The Cannibal Queen Read Free

the bird will return to the air with an unsightly and embarrassing bounce, propelled aloft in spite of the pilot’s wishes by the action of the shock absorbers in the landing gear struts. Grass absorbs some of this shock absorber thrust, so the plane seems more willing to stay planted.
    There are nine other Stearmans in St. Francis and the Cannibal Queen makes ten. A new record for the fly-in, we are told by the official greeter as he fills out my name and address. He takes a photo of David and me and points out a place to tie down the Queen.
    With three grass runways, St. Francis is one of the finest fields in the country for tail-wheel airplanes. And the place is jumping. Ten Stearmans, all painted brightly with whatever color scheme struck the owner’s fancy, another fifteen or twenty light planes, skydivers, three or four balloons, and a crowd of a hundred or so local spectators still lingering after a long day in the early summer sun. When you are tired of watching the noisy biplanes or scanning the sky for parachutes you can amuse yourself by inspecting sunburns, your own included. This is the great American airshow at a little town in the heartland. There are no paid aerobatic acts; the Blue Angels haven’t been invited because they wouldn’t come. This is just a bunch of old airplane enthusiasts, balloonists, jumpers, and their families, and the spectators who came to watch it all. This fly-in is put together every year by Robert Grace of Grace Flying Service, the local fixed-base operator (FBO).
    David and I wander and look. I recall attending a local, do-it-yourself airshow at the grass field in my hometown of Buckhannon, West Virginia, when I was just a small boy. I remember the big acts were a guy who did aerobatics in a yellow J-3 Cub and two guys who leaped out of an airplane and floated earthward in surplus military chutes. That is about all I recall of that day, except for the fact my brother and I spent most of it running through the crowd playing hide-and-seek with each other. I must have been five or six then, maybe 1951 or ’52. Strange that I should remember it so well.
    To get to the cotton-candy stand we pass three farmers in identical bib overalls sitting on a bench smoking corncob pipes, not a one of them under the age of seventy. They sit without smiles, the smoke wisping from their pipes, their eyes focused on the airplanes from the past.
    And we meet the people who belong to the biplanes. After we have the Queen fueled and tied down out in the grass between two of her sisters, a fellow named Kirk and his wife offer to drive us the three blocks to the motel in the twenty-year-old Cadillac courtesy car the motel provided. We agree, then wait for half an hour while Kirk does something or other at the other end of the flight line.
    We sit in the grass in the shade under the wing and watch a white-and-blue Stearman arcing above us in the blue sky. Two Stearman pilots near us are giving rides—$30 for 15 minutes—so there are the usual squeals and trepidation as the neophytes are strapped into the front cockpits. One of the planes lacks an electrical system, so we watch the aviator hand-prop the engine. It starts easily on the first mighty swing of the big polished-metal prop. Another planeload of skydivers leaps into the arms of Jesus and floats earthward as the throb of radial engines surrounds and engulfs us.
    At last Kirk is ready, and we climb into the ancient Cad for the three-block jaunt to the motel where we have a room reserved.
    An hour later David and I walk the six blocks to the St. Francis City Park. The residential streets are lined with modest homes with huge trees in the yards. This is the Madison Avenue version of America, the stable, middle-class dream America of contented married couples with two kids and a friendly mongrel dog and a Chevy in the driveway. This myth pulls on our heartstrings even though we well know that small-town America is already an anachronism, even though