Original Posted By: AirCampr(at)aol.com
I found this on the net and just about died laughing.Steve.Flying ColliesMaybe Ben isn't the world's oldest pilot, but he could be from the looksof him. Ben is 74 years old, and looks about 140. He'sthin, walks with a limp and a slump, has bad teeth, and can't hear verywell. But behind the stick of his Piper Super Cub andhe becomes a teenaged fighter pilot.Ben keeps his airplane at my airport. It's a 1944 model, white Piperwith an 85 horsepower engine. It's fully aerobatic - a really niceairplane. And Ben can make it do things god didn't intend for airplanesto do. Like fly backwards.Ben, I swear, has a deathwish. If there's a storm front coming, you cancount on Ben to show up at the airport to fly. I've seen him flydirectly into a pitch black squall line, tornado warning sirens blaring.His little plane can take off in almost no runway distance, at about 50miles an hour. So, if the wind is blowing over 50, he CAN actually flybackwards. I've seen him do it on several occasions.Ben always shows up at the airport with his two collies. One is an oldfemale, and the other a young cocky male. As you might have readin a previous posting, I like the female, but hate the male. He has norespect for me, and he fights with my dogs Skipper and Bucky.Anyway, Ben shows up at the airport and takes these two dogs for a ride.They hate it. He has to physically pick them up and stuff theminto the back seat of his little tandem-seated plane. He takes them upone at a time. The first one gets about a 10 minute ride, while thesecond stays up longer.One day Ben made an abrupt bank to the left. The door wasn't fullylatched, and it swung open. The dog in the rear seat tumbled out, butBen was quick enough to grab the poor creature by the nape of the neckbefore it fell to what would have been certain death.However, Ben wasn't strong enough to pull the dog back in. So, he flewaround the airport, flying with his left hand while hanging on to thisdog dangling out the door, flapping in 60 mile-per- hour wind, trying todecide what to do next.He decided the best thing to do would be to find a pond, fly low andslow, and drop the dog into it. At least that way the dog would havea fighting chance. However, he couldn't find a pond before his strengthgave out in his right hand.At the last minute, in a desperate move to save the dog, Ben dove andjerked his airplane to the left. The dog swung up, slammed againstthe bottom of the right wing, and fell back into the airplane.About once a month someone will drop by the airport and ask about Ben'splane. "Is it for sale?" they'll ask. No, it's not for sale. At anyprice. With Ben's deathwish, I'm sure that airplane will never be forsale. One day I'm going to have to drive my tractor out to the end ofthat runway and scrape it up - what's left - airplane, collie, Ben, andall.I hope it's the male.________________________________________________________________________________