we get some fuel.” Percy motioned to Robert and Johnny to follow him over to where two metal barrels were lying on a wooden rack. He picked up a five-gallon can equipped with a spout and began filling it from the petcock of one of the barrels.
“Come on,” Johnny said. “I mean, what about our deal? I’ve done my part.”
“So you have,” replied Percy. “And I’ll take you up, but I can’t do it right now. Can’t you see the situation here? I mean, I can’t take you for a ride and make them sit over there and wait. Can’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand what you’re saying. You’re telling me you can’t make that nice white Sunday School class wait around while you take a nigger for a ride.”
Percy turned blood red in the face, and Robert stepped between the two men.
Percy hissed, “Damn you, boy. Can’t you understand anything? If I hadn’t given you my word on this deal, I’d split your head wide open for a crack like that. Look at ’em. Six people over there, each one with five dollars for a ride. That’s thirty dollars! I can buy a brand new surplus OX5 engine for fifty dollars. Hell, there are more people waiting over there than I flew all last week because of that damn radiator.”
Johnny looked past Robert straight at Percy.
“Look,” said Percy, “I got six dollars in my pocket. You take all six dollars for fixing the engine or you come back when I ain’t got a line of paying passengers waiting.”
Johnny looked more humble than angry. “I don’t want your money. I want to fly. I want to fly more than all those people over there. I been waiting to fly all my life.”
“And I need that thirty dollars to stay in business.”
“Okay. Both of you listen,” Robert J. Williamson III broke in. “Percy, you go fly the Sunday School, and I’ll take our friend John here up in my plane in exchange for two hours of lessons in stunt flying from you.” He turned to John. “Robinson, will you settle for thirty minutes or so with me for free instead of ten minutes with him even though I’m too young to have any Germans to my credit?”
All three men exchanged glances. Robert was the first to smile. Percy looked quizzically at Johnny, who was looking over his shoulder at the red biplane waiting in the hangar.
In spite of the hurt and anger he had felt moments ago, he broke into a wide grin and laughed out loud. “You white boys just made yourselves a deal.”
Robert and John helped Percy top off the Jenny and strap his first passenger into the front cockpit. The warm engine caught on the first swing of the prop. To a round of applause, the Jenny waddled off over the grass, bumping and bouncing as it gained speed. After only a few hundred feet it lifted into the air, labored to clear the trees at the end of the field, and turned gracefully away, free and clear.
“All right, John, help me roll out the WACO.” Robert motioned for John to move behind the right wing and push on the outer wing strut while he did the same on the left. Compared to the maze of bracing wires and multiple inter-plane struts that braced the wings of the Jenny, the WACO-9 was a sleek, uncluttered design. As did many such post-war designs, the WACO used the same Army surplus, ninety horsepower, Curtiss OX5 engine as the Jenny. The reason was simple. Although it was heavy, 390 pounds not including the radiator, it was both plentiful and cheap. Compared to the Jenny, the WACO-9 was smaller, lighter, and had a strong steel-tube fuselage, all of which gave it far better performance. With its glossy new crimson paint, it was beautiful. Robert Williamson had used $2,475.50 of the rather sizable sum his grandfather left him to pay for it. Of the ninety-one hours of flying time to his credit, the last forty-seven had been logged in the WACO.
“John, walk around her with me and I’ll explain anything you want to know while I check things out. I haven’t had one problem with her yet. I had six forced landings in that damn Jenny, four of them with Percy and two by myself. That taught me to always keep an eye out for a clear place to land.” He pointed to the radiator. Unlike the Jenny that had the radiator attached to the front of the engine, the WACO’s radiator was mounted just under the center of the upper wing. “Hasn’t leaked a drop yet. Of course if it does, hot water will blow back on the passenger and pilot, but mounted up there it likely won’t short out the ignition. It does interfere with forward visibility, you have to look under it and over the nose, but you get used to it. ”
Robinson asked so many questions that Robert finally protested, “If we don’t get going, Percy will have us fueling up the Jenny again and acting as ticket takers. Besides, for a fellow who’s never flown, you seem to know a lot about planes.”
“I guess I been reading ’bout airplanes as long as I can remember, but this is as close to one I’ve ever been. Now it’s really gonna happen. I’m gonna fly.”
Robert grinned at him. “Not if you don’t get up in that front cockpit. Step up on that black step pad there on the wing and swing your legs on in. Put on that pair of goggles hanging on the throttle. I don’t have an extra helmet. Here, I’ll give you a hand with your seat belt.”
When Robert was satisfied that John wouldn’t fall out, he instructed him on what to touch and what not to touch and explained the flight controls. Then he reached in the rear cockpit to make sure the magneto switch was off and the throttle closed. He walked around front, turned the propeller through eight blades, walked back around, climbed up on the wing, reached in the cockpit, cracked the throttle open a bit, and switched on the single magneto.
“John, remember, when she catches you close the throttle like I showed you and hold the stick all the way back. Otherwise this thing might run over me and take you God knows where. Now, you got it?”
“I got it!” John was more excited than he had ever been in his life. He was also a little afraid, but he managed to look calm. At least he thought so.
“Relax, John. If you don’t loosen your grip on that stick, your hand is going to turn as white as mine.” With that, Robert jumped off the wing and walked around front.
“Here goes.” Robert grabbed the propeller blade with the fingers of both hands, called, “Contact!” and gave the blade a hefty swing, careful to stay clear of its arc. The plane rocked slightly but nothing else happened. The second attempt woke up the OX5. It spit, belched a little smoke, and settled down to behave itself with a smooth, rhythmic 450 revolutions a minute.
Robert climbed back up on the wing and leaned over Robinson. “While we’re up I’m going to let you try your hand. If I wiggle the stick like this,” he moved the stick quickly side to side several times, “it means you can take over and fly. If I wiggle it while you have it, you let go so I can take it back. When that happens I want to see both your hands held high to let me know you understand. I don’t want you freezing up with a death grip on the controls. That could kill us both. Understand?”
John nodded that he did.
Robert continued. “I won’t be able to hear you, so if everything is all right after we do a maneuver, put your thumb up like this. If you don’t like it, shake your head from side to side. If you want to come down, point down and I’ll bring us back and land. You got it?”
John started to answer, then grinned and held his thumb up. Robert slapped him on his shoulder, climbed into the rear cockpit, fastened his seat belt, buckled on his flying helmet, and pulled his goggles over his eyes. He checked the oil pressure instrument. Satisfied, Robert taxied the plane toward the downwind end of the field. There he stopped and tested the controls. (A magneto check was not needed. Unlike modern aircraft, the OX5 did not have dual ignition. If it was running smoothly, then the single ignition was working. You didn’t make a static power run-up check either—there were no brakes on the WACO. Instead of a tail wheel it had a tail skid, the only thing to slow it down on the ground.) Robert twisted his neck around to check the sky for traffic. He saw Percy lined up on final approach for a landing. The Jenny floated over them, settled to the ground, and taxied toward the eager group of waiting passengers.
Robert shouted, “You ready?”
John nodded his head and held up a thumb. He whispered to the breeze, “I been ready for this all my life.” His senses were more alive than they had ever been. He felt the gentle rocking of the plane, the vibrations of the engine, the smell of hot oil wafting in the propeller wash—and the beating of his own heart.
Robert smoothly pushed the throttle all the way forward, feeding in right rudder to counteract the torque of the engine and the twisting flow of the propeller wash. It was the only way to hold a straight takeoff run. The wooden propeller bit into the air, washing the myriad odors of the roaring engine back over John as they rushed at the wind.
John tightly griped the sides of the cockpit, his view restricted by the plane’s long nose still angled skyward. As the WACO accelerated, Robert eased the stick slightly forward to lift the tail. Looking forward between the high-mounted radiator and the top of the engine cowl, Johnny could now see ahead, see the grass turn into a green blur as it rushed ever faster beneath the plane carrying them ever closer to the trees bordering the field, trees scantily dressed in their new leaves of spring. The wheels now bumped and bounced along on the unimproved pasture. Robert eased back on the stick. The bouncing ceased as the WACO, its red wings turning golden in the haze of the late afternoon sun, climbed into the sky. The ride through the still air was as smooth as a mouse’s belly.
John watched the field and forest drop away. Everything below, the hangar, the cars, the people, appeared miniature while the Earth itself expanded in every direction. He had never forgotten the excitement and joy of the child he had been that day long ago when he ran down the beach after the first airplane he had ever seen. That same childlike wonder and excitement rushed over him, filling him, fulfilling him.
They climbed 3,500 feet. John was glad he had worn a sweater and jacket. The crisp air was much cooler than it had been on the ground. Below he could see newly plowed fields, small lakes, and forest. To the northeast was the haze and industrial smoke of Detroit. On the far horizon, John could just make out Lake Erie.
The smoothness of the flight was interrupted by the rocking of the wings from side to side followed by smoothness followed again by the rocking of the wings. Johnny glanced down in the cockpit to see the stick wiggling from side to side. He tried to look back at Robert but his seat belt was too tight for him to twist around enough to see him. The stick wiggled again, this time with more authority. It finally dawned on Johnny, He wants me to take it!
John relaxed his grip on the sides of the cockpit and placed his right hand on the unfamiliar control stick. He wiggled it side to side. Instantly the smooth sure path of flight changed to a weaving, dipping track like that of a gentle roller coaster ride. The WACO was in unsteady, unsure, but willing hands. John Robinson felt clumsy and embarrassed by his awkward attempt to hold the craft steady. He could keep the wings fairly level but he could not keep the nose from climbing and dropping. He always seemed to be behind the plane, catching up only to over-control.
Then realization struck him. I’m flying this thing! God Almighty! I’m flying! He tried a turn using just the stick to bank the wings. The plane seemed to slide a little sideways. Then he remembered the rudder and put his feet on the bar and tried again using stick and rudder. He got a pretty good turn except he did not hold a steady altitude. When he turned one way the plane climbed and when he turned the other way he lost altitude. The path was still that of a gentle roller coaster, up a little, down a little, but he was flying. Not too smooth but it’s not falling out of the sky.
The stick wiggled in his hand. John let go and held both hands up in the slipstream before taking hold of the sides of the cockpit once again. The flight steadied into a graceful, sure path as Robert took control.
The nose dropped smoothly. Wind began to whistle past the bracing wires between the wings as speed increased in a dive. Johnny’s eyes widened at the sight of the earth coming up toward him. He tightened his grip on the sides of the cockpit. A few moments later, he was pressed deep into his seat as Robert pulled back on the stick bringing the plane’s nose sharply up. As the horizon again came into view, John, still pressed firmly into his seat, felt and heard the engine roar to full throttle. The nose rose steeply past the horizon, past the vertical. The world was upside down. John was momentarily light in his seat as Robert relaxed a little back pressure over the top of a graceful loop. Oh! Lord Jesus! As the plane screamed down the back side of the loop he shouted into the wind, “God Almighty!” Once again he was pressed into his seat and felt his cheeks sag a little as Robert pulled out of the back side of the loop to level flight.
“Yeah! Oh yeah!” John hollered. He held up both hands with his thumbs straight up. Robert laughed and performed another loop followed by a sweeping barrel roll.
After nearly an hour, the sun was low on the horizon when they entered the landing pattern and flew downwind parallel to the field. John looked down to see the Jenny taxiing toward the hangar as the last of Percy’s passengers moved along the fence toward their car. Robert gently banked the WACO, first turning base and spilling altitude, then turning upwind to line up on final for the landing. With the engine throttled back to idle, Robert brought the WACO over the fence. Easing the stick back, he held the plane just off the ground. As speed bled off, the WACO settled gently onto the grass, the main wheels and tail skid touching simultaneously in a perfect three-point landing. After a short roll, Robert taxied to the hangar, swinging around in one last blast of the propeller so that the tail faced the opening as he shut down the engine. The propeller ticked over a last few revolutions. Then silence, sudden and complete.
John sat in the cockpit almost afraid to move least he lose the moment and awake from a dream. His ears rang from the engine’s roar. His body relaxed in the absence of movement and vibration. His goggles now felt uncomfortably tight and his bare head tingled from the wind buffet. His nostrils filled with odors emanating from the hot engine, dormant except for an occasional “tick” common to the cooling of a hot engine pot.
“Robinson? Robinson, are you all right?”
“What? Oh! Yes, sir!” Johnny replied. “I don’t think I’m ever gonna get this smile off my face. I mean, there’s nothing like it, is there? Nothing as free.”
Robert grinned. “Now get down from there and help put this thing in the hangar.”
Together they pushed the WACO tail first into the hangar and walked around the corner of the building in time to see Percy driving off with the young Sunday School teacher. Robert walked toward the motorbike parked near John’s car.
“Hold on, Mr. Robert.” Out of gratitude and respect for the man who had taken him on his first flight, John had reverted to his Southern roots and the way he would have addressed a white man back home. “Do you think I could learn to fly? I mean, well, I know I can learn, but can I get someone to teach me?”
“Sure. Why not?” Robert looked back at John. “Oh, I see.” Robert paused. “You learned to be a mechanic.”
“Yeah, but that was at a Negro college. Do you know any Negroes enrolled in flying school? Any being taught by private lessons?”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of any. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I have a feeling that if you want to learn badly enough, you’ll somehow find a way. I did even though my father tried every way he could to stop me. He owns a factory that makes coffins. He thinks I should, in his words, ‘make the damn things, not fly one.’ Every flying school in Detroit owes money to one bank or another. Dad happens to be on the board of the largest bank in the city. He and friends at the other banks made it clear to the established flying schools that they were not to teach me if they wanted to keep a line of credit. Airplanes are expensive. None of the schools would even talk to me. I did just what you did today. I came out to the country and found Percy. He didn’t owe any bank because no bank would lend him money on that old wreck of his. I had a little money my grandfather left me so he taught me to fly.”
“Trouble for you is Percy is leaving. The Jenny is outdated. Rumor has it that new government regulations are going to bar Jennies from any commercial use. They say the old Jenny won’t pass the new government design and licensing criteria. All the schools are getting newer planes. Percy can’t compete and he’s broke. He’s taken a job flying the mail out of New York. I think he’s crazy. About twenty mail pilots were killed this past winter. Percy says he has to do that or give up flying and get a real job. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Well, what about you? I can pay you. Would you teach me?”
“Me? I’m afraid I can’t do that, John.”
“Sure. I understand. Wouldn’t look good to your flying buddies and society friends.” Johnny turned to open the door of his car.
“Now you hold on. If you’re thinking I’m handing you the nigger boy bit, you’re out of line. I’ll tell you something else. If every time you don’t get the chance to do something, you think it’s because you’re colored, you’re going to wind up using that as a crutch not to try. Sure, some people won’t give you a chance, but some will. You’ll just have to find them. As for me, there are two reasons I can’t teach you. One, I don’t have an instructor’s ticket. Even if I could give you flying lessons, they wouldn’t mean anything to the government and they wouldn’t give you a license. Two, my WACO and I are leaving for Texas. I’ve got a job with a college buddy who’s drilling for oil down there. That sounds better to me than making coffins. I think you owe me an apology, John. I’m the one that just took you flying, remember?”
Chastised, Johnny said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I been dreaming ’bout flying since I was a kid. I heard plenty of those ‘Willie, get away from that wheelbarrow, you don’t know nothing ’bout machinery” kind of jokes when I first started work as a mechanic. I took it cause I had to if I wanted to work. I guess I proved them wrong. I got white folks come to me now. I just don’t like facing the fact that I gotta go through all that again with airplanes. I gotta fly. I’ll do anything. I’ll knock on hangar doors till my fists bleed.”
“Look,” Robert said. “You got a good paying job in Detroit. Do you think you could get one in Chicago?”
“Maybe. There are plenty automobiles there need fixing, I reckon. But why? Things are going good for me here.”
“I was just thinking along your line, John. If you’re going to get turned down by a lot of flying schools, you might as well start with one of the best. That’s the Curtiss-Wright School of Aeronautics in Chicago. I think they teach aviation mechanics there, too. Maybe you could work days and go to their night ground school. There’s a lot to learn before you ever get in an airplane. If you can get through a school like that, you’ll be more likely to get some kind of aircraft mechanic or maybe flying job. That’s an idea you can chew on, anyway.”
Robert put his weight down on the foot crank of his motorbike. After a couple of attempts, it fired up. He put on a pair of goggles. Before leaving, he turned back to Robinson. “I think you have what it takes, Robinson. I really do.”
John nodded his head in thanks. “I don’t think you know what flying with you has meant to me. Just saying thank you is nowhere near enough, but I don’t know how else to say it.”
Robert grinned. “Oh I know what it meant. There’s not a pilot alive who doesn’t remember his first flight.” He switched on his bike’s headlight, nodded a smile, and disappeared down the dirt road into the falling darkness.
John sat alone on the running board of his car. In the stillness of the early evening he could hear all the sounds of the country, so different from the noise of the city. Away from the lights, he could see stars popping out as darkness descended. It was spring and awakening insects chirped their mating calls. A cow bellowed somewhere in the distance. Nearby, a sudden whirring announced some winged night fowl was on the hunt. It was a peaceful place to get his thoughts together. There was no way to justify, much less explain to anyone, why he would even think of giving up his job to go to Chicago on the chance he might somehow get into not just a flying school, but the best in the Midwest. His friends would think him a fool.
Sitting there he came to two conclusions. The first was that his Momma was right a long time ago when she had said that it was foolish for a black man to think about flying. The second was that as soon as his boss could find a replacement, he was going to take his foolish self to Chicago. He shook his head, laughed, and climbed into his car to drive back to Detroit.
***
Back at the shop on Monday, he was taking a break out front when a shiny new Pierce-Arrow sedan stalled on the street right in front of him. The driver tried several times to restart the car without success. The back seat passenger and driver, both black men, got out and walked to the front of the car. The driver opened the hood and both driver and passenger stood in the street pondering the situation. John walked out to them, introduced himself as a mechanic, and asked if he could help.
The passenger turned out to be a doctor and the owner of the car. The three men pushed the car to the side of the street, and then the doctor, without so much as a thank-you, told John, “No one is to touch this car until I can get my mechanic here. Is there a telephone nearby? I need a taxi.”
Although not the least bit pleased at being dismissed in favor of some mechanic from clear across town, Robinson told the doctor his boss had a taxi company and there was one ready to leave the shop. The doctor returned to his car, told his chauffeur to wait for the mechanic, and, glancing at Robinson, repeated his instructions that no one was to touch a thing on his car. A few minutes later he left in the taxi.
After nearly an hour, the doctor’s mechanic arrived. John walked out to see the mechanic the doctor had prescribed to fix his new car. The mechanic’s name, John learned, was Cornelius Coffey. The introduction led to a discussion between a rather sarcastic Robinson and a somewhat indifferent Coffey who made it clear he did not need any help. Things could have gone downhill from there except by chance aviation was mentioned.
As the conversation progressed, Coffey told John how he became interested in flying. “One day in Newport, Arkansas, where I was raised, I toted a five-gallon bucket of gasoline all day long between a barnstormer’s Jenny in a pasture and a country store half a mile away. White folks paid the barnstormer for rides in the Jenny. Just before dark, when everybody else had left, the barnstormer paid me with the ride of a lifetime. He let me take the controls a little bit. I could barely see out the cockpit but I made up my mind I would fly some day. That day ain’t come yet, but somehow it’s gonna.”
The two men discovered they shared a dream so far denied them. That led to both men working together to troubleshoot and fix the problem with the doctor’s car. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.