When the Zimmer brothers opened their airport west of Warsaw between the Pennsylvania and Winona railroad tracts modern flying came to Warsaw. Yarns originated there can be remembered by nearly every boy now around town more than twenty years old.

Memories come thick and fast of this field and the glorious non-commercialized fun surrounding it. It was the day of whistling guy wires and wobbly struts, coughing motors and tailspins.

Barnstormers hit the field regularly and it was on a Sunday afternoon that Harry Bullers and Coonie Malcolm riding with Earl Sark, of Columbia City, went into a flat spin over the west edge of the field to fall into the adjacent corn. Harry, as he loves to tell it, wasn't hurt in the crash. But he jumped out of the wreckage so fast he bumped his head on a strut, laying on the ground for several minutes. Coonie brushed himself off, intact.

 

I took my first airplane ride there, getting moral support from fellow passenger and school-chum, Noble Oyler, now of Mentone. Early flyers were Jesse Hawley, Clyde Shockley, Sark, Preston, and Jake Menzie grabbed a little time in the old Standard. The late Robert Smith, one of the first pilots to die as a result of World War II took his first air-time at the old Zimmer Field. Don Davis, daring soul, made several parachute jumps, when jumping was riskier than riding the plane down.

End of the Zimmer experiment came 15 or 16 years ago when the Standard burned in the hangar, leaving only the charred fuselage as a memento of great days gone by.

The old ship did not die there however, as Forest Croop, now vocational instructor at Warsaw high school, and I begged the remains from Zimmer and constructed a poor excuse for a wingless hydroplane in my father's garage. At our age, it was the most wonderful machine in existence.

After several roaring trips around Winona Lake, some peace-loving citizen sawed the pontoons from under her during the night. The plane then took the only life of its venerable career, when two children threw a match into the empty gas tank of the wreckage. One of the unfortunate youths died as a result of burns. One-time Warsaw policeman, Ivan Ginn, suffered burns upon his hands extricating the boy from the cockpit.

Warsaw marked time for a while after that, but a young woman at Rochester, Helen House, was well on her way to becoming the state's number one aviatrix. Long before she met her flying husband, Warsaw athlete Wayne Outcelt, she was being billed at air circuses as a top-notch aerobatics flyer. Rochester beat Warsaw to the punch with a full-fledged commercial airport.

Too many of our young men, however, had by now breathed the clean crisp upper air. Felt the nearness to God of a pair of wings and a motor high above the clouds, thrilled to the sight of the countryside unfolding in beautiful panorama beneath them.

Sportsman's Field, north east of Warsaw and Smith Field, north of Monoquet, were started in the late 1930's (Up-to-present, next column)

Flight of military aircraft will appear over Warsaw at approximately 10 a.m. next Friday morning in celebration of Air Force Day. Roger Sanders and other boys of the local Reserve Officers Association have "borrowed" the air-scout's big C-46 located at Smith Field, will permit the public to go through the former war-ship for free Friday. The scouts have been and will continue to collect two-bits per head for the privilege, in order to bolster their treasury--so go free Friday, then go again sometime and contribute your quarter to the scouts.

Aero Club members, nearly 100 strong with guests, had good time at Tippy Monday night. Included in the gang flying duel: Paul Lowman, Wilbur Smith, Howard "Jack" Peterson, Joe Carlin, Glen Emerick, J. Vancuren, Tay Hess, Dayton Sloan, Frank Hartsock, Owen Truman, Jack Mowrey, Max Wierick; soloists: Pat Haynes, Myra Kasik, Carl Weirick, Dewit Mullet, C. M. Butler, Marian Stover, Don Snyder, Jake Menzie, Eleanor Hershberger, Jay Shue. Many more were there-we'll catch some other time.

Warsaw Daily Times, Wed. July 30, 1947 

Back | Next