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Posted By:
Hal Brown
Date Posted:
Jul 25, 2008
Description:
All I had to do to get to Georgian Bay and the SeaRey Gaggle was get the transponder to work. How hard could that be for an avionics healer?
While waiting for avionic salvation to arrive, I studied all the literature in the pilot’s lounge. I discovered that the airport was built in support of Andrews University, a Seventh Day Adventist educational institution. The airport was a training ground for missionary efforts of the church.
There was one brochure that really broke the boredom: “Quiet: In the Midst of the Storm!” by Noel Wilton. It was promoted as “The true story of a modern day miracle….”
The story recalled the flight of an Ercoupe from Arkansas to Berrien Springs. The pilot was surprised by the summer haze and thunderstorms. After being almost trapped in flight by the dark storms, the pilot followed an area of lightness to the safety of a small airport. The pilot was inspired to fly on by a passage in the Bible: “Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You; But the night shines as the day;…” Psalm 139:11,12.
Unfortunately the storms did not abate after he landed. Now they pressed down upon him and his unsecured airplane, all alone at an unfamiliar airport. There was nothing to do but hunker down in the airplane and pray.
To the pilot’s amazement, the storm parted as it passed over the airport. His prayer had not bounced off the canopy, but had found a higher mark. “A refuge from the storm” (Isaiah 25:4) had been bestowed upon him. So recalled the pamphlet.
Pondering the vagaries of storms under blue skies, I wandered out of the lounge. It was nine o’clock. By an open hangar sat a lovely silver Ercoupe. With pamphlet in hand I walked over.
A silver-haired gentleman came out of the open maintenance hangar. As he approached I turned to him and asked, “Is this the blessed airplane?”
“I don’t know how blessed the airplane is, but I’m the blessed pilot.”
Okay, then. Noel was also the chief of maintenance at the airpark. I was beginning to believe in the possibility of a miracle cure for the transponder.
Noel didn’t mind taking time to answer my questions about his miraculous escape from the storms. I learned he had grown up in Southern Rhodesia (now the troubled country of Zimbabwe). He was trained by a WWII Spitfire pilot. Noel could still recite the checklist for lighting the fires in the powerful Rolls Royce engine.
I could have listened for hours to Noel’s tales of flying in Africa. Unfortunately I had to get Randy’s SeaRey fixed for flight to Canada.
Alas and alack, it was not to be. The avionics repair person was no longer at the airport. Despite a great effort by Noel and other aviation professors, the transponder could not be brought back to life.
Date Taken:
Jul 25, 2008
Place Taken:
Andrews University Airpark, Berrien Springs, MI
Owner:
Dan Nickens
File Name:
Silver_Wings_and_Prayer.jpg - Photo HTML
Full size - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZTLH0000h">
Medium - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZTLH0000m">
Thumbnail - <img src="/show.php?splash=SZTLH0000s">
Category:
317, A Gaggle Too Far
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