Dale Gleason may well have been the last student pilot to gain his Private Pilot license using the Ft. Worth Low Frequency Range to demonstrate proficiency in radio navigation. “Four Deuces”, not being equipped with on board navigation radios (those new-fangled VORs), carried a Zenith portable radio (non-transistor) with low frequency capability, just above the baggage compartment. (“Four Deuces” didn’t even have an electrical system, and remains so to this day.) Two headsets allowed the pilots to listen to the “beam”. Most readers who’ve gotten this far are familiar with LF procedures, but, perhaps some will read further….

Pilots, once upon a time, were required to be somewhat familiar with Morse Code. “A” is “dit dash”, “N” is “dash dit”. (As an historical note, in 1965, UAL required its new hires to pass a timed Morse Code test demonstrating twenty-four more letters in addition to the “A” and the “N”.) If one heard both an “A” and an “N” in Morse at the same time, the two signals melded into a steady tone….thus the “beam.” (“Three dits, four dits, two dits dah, Wichita, Wichita, rah, rah, rah!) But, I digress…..)

In Dale Gleason’s case, Robert Brooks, a co-pilot with Central at the time, was the FAA examiner, and he instructed Dale to fly North, intercept the East leg of the FTW Range, navigate the “beam” to the station, and report overhead. Not being sure he could hear the radio, Gleason inquired if Brooks needed more volume. No, it was ok…Gleason noticed he wasn’t wearing his headset. As the “dit-dash” began blending with the “dash-dit” a left turn and roll out on a westerly heading put the ship on the beam. No directional gyro here, but he knew from Mr. Vose’s training that he could roll out on heading exactly when the “whiskey compass” showed “W”. Had it been the North or South leg, he would have undershot North or overshot South by thirty degrees. Everyone understands why. Right? Back to the “beam”, it was fairly easy to maintain at first, the station being about ten miles away, but as they got closer, the least amount of drift would suddenly become all “dit-dash” or vice versa. Butch Lynn, who had preceded Gleason a month or so earlier, had ended up doing steep lazy eights over the station, and Gleason didn’t want to fall into that trap. The “beam” faded away, then came back loudly, he told the examiner they were over the “low cone”. Examiner Brooks laughed, Gleason passed..

Robert Brooks’ Private Pilot check ride required two segments. For the “instrument” portion, the Cub had to be specially outfitted, as it had no instruments for IMC. A venturi was installed, and it drove a Turn and Bank instrument as long as enough speed was maintained, somewhat faster than normal cruise, probably about 70 mph indicated. Unusual attitudes, as they progressed, usually placed the airspeed well in excess of that, drove the gyro well enough that a recovery could be made, “needle, ball, airspeed.” No hood was worn. Instead, an orange, transparent plastic “windshield” was taped inside the actual windscreen. Two smaller like panels covered the little side windows. So now the pilots saw an all-orange world out the front….. until the student pilot put on his transparent blue goggles. Then all he saw out the windows was pitch black, while his instrument panel and cockpit environs were all blue. “Sneaking a peak” out the corners was almost impossible.

Most of the checks in the Cub were conducted at Mangham airport, an uncontrolled field. Flying into Meacham, an airport with a control tower, required “special handling.” After landing at Mangham, or Saginaw, a telephone call was placed to Meacham tower advising the ETA and airplane description. Upon nearing Meacham, the tower flashed its steady green, flashing green, flashing or steady red signal light, the pilot would refer to the handy card Mr. Vose had provided to see what the signals meant and proceed accordingly. Dale Gleason carried that little reference card for years on end, always ready, but it was never called into service. Well, once maybe, but that’s another story.

All these modes of aviating in a Cub seem so archaic, but as technology caught up to “Vose Flight School,” the yellow Cub stepped aside for a modern, well equipped, high speed Tri-Pacer.   N3808P

dale gleason

After serving in WWII as an Army flight instructor, George Vose had a decision to make: Should he accept the pilot’s seat offered by All-American Airlines, or continue his work in the human health field? After weighing the pros and cons, he passed up the airline job and chose to pursue a field that would be of more benefit to humanity. He ultimately became a research professor at Texas Womens’ University. His electron microscopy work with Dr. Pauline Beery Mack in Bone Biology led to multi-million dollar NASA grants designated to further the knowledge of effects of weightlessness on the human skeletal system. It was crucial to know and understand these effects to insure the safety of our astronauts. Vose’s research and published technical papers for the National Institute of Health had led to early insights into osteoporosis. I well recall his discovery of the “canaliculi”, small conduits in the bone structure, visible only with the electron microscope.

The recent note sent by Al Jones (Hartlee Times #21) reminded me of good friend Jackie Oden, which in turn brought back memories of how NASA indirectly paid for some of our flying lessons. NASA paid twenty-five dollars each for X-rays of volunteer’s hip bones, taken alongside a wedge of aluminum encapsulated in a block of clear polyester resin. How this apparatus worked was known only to the inventor, George Vose. Always eager to aid in space exploration, how could Jackie or I refuse such an opportunity? (Plus, we could use the dough.) Whenever Gemini astronauts landed in the planned ocean, George Vose was on board the aircraft carrier to greet them, checking for bone mineral loss in their zero G environment. Once, after a computer failure, the astronauts landed manually in the Indian Ocean, missing the primary retrieval point off Hawaii by a continent or two! (Upon having overheard someone ask George about his work at TWU, I blurted out, “Oh, he dissolves bones in nitric acid”, perhaps the biggest faux pau of my life…..)

Well, to sum things up, when the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia sought George Vose and his talents, he opted to remain at Hartlee Field, enabling his continued contributions to medical science, at the same time enabling thousands to discover flight.

He began flight instructing Army Air Force cadets in 1943, instructed twenty-three years at Hartlee Field and continues flight instruction to this today at his retirement place in Alpine, in faraway West Texas…..that’s gotta’ be some kind of record.

dale gleason

Many of the high school and college kids had some sort of job, or jobs. More than a few were employed at Wolf/Neu drugstore, where a good breakfast, lunch, and great hamburgers could be had. Archie Wolfe and Bill Neu were pharmacists who owned the store. Joe Dowell, Jim Hyde, and others worked as fry cooks, or, as was my case, bus boys and dishwashers. I think the pay was about sixty cents an hour for my job description, cooks may have made a dollar.* I found myself working for fifty-five cents hourly, three hours a day at the NTSU library, (I owe so much to Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Foster, Mrs. Phillips for putting up with me, from my first class to graduation). I was also employed by Mr. Burch at one of the favorite gathering spots in Denton, Shannon and Burch’s “Juicy Pig”, (home of Suzy-Q fried potatoes). Busing tables at the Juicy Pig was pleasurable. Being located within walking distance of Texas Women’s University, girls often came in for a break from their studies. They always played “Green Onions”, by Booker T and the MGs, and “Chances Are”, by Johnny Mathis, on the jukebox. (George Vose perhaps thought I listened to only Rock’n’Roll. He preferred listening to “Monitor” on the radio or “Ebb Tide” on his Garrard turntable)** So where is this leading?. I haven’t a clue…..

Money was scarce, true, but when you got a little, it was worth quite a bit. Dual instruction with George Vose was twelve per hour, solo was eight. If you were a little short of cash, George might find an important job for you such as washing dried cow manure off the Cub, or greasing wheel bearings, or fixing a tank leak. Payment was some time in the Cub. (Cub time was “legal tender” for all debts, public and private at Hartlee Field). All maintenance of this nature was accomplished under the watchful eye of certified Inspectors such as Hap McDaniel, of course.

Although flying as a passenger didn’t build time, it built experience. A flight with Jim Mays in his Cessna 140 would certainly qualify as experience, even more so at night. Mr. Harte had the only all-night mercury vapour light in the county and Jim used it as a beacon to locate Hartlee’s runway after dark. Once, when I returned with Jim from a trip to Possum Kingdom, unknown to him, a blue flood light just like Mr. Harte’s had been installed by a neighboring rancher. After a few low passes over the “wrong” light, Jim wisely landed at Denton Municipal and had his wife come get us. Chalk up some more experience. As fledgling pilots became more skilled, gained ratings, the airplane owners allowed us solo flights, such as taking a plane somewhere for an annual inspection. (This probably doesn’t occur too often in these litigious times) Butch Lynn did a lot of this, we lesser pilots could only watch, or ride along. That was experience, too. One of my greatest moments was Jim Mays allowing me to fly his plane to Saginaw for some reason, probably contrived.

In the winter of 1962, it became very important to conduct a “weather observation” in the Cub. Being very cold, Ol’ Four Deuces refused to start, the oil was thickened and the fuel wouldn’t atomize. We engine experts somehow managed to get the nose inside the Clearance Office, as it was called, and warmed up the motor, oil and all, with the gas stove near the door. With a tarp to shut out the cold winter wind, we all got warmed up. Taken back outside, the Cub fired right up, the “weather observation” was successfully flown, and afterward, thoroughly frozen, we all repaired to the Juicy Pig for a bite and some hot coffee. *** dale gleason

* The “real” cooks were Vivian and Ruth. Vivian was also a chef at the Juicy Pig. Legend had it that Ruth could toss a ripe tomato above her head, flick her chef’s cutlery effortlessly, and perfectly sliced tomato slices landed on her cutting board. Or did I imagine that? These ladies cooked full meals, and chili, and the NTSU students and faculty alike, formed long lines to get them.

** One exception comes to mind….I’ll endeavor to keep it brief…Mad Magazine once included a cardboard “record” and everyone gathered ‘round to hear it. The sound quality was poor, but was remarkable for a paper record. One side was titled ”Blind Date”…..’blind date, blind date, I’ll never do another one you can bet, blind date, blind date, I’d rather play Russian Roulette!’ The flip-side was entitled, “Nose Job”. Jim Slack thought it was, “Pretty good!

*** To this day, I don’t know if we got the nose of the plane inside without taking the propeller off, or did we get clearance by having the prop vertical and lifting the tailwheel on high? (About thirty or so years later, Mr. Don Carter enjoyed the picture of the Cub “warming up” so much that he was presented with a framed copy.)

**** Or it may have been George Meister’s “Hickory House”…chicken fried steak and gravy, barbecue beans and fries, and Cole slaw…”That’ll be eighty-five cents, please”.

It can be said that Hartlee Field is nothing more than a set of coordinates on the face of the planet, a piece of real estate in North Texas. But, as anyone who has followed this website can see, it is much more. L.L.Larue chronicled distinct eras where this little field was the centerpiece: as a World War II training facility helping to win the war, as a place for NTSC college kids to hang out and learn to fly, as the location of“Vose Flight School”,* as an ultra light aerodrome, and lastly, an era I’ll refer to as the “Reunion Era”. (Strange that a series of annual reunions to celebrate previous eras would become an era itself…)

The “Reunion Era” began when Don and Linda Carter, well-known names in the Dallas area, philanthropists, owners of sports teams, friendly, wonderful people, purchased Hartlee Field and allowed the “Hartlee Alumni” use of the property for the purpose of a reunion…. of sorts. It became a fairly large fly-in, too.** The Carters’ generosity was the catalyst that started a yearly get-together for so many who had learned to fly there, with the tutelage and oversight of George Vose. At the first reunion, Mr. Carter was asked if he would lead the Blessing at the barbecue dinner. He relished the opportunity and thus was cemented a relationship that lasted over a decade. He laid out some ground rules, such as no alcohol on the premises, which were observed to the letter.

In later years, the new owners, Mr. ”C”’s son, Ron, (and Ron’s wife, Wanda), continued to allow the gates to be opened in the Fall for the Hartlee Field Reunion. Ron was called upon to say Grace before the dinners, and was always happy to respond. The Carters allowed the J-3 Cub, “Four Deuces”, to sit in its corner in the North Hangar for almost two decades . In time, however, hangar space was needed to store hay for the growing cattle herd, and fittingly, the open pasture land reverted to its initial purpose, the raising of cattle.

Sometime in August of 2011, Dale Gleason pushed Four Deuces out of the North hangar one last time, the Continental 65C started on the first flip, and after a proper warm up, mag and carb heat check, they took off to the South, climbed to four hundred feet, made a climbing left ninety to eight hundred feet, made another climbing turn to the North to twelve hundred feet and continued on that heading to a new home.

The end of an era? No…just the beginning of another.

dale gleason

*Before and throughout the “Vose Flight School” years, Hartlee was also a busy dairy farm. From a single J-3, the school expanded to a fleet of airplanes and over two hundred students. The school even featured a seaplane curriculum, flying a Cessna 150 on floats at nearby Lake Dallas, the only seaplane facility not on the Texas coast.

**Sometimes the reunions had as many as fifty or so planes fly in…seven J-3s and a J-2 Cub at one alone. Biplanes galore: Buecker Jungmeisters, Waco UPF7s, Stearmans, Great Lakes, Acromaster. Twins: Charles Tilghman brought in his Beech 18. Mr. Carter brought in his Beech 1900, Delmo Johnson, one of Mr. Harte’s favorite pals, piloted a Piper Navaho, Charles Hackett flew by in a King Air, Jim Addington’s Aero Commander was always a fixture. Helicopters: Don Carter in his Jet Ranger, Joey Carter in his Robinson, Jim Blair, still in the Reserves, brought in an Army attack helicopter, Duane Hawk took folks up in a Huey (some were Viet Nam vets). There were myriads of others: Charlie Davis had his Cessna 180 and Super Cub with the ‘Tundra tires”, John Bowden’s Cessna 190, Jim and Linda Hyde in their “Betty Boop” Luscombe Silvaire and so many, many others.

Note: As a precaution, all the reunions bought “air meet” insurance. No claim was ever filed, the main risk was that of one of the “more mature” grads falling off a chair while enjoying the barbecue or collapsing a folding chair!

Note from George Vose.

I came across this picture taken at Hartlee Field about the time our flight school was purchased by Denton Piper Sales, and moved to the Municipal Airport. (I think it was about 1972). The well-dressed instructors are, left to right: John Coker, George Vose with Rudy the airport cat, Doug Boyd, Rick Testa, Jack Gray and Dan O’Rear. Several other instructors of that time are not in the picture.

The location change did not last very long. While Vose Flight School, FAA approved Private and Commercial, SW-FTW-47, operated out of the Municipal Airport for a while, most of the instructors soon moved back to Hartlee Field. Even Rudy, the airport cat, who had been flown from Hartlee to Municipal in a closed box, somehow found his way back to Hartlee Field in ten days.

The airplane is a Cessna 177 Cardinal, one of the very first off the production line in 1968. It became knows as the “forced landing trainer” — it had three of them, but it always got down unscratched. Once I flew it out of a corn field near Temple, almost ruining the corn crop. Then, out of a hayfield west of Sanger where it had run through a barb wire fence, but without wing struts it was still unscratched. I do not recall who brought it back from Muskogee, Oklahoma after forced landing number three. It was found to have a defective throttle linkage. I will have to look up the tail number on the internet register — in case it’s still flying.

Regards, George Vose

Norman Harte, George Harte’s only “non-flying” brother, witnessed this scenario and was moved to relate a jack rabbit story of his own. As teenagers, the Harte brothers were engaged in hunting rabbits and had cornered one that could escape in only one direction, through a narrow gate. The rabbit, at high speed, aimed for the opening which young George, down on his knees, quickly filled. Mr. Jack Rabbit slammed pell-mell into young George’s chest, knocking him over backwards! (This anecdote is my way of introducing Norman Harte, one of the finest men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, a true philosopher).

As can be seen in the earlier picture of “Babe” Harte, the Hartes loved their dogs. One in particular, “Baron”, was “baton trained”. He was a Doberman Pincer and protected his owners. He could also be commanded by whoever held his “baton”. I never saw “Baron”, just heard of him in tales spun on the hangar apron. He is buried, as are all of the Harte’s canine companions, beneath one of the cedar trees leading up the drive.

These remembrances are from the early ‘60s when jack rabbits were abundant. Fast forward to the 90s and the present, there are no jack rabbits to be found. But skunks are still plentiful. Shep, or “SE” for short, really was a hunter in the true sense of the word. Most of the airport dogs were. If one of them discovered a skunk (not very hard to do) they had a duty to perform, namely, dispatch it. Which they did. But, in doing so, they always got sprayed. After such heroics, they justifiably felt they deserved to be praised by their human friends, but the odor was overpowering, taking days to dissipate. Ol’ Shep never understood why he wasn’t allowed near anyone after one of his encounters. People are funny like that.

‘Possums were plentiful at Hartlee. They found the old airplanes there to be just the ticket for setting up housekeeping. George Vose was inside Mr. Harte’s Cessna UC78, or “Bamboo Bomber”, kept in the South Hangar for years, but never flown to my knowledge, and noticed the once beautiful velvet headliner was hanging from the ceiling in festoons. Nonchalantly poking a drooping felt stalactite, he was surprised to see the bulge in the headliner begin moving…a ‘possum had made itself a home in the ceiling!

Another animal, since this treatise is leaning toward animals, was a skinny, malnourished ‘possum with a rather longish tail that was observed in the north hangar. Unlike most ‘possums, this one was speedy, covering ground quickly in fairly long jumps, very un‘possum-like. Efforts to catch it or even identify it were to no avail. About a week into the mystery, Danny Burchard inquired if anyone had seen his “hairless” pet squirrel. Mystery solved.

Dale Gleason

NOTE FROM GEORGE VOSE: It is good to hear from some of our web page viewers. Among them are: Murl Getter who was my student pilot at Denton Municipal just before I moved to Hartlee; Al (Alvin) Jones who learned to fly at Hartlee and passed his private flight test on 11-19-66. “Butch” Lynn and Jim Hyde were his instructors); and Allie Hoyt who many times flew over Hartlee Field but never landed there. (But now wishes she had).

Many Hartlee flyers remember “Butch” Lynn who learned to fly at Hartlee, instructed there, and has been in commercial aviation longer than anyone I know. In the mid-sixties he left Hartlee for Eastern Airlines and became a captain before they closed. Then he flew Boeing 727s for AmeriJet all over the south Atlantic, and Central and South America.

After retirement there he flew Donald Trump’s Boeing 727 domestically and overseas. A couple months ago Trump sold the 727 to a group in Malaysia. Butch delivered it to Malaysia and now flies for a company named “West Star”, and flies every day to, he says, “some places I can’t even pronounce” in Asia, Africa and Europe. His flights to London take 14 hours with two refueling stops

Enclosed are pictures of “Butch” (actually “Clay” Lynn) in the 727 cockpit after Trump’s last flight, and standing beside the same airplane after its new paint job in Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia.

Good work, Butch.  Hartlee is proud of you.  (May I add this bit of humor:  Butch once confided with me, after flying Boeings all over the world, saying:  “George, you won’t believe this, but I got lost on my first cross-country to Gainesville.”