I'll never forget being taxied on the grounds of Brookville, Ohio, Airpark, in the front seat of the now late Harold Johnson's black and yellow WACO biplane.
It happened my siblings and myself were out with Dad working his own extraordinary Helio Courier airplane when Harold Johnson flew in from who knows where, saw us out, and taxied on up to the back end hangar to say hey. I may never know if he knew it was the McGregors or if he was just looking for some good aviation talk from a member of the tight-knit community. But, it made me feel special that someone with the aviation brass that Harold had would stop by my Dad's hangar.
Dad and Harold knew each other from Moraine Airpark where Dad hangared his Cessna 182 and where he and Mom learned to fly some years before. Harold had started and, with his wife Thelma, managed the Moraine Airpark then. I remember visiting there some weekend mornings and evenings to go on family trips to wherever we felt like going that day. We'd stop by the office and pilot shop for a salty pretzel stick from Thelma (which I'd always eat the salt off first) and some joking and laughing before we all piled into the airplane to get fuel and fly away.
Nor will I forget Harold's crazy performances at air shows in his beautiful red, vintage WACO. Literally performing death-defying stunts at every air show he performed in. But the most dangerous, I think, were those at Moraine Airpark. Moraine's runway is bounded on both ends by a river levee and Harold, I expect, used that to his advantage in making the seemingly impossible seem, well, utterly stupid to do. I was too young to remember all the details back then but about eight years ago I returned to Moraine Airpark for a Funday Sunday Fly-in and Pancake Breakfast that I remembered attending as a child. Harold was still crazy, as I expected him to be, taking my breath away more than once, but none more than when he inverted, lost fuel to that big engine because of gravity — on purpose — then flipped rightside up, restarted the thing and pulled out and up above the river levee mere seconds before he would have crashed.
Harold died Jan. 12, 2011, at the age of 85. Rest in peace. You helped fuel this boy's lifelong passion for flight.
