[theme music] KENDYL WITTENRICH: Coming up on Keystone Stories-- taking flight.

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Welcome to Keystone Stories.

Pennsylvanians have been fascinated with aviation since soon after the Wright brothers took their first historic flight.

In fact, the Commonwealth even has its own official state plane, the Piper Cub.

And there is a strong community of aviation enthusiasts who keep the legacy of that aircraft alive.

RANDY KILMER: I'm an avid aviation buff.

I'm like a little kid.

Anytime an airplane comes over, I'm looking for it.

[uplifting music] Behind me is a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub that was built 30 miles from here in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

As you can see, it has the air conditioning on right now.

The door's open.

[laughs] My uncle found out this aircraft was for sale.

And my dad always wanted a J-3.

So he drove up, saw it, and said, yep.

And he paid, in 1974, $2,500, I think, total.

It's crazy how cheap these Cubs were back then.

Well, it's a little more almost seat-of-the-pants flying because you can fly these after you have some time without any instruments or airspeed indicator.

You feel.

You can feel what the aircraft is doing.

And that's why learning to fly in this little airplane, it goes a long way when you advance yourself into other airplanes, higher-performance-type aircraft.

And believe it or not, this really was the best stick-and-rudder aircraft flying to give you the basic skills of flying.

The Cub is part of history.

And I feel part of it, too, with my dad buying this aircraft.

I feel blessed.

[laughs] [whimsical music] NARRATOR: The Piper J-3 is a collector's item to many aviation enthusiasts from around the US.

And every June, these pilots bring their aircraft home to Lock Haven.

KIM GARLICK: This is an event that brings the people back to Lock Haven who fly Piper planes.

It's actually to honor the legacy of Piper and the Piper Cub especially.

AUSTIN GUNDER: This is just on hallowed ground.

This airplane was built here in 1946.

So very cool to be back at the original site.

And just the camaraderie of this group, so cool.

Such a neat event.

My favorite event of the year, for sure.

LYNN O'DONNELL: Piper is connected to so much.

When people think small airplane, they think Piper or Cub.

It's a generic, like Kleenex instead of tissue.

CALVIN ARTER: Although the primary airplanes that come in are Cubs, as you saw coming in-- the big DC-4 up at the Piper Aviation Museum.

So we're getting planes of all makes and all sizes.

BILL CLIFFORD: When you go to a car show, everybody's got their car cleaned and polished and everything.

When you come to a fly in, everything is dirty, covered in oil, dust, pollen.

You name it.

You start talking to a guy and tell him how beautiful his airplane is.

Next thing you know, you're flying it.

This is an amazing, amazing hobby.

And the pilot community is so small that when somebody says, oh, I was out in Iowa, and I saw a guy by the name of Bill-- oh, I know Bill.

He comes from Long Island.

How do you know him, all the way in Iowa?

And some of those guys are here today from Iowa.

150 is going for $50,000.

BRYCE COLANGELO: It represents an era where anybody could have the opportunity to learn how to fly at a very low cost.

All right, clear prop!

BRYCE COLANGELO: There's a lot that's become pretty expensive in this day and age.

But I think that continuing this legacy is a good thing for anybody who wants to learn how to fly.

Mr. Piper was all about anybody flying these airplanes, no matter who you were or where you came from.

There's something for everybody with these airplanes.

KIM GARLICK: Most of the people come here year after year.

It's a great reunion.

It's a Piper family reunion.

Everybody gets to be like family.

CALVIN ARTER: We've had people from all over the world come here, as well as visit the museum, to see how the planes were made.

NARRATOR: The fly in happens in June.

But the public can celebrate the legacy of piper aircraft all year long at the Piper Museum.

RON DREMEL: And this is a museum maintaining the legacy of the Piper family and Piper Aircraft corporation.

We are located in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, which is the birthplace of Piper aviation.

We are in the former engineering building of Piper Aircraft.

From 1936 until 1984, Piper manufactured just over 74,000 airplanes here in Lock Haven.

Piper started, actually, in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

It was originally the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Company.

The company went bankrupt.

This was during the Depression.

Mr. Piper bought the assets of the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Company for a little over $800.

And in 1936, there was a fire in Bradford.

The plant burned to the ground.

And they went looking for a new location, found an abandoned silk mill, 100,000 square feet here in Lock Haven, and brought it down here.

And Mr. Piper then renamed the company the Piper Aircraft Corporation.

When Piper moved to Lock Haven and developed the J-3, it was a relatively inexpensive airplane.

That was Mr. Piper's idea, that an airplane should be inexpensive and easy for people to purchase and learn to train in.

So it was doing very well.

And then when the war came along, the need for small airplanes just skyrocketed.

The J-3 was the civilian version.

And Mr. Piper sold the military on the idea of the small trainer that could be used not just as a trainer but as a reconnaissance airplane, as an ambulance.

And the military version was known as the L-4 and acquired a nickname of Grasshopper, I think, because it could hop off the ground in a relatively short distance.

75% of the World War II pilots had their initial flight training in a Piper Cub, J-3 or l-4 Piper Cub.

That airplane was used in everything in World War II.

Probably would not have won the war without it.

It was used as an aerial jeep because it could get in and out of just a couple 100 feet.

Generals flew in at.

Eisenhower, Patton all flew in Piper L-4s.

It was used for reconnaissance, tank spotting.

The plane was also used for aerial bomb spotting, where they would fire a bomb, get it close, pilot would radio back, 100 feet to the left, 200 feet to the right, whatever it needed.

And within one or two missiles, that bomb was on target.

They were building, I believe, a plane every 20 or 30 minutes during World War II.

Piper left Lock Haven in 1984.

They were purchased, a couple of different owners.

Lear Siegler owned Piper in that period.

And they consolidated all of the operations into the Vero Beach plant.

This was the corporate headquarters of an international, worldwide-known company.

People flew in from all over the United States, all over the world, to pick up their airplanes.

I've seen pictures of celebrities that were here-- movie stars, athletes that came here to pick up their airplane right out front.

A well-known company in our little town of Lock Haven.

My plane is a 1959 Piper Comanche 250 built here in Lock Haven.

I've owned it for about 10 years.

I love it.

KIM GARLICK: It's important to preserve the Piper legacy because there is no more Piper.

Piper moved out in the '80s.

And these people just love coming home.

And it's very important to pass that on and to keep it alive.

Now we'll go down.

Like that.

Left.

Nice.

It's just a great little airplane and fun to fly.

I think we're obligated to be proud of your aircraft so you can keep it in nice condition and as an heirloom to hand it down to your next generation.

Well, obviously, it was my dad's.

He's a part of it.

And he's always-- I think, in my mind, he's flying with me every time we take it up.

And I kind of talk to him.

I just love flying, period.

In the summer of 2024, a new public art project was created in Bellefonte.

The purpose of this mural is to celebrate and immortalize Bellefonte's vital role in the creation of the US airmail service.

[uplifting music] KEN MARTIN: The first official government flights of airmail were between DC, Philadelphia, and New York in May of 1918.

Bellefonte started in late 1918, in December 1918, as being a regular stop for the New York to Chicago flight.

Bellefonte just happened to be about the distance a plane could fly in a tank of fuel, with just a little cushion if there was counter winds or whatever to get here.

So it stopped at Bellefonte, then Cleveland, then Bryan, Ohio, which is on the Ohio-Indiana line, and then Chicago.

That was at least the scheduled stops.

The early planes were kind of unreliable.

So sometimes there were unscheduled stops or crashes, unfortunately.

MARIAN MILLS: A lot of the pilots that came through Bellefonte that flew the airmail in general were daredevils.

They had to be really very brave.

And it was called a suicide club because it was a dangerous position.

And many of them died.

Five of those died in Pennsylvania's Allegheny Mountains.

And because of that, this region was called the Hell Stretch.

KEN MARTIN: So early on, this was the most dangerous area.

And this is where about half of the pilots that died in the first couple of years died in the Centre County region.

Pilots in 1918, 1919, they were seen sort of like an astronaut would have been in the 1960s.

You talk about paparazzi with actors and so forth, they were fawned upon.

If they flew into Bellefonte, families would almost fight if they needed to stay overnight.

Stay with us.

That would have been seen as prestigious.

And many of them dressed and also acted to sort of build a cult or whatever.

NARRATOR: Bellefonte remained a vital stop on the airmail system for 10 years.

Now, nearly 100 years later, Bellefonte still has an important role in the postal service, specifically to stamp collectors.

So we are in the American Philatelic Research Library, which is in the American Philatelic Center in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

It caters to members of the American Philatelic Society who are interested in doing research related to stamps and stamp collecting, the postal service, postal history.

We do have several exhibits, too.

We have an exhibit on the early airmail.

Right now, we have a map that the pilots used to fly from New York to Bellefonte.

It's a long 4-foot map that would fold up.

And their uniform, their trousers had a big pocket that they could put the map in.

The American Philatelic Society is the national society for stamp collectors.

And we have by far the largest known public access philatelic library anywhere in the world.

[uplifting music] It really put us on the map.

Like, literally at that time, in the 1920s, it put this small town in central PA on the map.

I think it's important that townspeople see this and understand that we have such a diverse history.

Back in the day, kids were rushing to see these planes land, these biplanes.

And they would let them out of school.

And people were fascinated by it.

And now kids and adults can walk by it and still be inspired.

Aviation is full of big personalities.

These next two stories come from the Our Town series and feature two pilots who really pushed the envelope in their time.

My name is Alan McPherson.

I'm here to tell a story about Odo Valentine.

He's a local legend in the aviation community, especially at St. Mary's Airport.

Well, my dad took me to Bradford.

They had the air show.

And I was probably about 10.

ALAN MCPHERSON: Odo Valentine is quite the character.

He tells a great story.

He's going to be 99 years old.

I met Amelia Earhart up there.

ALAN MCPHERSON: He played at air shows.

He trained pilots to fly in the war.

He's very famous for having done a loop-de-loop around the Kinzua Bridge.

At [inaudible], I used to tell the guys up there, someday I'm going to fly under that bridge.

And they'd all laugh at me.

So going this way, all I had to do was watch one upright.

But if I went through this way, I only have 15 feet.

So that's why I come down around like this and went through that way.

Ewing was a professional photographer.

So he took the picture.

And there was Bud Almond and Gil Seager and my brother Barr down below in case something happened.

And they needed a skydiver.

ALAN MCPHERSON: Denny Caruso, another local aviation legend, he took Odo for a ride.

Denny took him over the bridge, let him play around with the aircraft a little bit.

You kind of bump a stick on the leg for the pilot in the other seat to tell him, hey, why don't you take over?

He was hesitant to do it, and then finally took the controls from Denny, and immediately snap rolled the aircraft.

When Odo got back, he was kind of teary eyed.

We have a lot of pilots on our field that have been flying for a long, long time.

And every one of them will sit and tell you stories all day.

They're very generous with their time.

I'm fascinated by the stories, what they did when something particular happened, an emergency, what they did in a particular weather event they got caught in.

There is so much to be learned from these pilots and people like Odo.

And they're very generous with helping out the airport.

Any events that are going on, they're always the first ones there.

You go through the trouble to become a pilot because it's a love, and you're passionate about it.

It's not an easy thing to do.

Pilots are a different breed of people.

[triumphant music] Boyd "Buzz" Wagner was born and raised in the small town of Amy, which is in Cambria County.

Then his family moved to Nanty Glo, where he graduated from the Nanty Glo High School in 1934.

From that point on, he became a student of aeronautical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown.

And it was during this time that World War II began.

And he enlisted his services and became a fighter pilot.

Buzz's career was exemplary.

He became commander of a pursuit squadron in the Philippines.

He was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

And at the time, he was the youngest lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Corps.

He came back to the United States during the war, where he was the liaison between the military and the Curtiss aircraft company that manufactured the plane that he flew.

From that point on, he was flying back and forth throughout the country, demonstrating the aircraft, working with the new aircraft coming off the assembly lines.

Unfortunately, during one of those flights, he experienced a hard landing and did not survive.

Back in 2009, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force went back to the site of the aircraft accident.

It was excavated.

And one of the interesting finds was Buzz's high school class ring was at the crash site-- Nanty Glo High School, 1934.

The final remains of Buzz Wagner was brought to the Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown, where he was finally laid to rest.

Johnstown will claim him as their boy because his family did move afterwards during the war to Johnstown.

However, we know that Buzz grew here and was educated here.

Every spring, pilots from around the country travel to the Mifflin County Airport in Reedsville to race their aircraft.

This competition is unique because these planes don't have propellers or engines.

[uplifting music] NARRATOR: Pennsylvania's Appalachian ridges make the state a prime location for soaring, that is, flying unpowered aircraft.

After these gliders are towed into the air, they are released and use only what nature gives them to stay aloft.

One way to stay off the ground is to use a thermal.

A thermal is very simple.

The sun heats the ground.

The ground heats the air.

People think the sun heats the air.

No, it heats the ground.

If you've ever walked out of Walmart into a big park parking lot and it's really, really hot because the sun is baking it-- well, around it, you can imagine cool grass.

So that spot is hot.

That air is going up faster than the air around it.

And hence, it's going up.

And we ride in that little circle of lift.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 1: I like coming here because not only do you have a good chance that thermal soaring, which is fairly common on the East Coast, but we have the Appalachian Mountain ridge here.

So if we get a wind roughly 90 degrees to the ridge, the wind blows up the ridge.

And we fly parallel with the ridge at sometimes high rates of speed for many miles.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 2: On those days, you're flying consistently for long periods at over 100 miles an hour.

And so your motorless glider is basically taking about 40 horsepower out of the air.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 3: And all we have to do is ride along the leading edge of the ridge, doing 110, 115 knots.

I did a four-hour task that they set for us.

And I did 310 miles in that four-hour task with no gas, just wind.

FEMALE GLIDER PILOT: There's a challenge.

First challenge is just keep it up there.

Second challenge is to get it to go somewhere.

And then the third challenge is to come and go in a bunch of people and see how well you do it against some of the people who are best in the country.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 1: And every day, they determine the task for the day.

And the task is, you start here, and you go to various points.

We have GPS loggers in the airplanes.

So we do the task and get back here.

And the goal is do the whole task and do it faster than anybody else.

FEMALE GLIDER PILOT: The tasks are, for the most part, time tasks.

You take off from here, go down to Selinsgrove.

That's a turn point.

Well, you then come back up to Mill Creek-- another turn point-- Raystown Dam, and then come home.

And you are supposed to fly-- let's say, today, it's three hours.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 1: My longest flight is over seven hours in one flight.

And I'm sitting in basically a La-Z-Boy recliner.

And it's very comfortable.

And you just go out, and you fly.

And so it's a challenge of you're navigating.

You're doing the flying of the aircraft.

And you're reading the weather and trying to put all that stuff together and go do something.

And in the contest, you're doing something against a bunch of other people.

FEMALE GLIDER PILOT: It's beautiful.

It's quiet.

There are all kinds of levels to it.

I mean, these people are racing.

And they enjoy racing.

It's also kind of like your odd family gathering.

I mean, it's the same people basically every year.

New people show up.

People leave.

But these are all people I've known for many, many years.

And I've been I've been coming to contests here since the '90s, when they first started having them here.

MALE GLIDER PILOT 2: The Appalachian ridges are the best for ridge flying.

No other place in the world can match them.

And so this is almost, you might say, unique in the world.

[uplifting music] Thanks for watching.

See you next time on Keystone Stories.