TOLEDO — Larry Mason doesn't fly jumbo jets to Asia and Europe anymore, but he is still every bit the professional pilot as he fires up his single-engine plane on Lewis County's quiet southern airstrip.
Mason, 67, runs an unhurried finger down the preflight checklist of his 1968 Bonanza Beechcraft airplane on a mid-July morning.
"You always pay attention. When you get careless, it's time to quit flying," he said to a reporter, along for the ride from the Toledo airport to Seattle's Boeing Field on a medical mercy flight.
As his plane rolls down the cracked approach to the runway, Mason talks about county plans to improve the south county airport.
Mason is chairman of the South Lewis County Airport Board, created after Lewis County took over operations of what was once a joint venture with the cities of Toledo and Winlock.
Today the county commission is set to approve a $1.2 million contract to repave the airstrip, which dates back to World War II. Work will begin in a few weeks.
County leaders have praised the advisory board and Mason, who has kept his eye on the details of the airport renovation project like he double-checks every detail of his flights.
"If you're a professional pilot, the better you do your job, the better you feel," he said.
After a few more engine tests, he checks the approach charts for his destination near downtown Seattle and rolls his plane to 80 knots for lift off.
As the land below fades into blocks of brown and green, Mason points out the sights — water ski lakes and Interstate 5 to the left, a plume of stream from the Centralia Steam-Electric Plant up ahead.
As a professional pilot for United Airlines from 1966 to 1996, he logged more than 22,000 flying hours — the equivalent of more than 2½ years aloft.
The plane bumps as the air heats over the black roofs and asphalt of Chehalis.
"If it weren't for the bumps, the wings wouldn't work," he says in a calm voice over radio and headphones necessary inside the loud single-engine plane.
He banks to look at a back-up accident on I-5 below, but keeps his eyes on the horizon looking for other planes.
"Keep the eyes moving all the time," he says.
After 45 years as a pilot, he's been in only one crash — as a passenger in another small aircraft whose engine quit near Enumclaw. The pilot landed it in some trees, saving their lives. Mason was back in the air as soon as he could be.
He was also co-pilot on a military plane flying over icebergs south of Greenland when the navigator's equipment caught on fire. They used fire extinguishers and coffee to put out the flames.
"It's as normal to me to fly airplanes as it is for someone else to drive a car," he said, pointing out the windows at the state Capitol dome, and the islands of Puget Sound.
He flew out of Seattle for most of his career. As retirement approached, he and his wife, Nancy, bought land near Cinebar — far from encroaching development, but near an airport.
Originally from a farm near Springfield, Mo., Mason fell in love with flying by age 5. His cousin, a TWA flight attendant, would let him sit on her lap in the cockpit with her pilot friends.
World War II pilots were his heroes growing up. The younger generation doesn't have that sense of awe over flying, he said.
General aviation is declining, with small airstrips closing at a rate of one per week nationwide, he said.
Now, as he approaches Boeing Field, he rechecks his maps and flips on the automated weather radio.
"Advise you have whiskey," the radio repeats. Each updated weather report has the next letter of the alphabet; until the "X-ray" report, "whiskey" is the most up-to-date information.
As he flies over Vashon Island and condominiums along the beach, he keeps up a chatter with the air control tower.
"Roger, we're approaching the West Seattle reservoir at this time," he said.
The plane bumps; he banks hard over the city's industrial south quarter and comes in for a landing.
He points out a United Parcel Service 767 parked near the runway.
"That's what I retired on. Nice plane," he tells his passenger, saying he flew the jets on a Seattle-to-London run before his mandatory retirement at age 60.
He parks and gets out of the plane, running his hands over the propeller and opening the engine compartment to make sure everything's ship-shape.
He's come in to Boeing Field many times before as a volunteer for Angel Flight, which hooks up needy medical patients with pilots who have time on their hands.
Today he's picking up a 15-year-old girl from a camp for burn patients.
Kids in tie-dyed T-shirts flow into the waiting room. "See you next year!" one of them calls out to another.
His passenger is Kadi Filkowski from Westport, Ore. He helps carry her bags, offers her water and explains how the airplane works as they prepare for departure.
The plane is hot and takes a couple tries to get started. He waves another Angel Flight plane to go ahead.
After another preflight check and an updated weather report, he takes off, passing a biplane over Puget Sound.
As he navigates the airspace over the Tacoma Narrows Airport, he goes into his military history.
He learned to fly in the U.S. Air Force, and quickly met his wife when he was stationed at Little Rock, Ark. in 1960.
"I was a brand new second lieutenant with a new Corvette. I didn't last long," he said with a chuckle.
He was soon shipped off to Vietnam, where he flew 107 combat missions, including one that earned him a handful of medals and a chapter in the war history book "The Doom Pussy."
On March 15, 1966, Mason and navigator Capt. Jere Joyner were in Laos over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They were on a strafing run against enemy trucks when their B-57 was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire in what turned out to be an ambush.
The plane rolled and Mason thought the two would have to eject. His cockpit lights showed loss of power on one engine and a fire warning for the other.
He plane lost the left engine, and had a 5-by-6-foot hole blasted in the right wing.
"I thought we were shot dead," Mason said.
He decided to fly on, however, when Joyner passed him a blood-stained note that read "Hit badly arm and leg losing blood."
Figuring Joyner could not survived bailing out, he flew 45 minutes back to base. His landing gear indicators said the gear was only partially down, so Mason prepared for a rough gear-up landing. To his surprise, the indicators were wrong — a shell hit had knocked all the gear down — so the landing was unexpectedly smooth.
The plane was eventually repaired, and Mason flew five more missions in the next three days.
Mason received a number of medals for the flight, including the Air Force Cross. His injured navigator lived; the two are still friends.
As his plane flies down the Columbia River toward Astoria, his Angel Flight passenger sleeps in the back seat of the plane.
He lowers the gear and lands; Filkowski wakes up and waves to her mother waiting at the small airport.
After lunch at an airport restaurant, he readies his plane for takeoff.
The flight home is quick, just half an hour over vast clear-cuts in the Willapa Hills.
Back home, he lands in Toledo to finds a note on his truck: the gas pump isn't working again.
Mason is the go-to man when things break at the airport. He has a few tricks to get the old card-lock fuel system working again, but says the system needs to be replaced.
He said the county has been very active in helping restore the airport, which, he believes, lacked direction and upkeep when the county and two cities shared ownership.
He was appointed to the airport advisory board a year ago; he relishes being a voice for pilots to the county administration.
Others at the airport say Mason is a big help.
"He is, I would say, one of the most active pilots, and most interested in safety and training issues. He's a very wise man," said Jerry Swena of Chehalis, who was getting his family ready for a trip to Hermiston, Ore.
Another retired commercial pilot, Gary Dickinson, said Mason is one of many volunteers who keep things running at the airport, one of three in the county.
"I'm very pleased we have someone on the airport board who has a vested interest in what's going on down here," Dickinson said.
Mason said he'll stay active as long as he can.
"I could quote from one of my favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan: 'You only begin to live when you begin to serve.' "
Brian Mittge covers politics, the environment and Lewis County government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
