Mama Bird Johnson Has Slipped the Surly Bonds

[Broomstick]

A few days ago I would have started a post about Evelyn "Mama Bird" Johnson with "She is one of the most remarkable pilots I've been privileged to know, having more flight hours than anyone short of God, having taught more people to fly than any other instructor, and 60 years of remarkable accomplishments in aviation".

Today I have to use the past tense.

Mama Bird has died at the age of 102. I can't say she was a close friend, but she was someone I knew over the course of several years. I benefited from her advice, experience, and wisdom. I can't say the news was unexpected, but death is always sad. I didn't just admire her as a pilot - she was a tough little lady, still working (even if no longer flying), still independent with her age in the triple digits. That's the kind of old lady I want to be when I get old.

obit

[LadyTevar]

It sounds like she had a interesting life. I think you should post what you know of her, stories, wisdom, etc. She sounds like someone we all would love to hear about.

[Broomstick]

Well, I'm in work phase until Monday which doesn't leave me a lot of time, but if folks would be interested in a few stories and the facts as I know them I could post a few anecdotes, and maybe a couple photos, over the next few days.

[edaw1982]

102, damn that's some pretty good mileage.
She'll be giving the angels pointers on aerodynamics, sounds like. Buggers probably need it.

[whackadoodle]

NPR did a nice piece about her on Friday, including replaying an interview they did with her in 2004.

[Broomstick]

Nice audio clip. I've also flown the C-150 mentioned, 4YE, and on one occasion took a little teasing about "Ah-yup, there certainly IS a Yankee in there". If anyone is wondering, yes, that is also the airplane Mrs. Johnson is posing in the door of in the picture in the text article.

Not mentioned is that she used to have a VERY large seat cushion embroidered with "Mama Bird" that she used when flying larger airplanes so she could reach everything. She was a tiny little lady with a big personality. She is the main reason I started traveling around with a collection of seat cushions in the trunk of my car. Mrs. Johnson had some succinct talking points about the need for comfort and being able to reach the controls easily. If carrying booster cushions was good enough for Mama Bird then it was certainly good enough for me.

One time, when trying out a new airplane at a new airport (I did acquire a habit of trying out new types), upon seeing me fuss with the seating the new-to-me CFI commented "last time I saw a lady make that much fuss over seat cushions I was in Tennessee."

"Morristown, right?" I said.

"Yep. You know Mama Bird, too?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

[Ahriman238]

I never met or heard of this woman, but I'd rather like to hear more. She sounds impressive.

[Broomstick]

I'm sure you can figure out which person in this picture is me and which is Mrs. Johnson (I usually addressed her as Mrs. Johnson, even though she said she didn't mind Evelyn or Mama Bird). If I recall correctly, she was around 95 in this photo. I hope I look that good at 80, nevermind 90 or 95:



When you walked into the Morristown airport FBO what you saw was a rather ordinary lounge area, a desk for doing business, and as often as not an old lady on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune or something (Wheel was definitely her favorite game show). You also saw an incredible number of plaques and awards on the wall (some visible behind us, of course). They were, of course, Mrs. Johnson's. I don't recall her ever pointing them out to someone spontaneously, or talking much about them, but they were there. That's sort of how she treated the whole business about fame and accomplishment - there, if you commented on it she'd be happy to talk about it, but she didn't normally start the conversation. She was proud of what she had done over the years but she didn't rub peoples' faces in it.

Here I am renting an airplane from the FBO and simultaneously taking advantage of Mrs. Johnson's expertise and advice:



This was my first time renting an airplane in Morristown. Morristown is at a higher elevation than my home area, and is set amid the Appalachian mountains rather than the Great Plains. Not knowing just who the airport manager was there I went in with my logbook and stated my desire to check out on an airplane there, and immediately followed up with stating I was a flat lands pilot who probably didn't know enough to know what I didn't know and I'd like to speak with someone familiar with the area regarding hazards and things I should be aware of when flying in the general area. The kindly old lady behind the counter gave me a smile and said she'd been flying herself in the area for some time now and would be happy to give me some pointers.

And that's when my spouse, having been occupying himself in the background while the family pilot did the pilot stuff, came up and asked the kindly old lady if she was the same Evelyn Johnson on all those plaques and telling me "Hey, that's Mama Bird!"

Oh.

Well, yes, I guess she did have some pointers to give me. Yes, yes she said, playing the modest Southern Belle, she was Mama Bird. Then proceeded to quiz me on my flying experience, where/what conditions I'd flown in, the type of airplanes, and if I had anything in mind for flying around the area. Her questions were precise and efficient. I said I had plans to take the in-laws up for a flight in the next day or so and would welcome any suggestions for routes that would be interesting for flight seeing.

A word about checking out in an airplane - when you rent an airplane they do ask to see your license, and also your logbook (hence, I was carrying mine) but they will also insist on you taking one of the local instructors along for a 15-20 minute flight during which you demonstrate you actually have the skills you claim. In this case, it was also to familiarize me with local conditions. Since Morristown's elevation was several thousand feet higher than my home base the air was thinner, enough to affect airplane performance. It would take a longer distance to take off, and longer to finish the roll out on landing. In addition, the the Morristown runway was flat, but it wasn't exactly level - one end was at a slightly higher elevation than the other, sometime not terribly uncommon in mountain areas but largely unknown where I came from. It wasn't extreme, but she cautioned that it would be enough for me to notice and would probably bother me the first time even though she said anyone with a license should be able to handle it with no problem. More important, she said, was to understand that wind conditions were much different in Tennesee than Illinois or Indiana. Out on the plains high winds (relatively speaking) had few obstacles and would usually blow in a steady manner. You could have high wind without turbulence. In the mountains the landscape was much more likely, practically certain, to stir up turbulence in windy conditions. While I might fly a Cessna 172 (what I was renting on that occasion) in 20-25 knot winds around Chicago, around Morristown I would find even a 15 knot wind much more challenging due to the turbulence involved. She really strongly suggested I not fly in winds over 15 knots in the area, and really keep to 10 and under. She also pointed out that wind speeds also tended to be much, much lower around Morristown than around Chicago so that wasn't as limiting as it might sound. (Note that those speeds are as best I recall the conversation - I didn't write this down and it was some years ago).

Between the two of us we worked out a route for the local area that would be safe, incorporate some nice scenery, and had some good visual landmarks for navigation. The plan was to fly that as a check out ride, and as a dress rehearsal for flying the in-laws. I was cautioned about wind currents over local mountains (keeping in mind these weren't the Rockies or some snow covered peaks, they are still high points in the landscape and capable of generating effects like mountain waves and so forth that can be hazardous to airplanes), flying into valleys, particularly the hazards of flying up-valley, and how to execute an emergency landing on uneven landscapes dominated by trees rather than flat farmfields. Just in case.

As it happened, Mrs. Johson was already scheduled to fly with someone else that day, so my check-out ride was with a local instructor recently retired from the airlines. She reminded him that a C-172 was not the B-747's he was accustomed to, and that flaring at 50 feet on landing was not appropriate. She told him to let me handle the approach to landing ("she actually has more two-seat and four seat Cessna time than you do, young man" - the young man being 60 years old) unless I was obviously screwing up, but that he should definitely be on guard during my required full-flap go-around. Mrs. Johnson required "flat land" pilots to demonstrate a full-flap go-around emergency procedure on check out rides. Some people resist this, because quite a few people don't normally use full flaps on a small Cessna, and with thinner air it requires better management skills. Of course, that's why she required it - her reasoning was that if a flatlander could properly execute a full-flap Cessna landing at Morristown they had a proper understanding of conditions and full control of the airplane. I really can't argue with that. Of course, it was also one of the more likely places for the flatlander to not quite come up to standards, hence her reminder to the guy in the right seat.

I handled it quite fine, as it turned out. Most people do. The point, of course, is that you'd want to catch those who can't when there was someone there to salvage a poor maneuver.

And that was my first meeting with Mrs. Johnson. I did find her advice on flight planning extremely useful, and the next day I took my mother-in-law for a very enjoyable flight. When I told Mrs. Johnson I'd flown almost entirely around Chicago she immediately knew how what I was accustomed to differed from where we were and quickly gave me a run-down on the differences in a friendly, conversational manner. No lecturing, not a lot of "you should", and I appreciated that she maximized my bang for the buck and helped me tailor the flying to what I wanted. This is not a universal approach, there are plenty of people who lecture and try to direct you to what they think you should want rather than your actual goals.

[UnderAGreySky]

What. A. Lady.

RIP.

[Broomstick]

Another story from Morristown, TN:

I was visiting the in-laws again (they lived in Morristown) and decided to once again take advantage of the local airport. As no one else was interested in a ride I decided to rent a Cessna 150 (a two-seat airplane, quite small) to save a few dollars. Back I went to the airport.

As it happened, it was a very hot, humid day in mid-summer. The important thing to remember here is that the hotter the air is, and the more humid the air is, the less dense it is. The less dense the air the less effective it is at holding up your airplane. That means your actual speed in the air needs to be higher to register as a particular airspeed, and your airplane will climb slower. This is often expressed in the term "density altitude". I don't want to get into a detailed discussion of this, other than to say that airplane performance figures are given in the manual for "standard atmosphere" which references a particular temperature, humidity, and altitude. If the temperature and humidity are higher than the standard reference the airplane will behave like it's at a higher altitude, maybe even a couple thousand feet higher. The upside to this is that if the weather is cooler and less humid than the standard the airplane will perform as it if were at a lower altitude, taking les time to take off, climbing better, and so forth. (In mid-winter Chicago can have a density altitude equivalent to significantly less than sea level, which is fabulous, but this story concerns summer in the mountains).

As best I recall, the automated weather reporting for the airport for the field was reporting a density altitude of around 9,000 feet (2700 meters). That was pretty damn high by my standards, and while in theory a C150 should be flyable up to 14,000 feet (4200 meters) it was definitely getting into the range of deteriorating performance. The other thing to consider is that there are no new C-150s. They made the last of them around 1976 and this particular one dated from the 1960's. It was a 40+ year old airplane and as a general rule the older airplanes are not as efficient now as when they were new.

Well, when I got to the airport Mrs. Johnson was there (as usual) and I expressed some concern about the conditions and why I felt that way. She did consider the matter for a few minutes and said, in light of my experience in C150's (I have far more time in that model than any other) and what she had seen of my flying she thought it was withing my abilities, but that I might not enjoy the flight. She said I might not get more than 100 foot per minute climb (about 30 meters) and I would have to be careful to turn right before reaching the "hill" off the end of the runway (not a hill, it was the next mountain peak over) as I wouldn't be able to clear it in the distance I would have but it would be fine if I turned, plenty of altitude and space for that, turning to flying over the highway and trees.

Hmm....

I thought about it a bit, and we discussed it some more. I was interested in seeing how the plane flew in such conditions and between the two of us we were reasonably sure it would be safe to do so. Certainly, Mrs. Johnson was convinced the airplane could do it, the pilot had the potential to be the weakest link here. She thoroughly explained what I should expect and how to deal with an incredibly slow climb safely in the area. She did say that I should climb to normal pattern altitude prior to landing to minimize the variables involved "even if that takes two or three trips around the airport".

Er... wow.

And yes, I did go up.

And it did climb only 150 fpm, maybe a bit more. That was despite having just me on board and less than full fuel, and that 150 fpm was only at the start, the climb rate dropped notably in just the first few hundred feet even with everything pegged for maximum climb rate. It sucked. It really did.

However, the pre-flight planning paid off. It was pretty much exactly what she said it would be, and it did take two laps around the field to get up to normal pattern height. I did a short field approach even though the airstrip there is not normally considered anywhere near short for C150 because, under such conditions, I would eat up MUCH more runway on the landing and roll out than normal.

It was a very uneventful take off, brief flight, and landing.

It also wasn't a lot of fun. It was, however, a very educational 15 minutes and I'm glad I gave it a go as it not only expanded my knowledge base but also increased my confidence in my abilities yet again. When I was done Mrs. Johnson smiled at me as I came into the FBO again and handed her the keys and told me I had handled it well and undoubtedly had learned something that day. Which was true.