A plane ride with a view
Anna Krejci/Events
Lake Delton is seen from a biplane 1,000 feet in the air.
By Anna Krejci, Dells Events
It was the most hassle-free airplane ride I’ve taken. There were no security check points, no need to check luggage, no long boarding lines to wait in.
It was a ride with Ted Davis, a pilot from Brodhead who routinely offers rides in his 1928 green-and-yellow barnstormer biplane. A special ride was in store for me. Before riding in Davis’ open air plane the only flights I’d taken were in commercial jet airliners that afforded a small window to peer from.
I was one of four passengers he would take up in the air on Friday. I met the other passengers on the grounds of the Baraboo-Dells Airshow where biplane rides were offered to the public during the weekend event. Riding with me was Roy Carpenter, a Baraboo business owner and his grandson, Caden, 8. Also in the plane was Taylor Sullivan, a young man from West Palm Beach, Fla. whose father was working at the airshow.
They were good flight companions, though nobody really tried to make conversation because the wind and noise from the airplane’s engine were tremendous. We were fitted with goggles so we could see the lush green fields, deep blue water of Lake Delton and poky cars on the winding roads below even as the force of the air bordered on suffocating. We also wore ear pieces — they looked like large headphones — to protect our hearing from the roar of the engine.
We flew at 1,000 feet. Visibility was wonderful in the skies over Baraboo and Wisconsin Dells. We could have been looking at a mechanized model landscape for a miniature electric train set.
Travel by airplane makes everything seem in such close proximity. Maybe it’s because there was less traffic in the air. I didn’t even see a bird. It seemed like one minute we were flying over Tanger Mall, Wilderness Territories Waterpark and the Tommy Bartlett Show stands. The next minute we were glancing upon downtown Baraboo.
The ride was relatively gentle. One might not have guessed that the type of plane I rode in was once the vehicle for air stunts. The pilot said the plane dates back to the Gates Flying Circus of the 1920s when risk-taking people would perform acrobatics on the plane’s wings. They might take an in-flight stroll across the wings or leap from one flying plane to another.
The type of flying was called “barnstorming.” According to the World Book Encyclopedia, pilots who barnstormed were often former World War I pilots. Planes in the beginning of the war could fly at 60 or 70 mph. At the conclusion many were capable of 130 mph.
Davis said his plane can fly at a maximum speed of 70 mph.
I had the option of taking a more daring ride in a Russian model from the World War II era, the Yak 52. But the pilot, Larry Schlasinger, talked me out of going. He would have given me a roller coaster ride by zipping around in the air and flying upside down. I was supposed to take some photos from the air, but Schlasinger said I wouldn’t be able to take any with my camera in the tight seating quarters of his plane. I opted to ride in the machine that wouldn’t be doing any stunts. It was easier to shoot right side up, anyway. And besides, couldn’t I just turn the photograph upside down if I wanted to see what it looked like?
Even though I enjoyed the ride, I was glad to see the approaching runway for a safe landing. The assignment was over. All that was left was to comb the countless knots out of my wind-whipped hair.