A woman looks up from a Fairlea area parking lot and watches as a little airplane maneuvers high above the town. Another woman she doesn’t even recognize says, “Is that your husband up there?” She replies, “I think so.”
They are watching a little Cessna 150 that has now spent 40 years in active service in the Greenbrier Valley.
A prominent attorney’s wife sees an airplane over the city, takes out her phone, checks her “Flight Aware” app, and says, “That’s him. That’s David in Cessna 22648.”
A gardener, or one of many farmers in the Williamsburg area taking a break from the hot sun, hears the soft purring of a single-engine airplane, and thinks to himself, “There’s David; I remember when he was almost a kid flying out of Tate Mauzy’s field.”
September 23 marks forty years since David and Crystal Hersman bought a Cessna 150 and brought it to the Greenbrier Valley Airport.
“I began flying at Williamsburg with a retired instructor, fifty years ago this year,” Hersman recalls. “Tate Mauzy was a legendary pilot who began flying in the 1930s, became an instructor, and gave lessons, mostly at Black’s Field near Crawley (Shawver’s Crossing), and Boone’s Field where the Greenbrier Valley Hospital is now.”
In the fall of 1976, Hersman began flying with Ruth Tolley Gwinn, wife of Col. John Gwinn, the first manager of the Greenbrier Valley Airport, at Lewisburg. She learned to fly at Hinton-Alderson Airport, at Pence Springs, soloing there in 1935, when she was 16 years old.
After becoming a flight instructor in 1984, Hersman used the Gwinns’ airplanes for his first two years as an instructor, and on September 23, 1986, the Hershmans purchased an airplane of their own. He continued to use the other two airplanes as well. They bought N22648 at Mallory Airport in South Charleston, flew to KLWB, and that has been its home ever since.
“It’s always been my desire to provide safe, thorough instruction that is affordable to ordinary people, Hersman says. “The world has never fully awakened to the flexibility, affordability, versatility, and practicality of single-engine airplanes.”
Even a relatively slow airplane may go 100 mph in a straight line and have a range of over 3 hours. A Cessna 150 can go to Lunken Airport in Cincinnati in 2 hours and 20 minutes, compared to about 6 hours in a car.
Cessna 22468 has been flying out of the Greenbrier Valley for 40 years, logging an estimated 15,000 flights.
Cessna 22648 arrived in Lewisburg in September 1986, and has been utilized as a flight trainer almost all the time since then. It’s reasonable to conclude that the airplane has made over 15,000, maybe 17 or 18,000 landings at Greenbrier Valley Airport. I landed it at the old White Sulphur Springs Airport twice on the last day it was open.
The Greenbrier Valley Airport is an excellent place to learn to fly because, from a training point of view, it has almost all the advantages of any airport, without the disadvantages and congestion, which can be common at larger airports. Students get plenty of experience in a controlled airport environment, interaction with Air Traffic Control, and do so while enjoying the spectacular scenery of the Greenbrier Valley.
“I have given over 6500 hours of flight instruction in quite a variety of airplanes, with a total flight time of over 7800 hours, and 5800 hours, and 14,800 landings in this one Cessna,” Hersman says. “This has all been practical civilian flying. I’ve never been a military or airline pilot.”
It is generally accepted that since this airplane has been based here so long, and is used regularly for flight instruction, including solo student flights, it has easily made more flights into and out of Greenbrier Valley Airport than any other airplane.
“Sometimes people wonder if it is safe to fly airplanes that are many decades old.” Hersman muses. “There are many regulations regarding required inspections, maintenance, and certification of parts, personnel, and procedures in aircraft maintenance. Some airplanes from the 1930s are still properly maintained and flown. The earliest manufactured airplane I have flown was a 1938 Taylorcraft.”
Hersman maintains a strict maintenance schedule on his aircraft, and recently became a certified mechanic.
Hersman furthers, “I’ve always said, Flight instruction is a great occupation, if you enjoy seeing other people’s dreams come true. I have had the privilege of training people from all walks of life, from aspiring teenagers to grandparents just wanting to fulfill a life-long dream. I recall one guy coming back into my office, and with tears streaming down his face, he said, “I would have never made it without you!” That’s been a fulfilling investment in my life.”
One student, Clint Brdlik, beginning in this Cessna, went on to become an Air Force pilot, one of the few U-2 pilots flying reconnaissance flights on the “edge of Space.” The manager of Greenbrier Valley Airport at the time, Jerry O’Sullivan, had been an Air Force pilot and helped Clint through the process of entering the Air Force Flight Academy. Following his military career, he has been flying for UPS.
Hersman’s son, Kent Hersman, soloed and earned his Private Pilot’s license in Cessna 22648. He went into the Air Force, then switched to the United States Army and had a career as an Army pilot, flying Blackhawk Helicopters, as well as fixed-wing aircraft. After he retired from the Army, he still flew “contract flying,” doing night reconnaissance flights over Afghanistan in a 4-engine Dash-7.
One of the most interesting stories for Hersman is that soon after he became an instructor, he began giving instruction to John Dowdy, an Air Traffic Controller at Greenbrier Valley Airport. Hersman fondly reminisced, “He turned out to be the second person I soloed, in early 1985, in the same airplane I had soloed in 8 years earlier, N5964E. Thirty years after John learned to fly, I taught his son, Andrew, to fly. He soloed on his 16th birthday, and when he soloed, his dad was working the Control Tower. John retired as an Air Traffic Controller after serving the Greenbrier Valley for over 39 years.”
It was Hersman’s experience as a pilot flight instructor that initially opened the door for them to go to Papua New Guinea as missionaries, where he taught two PNG women to fly at the Greenbrier Valley Airport. That was before current TSA restrictions went into effect.
Foreign nationals can still learn to fly in the United States, but they go through a different vetting and application process than American citizens.
“No matter what your dreams and aspirations are, your key to the sky is a small airplane,” Hersman says.
Approach path to Lewisburg Airport (Photo courtesy Scot Refsland)
Herman concludes, “I was privileged to know the pilots in this area, who were the generation between the very first aviators, and my own generation. All these people are gone now, but I am honored to carry on their legacy and love for flying. These include Oscar Tate, Delmar Withrow, Tate Mauzy, Ken Barnett, Ruth Tolley Gwinn, and Don Hill.”
To find out more about pilot lessons and how to get started, visit EAGLESWINGS.NET, then call or text David Hersman for an appointment. (304) 445-6046. After a first lesson, the most often asked question is, “When can we do this again?”
