December 17, 2003

Warwick man had Wright stuff

   By Michael Scully
   For the Times Herald-Record
   
   Warwick – A hundred years ago today, Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the world's first successful air-powered flight, in North Carolina.
   A lot has happened in the last century – transcontinental flights, supersonic jets, missions to the moon – and it all began with a couple of bicycle-makers and a bare-bones air machine along a windy strip of beach in 1903.
   Here in Orange County, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with as many first-hand experiences from the nation's golden age of flight as John W. Sanford Jr. For the better part of his 93 years, the Warwick resident has been flying.
   "I guess you can say that I just love to fly," he said. "It's been a long time since I've been behind the controls, but still, I just love to fly."
   Sanford was a founding member of Warwick's first glider club; he was taught to fly by a World War I fighter pilot; he met Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart; and he was one of the founding principals behind the Warwick Airport.
   Oh! And his first pilot's license was endorsed by Orville Wright.
   
   HIS SEVEN DECADES of flight began on a piece of farmland on the edge of Warwick.
   In 1930, he and several friends acquired a wooden glider. The group put Sanford, then 20, in the aircraft and prepared to launch the plane. His first flight – and possibly the first attempt at flight in Warwick – would be a disaster.
   Sanford said the group attached the glider to something called a shock cord and then pulled the cord back, "…like a catapult," and then let go.
   "I made the mistake of leaning too far forward, and when they let go of the shock cord, [the inertia] threw me backward and I took the stick with me," he said. That action sent the plane straight up in the air and then straight down into the ground.
   Shaken, Sanford walked away.
   "I think we busted a couple of wing struts," he said, adding: "I always figured that if you could walk away, it wasn't a crash."
   A day later, he and his friends were back at it.
   This time, Sanford said he leaned back, placing his weight against the frame of the glider and when the shock chord was released, the plane flew long and straight for about a quarter-mile.
   It didn't take long for everyone to want a turn. And, with that, the Warwick Glider Club was formed. Over time, the group moved from the flats in the valley to the slopes of Mount Peter. This group would later form the nucleus of Warwick's aviation community.
   As it happens, the timing of Sanford's maiden flight paralleled the nation's interest in aviation. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight to Paris. His success only compounded the world's interest in aviation created during World War I. After the war, a surplus of trained pilots and airplane engines made lessons and affordable planes accessible to a generation of would-be amateur pilots.
   Here in Warwick, the aviation community included pilots John Sanford, Richard "Dick" Seely and Thomas and Virginia Lawrence; mechanic Earl Stidworthy and flight instructor and airport administrator William "Willie" Falck.
   For a time, Sanford said, an airstrip called the Tillson-Walden Airport was the de facto center of the regional aviation movement. Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart both made visits there and many young pilots logged their flight hours from that hub.
   "I saw Lindy at the airfieldØ…ØI had a great deal of respect for Lindbergh," Sanford said.
   Sanford spent the early part of the 1930s learning to fly there (the airstrip is now the grounds of the Scott's Corners Golf Course near Walden) and his instructor was an Austrian pilot named Egan Pelzeder, a former World War I fighter pilot.
   "A great fella – we were like two peas in a pod," Sanford said, adding that Pelzeder was roughly 15 years older. "He was my first serious instructor."
   That teacher-student relationship endured for more than 18 months before ending with Pelzeder's death. He died in a plane crash in 1931.
   
   SANFORD HAD HIS FAIR SHARE of close calls.
   There was a day high above the Hudson Valley when his engine quit.
   "I didn't think to panicØ…ØI had all that gliding experienceØ…Øso I circled around looking for a place to landØ…Øa cow pasture or a hay field," he said – this, as he jiggered with the controls. "The idea was to get the engine to catch again. When it started, it had a tendency to spit oil in your face. Of course, once I got it going, my immediate thought was to get back to the airfield and plunk it down."
   In 1936, with the aid of a federal grant, the Warwick Municipal Airport opened. Sanford and Thomas Lawrence were among the principals behind its development at a site just off Kings Highway.
   "I took my lessons at WaldenØ…Øbut my favorite airport is right here in Warwick," Sanford said. "It's got a great grass surface. I always loved the feel of touching down on grass."
   
   OVER THE YEARS, Sanford said local interest in the glider club died off. World War II certainly had something to do with that. He served in the Navy as an air gunman instructor in Florida.
   After the war, Sanford got into the family business in insurance. He also resumed his flying, often taking family members up in the air.
   "My mother loved to flyØ…Øthe hardest part was just getting her in the airplane," he said.
   His son, John Sanford III, also loved to go for swirling rides over the Hudson Valley; but his daughter, Nina Sanford Lewis, hated it.
   "He didn't know it, but I used to get really air sick," she said.
   Still, Nina Lewis understood her father's passion for flight. During a family trip through Vermont, it was her idea to put her father back in the airØ…Øfor what might be his last moments behind the controls.
   A local airport was selling glider rides. She remembers that it was a beautiful, sunny spring day.
   "When he got out of the car, you should have seen him," she said. "He lost like 30 years right there."
   John Sanford – then 91 – wasn't in full control, but he was in the "jump seat" – a seat behind the pilot – that was loaded with instruments.
   "It was a great rideØ…Øa great ride," he said. "I was just sitting there watching him fly the glider and I remember going through the landing in my head. I mentally turned the plane around the airfield, dipping the wing a little bitØ…Ømaking this great circle around the stripØ…Øand then I would have just plopped down on the runway. That's the way he did it. He did it just the way I would have done it.Ø…ØOf course, my landing was all in my headØ…Øbut still, what a great ride."