Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

Musings from the Airfield
THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES
227
Air Traffic control officers are much like Intensive Care
Unit nurses. They are highly trained, but often sit with
very little to do but monitor. The nature of the work
requires a level of experience to be on hand for those
minutes or even seconds that can mean the difference
between life and death.
Tethered Flights
At the time, Tipton Airfield was organized under the
Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security,
and because I had time for “other duties as assigned,”
I was tasked with arranging the entertainment for the
DPTMS Organizational Day, the annual summer picnic in
1991. Tipton was the perfect venue, so I decided it would
be fun to hire a company to give us hot air balloon rides.
“Tethered Flights” which was just one man, arrived and
unpacked his balloon. During set up the balloon pilot used
the front bumper of his truck to attach his balloon and
keep it immobile. John Nance was the DPTMS employee
to get in the basket first with the pilot. As the pilot started
the fire to heat the air, we all heard the whoosh as the
fire shot up into the neck of the balloon. It was nearly
completely inflated when a huge gust of wind caught the
balloon and started dragging it sideways. The balloon
tilted so much, that the wind continued to expand the
inflatable until to lifted the front end of the truck off
the ground! The wind continued gusting, until the whole
truck was lifted and dropped as the balloon took off out
of control.
As the balloon and the basket with John inside it
traveled along the airfield, the balloonist pulled the
emergency release cord which opened a flap at the top of
the balloon to release the hot air out. We all looked on as
we realized they were running out of open area and were
fast approaching the surrounding trees. Even with the
emergency release of air, the balloon, the basket and the
truck all crash- bounced up and down until it finally came
down in an open grassy area just short of the trees. At this
point a terrified John Nance, and very angry balloonist
leap out of the basket.
The balloonist detached his balloon from his truck, and
By Dave Burget
proceeded to pack his gear into his poor truck without a
word…and left.
PETA and the elephant
Because my idea for the balloon ride was so good in
theory, I was again tasked with providing entertainment
for the following year’s organizational day. So this year
I decided to find elephant to hire to give rides. It took
me several days just to find such an animal and with
the cajoling of 10 bucks from everyone in DPTMS, we
cinched the deal.
But someone must have blabbed because somehow the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals found out
about the plan.
The airfield began to receive calls from PETA activists
who proceeded to verbally abuse the airfield personnel
who in response, just hung up on them.
A couple days later the garrison commander called me
to say that I needed to come visit him in his office. When
PETA was unable to get the result they wanted from
my staff, they had changed their target to the garrison
commander. The commander had become concerned
about all the free time enjoyed by the airport staff.
The elephant rides were cancelled, and I was not asked
again to provide entertainment for any directorate, ever.
Open House
The Fort Meade Flying Club decided it wanted to
host an open house. Plans for the open house included
offering plane rides to the general public for $20 each.
The club made their plans, and advertised their event.
Unfortunately, they didn’t notify me or the airfield staff
until five days before their open house.
Of course there were all sorts of legal issues with
offering plane rides. The plans blew up, leaving very little
time to work a solution. There was only one way their
plan could work and that was to enforce the only legal
solution – all of the plane rides to the public could only
be flown by instructor pilots.
The Fort Meade Flying Club
The following year, The Fort Meade Flying Club offered
me a golf cart, partly as a make-up for last year, and partly