Commentary

Another venerable old Pelican, Val Woodworth, flew West the other day.

Val was a special person to all who knew him and special to me.

He was one of the Touchet Valley’s numerous father-son pairings, a characteristic I’ve been observing for some sixty years of being around here. Sit and think a bit, and you’ll soon think of a long list of men who followed in their father’s footsteps. Dentists, lawyers, publishers, teachers, crop dusters…and farmers, lots of them.

Val was a crop duster, ahem…aerial applicator, like his father, Harley Woodworth. Like his dad, he was meticulous and attentive to every detail. He, like me, learned at his father’s side.

He snagged me one day and asked if I’d teach him to fly. He was through college and “back home,” working in the family business, Cropland Air Service.

In February, 1983, we began a long friendship, starting with his first official flying lesson. I’m sure he flew some with Harley, but we started his training and in under fourth months, he was signed off for his private pilot certificate, passing with no problem.

Fast forward to spring, 1985, and we continued his training for his commercial pilot’s certificate, which he flew through by September. From there he obtained some tail wheel training and was soon fertilizing and applying herbicides and pesticides on the hills and canyons of this corner.

Of all my students, I am most proud of him for safely flying his entire career on the foundation for which I provided the grout. I use the word “grout” because most of the foundation stones he did himself. He was a born aviator, having lived and breathed it thanks to his dad during his growing-up years. I was only the “official” guy who kept him safe for the first dozen hours or so, then supervised the rest.

And grow UP he did! Six-foot seven…just a big specimen! And the kindest, most thoughtful, soft-spoken person (unless stricter measures were called for!).

I will miss our long visits, the breadth of his knowledge and interests, and him as a resource for the flying we plan to do in the coming years.

I’ll remember many of his pithy statements, some he passed down to me from Harley. Such as: “If that motor out there keeps turnin’, the rest is bound to follow.”

We first flew on February 3, 1983, in a Cessna 172, out of the Whiskey Creek airport that was half paved, half gravel, with trees next to the creek’s deep ditch. Not a fifty-foot wide runway student pilots usually have to drift left or right while learning to control the airplane on landing. You got to be in the middle, or else.

Last June, we moved his airplane to Walla Walla for some attention from a mechanic and a new home inside a protective hangar. We spurred it down that familiar runway along Whiskey Creek—which I dubbed “CWC” in logbook entries, for Cropland Whiskey Creek–and lifted into the air, immediately banking right to avoid overflying the neighbor’s house.

We climbed over the fields east of Waitsburg then banked left towards Walla Walla, giving the tower there a call on the radio.

Leveling off, Val made small adjustments to the prop and throttle, an attentive ear to the 225 H.P. Continental’s throaty roar.

“Take out some rudder,” he reminded me. I had been holding a little too much right rudder since taking off. “Can’t you feel that?” he asked.

That’s over thirty years of banking an Ag Cat biplane over the rolling southeastern Washington hills talking.

Lined up for the runway at Walla Walla, we hung out some flaps and gently descended. My hand was on the throttle, but Val reminded me to leave the power alone for a little bit longer.

I flared and felt for the runway, settling in with a nice clunk. “It’s just an airplane,” Val said.

So it goes…full circle. I am honored to have been there for his first tenth of logged flight time, and the last.

Farewell, old Pelican.