In late March, 1970, I resumed my pursuit of a pilot's license, put on hold for so long. I was now in my (delayed for military service) first year at the University of Pennsylvania, living in a student apartment in University City, driving a red 69 VW beetle and sporting a full beard. I had just returned from a journey to Europe where I had hitchhiked around as students so happily did back then. (It was before the word "terrorist" was part of our everyday vocabularies, the twilight of post-WWII happiness and peace there...)

Anyway, in late March of 1970 I began flying again at Turners but the staff was different and rate was a bit steep as they only had Cherokees. I then heard that by driving a ways I could save a lot of money by flying Colts and even new American Yankee. Hortman Aviation were the dealers for the new line of small aircraft being made in Cleveland then, and I spoke to Mrs Hortman on the phone and scheduled my first lesson in the Yankee with Bill Barenberg. It was Earth Day, 1970 as I remember, high overcast. taking lessons from Bill (and as my log reveals Ken Langford and Norm Hortman, probably a progress check), I soled shortly afterward on May 10th, 1970 in the red Yankee N5711L on runway 29 at 3M at about eleven o'clock in the morning. Bill went around twice with me and told me to make the next landing to a full stop. We taxiied back and Bill asked me for my student pilot's license which he wrote something on the back of. I still wasn't wise as to what was happening. Then he crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray, stood up through the open canopy and got out onto the wing. "Take it around the pattern once and don't f**k up," he said, looking down at a terrified Nate Sturman; "if I like what I see I'll let you do it again." Heart pounding, happy beyond words I taxied back to the bubble, did a careful runup and pre-takeoff check and I was off! "Yankee 11Lima departing Runway 29er at 3M" I proudly announced on the unicom. I was surprised that the plane performed so much better with only my weight as I remember. Nice landings, three in a row, each time checking back with Bill at the intersection, and no dreaded "porpoise"- it was before the larger main tires were fitted. They took a bit of my shirt tail as I remember, don't remember where it is now.

After my achievement, heart still at 1,000 feet, I drove over to Mike Leshner's house in Haddonfield NJ to proudly show off the red ink entry in my logbook (at only eight hours, due to the few hours flying I'd done as a young teen at Turners in the Aeronca) and announce the good news. Mike's dad Erv Leshner, a famous aeromodeling champion from the 1930s, RCA Space engineer and experienced pilot with a mechanics license as well told me to be careful as I recall. Good advice. Back to Aero Pages Nate's Homepage