It’s great to call them friends, but the conversation topic was grim: “What in the hell is going on at Lunken Airport?” Sure enough, the front-page headline in the Sunday Cincinnati newspaper shouted, “What’s Next for Lunken Airport…Cincinnati’s tiny, aging airfield…and what’s ahead for the struggling airport’s second century?”

“Aging”? OK. “Struggling”? I don’t think so. Mismanaged? You bet!

After the inevitable COVID-19 pandemic slowdown, Lunken general aviation and corporate traffic recovered dramatically. Recently there have been 10-to-15-plus jet operations each hour and an increase of 100,000 total operations in each of the past two years. Three thriving flight schools, plus private and corporate traffic, keep the control tower busy from 0700 to 2300 local time every day.

But the city is tearing out one of three runways—the oldest one that’s parallel to the primary, 6,100-foot 21L-02R. It has multiple functioning instrument approaches, lighting, and markings, but eliminating 21R leaves only a shorter runway, 7-25, which is unusable for airplanes over 10,000 pounds. gross weight and whenever the long runway is active because of crossing approach paths.

• READ MORE: An Ode to Aircraft Mechanics

Cincinnati Municipal Airport-Lunken Field (KLUK)  has long been home to large and small corporate flight operations with multiple business aircraft, including Procter & Gamble (on the field since 1950), Kroger, NetJets/Executive Jet Management, American Financial Corp., and more. These days there are more smaller jets and turboprops (Pilatus, TBM, etc.) that increase jet light turbine operations to about 250 daily.

The flight schools are seeing unprecedented growth with student pilots flying for fun or business and many pursuing airline careers. Lunken Flight Training, a Part 141 school, occupies two of the original three brick hangars built for the Embry-Riddle Company in 1927, and it’s swamped with students and renters. 

Years ago, Cincinnati Aircraft was where I launched my 6,000 hours of instructing and, much later, was a busy DPE. Jay Schmalfuss (c’mon, Cincinnati is a German town) has turned it into an impressive operation. Sitting in on one of its weekly huddles, I learned operations have risen 30 percent this year, following a 30 percent increase the year before. Its fleet includes 10 Cessna 172s and four Diamonds with more on the way.   

The FAA and the city also continue to demand that one of those three historic hangars be demolished because of its proximity to the Runway 25 takeoff area. This once beautiful, abandoned building has badly deteriorated—sad to watch. This most ornate of the three hangars has lasted for nearly 100 years with nobody crashing into it. From the ’50s through the ’80s, it was the place to learn to fly or keep your airplane. The exterior was classic art deco, and the interior offices were elegant, like something out of a movie. 

That art-deco terminal building—also now abandoned–was built with Works Progress Administration funds in 1936 and ’37. Flooding had been a danger (hence the nickname “Sunken Lunken”), but pumps, levies, and other flood-control measures tamed that problem from the adjacent Ohio and Little Miami rivers.

• READ MORE: Perusing Some Old Logbooks

The terminal’s beautiful lobby had a number of ticket counters for scheduled airlines when Lunken was once the city’s main airport and the world’s first and largest municipal facility. In the ’30s, American Airlines based at Lunken and operated schedules with Curtiss Condors and DC-3s. American opened its original Sky Chef restaurant in the building.

But after World War II the search was on for a larger airport. Federal funds were available, and across the Ohio River in northern Kentucky, a military field had been built during the war. Alben Barkley was a Kentucky Democrat and vice president under Democrat President Harry Truman, while Ohio was a solidly Republican state. So, it’s no mystery why the “Greater Cincinnati” airport was built on that property near Covington, Kentucky (thus the “KCVG” designator), and the major airlines abandoned Lunken for what is now Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International.

When I came to the airport in the early ’60s, the terminal building housed the control tower as well as a Flight Service Station, offices, the Airman’s Club, and the Sky Galley (once Sky Chef) restaurant. Any night of the week, the restaurant was crowded with airport and nearby racetrack people. The food was pretty good, and the bar was always jumping. 

I met Ebby Lunken there, we got engaged, and I worked for his Midwest Airways while getting private, commercial, and instructor ratings. When the little airline closed, Ebby moved to a second-floor office, and I played secretary to his (pre-Part 135) charter operation, booking trips on his DC-3 and Lockheed 10s in the mornings (and climbing out a window to tend a thriving herb garden on the roof). Afternoons and evenings, I flight instructed and eventually opened my own school. 

I’m no expert on city politics, but I’m pretty sure the City of Cincinnati knows as much about airports as I do about quantum physics. They hired a commission which recommended the airport needs to generate between $8 million and $27 million, and a new manager whose main qualification is he’s always loved airplanes and is “anxious to do whatever the city wants.”

So, all hangar rents have increased at Lunken Airport, and I have to get rid of the 1942 John Deere tractor stored in my hangar for a corporate pilot friend. That’s fair enough, but with Runway 21R gone and corporate hangars (no T-hangars) extending out into the middle of this essentially one-runway airport, the impact on us little guys and student traffic will be devastating. You can’t easily insert touch-and-go traffic between frequent jet operations.

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I wonder if all the fences and locked gates installed after 9/11 are the real reason that no bombings or hijackings have occurred at Lunken or any other GA airport. But sadly there’s no curious teenage eyes peering through to learn about flying anymore. 

Have we surrendered too much freedom to government mandates? Painfully, the Lunken Airport I’ve known and hung around for 62 years is becoming something very different. I’ve flown, loved, laughed, cried, crunched a few airplanes, and made countless friends at this old place. I’d sit in the control tower on crummy days and, even now, they call me by name.

I taught hundreds of people to fly and issued licenses to hundreds more from this field. It’s a special place that will always be my “Home Sweet Airport.”

This column first appeared in the September Issue 950 of the FLYING print edition.

The post Cincinnati Will Always Be My ‘Home Sweet Airport’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

When I was learning to fly during winter 1961-62, there were several ratty-looking AT-6s and Beech 18s tied down in the grass outside the flying school shack. A guy named Michael who owned one of the AT-6s was, I thought, an interesting-looking guy. I’d see him at Mass at Christ the King Church—usually standing against a side wall because he’d arrived late (in those days, Catholic Sunday Masses were always crowded).

Using side glances, I pointed him out to my sister, but maybe I wasn’t as discreet as I thought because, a few days later, at the airport, he introduced himself and invited me for a ride in the T-6…at night…Wow! So, he belted me in and I was flat-out thrilled by the awesome power and noise on takeoff. We climbed on top of a thin overcast and rolled and looped with the lights of the city visible through the misty clouds below and clear stars shining above. Well, what do you expect? I fell madly in love—with the AT-6 and Michael.

After graduating from college and serving in the Air Force flying B-25s on flight check missions, Michael was working for a Cincinnati company that sold dry cleaning store franchises, and he used that T-6 for sales calls in his territory throughout the Midwest and South. Curiously, despite the Air Force training and experience, he thought filing IFR was like “being in jail.” When the weather was down in those pre-GPS days, he commonly flew airways at 500 feet below the MEA and made an approach at his destination. I know, I know…

We flew a night mission in a Piper Aztec loaded with freight from Cincinnati to Baltimore for a local character named “TV Tom.” Coming back over the Alleghenies, to avoid filing we climbed to 18,000 feet msl for about an hour to stay above an icy cloud cover. But we were young, and I guess the Lord was looking out for fools like us.

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Before I knew him, Michael had acquired a little floatplane time at a seaplane base on the Ohio River down the road from the airport. Barely out of his teens and with Lord knows what kind of certificates and ratings (definitely not seaplane), he ferried a Piper J-3 Cub on floats to a buyer in Florida. Think about that…a 10-gallon fuel tank and a 5-gallon can of car gas strapped in the front seat. Sure, there are lots of lakes and rivers between southern Ohio and Florida, but it’s still pretty gutsy. He was good at en route repairs…rarely “by the book” or with approved parts—but good enough to hang things together. The luck of the Irish.

He wasn’t a braggart. He just did things most people wouldn’t. And I’m not suggesting anybody should emulate him, but Michael was very talented, very stubborn, very much his own guy, and could be absolutely maddening. We were fast friends, but he was married with two boys and, if we had married, we would surely have killed each other.

We both loved Cubs, and Michael found one at Blue Ash Airport, now long gone but then a wonderful grass field north of town that actually predated Lunken Airport (KLUK). A young kid had soloed in a J-3 he’d bought, but the airplane was in pretty rough shape. Michael and I warned the kid it was a deathtrap— the fabric was way beyond salvaging, there were bad fuel and oil leaks, and who knew the condition of the structure inside? If he valued his life, he needed to sell it and rent one of the Cessnas from Moose Glos, the operator. He thanked us profusely when we took it off his hands for $600.

Well, OK, it was pretty rough, but we flew it all through that summer. You didn’t drain the sumps because they dribbled rust, and it demanded nearly a quart of oil after every flight. And “40M” quit on me in a climbing turn after takeoff from Hamilton (KHAO) and, when I got it back on the ground, Bill Hogan came out and saw the rust stains at the sumps. After giving me a well-deserved lecture, we drained the tanks, filled up with fresh gas, and I was on my way.

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Then cooler weather arrived, and Michael took one of his kids for a ride, but they had to land in somebody’s pasture. With the door and window closed and the heat knob pulled on, they got a good dose of carbon monoxide. So, that was it for 40M! We got it back to Lunken and pulled it apart. Since Michael lived less than a mile away, we hauled the pieces to his basement and garage, ordered dope and Ceconite envelopes for the wings and fuselage, and sent the engine out for overhaul.

Well, if you’re familiar with the smells that go with recovering an airplane, you’ll understand it wasn’t long before Michael’s wife (who was terribly shortsighted about airplanes) ordered us out. His mom, a wonderful old Irish lady, was glad to have us around, so we hauled it out to her house. In her mid-80s, she was still climbing ladders to wash windows and made wonderful sandwiches and cookies to keep us fortified.

Michael would eventually go through several divorces and marriages, buy a farm where he laid out a strip, and own and fly some wonderful airplanes—a Lockheed Lodestar, Waco UPF-7 (I took out a couple taxiway lights with that one), F-8 Bearcat, Aeronca Chief on floats (in which I gave him a seaplane rating after he taught me to fly floats), Stearman, Citabria, Heath Parasol, and Cessna 150. Then he moved to Florida, getting very sick with cancer. But he kept Cub 40M—even soloed around the patch when he was near the end.

I was with him in the hospital when he returned home, and my friend Bishop Joe came to administer last rites.

I’ll share more stories that are too good to forget. Sure, I miss him, but Michael’s “rules of life” stay with me: “Don’t admit anything, drive a beige car, and aim for the light spots.”

This column first appeared in the January-February 2024/Issue 945 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post There Was Just Something About Michael appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

After I learned to fly and put in a stint with TWA as a hostess, in 1963, I met, fell in love with, and went to work for Ebby Lunken in multiple roles for his new Midwest Airways. Our office and counter were in this building, right where the old American Airlines counters had been from the 1930s until 1946. The Sky Galley Restaurant opened when the terminal was built in 1937, as American Airlines’ first Sky Chef. I always felt a real sense of history standing behind that counter but, despite our work and hopes and dreams, Ebby (a wonderful pilot) wasn’t a businessman and eventually the little airline failed.

The big carriers had abandoned Lunken (KLUK) shortly after World War II for a former military field called Boone County—later the Greater Cincinnati Airport (KCVG) located across the Ohio River in Kentucky. It was inevitable; Lunken’s runways weren’t adequate for higher performance post-war aircraft, there was little room for expansion, and it wasn’t called “Sunken Lunken” for nothing. Surrounded on three sides by hills at the confluence of the Little Miami and Ohio rivers, it was on a flyway for birds and subject to dense ground fog on many mornings.

But since its founding in 1925, Lunken enjoyed bustling commercial activity, beginning with the Embry-Riddle Company. In fact, in 1930, it was named the world’s largest municipal airport. During World War II, many families said goodbye to their servicemen who went to war from here on American or Delta, hopefully to return. There are so many things I could tell you about the history of this iconic building but you can find that online. My most vivid and cherished memories are about the people and the shenanigans…and that smell.

In the early 1960s, Hal Shevers and partner Russ Falk opened a shop across the lobby called “Sporty’s” where American Airlines had had an office. 

Truth is, while Russ did a brisk business selling charts and pilot supplies to customers at the counter, he tried keeping Hal busy in the tiny back office. Hal had, well, a limited reservoir of patience and a lifelong propensity for pissing off people—including customers. But they were great guys, and we’d sometimes fire up a grill on the terminal’s back porch behind Sporty’s and cook steaks or burgers. The flavorful smoke would drift into the Sky Galley restaurant, and we still laugh about an evening when restaurant owner Bob Gauche and city official Gordon Howe lurched out onto the porch from the Galley bar, declaring this was “very undignified.” Sadly, the city (not the first or last time) refused to provide more space for Sporty’s growing business and, eventually, they moved 10 miles east to the Clermont County Airport (I69).

We had fun visiting the tower, which was easily accessible through an unlocked door on the second floor and climbing up a ladder to the cab. In those days, the only “threat” was successfully negotiating that steep ladder, especially for anybody who’d imbibed too freely downstairs in the Sky Galley bar. A group called the Greater Cincinnati Airmen’s Club (GCA) formed in about 1937, and had a large membership of local pilots and a large clubroom/bar on the second floor of the south wing. If I lugged one pot of chili, boxes of doughnuts, or projection equipment up those stairs, I hauled 100 in my FAA years.

GCA was purely a social club, meeting informally on Wednesday nights and sponsoring spot landing contests, poker and efficiency flights, and wonderful Sunday cocktail parties about four times a year. Oh, the characters… I remember Meg Berning wearing a beanie with a lighted propeller spinning on top, running up and down the old Runway 15/33 right outside the terminal building. The tower, in the spirit of things, would shoot green light gun signals until somebody went out to retrieve her. 

Another couple, Bill and Myra Mitzel, who owned a beautiful Cessna 180, operated the only crematorium in Cincinnati in those days. When things got going, they’d invite members over for a tour. 

The Sunday afternoon cocktail parties and T.W. Smith’s annual Christmas party with plentiful food and drinks were joyous, raucous, and unforgettable. 

When Ebby had an office on the second floor and I was acting like a secretary (who couldn’t type or take shorthand), I had a lovely herb garden on the roof. And, always curious about those mysterious Quiet Birdmen, I’d occasionally climb out the men’s room bathroom window on a Friday night to see the bare-breasted bartenders from the roof window.

When the terminal recently closed (more about that), I inherited the Airmen’s Club sign-in “logbook” and, paging through the years of names and events, I alternately laugh and cry. So full of memories, it occupies a place in my living room as a kind of relic of “the old days.”

The city allowed the building to badly deteriorate and the popular Sky Galley restaurant left a couple of years ago. Poorly designed, added “wings” were ugly—not in the style of the building. Finally, the Environmental Protection Agency (or somebody) was making louder noises about “flood plain” violations, so we all wondered what would happen.Then word went out that negotiations were in the works to long-term lease the site to a developer who would rehab the original building. Plans are to restore the old control tower, open a new restaurant, and expand the building to include a 50-bed hotel. This developer, I think, is very talented and has a beautiful concept.

But I’ll miss that ’60s-era alcove with a teletype machine spitting out reams of yellow paper with weather and the .-.. / -.- / .-  (LKA in Morse code) monitor broadcasting in the background. Heck, I’ll even miss the smell of disinfectant.

Not so “grand” old lady… scheduled for a major facelift.

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