otherJuly 10, 2017
'Retired' airplane mechanic John Farquhar still has eyes set on the sky
Combine youthful enthusiasm with 90 years of experience and knowledge. What do you get? An ageless pioneer. Someone like John Farquhar. Spirited, irrepressible and still bit by the aviation bug, he uses a motorized scooter to navigate the lingering effects of a "light case" of polio from his teen years and the hangar of Cape Copters at the Cape Girardeau Airport...
Combine youthful enthusiasm with 90 years of experience and knowledge. What do you get?
An ageless pioneer. Someone like John Farquhar.
Spirited, irrepressible and still bit by the aviation bug, he uses a motorized scooter to navigate the lingering effects of a "light case" of polio from his teen years and the hangar of Cape Copters at the Cape Girardeau Airport.
The career aircraft mechanic and flying enthusiast is as sharp minded and determined as ever. In fact, he's working on his next project, which involves salvaging parts from his last project, one that departed from script.
"I had a little mishap with this aircraft three years ago," Farquhar says, looking over at the remnants of a fuselage he's all but picked clean.
He fabricated the now dismantled aircraft from scratch, but the "retired" mechanic ultimately found himself at the end of Runway 28 at the airport in a bit of a predicament.
He says he had ascended to about the height of the hangar from which he was telling the story, the same one he built with his son in 1973, on takeoff when descent unexpectedly took place. The engine stalled and the nose began to tilt downward. Five years of work, and more, took a hit.
The aircraft crashed and skidded about 25 yards, but the damage was contained to "mishap." Many of the airport personnel had already gone home for the day, leaving the 80-something adventurer somewhat marooned on an island.
"It took somebody about 15 minutes before they realized I was even down there," Farquhar says. "I was like, 'Anybody going to come after me?'"
Farquhar eventually climbed out in better shape than the plane, left tilted on the ground with damaged nose gear. He had one consolation: The plane had not gained more altitude before the engine flooded and quit.
"It didn't hurt me at all, just my feelings. That's about it," Farquhar says. "I walked away from that one."
His right leg, which has returning weakness over the last decade due to the polio, was still good enough to kick himself.
"I had flown it successfully one time, and then I changed some carburetion on the engine, and that's what made me screw up the second time," Farquhar says. "The first time was quite successful."
He added, "All it did is make me madder than hell, at myself, my airplane."
The anger subsided, and the bruised feelings healed.
"For about six months, I says I'll never build another one, and then I got the hots again," Farquhar says.
That was bound to happen with his spirit for aviation. And, after all, it was the only mishap in the skies for a man who began flying in 1944.
That's 73 years of aviation, spanning nearly two-thirds of the time since Wilbur and Orville Wright first set flight in 1903.
He's seen the bulk of the progression in aviation, which has happened at a sonic-boom pace, covering Kitty Hawk to stealth bombers in less than 100 years.
"People my age are lucky to be that age, to have seen what they've seen," Farquhar says. "Nobody else will ever be able to see that. It will never happen again, the amount of change. Everything is included in that."
His own life is a bit of a history book.
He worked on the planes of eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes while a mechanic in Houston and stood a matter of feet away from him in a hangar, not knowing fully who Hughes was at the time.
"At the time he was just a tall guy with a Stetson on, talking to other guys," Farquhar says.
A student of all things aeronautical, he notes that the Spruce Goose, designed by Hughes Aircraft and which made its first and only flight in 1947, had a larger wingspan (320 feet) than the distance covered in the Wright brothers' first flight (120 feet).
His fascination with planes started with model planes in junior high and gas-powered planes in high school.
"That's all I thought about when I was in school is about airplanes, working on them and flying them," he says.
He often made the 80-mile round-trip from his hometown of Gatesville, Texas, to Waco to get balsa wood and other supplies.
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After high school he attended mechanic school in Dallas to become an A&P (aircraft and powerplant) mechanic, and made a career of making sure aircraft travel was safe for the public, both as a mechanic and as an inspector for more than 23 years with an airline -- Trans Texas Airways at the time but today known as Continental Airlines -- in Houston and New Mexico.
He worked on "huge engines" and test flew Convairs and Douglas DC-3s.
"I was experienced on big, round engines until I moved up here and started working on these small aircrafts," Farquhar says.
When he moved to Cape Girardeau in 1968, it was to help operate Ochs Floral Company, which he did for five years before realizing he had more green in his thumb than in his wallet.
He helped organize the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 453 in Painton, Missouri, around 1970 and joined the Pilots Club at the Cape Girardeau Airport, where he later served as a board member and president.
He returned to his love, starting what later became known as Mid-State Aviation, which he operated with his son for about 15 years.
He once aspired to be a commercial pilot in his youth. Less than 20-20 vision grounded that plan, but it's not kept him from flying. At last count he says he's flown 36 different types of aircraft over the years, with a Fairchild PT-19, an old military training plane, his favorite.
"I test flew all the aircraft after we got through with [repairs] to make sure everything was correct," Farquhar says. "I was fortunate to be around people. I was in the CAF (Commemorative Air Force) for a while. I got to fly an ex-military aircraft and all that.
"I've had a very interesting career. Knowing people I've known all these years, the only way to that is to be old. I told somebody the other day, the only reason I've been able to fly this many different type of aircrafts without being in the military or anything is because I've been around so long -- things happen."
He's found peace, and still finds it, inside a hangar.
"I'd rather actually build one than fly, quite honestly," Farquhar says. "I enjoy building; I really enjoy building."
He says he built his first plane from scratch about 30 years ago, a kit project started from flat sheet metal. He built two more kit planes with Dean Houseman, co-owner of Cape Copters, and helped on several more.
He built a plane for himself prior to his failed project, but ultimately sent that one to the scrapyard.
"I just didn't like it," Farquhar says. "It was a pusher and wasn't flying correctly."
Both his planes emerged from his head, and not from kits.
"I like to design my own now, just to see if I can do it," he says.
It's a challenge he embraces, literally flying by the seat of his pants as he combines instincts, common sense and years of experience.
"I'll finally get it right," Farquhar says with a smile.
It's been three years since he's last piloted a plane, and before that he went several years without flying.
"You don't forget to fly," Farquhar says. "It's just like riding a bicycle: You don't forget, you just get a little rusty, maybe on your landing or something. But you don't forget to fly, not when you've flown that long, especially. I find it very interesting still today."
He spends time at the hangar almost every day, even Saturday and Sundays, some of it "piddling" but with purpose. It keeps his mind active.
"I think that's part of a longevity of a person, if they keep their mind going," Farquhar says.
He says he has about four aviation publications at home that he reads all the time.
"I'm still really involved in it, really bad, and I probably won't ever get over it," he says. "Once that bug hits you, it pretty well sticks. At least it has for me."
He admits he's taken his time in the dismantling of his plane, but says he's ready to get serious on the next attempt to get airborne.
"I got a different engine I'm going to put in it," Farquhar says. "It'll be a whole lot better because I've learned a lot doing this one. I learned what not to do on the next one."
Yes, the spirit of aviation, and John Farquhar, live on.
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