Recalling the 80-Year History of the Airmen Club

My introduction to the Greater Cincinnati Airmen Club was when I signed on for an air race it sponsored in 1964 or so. My sister Mary and I were flying the Ercoupe we’d bought, much to the relief of the archbishop whose two priests had loaned their secret airplane to us.

As in all original Ercoupes, N341 had two wing tanks that fed into a header tank in the nose. Fuel was selected either on or off, the quantity indicated by a wire with a cork floating in that header tank in front of the pilots, much like a J-3 Cub. When the cork began to sink (unless it was old and saturated) there should have been 5 gallons—about an hour’s worth of fuel left.

Well, I think the race was from Lunken Field to the old Montgomery County Airport on the south side of Dayton, Ohio, to Anderson, Indiana, and back home. Allegedly there were spotters on the ground to confirm that contestants actually flew over those airports. I reasoned (even at that tender point in my lifelong career of cheating whenever possible) that you should compute your exact time and fuel consumption for the judges and then add 10 or 15 minutes. Your touchdown time at Lunken would be noted to the second by the judges and then your estimated fuel consumption compared to the amount pumped on the terminal ramp by a fuel truck.

Mary, being (still) the most irritatingly honest person on the face of the earth, strongly objected when I began circling just west of Lunken, so we’d arrive on final approach and touchdown at our precise estimated time. And, wow, were we on the money! But when we taxied to the ramp and the wing tanks were filled, we were about five-tenths of a gallon short of our estimate. A friend, Bill Murphy, was standing nearby and advised the fueler that he “hadn’t filled the nose tank.” And, when he did (which you really weren’t supposed to do), we were the undisputed winners of the race.

To his deathbed, 50 years later, a longtime pilot and club member insisted we’d cheated—he just couldn’t figure out why. I threatened Mary with bodily harm if she opened her mouth, and I treasure that trophy to this day.

The club was pretty much open to anyone for a $20 yearly membership and sponsored all sorts of activities—flying events (poker flights, “follow-the-clues” flights, spot-landing contests, etc.). On every Wednesday evening there was an open house and periodically Sunday afternoon cocktail parties, summertime barbecues and a splendid, festive Christmas party. Some older members had lockers in the backroom kitchen for their private bottles, and the bar was stocked with pop and beer. Members’ wives vied to make sure tables were filled with “heavy finger food.” The kitchen had an oven, microwave, sink, and freezers.

The main room was furnished with tables and chairs and a couple of huge, ugly leatherette sofas, plus, of course, the bar stools. Besides the coat closet, another was stuffed with the world’s heaviest metal folding chairs and 6-foot tables that took manpower to set up. There was a library of donated aviation books, but I never saw anybody reading. Every member had a key (later a key card or designated number to punch in) for access. As you can imagine, you needed to be a little discreet about entering because, well, sometimes it was “occupied.”

In short, it was a wonderful spot and, after it closed, I inherited a large book that members and guests signed as they entered the room for each event. It’s in my living room and, when I page through all those years, I sometimes find myself tearing up for all the old friends no longer with us.

The clubroom was also used for airport “user meetings,” a group representing input from various groups on the airport. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, the users were only the “big” guys— large FBOs and corporate hangar occupants (Procter & Gamble, Federated, Kroger, Taft Broadcasting, etc.). I strongly felt that small flying schools and individual pilot owners should be included, which was, at first, not well received.

I forged ahead, even objecting to rounds of drinks delivered from the bar downstairs and chaired for years by Nelson Rokes, who headed the P&G flight department. In those years, the city of Cincinnati could care less about this stepchild airport. The real power was wielded by Rokes, who could affect a change by simply “calling downtown.”

The Quiet Birdmen had “members-only” monthly meetings with the bar in high gear and dinner catered by the Sky Galley Restaurant downstairs. Consumed with curiosity, I found a window on the second floor with access onto the roof. I could creep around to the large picture window in the club that looked out over the airport. Well, it was pretty boring. The only interesting feature was groups of guys I knew being served at the bar by a couple of low-rent, topless lady bartenders.

But I used the club a lot. I have no idea of the number of Crock-Pots of chili, pizzas, or tubs of fried chicken—plus 8-foot projection screens and old 16-millimeter projectors—I’d haul up the flights of stairs to the clubroom. We’d have an FAA safety seminar there about once a month, a bimonthly flight instructor group I revived and, on Saturday mornings in January and February, a “come watch the latest FAA safety presentations” (remember “On Landings”)? The weather was usually miserable. I’d buy a bunch of doughnuts on the way to the airport and brew a big urn of coffee. 

Lest you think this was all out of zeal for my job, a large part was keeping me out of that FAA office and, yeah, being available to pilots needing advice or encouragement. I loved them—my boss, not so much.

With the terminal building at Lunken closed, there’s no longer an Airmen Club. It lasted over 80 years from an early weekly get-together in the old Aeronca hangar. The club was forced to move to the still new terminal building after the empty hangar was purchased by—guess who?—the P&G flight department headed by chief pilot Rokes!

Recently, Mike Brenner, who pretty much runs things at Lunken, took me into the locked-up terminal building for a look at the old clubroom that was empty except for those two ugly sofas. Thoughts of old parties and old friends came flooding back.

This column first appeared in the February Issue 967 of the FLYING print edition.