FLYING FARMERS OF ARIZONA

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The modern farmer finds the plane valuable equipment in farm work.

Featured in the May 1953 Issue of Arizona Highways

BY: AL LEACH

In a half day Wayne Wright had been 240 miles to Phoenix and back, stopped to talk to his foreman on the east ranch, run a fence line at the home Antelope property, and found that the north eighty acres of Bermuda grass needed more irrigation water.

Wayne is not a superman. He just has a little Piper Cub airplane in which he flips from place to place at 100 miles an hour and lands in pastures to attend to the routine business of ranching in the isolated Roll district of the Gila River Valley in southwestern Arizona.

The 48-year-old Wayne Wright is a pioneer-true to the spirit of the farmer of the ages.

Often it has been said that this pioneering instinct of the farmer largely was responsible for the success of the automobile age in America. He was the man who found the Tin Lizzy had great utility.

It would get him to town in a hurry, serve as a tractor or mechanized wheelbarrow, chase coyotes in roadless territory, and with a rear wheel jacked up even provide stationary power for a sawmill.

With such inherent ingenuity, the farmer naturally was one of the first to recognize the usefulness of light aircraft. In the Arizona of vast distances, he is proving the personal airplane is here to stay despite some thinking reminiscent of the 1910 adage: "You'd better get a horse."

Too, just as the farmer took the Barney Oldfield aura away from the automobile, today he is quietly dispelling the mistaken theory that the flying machine is for the young and bold.He may be 70 years old, wear glasses, and talk like a cow hand-but he'll know propeller pitch, gliding angles, pay load limitations, and naturally he will have no peer in judging flying weather.

As Wayne Wright is typical of farmers in history, he also represents perfectly the farmer of the air age-he is president of the Arizona Flying Farmers Association, an organization which, by far, represents the largest single occupational category using airplanes in Arizona.

Certainly, the executives of corporations travel by personal aircraft nowadays, usually in big twin-engine jobs with professional pilots, and many a businessman flies his own plane. But from an operator-owner standpoint the Flying Farmers are in the lead, probably the nation over.

This is because farmers, like Wayne, have found the general utility of an airplane. There is economy as well as speed and comfort when they fly themselves. Too, they prove flying can be safe. About 75 of them have been flying in Arizona since the war; they have at least 50,000 hours of pilot time-five million miles at 100 miles an hour-and there has never been a fatal crash among them.

By the fact that no farmer considers himself an extraordinary human, and flies as thoughtfully as he farms, he is establishing the light plane as an ordinary mode of transportation that anyone can use.

The membership of the Arizona Flying Farmers prove this point.

J. H. (Jap) Sossaman of Queen Creek, a national director of the Flying Farmers, also owns a potato ranch near Cortez, Colo. He will say that his greatest use of the airplane is in commuting between the two properties-325 miles in less than two hours in his Beech Bonanza.

Fifty-four-year-old Sossaman follows up this state-ment with the revelation that he wanted to be a pilot from the time he was an aircrewman in the Navy during World War I. He didn't get the chance until 1946, but now he has hundreds of hours of pilot time.

There is 70-year-old Frank R. McCormick of Mesa, who flies a Navion to keep quick tabs on his ranch proper-ties in Arizona and near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Although he has been flying but five years, McCormick, and his wife, 64, have been all over the U.S., and into Mexico and Can-ada in their plane.

Last year at the National Flying Farmers Association convention in Bemidji, Minn., Mr. and Mrs. McCormick won the award as the oldest Flying Farmer couple present. Frank is right proud of the title.

Farmers sometimes are in other businesses but qualify for the flying association because they earn more than 50 per cent of their income from agriculture. This leads to an interesting array of personalities in the membership.

There is Everett Bowman of Wickenburg. Everett is a renowned cowboy who held in 1935 and 1937 the World All-Around Championships in rodeo competition which included everything from bulldogging to bronc riding and calf roping. A big man of tremendous strength, Everett does not manhandle his airplane-he flies his Piper with as light a touch as he would handle a smart and lively cow pony. W. W. (Bill) Pickrell is an Ercoupe commander, owns his own ranch south of Phoenix, is manager of the mammoth properties of the Bartlett-Heard Land and Cattle Company, and vice president of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association. Bill is an executive farmer in many respects, yet he uses his small two seater airplane to inspect the properties under his management, and graphically show Arizona's need for more water by flying visitors up the Salt and Verde river courses over Bartlett, Saguaro, Black Canyon, Apache, and Roosevelt lakes. Bankers like Sherman Hazeltine, president of the Bank of Arizona in Prescott, are Flying Farmers, and real estate men show prospective land purchasers exactly the type of Arizona territory that is for sale. There are some professionals in the crowd. W. O. (Bill) Marsh, Phoenix, owner of the largest airplane crop dusting company in the Southwest, is a Flying Farmer

and nationally recognized aeronautical authority. Bill is a constant fount of information on flying as a result of his 8000 hours of pilot experience in all types of aircraft. Wayne Wright has a rancher neighbor-everybody calls a farmer a rancher out West-by the name of Harold Woodhouse. The Woodhouses are right in step with Harold as airplane drivers. His wife, Ethelind, takes to their Cessna just as if it were a Ford; his son, Bob, was a navy flier and is one of the world's endurance record pilots who kept the City of Yuma plane aloft 1124 hours three years ago. And daughter, Shirley, is now checking out as a private pilot-a flying family for sure. Alfred Paul, Jr., of Paul's Spur ranch in southeastern Arizona, is a Flying Farmer and state legislator. He “commutes” between home and Phoenix by airplane when the lawmakers are in session. S. C. McFarland of Coolidge, a brother of U. S. Senator Ernest W. McFarland, uses a light airplane to keep up with his extensive lumbering and ranching enterprises. There are Flying Farmers in every section of the state of Arizona. But Wayne Wright lives up to his title as No. 1 Flying Farmer of Arizona in more respects. His whole family of twelve, comprising four generations, are aviation enthusiasts, and soon there will be seven pilots in the family.

Three-year-old Carol Wright has been flying with her mother and father, Dick and Jean, since she was three weeks old. And comely 24-year-old Jean is the current queen of the National Flying Farmers Association. Jean is a pilot, and Dick handles a crop duster plane.

John, Bill, and Pat fly with the same casualness as Wayne, and Mona is getting ready to check out. To round out the flying Wright family, with Wayne's wife are his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Roy Wright.

From 74-year-old Dr. Wright to three-year-old Carol, they all fly. Last year all of them found their way to Bemidji to win the title as the "largest Flying Farmer family" in the nation to go along with Jean's crown as queen.

Wayne is modest about the family aeronautical achievements, however. He would rather tell of how the airplane helps him and his family.

It's like the family bus, parked at the door and ready for any quick trip-or emergency-to town. If it is to Phoenix on an errand, a Wright gets there and back in slightly more than two hours. By automobile it is four hours one way.

As a Bermuda grass seed and alfalfa grower, Wayne often flies to California, Montana, or the Midwest to attend agricultural conferences and keep himself informed on the latest developments for improving his specialty crop.

On the ranch, the aerial observation platform enables him quickly and accurately to check irrigation water flows, detect weeds in a 40-acre field, find breaks in fences, and perform many other jobs.

"We are always finding new uses for the airplane," says Wayne. "And with all of this, we still have the undeniable pleasure of flying."

The modern farmer finds the plane useful-and fun!